Democrats, get to those punkin doin's, those summer festivals, those parades. Go as Democrats. Don't let up.
I have bragged up my local county party many times here at Daily Kos. We have a high level of interest in our rural county party, and a subset of those members is really focused on getting out the vote, raising the Democratic profile, and attracting volunteers. Our leaders and a DNC field officer remind us when it's time to do things such as stand up for Russ and much more.
But the summer air is so tempting, and my strawberries need weeding, and it was with dampened enthusiasm that my family and I went to the local dairy breakfast "as a Democrat," buttons on my shirt. My husband declined to wear his proud Democrat hat because it didn't feel "campaigny" enough for him. Boy, were we surprised. The farm hosting the dairy breakfast was lousy with Republican workers. They aren't going down without a fight.
Make the jump for a few pictures and some ideas.
We drove into the impromptu parking lot, a hay field, and saw a car just covered with stickers for Mark Green, the GOP challenger to Dem
Governor Jim Doyle. "Rats," I was thinking. I had only two small buttons, below.
Two fellow party members were leaving just as we arrived, and provided us with ample Kohl, Doyle and Obey paraphernalia, along with other material that our party prints up to hand out. And we joined the long chow line.
Candidates of both parties and their volunteers worked the line for signatures on their nominating papers, which may now be signed after the first of June. Above right, you see my state representative in the 75th Assembly District, Mary Hubler. She's a very popular, sure-footed Democrat in a slightly pink district, and her mother asked me to sign her papers. Almost inexplicably, Hubler has a GOP opponent, a carpetbagger from the Twin Cities, whose cheesy flyer I later found under my placemat. I found it a new home in the trash, although I'm pretty sure that Mary is going to mop up the floor with her no matter what. If you look closely at the picture of Mary getting a signature from a constituent, you can see two of the "Green Team" walking in the background, getting signatures for the deluded congressman from WI-8 who thinks he can handle Jim Doyle's job.
But delusions aside, if there is anything I want to say with this diary, it is that the GOP is organized down to having matching green T-shirts for their signature gatherers. The ones in the photo are barely out of high school and probably members of some Young Republicans chapter*. At this late date, we have a lot of catching up to do, a lot of fund-raising, a lot of shoe leather to be worn down. Our learning curve has to be steep and our coffers fairly full to match the Republican machine. Please, get out there and work as if you were a Republican hungry to hold onto power, because they surely are.
Our wonderful state senator for the 25th district, Bob Jauch, helped cook pancakes (left), and so did our sheriff (right).
People ate in a great big pole shed, below left. We had an unnervingly cheese-based breakfast, what with being on a Wisconsin dairy farm, "June is Dairy Month" and all. Note the inflatable dairy cows hanging from the rafters. My son looked up from his stack of pancakes at one point, face sticky with syrup from nearby Mable's Maples, and asked what in the world we were eating in a pole shed for.
Before we took off for a hay ride behind some beautiful beer wagon horses, above right, a Greenshirt approached me with a clipboard. I declined to sign and waved away his Mark Green Packers football schedule. "Don't you hunt, fish and enjoy football?" he asked. I began mumbling something vaguely heretical, being a non-huntin', -fishin' or Pack-lovin' resident of northern Wisconsin. (Oh, and I don't like cheese . . .)
"There won't be much hunting or fishing left if the Republicans have their way with Wisconsin," my husband interjected loudly, and for which I love him more than ever.
The Greenshirt, half a head taller than my husband, stepped right into my husband's personal space and said, "You know, thousands of patriots have served and died for your right to have a different opinion." When you think about it, what a spectacularly framed leap of logic he made; veterans, patriots, Republicans versus . . . others who are not so. And he coupled it with a bit of macho aggression, breasting my husband as if he were a hapless umpire.
I thrust one of our party's "business" cards in his hand and watched him founder a bit. These cards are great for parades and fairs, and can be made much more specific than the rather general example at left. Nobody opposing the Republicans can fail to come up with a bulleted list of outrageous things that will make any reader yell, "Hell yes!" And the inside of the card simply welcomes the reader to the Democratic party, and provides the local particulars.
And speaking of parades and fairs, what are you and your local party members planning to do to raise the party's visibility this summer? Plenty of people are wondering where you've been. Will you have a booth at the fair? A float in the parade? A table at a bazaar? Will you give away balloons with your party's web site URL on it? Will you wear your buttons to the ice cream social? Have you at least slapped an "IMPEACH" sign on your bumper?
Another nice item from our local party is this bumper sticker, below. Our DNC field worker assures us that even 100 of them dispersed across our county of 45,000 souls will make an impact. They cost $2 to print on your own computer, and much less for a batch of 500 done in four point from a local printer. That's cheap enough to pass out at the fair.
Those are just a few ideas for simple things that Democrats--and sympathetic individuals--can do to raise our profile. It isn't enough to count on Republican corruption to lead people to the Democrats. We need to work hard to let people know that we are around, organized, and good community members, just like them.
* Our county has had Young Republicans in its schools since, well, forever, and is only now organizing a Young Democrats chapter in one of those schools. I talked to its advisor and thanked her profusely for it.