Whoever coined the phrase, “Dealing with Democrats is like herding cats!” is 100% correct! With 6 months until the November national election the Democrats are at peak disorganization. I am posting this plea as a frustrated member of the Democratic Party in the fervent hope that it might spark serious conversation concerning the current rush of Democrats to “pull defeat out of the jaws of victory” in the fall. At the start of the 2012 New Year the primary concern facing the White House was a sizeable amount of possible voter apathy infecting the entire Democratic base. However currently there is concern approaching panic not over voter apathy but over “DESTRUCTIVE FRAGMENTATION” of precious campaign resources. Let me lay it out for you in the paragraphs below.
In the 2008 presidential election many groups focused on one unique controversial issue, such as unwarranted wiretapping and other privacy issues, or people interested in ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or exploding American unemployment, or the imminent possibility of an economic depression, etc. – came together to enthusiastically support Barack Obama for president. Over the course of Obama’s first term actions taken by the White House frustrated each one of these groups to the point that a general malaise of gloomy funk has finally settled over what was once a hopeful anticipatory excited base of voter support. Therefore the main task for Democrats in 2012 is to find a way to RE-IGNITE the faded ENTHUSIASM of 2008. In reality even more critical at this juncture is the need to capitalize on the Democratic leaning majorities currently out there in the general population; and make sure that these voters not only get OUT TO VOTE but are LEGALLY ABLE TO CAST THEIR VOTES. All Democrats agree that this is Job # 1 for President Obama’s campaign for a second term. What has emerged as a huge schism for the Party’s activists is JUST WHAT IS THE BEST WAY to apply limited resources to achieve this goal.
The New York Times, May 8, 2012 edition carried an article written by Jeff Zeleny titled “Liberal Donors’ Plan Worries Top Democrats”. His lead off paragraphs read as follows. “Senior leaders of the Democratic Party expressed alarm on Tuesday that a $100 million plan by liberal donors to increase voter turnout would duplicate a similar effort by President Obama’s campaign and squander a chance to fend off an advertising onslaught from Republican groups.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and other officials conveyed concern that Democratic candidates could be at disadvantage if the contributors, many of whom had stayed on the sidelines of the 2012 campaign until now, decide not to spend money on television ads that push back against a torrent of attacks from conservative “super PACS” in the presidential election and Congressional races.”
Evidently financier George Soros and other major donors have decided to avoid a head-to-head confrontation in TV advertising against pro-Republican groups and PACS, and instead plan to spend the money registering new voters and building stronger turnout organizations. Evidently the White House and Democratic Senators feel that the best use of donor funds is to engage the Republicans in a TV ad battle. On the other hand the wealthy Democratic donors feel that the Republican super PACS and their billionaire financiers have financial resources in the billions of dollars available for any national knock-down drag out Television advertising battle across the country. Therefore they feel the best bang for their 100 to 200 million dollars is to fund “boots-on the ground” Democratic get-out-the-vote operations. The classic difference here is that it is a case of rich men with a cadre of few people against men of modest means with an army of people available. Obviously funding “boots on the ground” to provide personal contact with voters is far more efficient than the impersonal video outreach via Television broadcasting. Another benefit of personal face-to-face contact is that it is the most effective contradiction means for correcting hours of televised video lies.
So why the dismay against the donor preferred strategy by the Obama campaign and Congressional Democrats? The answer is one word, and that word is CONTROL. The Obama campaign has clearly invested heavily in a grass-roots get-out-the-vote (GOTV) organization with many field offices across the nation. However, the Obama campaign has been very selective as to what states it has targeted with its resources. In retrospect the Obama 2008 campaign benefitted from the residue of Howard Dean’s 50 state Democratic GOTV campaigns whose influence had not faded in many “red states” in 2008. The Obama campaign instead has selectively chosen certain states upon which they have concentrated their “on-the-ground” resources. The Obama campaign has returned to the old Electoral College game of picking those states that will provide the best outcome from this point of view.
Obviously the donors feel that they would prefer not to restrict their options to the strategies (or lack thereof) of the Obama campaign. I sense the primary thing that is arousing the donors concerns for the coming 6 months is the relatively casual manner that the Obama administration has reacted to the 34 states that have passed VOTER SUPPRESSION laws. The Justice Department has essentially been a no-show in the midst of the entire ongoing voter suppression controversy. Currently the ACLU is involved in more cases in more states seeking legal relief from voter suppressive laws than the Justice Department.
I also understand that the Democratic Congressional caucus has come up with $10 million to fund a national legal team who will be challenging voter suppression legislation in various state courts across the nation. I have no further information concerning the Democratic Congressional plan for attacking these laws state by state. My concern is that the speed of this mobilization to petition the state courts to “stay” the implementation of the Voter Suppression laws is proceeding too slowly apace. Thus if a given state court grants an injunction against the law there will NOT be sufficient time left to allow the GOTV organizations to go in and setup locally in the the state, and initiate the customary rallies to attract attention to the critical need to register to vote in November.
In summary here are the things that need to be done in the order of priority from my point of view.
(1) Whoever is In charge of the Democratic Congressional Legal Task (DCLT) to petition state courts against implementing Voter Suppression laws need to form and dispatch select legal teams into those critical states, and this task must be done NOW! The responsible DCLT manager must make sure that the petition briefs should be on court dockets no later than 30 days from today!
(2) Each participating GOTV organization should provide a high level coordination official whom will interface with the DCLT manager for routine updates of the progress of the legal teams in the state courts. This connection will keep the GOTV organizations informed as to when they should schedule their local contacts and activities.
(3) The DCLT manager must also interface with the Obama campaign manager to provide state by state updates concerning the progress of moving the petitions through state courts.
(4) Periodic strategy meetings between the DCLT staff and the Obama campaign staff must be scheduled to discuss the variations and abnormalities in the Voter Suppression laws between states. These meeting are CRITICAL in that they will make decisions as to action items concerning states where the petitions for blocking Voter Suppression laws have been denied by the state courts. Whereas time is of the essence, decisions must be made to (a) appeal to a higher court, (b) review the severity of any additional penalties and special constraints uniquely added to the law for that particular state and advise GOTV organizations accordingly, (c) for those states where the courts have rejected the petition, and the costs required to acquire the documentation (birth certificates, marriage licenses ,etc.) needed in order to acquire a state photo ID card are too high ($100 and up) - a decision may be made to advise GOTV to bypass that particular state or be prepared to provide substantial voter documentation subsidies.
The clock is ticking and the entire Democratic Party is in need of some entity capable of providing control, coordination and direction to the entire fall campaign effort for president and Congress. Considering that the next president will likely appoint two Supreme Court Justices to the highest court in the land – the future of American democracy depends on a Democratic victory in November. It is time to set aside the competing “special interests, special issues, special concerns, and piqued reservations” simmering within the Democratic Party and everybody pick up an oar and pull together to get our boat over the finish line first.