As the netroots has undoubtedly noticed, the Democrats are lacking a strategic plan of action. A plan designed to put certain elected Democrats behind certain issues, to move forward together, to rebuild the Democratic Party's infrastructure, and to change America.
As we saw with the Alito confirmation hearings and the subsequent fillibuster that followed, the Democrats, particularly Senate Democrats, lacked any real plan of acheiving victory.
Could not the Senate Democrats forseen a possible filibuster, should it not have been at least planned for in case it was put on the table?
Could not the Senate Democrats, and the Democratic Party's structure (what exists anyway) done more to work cohesviley with anti-Alito groups and build a public relations offensive against Alito and his out of the mainstream viewpoints?
We must change our strategy from flying by the seat of our pants to a well thought out strategy of infrastructure reconstruction, policy building, communications and public relations strategizing, better fundraising, and building the bench for the future.
INFRATRUCTURE RECONSTRUCTION- Dean is already doing a great job of rebuilding the state parties, which is something that should have been done a long time ago. However, local county parties have seen very little support. Local county parties are important because at the end of the day, they're the ones who team up with community activists, precinct captains, volunteers, and local donors to get the votes out, to raise the money, and to get the message out to win on election day. Dean should continue to rebuild state parties, but the state parties in turn must be reaching out to local county parties, reorganizing them, and orienting them on which way to go. A good infrastructure will allow us to quickly rally the public behind important legislation, ballot measures, and candidates. It will also allow us to get the public behind us when we oppose the GOP.
POLICY BUILDING- At the national and state level, there are many policy proposals on the shelf from liberal think tanks which have yet to be incorporated into any Democratic message. We need to take advantage of these and starting touting these bold policy ideas as solutions to many of America's ills. At the local (county, city) level, there isn't much in terms of specific policy ideas. It is crucially important that we start putting liberal minds to work to start putting together some ideas. What do progressives believe we should do in terms of local sales taxes, school boards, garbage disposal, public utility expansion, and the crucial balance between unrestrained growth and environmental and resource protection?
COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS STRATEGIZING- Any policy idea, any candidate, any rally, or protest cannot get off the ground without a successful public relations strategy. The DNC, through Howard Dean, is making this clear by giving money to state parties to specifically hire communications directors. This is smart, and should be done at the local level as well. As state parties recover and are able to function with their own fundraising, they should assist county parites in hiring communications directors. This will allow the Democratic Party's message to be quickly transfered nationwide, as well as give local parties some flexibility in waging their own local campaigns to benefit their communities.
BETTER FUNDRAISING- The DNC and state parties are now doing the right thing in terms of fundraising. They are reducing their reliance on lump-sum donations and are putting more emphasis on automatic recurring donations (where a specified amount is withdrawn from a donor's bank account automatically monthly.) Local county parties need to start doing this as well. State parties and the DNC should be actively assisting local parties in establishing these programs and getting them off the ground. Recurring funds allow local parties with a wide-range of capabilities, from hiring staff at decent wages, to having a permanent headquarters from which to base countywide operations.
BUILDING THE BENCH- The Democratic Party will not last long if it does not take the large contributions of young people to its survial seriously. The Democratic Party, especially at the local level, should be going into high schools and local colleges, setting up Young and College Democrats chapters and encouraging young people not to be cynical, but to get involved in the process. From this base will come the party's future precinct captains, staffers at local and state party offices, think tank brainstormers, candidates, public officials, and civil servants.
If the Democratic Party is to be anytwhere near successful in 2006, 2008 and beyond, it needs to start getting serious about actually doing something. Every Democrat needs to realize that talk is cheap, and we're all very tired of talk. We don't want to hear about how bad things are, we know that. Its time for action, because nothing less than our country is at stake.