Because of
DemonDeac's fabulous diary about the disarray of many of our local Democratic Parties, I was encouraged to share my story of infiltrating my local party in an extremely red (2-1) county.
It wasn't easy. It required many tries, just as DemonDeac describes. And eventually, it required starting my own group of Progressive Democrats in the county to accomplish our ultimate goal.
Which was just to be included.
Our County Chair at the time also served on the Board at the non-profit that my sister-in-law worked for. I didn't know him personally, but I had access to him through her. My sister-in-law was the only other democrat I knew in our county at the time.
We have ~22,000 democrats in our county. That's nothing to scoff at. Unfortunately there are ~44,000 Republicans and ~14,000 mostly right leaning unaffiliated voters as well.
I had emailed our Chairman about volunteering on several occasions, the one I remember most is when I told him, in the run up to the Iraq War, that I wanted to organize a Vigil. He emailed me back and said "great idea. Go ahead."
Well, with no leadership from him, and not knowing anyone but my sister-in-law who felt the same way, we ended up driving to Charlotte for a protest rally there.
It was such a great experience to be near people who shared our ideals and values. It was my first protest and I felt really good that day, until I got home. And then I realized that I was pretty much the only person I knew like me (cept my sis) and that I had no where to go locally to share my thoughts and feelings about my country.
During the same period, I saw Dennis Kucinich and his speech on the floor of the house about Peace. I was immediately hooked. I became a regional coordinator for his campaign, although I admittedly wasn't much of a force.
Of course, he went on to campaign even after Iowa and New Hampshire. I gave up.
But from that group and Dean's group the Progressive Democrats of NC were formed. They had their founding convention on June 5th of 2004. My sister-in-law and I went and we were again inspired. Unlike our local Democratic Party, which we couldn't get to respond to us at all, this group empowered us to go back into our counties and form our own chapter.
And so we did.
The first meeting was pretty comical. The newspaper didn't publish our meeting announcement and we had made no backup plans. Other than the posters that we put out, we had done nothing to get the word out other than invite our Chair (who didn't come).
So, my sister-in-law and I sat in the meeting room of our Public Library and stared at each other, laughed about our pitiful effort, and then we started making a plan. We planned to--no matter what it took--get a list of active Democrats from the party so that we could mail out postcards.
Well, the good news is, we did make contact. The bad news was, there was no such thing as a list of active democrats. Our Secretary had many lists. A list from the Presidential Caucus, a list from the precincts that had been organized (there were 5 or so), a personal list that he used sometimes. But they were all paper lists. Most of the names were repeated throughout. It was really quite pathetic.
To make matters worse, the only reason we were given these lists was a miscommunication between us and the chair. We wanted the list to invite people to our meeting. They wanted us to have the list so that we could call people about an event they were having.
At any rate, we got the list. It turned out to be about 60 addresses. We setup an email list and emailed everyone we had addresses for about our meeting. We sent postcards to all of them as well. The paper published our meeting announcement and voila--14 people showed up for our "second" meeting in July.
Most of them come in saying the same thing. "I didn't know there was a democratic party in this county, much less PROGRESSIVE democrats".
We shared our experiences, got to know one another, and basically that was it. Dear leader here didn't really know what to do with these people from an activist standpoint. I stood before them and told them about the PDNC State Caucus and PAC. What issues we'd like to focus on. And I don't really remember the rest just that everyone left happy.
The Chair of Democratic Women showed up to this event and helped us promote it. She was instrumental in us learning the processes that we would be exposed to over the next few months.
We went to the house party later that week (the one we were given the lists for) and distributed a newsletter. I guess we impressed someone, because that week we were called to participate in an executive committee meeting at our Chair's house. This was August 2004.
That's where I volunteered to run headquarters which was not yet secured, much less opened. We set an opening date of September 1st. I volunteered to start a website for them.
That year we did a lot of things at HQ. We phone banked and canvassed. We also rented a big screen tv and played Fahrenheit 9/11 on Friday nights. We hosted debate parties and watched in disbelief as the election returns came in.
I put together the first really big fundraiser for the party in who knows how long despite the fact that many on the committee thought it couldn't be done.
We grew the list of active dems from 60 to 300 to now over 600. We've elected many of our group to leadership positions in the county, including Secretary, Treasurer, and 3rd Vice Chair. The First and Second Vice-Chairs also belong to our group, but we can't take credit for them as they were already veterans. And we also have several people from our group who serve on the State Executive Committee.
We still hold monthly meetings as the Progressive Dems, but our website is no longer up b/c I couldn't find time to keep it updated. I'm busy now with many other things. I serve on the SEC, am 3rd Vice-Chair for the 6th District, Secretary of the State Progressive PAC, Chair of our County Progressive Caucus, member of our County Executive Committee, Chair of our Special Events Committee, and am currently trying to organize 13 precincts for Saturday's meeting.
It has occurred to me that had we been put in contact with the Chair of Democratic Women prior to the Progressive convention that none of this would have been necessary. But sometimes, you can't get to the right person.
BUT
That doesn't mean you should give up. Eventually, they'll notice you. They'll let you in, even if they don't want to at first. They let you in because they can't do it without you. They need you and you should make good use of that.
We invite ~100 people to our meetings each month. We've attracted a very dedicated group of people. Our number of attendees is usally around 15. The funny thing about that is that it is usually a different group each time with our regulars floating in and out as their schedule allows.
The most gratifying thing for me is to see the people who walked into the library on that first faithful day in July 2004 taking leadership roles in our county. I am so proud of them.
Without the progressives that we elected to the executive committee, things would be a lot different right now in our county. It is these people who are responsible for demanding regular meetings, strategic planning, and training. It is these people who regularly out-perform the veterans in things like precinct organizing and outreach.
We cannot succeed without these people. And make no mistake, it's just a small, dedicated group of people trying to create some sanity in the world.