I'm on the political committee of the state chapter of an organization which will remain unnamed for now. Suffice it to say that it is a large non-profit which endorses candidates, and would be one of the groups which you would consider a member of the progressive coalition, even if we do slip up and support the occasional Republican.
Yesterday at our meeting something happened that froze my blood and suddenly it all made sense why we keep losing.
We were discussing sending out a special newsletter to our 25000+ members statewide (Massachusetts) shortly before election day with our endorsements. A fine thing to do.
Then the chairperson announces "...and the state Democratic Party was nice enough to share with us their database of regular voters. This way we can save a few thousand dollars by only sending the newsletter to regular voters."
My jaw dropped, and I quickly sputtered out some arguments.
"But regular voters are already engaged, and probably already know who they're voting for. It's one thing not to mail to children or non-citizens, but don't we have the MOST to gain by contacting irregular voters?"
"How will people ever start voting if a group which they send $35+/year to won't spend 50 cents asking them to help us out on election day?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGH!"
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The reply was "we can predict who will and won't vote. And getting people to the polls isn't our job, it's the job of the Democratic party and the camapaigns. We need to move on with other items on the agenda."
So there you have it. The Democratic party is assisting allied groups is not contacting potential voters who agree with them. While the allied groups play along and say it's the job of someone else to get people to actually vote.
