Wednesday, January 21 @ 7:00PM (3rd Wednesday of every month),
Meetup for the Democratic Party is happening at a location near you. Did you know that the GOP and the Heritage Foundation's Town Hall Meetup is now larger than the Democratic Party Meetup? It is, leading 18,249 vs 15,353 members. Take action people,
sign up, make it happen.
Stirling Newberry has written a primer for those who haven't encountered meetup before, including this weeks Democratic Party meetup stats, and an overall Meetup strategy for the effort-- it's all in the extended article:
(I'll be at the D.C. Meetup -- kos)
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An old Russian diplomat once told me, "Do you know why the West finally will beat the Soviet Union? Because in the West, the guns point outward, in the East, they point inward." In the end, the society that is pushing outward with ideas, and which frees its own people, will win.
That same transformation has happened in politics in the internet. In 1998, people on the internet were angrily talking to, or often merely at, each other. In 2003, people stopped being angry at Bush, and the rest of the Republican agenda, and decided to do something about Bush and the Republican Agenda. People started talking, not just to each other, but instead, found resources on the internet that they could take out to their friends, family and coworkers to make the case for what Krugman called "The Great Unraveling", and what once conservative commentator Kevin Phillips calls "Deception in the House of Bush".
In case you've been reading only Newsmax or Fox for the last year, one of the major tools for this change has been the use of http://www.meetup.com - the presidential contenders that are now number one and number two for the nomination were polling a combined asterix in November of 2002. "Howard Who and Wesley What" scoffed on Republican friend of mine. Times are different now.
First a short primer, for those who haven't encountered meetup before:
Meetup.com is an innovative platform which is elegant in its simplicity - people sign up, and pick "topics" they are interested in, and they pick which "city" or area, they want to meet others in. Usually, this is picked from your zip code, but people can change, either for just a particular meetup, or permanently. People do this because they want to meet other people who are interested in particular topics.
Not just to chat over the computer, but to see in the flesh. Real life changes everything, and personal bonds are more powerful than email exchanges. Meetup.com has worked because it has a set schedule: each meetup occurs on the same day each month , and members get to not only decide whether to go, but where to go. This is done by "venue voting". Two weeks, generally, before the meetup is to potentially take place, the people who have signed up for a topic are invited to pick where they want to go. Free members can chose from the options that meetup.com's computer chooses, and people who have paid a small annual fee can "nominate" other places to meet. Different kinds of meetups prefer different kinds of places to meetup. There have to be at least three members to start the venue voting process for a city.
Venue voting isn't saying that you will go, it is saying that you might like to go. So if 5 people vote in city, whether for the same venue or not, then Meetup will pick the most popular venue and send out emails asking members in that city to "RSVP", RSVPing means you want to be there. It requires five RSVPs to make a meetup official. If there are five, then people will be sent an email telling them where and when the meetup is to take place, and people show up. If all goes well, things start from there.
Now this process means two things. First, that media drives meetups - topics that have someone pushing for the meetup to happen get more people and more people, by itself, means more meetups happen. Second, it means that cities with people who actively want a meetup to happen have a much better chance of getting a core of people together. Once there is a meetup, other people join it, and it snowballs. Local leadership turns random meetups into events, by providing a core of people, activities and a sense of continuity. Healthy meetups are happier meetups.
So why the Democratic Party meetup? Well, if for no other reason than the Republicans have made it a race by jumpstarting http://townhall.meetup.com - and they've pushed ahead. But for a deeper reason: winning is more than winning the Presidency, winning means winning Congress, winning means winning the conversation, winning means creating a winning culture inside the party. And the Democratic Meetup is essential to all of this.
First, it forms common bonds between people who are sympathetic to the Democratic Party, gives the face to face confirmation that, well, you aren't alone in thinking there is something wrong with a country that spends more on bombing Baghdad than on fostering arts education, or school lunches, or forest conservation.
Second, it ends the alienation, the sense that the party is adrift. After you have met many of the very smart and very driven people that attend meetups, you can't help but believe there is a reason for the Democratic Party to look forward. It is about creating that winning spirit among people. It has worked for Presidential candidates, it works at meetup.
Finally, winning leads to governing. To govern, the Democratic Party needs to be strong on every street and in every city. And meetup means that everywhere there will be well informed Democrats for reporters to talk to, for visiting Democrats to talk to, and for people who are just learning about how the world has changed, and the Democratic party has changed with it - to see an example of the new energy and urgency in the Party.
This weeks meetup stats tell the story of a Democratic Party meetup which is doing well, but needs a push to make an institution. Right now there are 8514 active members in the United States of the Democratic Party meetup, of which 2179 have venue voted. This is a good percentage for most meetups, but it is not as good as many political meetup, further, the longer between signing up and meeting up, the more likely someone will drift away, as many already have. However, this is easy to reverse, if we get more cities to venue vote. Right now, out of 365 cities, 134 already have enough venue votes. Again, this is good, but not as good as either the Dean or Clark meetups in terms of percentages.
What should make people feel good is that most of the meetups that have taken venue votes are fairly healthy, with an average of over 25% participation so far, even including the very large Washington DC and New York City meetups.
The following cities already have enough venue votes, but the more venue votes there are the better the venues you get to choose from next month, so if you are in one of these cities it is important to venue vote, as soon as possible, also, for large cities like New York and Washington, more than one meetup can happen, so if schlepping across town isn't in your future, consider voting for a meetup closer to home:
Washington DC
New York City
Denver CO
Sarasota FL
Dallas-Plano TX
Chicago IL
Philadelphia PA
North Suburban Chicago IL
Phoenix AZ
San Diego CA
Columbus OH
Northern Virginia
Cleveland OH
Trenton NJ
Charlotte NC
Atlanta GA
Kansas City MO
Raleigh-Durham NC
Cincinnati OH
San Mateo County CA
Boston MA
Minneapolis MN
Orlando FL
Orange County CA
San Antonio TX
Pittsburgh PA
St. Louis MO
Alameda County CA
Montgomery County MD
Austin TX
Birmingham AL
Detroit MI
Fort Collins CO
Santa Monica CA
Houston TX
Portland OR
Seattle WA
Nashville TN
Santa Clara County CA
Albuquerque NM
Jacksonville FL
Sacramento CA
Broward County FL
Baltimore MD
Richmond VA
Tampa FL
Monmouth-Ocean Counties NJ
Lexington KY
Milwaukee WI
New Orleans LA
Salt Lake City UT
Bellevue-East Side WA
College Station TX
Chattanooga TN
Dade County FL
Syracuse NY
West Palm Beach FL
Westchester NY
Northern NJ
Aurora IL
San Diego North County CA
Ithaca NY
Hollywood-East LA CA
Louisville KY
Madison WI
New Haven CT
Newark-Jersey City NJ
Wheaton IL
St. Pete-Clearwater FL
Dayton OH
Lincoln NE
Norfolk VA
Omaha NE
Rochester NY
Tucson AZ
Nassau County NY
Everett WA
Tacoma WA
Contra Costa County CA
Gainesville FL
Greensboro NC
Memphis TN
Santa Barbara-Santa Maria CA
Tallahassee FL
Middlesex County NJ
Ventura CA
Camden NJ
Marietta-Roswell GA
Duluth-Gainesville GA
South Boston MA
Albany NY
Fresno CA
Las Vegas NV
Oklahoma City OK
Prescott AZ
Providence RI
Reno NV
San Francisco CA
Tulsa OK
Wichita KS
Riverside CA
Santa Rosa CA
Wilmington DE
Akron OH
Fairfield County CT
Pasadena CA
South King County WA
Denton County TX
Colorado Springs CO
Des Moines IA
Harrisburg PA
Hickory NC
Indianapolis IN
Pensacola FL
Rochester MN
Ann Arbor MI
Manhattan Beach CA
Pomona-Claremont CA
Anchorage AK
Buffalo NY
Columbia SC
Corpus Christi TX
Daytona Beach FL
Fort Myers FL
Iowa City IA
Knoxville TN
Lubbock TX
Ocala FL
Stockton CA
Toledo OH
Suffolk County NY
San Fernando Valley CA
Joliet IL
St. Paul MN
In addition the following cities have three or four venue votes. This means one or two Democrats can help by making a meetup happen. If you are in, or know anyone, in any of these cities, then either venue vote, or get your friend to sign up.
Allentown PA
Asheville NC
Augusta GA
Bangor ME
Baton Rouge LA
Beaumont TX
Boise ID
Bremerton WA
Burlington VT
Charlottesville VA
Grand Rapids MI
Huntsville AL
Lansing MI
Mobile AL
Myrtle Beach SC
Poughkeepsie NY
Santa Fe NM
Mishawaka IN
Springfield MA
Springfield MO
Temple TX
Tyler TX
Wenatchee WA
Worcester MA
York PA
San Bernardino CA
Fort Worth TX
Marin County CA
Abilene TX
Bellingham WA
Charleston SC
Charleston WV
Eau Claire WI
Erie PA
Fayetteville NC
Fergus Falls MN
Flagstaff AZ
Hartford CT
Joplin MO
Kalamazoo MI
La Crosse WI
La Grange GA
Lakeland FL
Lancaster PA
Little Rock AR
Lynchburg VA
Modesto CA
Morgantown WV
Olympia WA
Pittsfield MA
Richmond IN
Roanoke VA
Salem OR
San Angelo TX
Somerset KY
Boulder CO
As you can see, many of these meetups are in important swing states, or have important races in them. It isn't one day too early to begin bringing Democrats together to work for winning elections in 2004. It isn't one day to early to start shaking hands with our fellow Democrats regardless of which nominee we support. The growth of the Democratic meetup has been testimony to the attraction of meetup, but it could be so much more powerful, I hope the campaigns will consider sending their people to meetup with fellow Democrats, and create the kind of lively exchange of ideas that drives the party forward. People watching the candidates know that they read each other's proposals carefully, and the exchange of ideas helps everyone present a better, stronger case.
Surely Wesley Clark's home town of Little Rock Arkansas has enough good Democrats to start working on the important races there, surely liberal Olympia WA can find a few people to meetup and talk about issues and getting organized, surely Howard Dean's campaign base of Burlington Vermont can do the same thing. The Presidential race is inviting and exciting, and passions are running high. But lets' remember the last time we had a solid Democrat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and a congress bent on giving the country the business, rather than doing the people's business.
stirling s newberry