For a Democratic volunteer still bearing fresh wounds from the elections of 2000, 2002 and 2004 there can hardly be a more dispiriting signal of what’s just so wrong about politics in this country than this tripe from Adam Nagourney in today’s New York Times.
In his first three paragraphs Mr. Nagourney spins a trifecta of terrorist arrests, “tough” Republicans, “timid” Dems and then, as a coup de grace, turns the Lieberman/Lamont primary on its head as if his lede had literally been written at Karl Rove’s desk.
Now, it might seem that the strategic response to this familiar situation would be to counter each of these points and attack: attack Nagourney, attack the “tough” Republican frame, attack the “weak” Democrat frame, attack Karl Rove, attack the New York Times.
We’ve done that. That doesn’t win elections.
I want to be very clear.
In 2006 the GOP is the incumbent party. The way you defeat incumbents is by attacking them where it counts. It’s that simple. We need to get local.
That’s the central lesson of the Lamont campaign. Connecticut Democratic primary voters, the only people who mattered in the Lamont/Lieberman race, voted to get rid of Joe Lieberman. Connecticut voters kicked the incumbent out. Voting worked.
The GOP has a majority in Congress. This one fact has a profound affect on our nation and our world. We don’t defeat the GOP by attacking Adam Nagourney and the New York Times. We don’t defeat them by countering the “weak” Dems frame. We don’t defeat them by weakening the “tough” GOP frame either. We certainly won’t defeat a single GOP incumbent by continuing to gripe about how our “votes don’t count” without identifying and supporting candidates who are fighting to make sure that they do.
The way to dismantle the GOP majority is by coming together locally and attacking their incumbents in every district and every state.
We need to get the message that matters…anti-incumbent…to the voters that matter…the local ones. We need to make sure they vote and that their vote counts. That’s it. It’s that simple. We need to get local. That is our job.
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Now, you may have read my recent post on dailykos focused on local blogs called a challenge to the netroots. If you haven’t read it, I’d ask you to take a look and invite you to join that effort. Bascially, I’m asking everyone in the netroots to consider creating or contributing to or at least READING a local blog that’s committed to kicking Republicans out of office.
Don’t like the partisan-style battle of Democrats v. GOP? Then use the resource we created right here on BMT for finding progressive candidates and elected officials that fit your views.
Local blogs do exactly what we need to be doing right now. They attack GOP incumbents in their districts and reach the only voters that matter in any race: the ones who vote.
Don’t believe me that we can learn a ton from local blogs? Let me provide some quick examples:
That’s just a short survey of what’s out there. This is the kind of writing the netroots needs to do every single day. Local blogs are the fulcrum point. They reach local voters and the attack incumbents where it hurts most: at home. They bring together the people who matter…local voters…where it matters…in the districts.
There is still time for the netroots to make locally-focused blogging a factor this election year. It’s not too late.
Every vulnerable GOP incumbent deserves multiple opposition blogs. Every vulnerable GOP incumbent should have netroots bloggers tracking their campaign on the national blogs like BooManTribune as well.
How can we meet that challenge?
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It’s August. It’s an election year. I did the BMT Electoral politics project because I am convinced that the netroots needs to get off its high falutin’ national, 35,000 ft. level view of this nation for the next three months and get local. We need to dig in. The time for cynical generalizations is past, we’ve had every day since Nov. 2004 to do that. Now’s the time to work.
To those who’ve been outspoken about election reform, I have one clear message. Get involved. There are any number of proactive, positive things we can do to counter voter suppression and intimidation on the local level. This is a chance to make a difference, to work together and to win.
If you want my unvarnished opinion, I’ve got way more respect for those who are active and participate on voting issues BEFORE election day than for those who show up afterwards making claims that the election was stolen.
If you believe in election reform, you should be leading the way RIGHT NOW to identify candidates and races where we can make a difference…making sure every vote counts…getting local…being vigilant. If you got links to people doing just that, please share them below. Let us know.
In my view, with all the talk about this issue the last two years, there should be something more than ad hoc blogging at this point. We should have point people and lawyers in every state. We should have a database of the County Election Commisioners and Secretaries of State. We should have a map of what the voting procedures are and where. We should focus on locales where the weakest oversight overlaps with tightest races. We should have brochures and voter education campaigns to counter voter suppression and intimidation.
There’s only one way to dismantle this GOP majority in Congress…we need to attack GOP incumbents in their districts and states. We need to get local and work together.
It is that simple. And, when you stop to think about it, facing this GOP Congress, what we do now matters…alot.