[Mb-civic] From the Ground Up By Howard Dean

[Michael Butler]

Also see below:    
Dean Blasts GOP in Bid to Chair Democratic Party    €

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    From the Ground Up
    By Howard Dean
    YubaNet.com

    Monday 24 January 2005

    Over the past 30 years, Republicans have become the majority party in
America by building a terrific grassroots organization. If we are to take
our country back for ordinary working Americans, Democrats will have to
match or exceed the Republicans¹ ability to motivate voters.

    Grassroots organization really has to be based on two-way communication.
In our presidential campaign we started with no money, no base, but a great
number of enthusiastic grassroots activists. We ceded decision making power
to local folks and let them run things in their areas as they saw fit. This
turns out to have been our single most important innovation, and it is the
only one that wasn't copied by any of the other campaigns, either Democratic
or Republican. Everything else, the small-donor programs, the house parties,
the interactive Web sites and organizing was used by others. The reason that
the most important piece wasn't copied is because it requires real a change
in thinking by people who run for office and their consultants, not just
adopting new techniques or technology.

    Letting go of central control is what gives voters real power. When I
used the phrase "you have the power" during the campaign, I meant that by
working together, Americans could overcome the forces of the right wing and
reassume their constitutional role in running the country. What I didn't
understand was that "you have the power" was more than that. It didn't apply
only to people's ability to change America, it also applied concretely to
their ability to make everyday decisions about how they would cause that
change.

    In our campaign, Americans without any previous political experience
made decisions about when to leaflet, what to say in the leaflet, where to
leaflet and how to organize. They organized and ran hundreds of
organizations such as African-Americans for Dean, Latinos for Dean, Punx for
Dean, Irish Americans for Dean, etc., which sprang not from a central
"outreach" desk in Burlington, but spontaneously all over the country,
finding each other on the Web, and creating a national organization from
local ones.

    The idea of a decentralized campaign terrifies most politicians who have
gotten used to putting out ideas and letting others respond. We discovered
that the path to power, oddly enough, is to trust others with it.

    The true mark of a modern campaign will be to listen to Americans and
let them shape campaigns instead of simply allowing them to respond.

    Our campaign was far from perfect, and we did not win. But our
organization today is almost 600,000 strong that we know of, and there are
more people in the organization today than there were on the day I dropped
out of the presidential race. People still meet monthly in about 500
locations across America to talk about how to bring reform, and then they
act on their plan locally.

    I wish I could tell you that this was all because of my leadership and
charisma; that is not so. The reform movement lives because it isn't mine.
Our people know that they have the power in their own communities, linked
across the country, to elect reform-minded people. They did exactly that on
six months notice all across the country in places like Utah, Alabama, and
Idaho, not just New York and Ohio.

    If Democrats use this model, we will effectively leapfrog the
Republicans, who despite their discipline and organization, are still a
top-down, control and command organization.

    Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, is the founder of Democracy for
America, a grassroots organization that supports socially progressive and
fiscally responsible political candidates.

 

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    Dean Blasts GOP in Bid to Chair Democratic Party
    By Carla Marinucci
    The San Francisco Chronicle

    Sunday 23 January 2005

    Western states convention hears seven candidates.

    Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, aggressively seeking to become the next
chairman of the Democratic National Committee, urged his fellow Democrats on
Saturday to appeal to voters not as "mini-Republicans," but as "the party of
centrists" dedicated to bringing "America back to a reasonable central moral
position in the world.

    "We balance budgets; they don't. We stand up for job opportunities,"
said Dean, who received standing ovations from many of the 600 Democrats
gathered at the Radisson hotel. He urged Democrats to "speak with
conviction" and give the party base reasons to vote for their candidates
"other than that we don't like the president."

    Dean's fiery appeals seemed to dominate the convention in Sacramento,
where DNC members and party loyalists from around the Western states
amassed. They came to hear the seven candidates vying to become the next
chair of the Democratic National Committee, the powerful political and
financial post now held by the outgoing Terry McAuliffe. The choice will be
made on Feb. 12 by 447 voting members of the DNC.

    The occasionally raucous, standing-room-only crowd assembled to watch
the proceedings included the Rev. Al Sharpton, as well as Rep. Mike Honda of
Woodside, who is running for the post of DNC vice chairman.

    "It's two days after the Bush inauguration, and you have 600 people in
the room here - they're hostile, they're hungry and all that will work to
our advantage," said Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser to the state
Democratic Party. "If we do this right, four years from this week, we'll
have a Democratic president."

    Among those competing with Dean for the post were former Denver Mayor
Wellington Webb; former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, who sat on the
Sept. 11 Commission; Simon Rosenberg, head of the moderate New Democrat
Network; former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost of Texas; Donnie Fowler, former vice
president for Democratic outreach in the Technology Network, a Silicon
Valley advocacy group; and David Leland, former Democratic chairman in Ohio.

    While the competition for DNC chairman was once mostly of interest to
party insiders, many now covet the position. McAuliffe has been both an
accomplished fund-raiser and attack dog for the Democrats, but party
leaders, still reeling from the re-election of Republican George W. Bush,
are looking for fresh ideas.

    Many Democrats, faulting their candidate, party leadership and message
strategy in the 2004 election, say it's now critical to have strong
leadership for 2008, when they hope to take back the White House.

    Democratic strategist and communications consultant Chris Lehane said
the high interest in the race comes because "the campaign chair has evolved
into a proxy fight for the heart and soul of the party."

    And many Democrats, he said, believe that in the wake of the 2004
results, the DNC "needs to be dedicated ... to the Al Davis mantra: Just
win, baby."

    "This decision is about how Democrats build the party and make it strong
in all 50 states," said Katie Merrill, who heads Progressive Strategy
Partners, a Kensington-based political consulting firm. "It's about defining
the party to voters and stating values."

    While they disagreed about their strategies for leading the party,
candidates for the DNC post touched on common themes - including jobs, the
economy, national security and resisting the privatization of Social
Security - that they believe will appeal to voters.

    But many also fired up the crowd by identifying a common enemy: the
president's chief political strategist, whom Democrats see as a major
challenge.

    "We need to beat Republicans, and we need to beat Karl Rove," Roemer
said to applause. "We need to be more competitive in every part of this
great country with Democratic candidates ... both red states and blue
states."

    Frost, in arguing his case for leadership, said, "I've spent my career
fighting the likes of Karl Rove, (former House Speaker) Newt Gingrich and
(Texas Rep.) Tom DeLay ... and for years, I beat Karl Rove in Texas.

    "I will wake up every day thinking, 'How do I get the best of Karl
Rove?' " he said to cheers from the audience.

    But it was Dean, not Rove, who clearly dominated Saturday's discussion.

    "It's clearly trending Dean," said state Sen. Carole Migden of San
Francisco, a longtime Dean supporter.

    Migden, undecided until hearing the former Vermont governor make his
case on Saturday, said, "There's a little bit of inevitability toward Dean -
despite the imperfections, he's a star, and he's without question loyal to
our principles."

    Other Democrats, though, suggested that Frost may be a dark horse winner
out of concerns that Dean's liberal credentials and the outspokenness that
was evident in last year's election could lose moderate voters.

 

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