Cross-posted to Washblog. It’s very Washington-centric, and may refer to specifics that are unfamiliar to a national audience, but the lessons are portable – and important, I think.
The election of Washington’s new State Party Chair was an opportunity to define ourselves. Not just by who we elected, although that is vital, but by how we elected them. I think, as activists, we did ourselves a disservice in the way this campaign took shape. Rumors, complaints, angst, assumptions, meanness, bomb-throwing…we didn’t comport ourselves with dignity.
I’ve felt for some time that the candidates themselves were behaving as they should – with mutual respect, confidence in their rightness for the job, and passion for the Party. But on the ground, where it counts, we got personal. We called each other names, assigned spurious goals and nefarious plans to others who didn’t support our candidate, and attacked the candidates themselves as tools of this or that group. Meanwhile, the candidates – all of them – traveled the state, met people, and talked about how the Party needs to move forward.
Who are we? Is this us? Is there not more to us than this?
I think there are several reasons for the problems we’ve faced, and they’ve been brewing since 2003. I’ve seen a “we need something new” camp coalesce, totally willing to accept anything as long as it isn’t what Paul Berendt wanted. I’ve seen folks new to politics pissed off and frustrated that they haven’t gotten what they wanted, not yet seeing the 20-year arc for most political change. I’ve seen old-guard politicos with decades of political knowledge, sick of these damn new people trying to change everything all at once. New folks who learned fast overreaching.
And everyone seeing everyone else as the problem. If only “they” would get with the plan, we’d start winning races left and right! If only “they” would start fighting. If only “they” would fight less. If only “they” would pick better fights. If only “they” would just die and let us take over already.
At the meeting of the Central Committee in Kent, I saw the culmination of this. Rumors spread, tempers flared, people set against each other. We finally elected a new chair, but didn’t manage to do so without a whiff of controversy. Both candidates, after the election, gave statements calling for reconciliation and Pelz reminded the Committee members to remember that blogs have bad attributes as well as good – something us bloggers would do well to remember, too.
They shouldn’t have had to give those statements. And it wasn’t their fault; it was ours.
Intra-party activism is a powerful force – we can bring about our own change, and it can sometimes be painful. But whether acting as bloggers, activists, or both, we must always act responsibly. Facts matter. Rumors must be treated as rumors, not as salacious tools, weapons to be wielded against the “other”. Since what we write is taken seriously (I hope we’ve learned this lesson), our responsibility to do research before we write something is ever greater. We have the ability to, with a push of a button, poison a debate or a race.
This is something new – whisper campaigns have always been around and wielded by some; but they take time – people chat, make phone calls, and stir things up. But that can take days to work. A blog post with even one harmful inaccuracy can be read by thousands and e-mailed to thousands more. The damage can be done in minutes, and is so much more difficult to undo, as people take what is written even more seriously than what is whispered by friends.
The rhetoric here since the election has been a relief. We all seem ready to reconcile and put our differences aside so we can start with our lit drops and phone banks, organizing and leading in our districts. Hope seems to again be the theme.
But we’ve got a Senate primary to face, and while it is unlikely to be competitive, it will certainly be heated. I hope we can remember the lessons of the race for Party Chair, that while we may disagree with the candidates or their supporters, we’re all lurching towards the same goal in the end, we all want Democratic control of the Senate, and we all want to get our country back on the right path. A different view of how to get there is not a sinister plan for a different result. Facts must be our stock in trade, reality our guide, differing opinions our divine right and great strength, and the common goals of freedom and democracy the beacon lighting our way.
Also, beer on Tuesdays. Let’s don those beer-goggles of freedom together!
