The next intraparty controversy is going to be over the Democrats’ decision to spend $50 million getting out the vote of those whose only vote ever was for Barack Obama in 2008. This is not what Rahm Emanuel would do. It is what David Plouffe is doing. Organizing for America, the grassroots, progressive wing of the Democratic National Committee, is getting all the love and attention they could want, and we should be ecstatic. But don’t expect any love or approval from the white blogosphere, who will interpret this as an abandonment of traditional progressive groups.
This will unite the James Carville wing of the party with Jane Hamsher wing.
“I have zero confidence that they’re heading in the right direction here,” says one longtime Democratic organizer who didn’t want to be quoted by name criticizing his party’s major midterm election initiative. Added another: “I think they’re going to come in for a very rude awakening. It’s going to be brutal.”
If that turns out to be the case, the doubters say, Democrats will wake up the morning of Nov. 3 wishing they had spent that $50 million on more traditional methods, like television ads, for reaching their base and persuading independents.
The real community organizers are being mobilized.
The party plans to embark on a massive new program this fall to register college students, including many who volunteered for Obama as high school students but were too young to vote.
It is working barbershops and beauty salons in African American communities, and organizing events around the World Cup to reach out to Latinos. Every Wednesday in California, party organizers and volunteers attend naturalization ceremonies.
People like to talk lazily about ‘transformation.’ This strategy is transformative because it does the opposite of taking the black and latino and youth vote for granted. If you want progressive policies, you have to start with a progressive coalition. The Democratic Party has to come to believe in the power of their progressive constituency. If they learn that they win elections by mobilizing the marginalized and powerless, they will evolve to reflect that new reality. They will no longer go chasing the voter in the middle to the exclusion of everyone else.
This confirms my belief in Obama’s core convictions, and it’s precisely the opposite of what online progressives would advise. That’s because this strategy echews traditional progressive organizations in favor of Obama’s true base.
