A bunch of people formerly known as KerrySF met today, appropriately enough in the Friends hall near San Francisco City Hall, on the day Howard Dean officially took the reigns and on the first anniversary of
marriage for everyone.
KerrySF was never a PAC or an official democratic club. It was a groundswell of people who were willing to get John Kerry elected by any means necessary--phone banking, letter writing, voter registration, and especially swing state travel. There were leaders, or at any rate, there were people who did the lion's share of the work and organizing.
Today's event was organized by the everpresent Alec Bash, who in my mind will always be the Kerry man with the ironing board, back when he was my rival and I stood behind an Edwards ironing board. He was joined by a slew of familiar names and faces, some from other democratic organizations and the many of us who had only been involved in political issues peripherally until last year.
The question at hand, as for so many Anyone But Bush groups across the country: now what?
Perhaps 150 people of all ages attended, although there was a lot of gray hair and several of us have lost a few dress sizes since November 2. I enjoyed reading the Quaker bulletin board with its admonitions for peace and suggestions on protesting paying taxes that support a war.
The first order of the day was in fact organizational. What should Kerry SF become? Should we become a local democratic club? Should we focus primarily on national issues, seeking a way to influence policy and framing? Should we restrict ourselves to the democratic party?
As the afternoon wore on, it became apparent that despite a lot of groundwork laid by previous groups of volunteers to come up with a mission and vision and importantly, a new name, the real work would be done in committees. There does appear to be consensus that this will be an organization focused on statewide and national issues and candidates, committed to electing democrats.
I agreed with one comment that some of this is putting the cart before the horse--how do we name ourselves if we haven't decided what we stand for as a group? Especially for those of us disillusioned democrats, or former democrats, who tend to choose candidates based on issues rather than along party lines. McCain-Feingold also poses some technical issues about whether to be a chartered or non-chartered group, whether to be a PAC, and important to many of us, whether we as a group could dissent from official democratic party positions.
Not surprisingly, with a such an ambitious agenda, we ran late. With limited time, we broke into subgroups, which were both infrastructure (communications, website, charter) and action based (tackling issues like the upcoming assault on Social Security, judicial nominations, election reform, and propositions and races for 2005 and 2006 where we can win, or as Mark Cesare said, "do the most harm."). As the immensely popular framing group said, "we want to be for things, not just against them."
I'm interested in helping pull together a grassroots toolkit, with lessons learned from the past election and recipes and templates for success for future grassroots organizing; apparently the EastBay4Kerry group, now known as Blue-Bridge, will be making a similar effort. (Each of the various Bay Area Kerry grassroots groups is in this re-forming process--if you are a member of any of them, please do make sure we're coordinating.) November already seems like a lifetime ago.
I also talked to the action issues group, which I hope will ultimately include everyone from KerrySF. Ironically the issue that is closest to my heart, the issue that I believe we lost the election because of, was nowhere to be found, even in a room filled with progressive activists in San Francisco. (What haven't I mentioned?) And that of course is the war in Iraq, which by the time the public or the media wakes up and realizes we are fighting a war and at what cost, will be the war in Iraq and Iran.
Yes, there's plenty to do at a statewide level as The Terminator tries to push his own "starve the beast" agenda through a somewhat complacent California electorate. As always, we have our work cut out for us. It's thrilling to live in a city filled with passionate idealists, given all the obstacles against us in the current administration.
The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 19th at the Friends Meeting Hall on 9th near Market. In between, various Yahoo groups will be set up, subcommittees will meet, and named will be voted on (Project DemocraSEED, anyone?) Nancy Pelosi is convening a townhall on saving Social Security; George Lakoff is speaking at the Roxie on Wednesday. Bob Kozma encouraged us to look at what Progressive Democrats of America is doing nationwide and consider their grassroots approach.
I hope a lot of similar progress will occur across the country, and not just in blue states full of Kerry travelers. The challenge is how to avoid reinventing the wheel, or the political organization, every six months, especially when so many of us are drawn to participate on the basis of urgency, or specific issues, without wanting to join ten different clubs and mailing lists. It's a little like the question of what becomes of DFA now; I'll let someone better qualified than me debate that.
Elections may be won on the ground, but this is where the ideals have to come from and be debated. Winning requires more than just finding middle of the road candidates who are good at framing and articulating positions: it's having the right positions in the first place.