There was a very interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post this morning by Dana Milbank. Milbank describes how the Democratic Party at the local level has shriveled in recent year, partly due to bypass the Democratic Party apparatus in favor of his own group, Organizing for Change. National party funding for local operations has fallen precipitously, with the number of state party officials paid for by the national party falling from 183 to 115. Partly as a result, the the losses for the Democratic party have been staggering over the last decade, including 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats, 910 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers and 11 governorships.
These losses in state legislative seats have had dramatic results on the House of Representatives, due to the gerrymandering that has resulted — thus giving the GOP a permanent advantages of several percentage points in holding on to the House.
But, here is the real takeaway. So far, in this election campaign, Hillary Clinton has raised $26,000,000 for the Democratic Party, but Bernie Sanders has raised only $1,000. And he didn’t really raise that. Rather, the party put $1,000 in to start a joint account.
Of course, none of this is surprising. Sanders was not a member of the Democratic arty until less than a year ago, when he joined it to run for President. Why would anyone expect he would want to build the party?
Sanders is energizing lots of youth, and that certainly can be a positive for the party. But if the Democratic Party doesn’t step up its local organizing and start winning legislative seats, we’ll be facing another decade of gerrymandered house seats, not to mention governors and members of Congress that impede social progress. And that will take a lot of funds—and I for one am very grateful that the Clinton campaign has made raising funds for the party a priority.
