August was long, hot, and miserable. While Tropical Storm Earl has not yet made landfall, and is weakening as he heads for Canada's Atlantic islands, the political storms still look like hurricanes.
Not all of those storms will fizzle out, and we grassroots Democratic activists must get and stay busy to hold back the flooding.
More below the fold....
Storm Season (Non-Cynical Saturday)
As noted yesterday, today was to be a funny End-of-Semester Activity Fraught With Stress And Sometimes Disappointment. As in May, I was going to post some music and ask questions related to the topics we discussed over the past four months. I decided not to. We're only 58 days from another Activity Fraught With Stress and Sometimes Disappointment and - unlike a not-an-exam at a non-existent university - the midterm elections have real consequences.
August is often a bad month for Democrats. Congress go on recess. Most people aren't paying much attention to politics. In election years, the general campaigns haven't yet kicked into gear. There isn't much real political news, so the right use the void to spread lies. Birthers. Deathers. Tenthers. Dunkers. Beheaders. Anchors. Sleepers. The tiniest quasi-related factoid - or just that "some people say" - is all the evidence they need.
We can't disprove the lies as fast as the other side can invent them. Recent research suggests factual corrections have only limited effect due to "motivated reasoning," or confirmation bias. As Dr. George Lakoff's research has shown, denials often reinforce the accusation. Democrats could change the debate and attack the right wing ideology of more wealth and privilege for the wealthy and privileged, but it's August and "most people aren't paying much attention to politics" ... so the right's noise dominates the dialogue, and the political storms build.
The weather may also play a role. August is a month whose history is filled with coups de etat, battles, riots, massacres, serial killings, and mayhem. The "dog days" may be as much a breeding ground for despair, cynicism, and anger as sun-warmed seas are a breeding ground for tropical systems. The right-wing noise machine may draw on and be amplified by that seasonal energy. Regardless of the reasons - general and specific - the political storm season is raging in full fury, and not all of those storms will miss Democrats in 2010. Grassroots Democratic activists need to think like the Red Cross: preparing and working to limit the damage.
My 2010 storm season plan.
I'm a Democratic Party precinct leader in Florida, and we have some important races, including Alex Sink for governor, Kendrick Meek for U.S. Senate, and Jim Piccillo for U.S. House. (Jim Piccillo was BPI's first Featured Candidate, back in May.) While the Democratic Party cannot officially endorse Fair Districts Florida, Amendments 5 and 6, I will be advocating for those as well. And there are state legislative and local races.
My goal is to contact every Democratic voter in my precinct. To start, I'll reach out to so-called Super Voters, Democrats who vote in every election. Super Voters are most likely to volunteer to help, and I want to build an outreach team with at least one member in each my precinct's neighborhoods. Then we'll do shoe leather politics: knocking on doors and making calls.
We'll encourage registered Democrats to vote by mail, which is very easy in my county. Those who sign up to vote by mail are both more likely to vote and more likely to vote the entire ballot. At least in my county, too many Democrats are what we call Federal Voters: voting only for the high-profile races at the top of a ticket. In 2008 the presidential race was razor-thin here, but the GOP swept other races by big margins. To see progressive change, we need Democrats in state and local offices as much as we need them in D.C. So in our outreach we'll encourage Democratic voters to vote in every race and every ballot question.
Will that be enough? I don't know, but I'm optimistic. Alex Sink is a strong candidate for governor, and I think she will draw more Democrats to vote ... and to vote for the other Democrats on the ballot. The Florida Supreme Court struck down a proposed Amendment 7, intended to counter and confuse Fair Districts Florida, along with two other TGOP-backed amendments.
We can't dodge every political storm this season, but we can limit the damage. If we do the work. So what's your 2010 storm season plan?
+++++
Happy Saturday!
Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com)