Author: Tony Soltero

 Hello fellow Boomanites!

 I thought I’d provide an update from my last installment of my Turning Frederick Blue series, our grassroots project to turn Frederick County, Maryland from its current purplish-red state back to its traditional blue.

 We got a nice writeup in the local daily newspaper (scroll down a bit from the ferrets story). This has gotten us some more local attention, and last night we delivered a presentation to the local Democratic club, the United Democrats of Frederick County. It was a busy night for the United Dems, as we also got a visit from state Attorney General candidate Doug Gansler.

 
After Mr. Gansler spoke, one of our Frederick Blue folks, Chris Charuhas, delivered our presentation. Many of the United Dems were already familiar with our project (and greeted us with strong, very-much-appreciated expressions of support), but this was our first chance to really describe our project, with specifics, to the local Democratic community.

Chris’ presentation described:

• The Democratic-leaning history of Frederick County
• The long-term Republican effort to develop a mass-propaganda infrastructure in the wake of Barry Goldwater’s pasting in 1964, and examples of how the GOP’s noise machine has been effective, especially over the last decade or so.
• The failure, until recently, of the national Democratic Party to counteract this (or even to come to the realization that it had a problem)
• Our plan to locally reverse this thirty-year trend that has drowned Frederick County (and many other similar locales nationwide) in red dye.

Frederick Blue is optimistic. As George Lakoff has demonstrated, many voters who mark their ballots Republican don’t so so out of issues, but out of branding, identity, and a perception of GOP strength (not necessarily strength itself; it’s all about perception). They vote Republican because their neighbors do, because the Republican Party has managed to convince much of the public that identifying with the elephant makes them cool, in the same way that tobacco companies were able to imbue smoking with an aura of “with-it-ness.”

So while there will always be a hardcore base of Republican voters in Frederick County, that core is smaller than it appears to be at first glance. A significant number of Frederick County voters continue to identify with the GOP strictly out of habit, and are relatively unaware just how extreme their party has become.

Frederick Blue wants to make it cool to be a Democrat again in Frederick County, by working with the Central Committee and other local Democratic organizations to help give voters tangible, positive reasons to vote for Democrats. Reasons that go beyond the “we’re just like them, only nicer” pitch that suffuses too many Democratic campaigns nationwide. When we do this, we’ll bring the moderate Republicans back home — and we don’t need that many of them.

I believe we opened quite a few eyes with our presentation. At some level, most committed Democrats know just how pervasive the Republican noise machine has become, but some of the Dems there still seemed alarmed when it was all laid out before them in black and white (well, cyan and yellow). We’re all that much closer to being on the same page regarding our mission.

Where do we go from here? Well, we will be delivering a variation of our briefing at the upcoming Western Maryland Democratic Summit at Rocky Gap, in conjunction with Adam Schultz, Andrew Duck’s campaign manager. We’re still doing our fundraising for our publicity campaign, and we will be testing layouts for the website and the blog over the next couple of weeks. Still on target for a May rollout!

  Best regards,

  Tony Soltero
  Frederick Blue  

Hello fellow Democratic patriots!

In my last installment of this series, I described the founding and work of Frederick Blue, a cross-section of Democratic activists in Frederick County, Maryland working to build a strong, grassroots-oriented local Democratic Party infrastructure that can then be replicated by any motivated group of Dems anywhere in the country (and I know you’re all out there!). Well, it’s time for another progress report.
We are busily approaching and meeting with donors for the project, and have identified a number of high-level and grassroots-level potential financial supporters. We’re arranging face-to-face meetings as well as mail solicitations. We don’t need a prohibitive amount of money to get this effort off the ground, so we’re simply concentrating on presenting a convincing case. We’ve already won over several members of our local Central Committee.

We will also be undertaking a local media campaign to publicize our new website and blog (the Frederick Blueprint) — one of the members of our team works in the field. We’ve got eight writers lined up for the blog, with a few more on our list of “possibles”, and we’re planning on establishing a presence in local newspapers, TV, and talk radio. We’ve developed some print ads that are all but guaranteed to draw some attention — suffice it to say that the ads project strength, and aren’t lacking for attitude. Stay tuned — we are not your father’s Democratic Party. (But we might be your grandfather’s!) The publicity campaign will start going full swing in a couple of weeks.

The website itself has gone beyond the design phase and now we’re working on content. This is going to be the spiffiest political-party site in the state. We’re on the move!

Frederick Blue will be presenting an update of its effort to the United Democrats of Frederick County on April 3rd. If you’re in the area, don’t hesitate to come on down to see what we’re all about.

Think nationally, act locally!

Till the next time,

   Tony Soltero

Hello fellow Dems!

 A couple of weeks ago I wrote a diary about Frederick Blue, a grassroots effort to build a new Democratic infrastructure for Frederick County, Maryland. Well, I thought I’d provide a little more background and a progress report.

We’ve taken many paths to arrive at our organization. I was involved with the Howard Dean campaign around these parts (which was my first-ever direct involvement in any political effort); eventually I worked with Frederick for Kerry, where our little network got bigger. We’ve got a couple of people who’ve been involved in local Frederick politics for a long time, and a few newcomers to the scene. We all share the same goal — bringing our nation back to sanity by acting locally. George W. Bush has made activists of us all.
Some of us got involved in last year’s Frederick City election, supporting the mayoral and aldermanic campiagns. The results were a mixed bag; though the Dems failed to hold onto the mayorship (it’s a complicated story; suffice it to say that the Dem incumbent got defeated in the primary by a former mayor, which scrambled the equation), we were able to gain a 3-2 majority on the Board of Aldermen.

Reading Crashing the Gate, I was struck by the parallels between the netroots’ leaders’ struggle to get through to a  sclerotic national Democratic Party and our own efforts to get heard by the local Democratic powers-that-be. That said, most of  the local Democratic “elders” are supportive of our project; they’re going to give us a chance to show them.

And show them we will. We have fundraising going now full-throttle, the fruits of which will be primarily invested in local publicity. We’ve got a name for our online publication, the Frederick Blueprint, and we’ve recruited seven writers, with more to come. We are developing a strong, muscular website that will be the talk of the Frederick netizen community. We’ve even got a logo!

We’re still on target for a May rollout. I’ll be back again in a couple of weeks with an update.

Good night and good luck…

Hello, fellow Democrats! I’m part of a group called Frederick Blue. We’re
a group of (currently) nine people in Frederick County, Maryland building a
communications infrastructure for the local Democratic Party. It’s the first
phase of our plan to turn our “red” county “blue” in 5-10 years.

Frederick County is currently solidly, but not overwhelmingly,
Republican. It’s a red enclave in a blue state, and looks like Maryland and
the nation in microcosm. It’s got a good-sized city in the middle, suburbs
scattered throughout, and a large part of it is still rural. Reflecting its
German heritage (Bavarian farmers settled this area in the mid-1700s),
Frederick County is generally conservative, but not right-wing.

However, right-wing candidates here have begun using the Southern GOP
playbook (raise lots of Bible Belt and Big Business money, then foist
trumped-up social issues on voters) to oust mainstream Republicans in
primaries. Then they go after Dems in general elections.

Disgusted by what Republicans are doing nationally, alarmed by what GOP
candidates are doing locally, and frustrated with our own party’s limp
response, we nine members of Frederick Blue got together to turn things
around, starting at the local level. The group includes a Web server
administrator, an entrepreneur, a pastry chef, a software engineer, and a
couple of ex-military folks.

First, we drafted a plan to create a new Web site for the county Party,
and new systems to help local Dems communicate and organize: listservs,
online bulletin boards, a member database, the works. The plan also calls
for launching a political news/opinion online newspaper centered on the
County.

This communications infrastructure will be the foundation upon which
we’ll build a powerful Democratic organization in the County. Within five
years, we want to see a couple of thousand dues-paying members, organized
down to the block level, spreading the good word about Democratic
principles, and working to get our candidates elected.

Once everything is operational (we’re aiming for a mid-spring rollout),
we’ll make the tools, techniques, and templates that we develop available
free to any Democrat who wants them. We’d love to see other local Democratic
groups use them!

Frederick Blue is not some sort of rebel-alternative Democratic offshoot.
We welcome the engagement of “establishment”
Democrats, and welcome any support we can get from the state and national
parties. In the long run, we expect to integrate this with the DNC’s
contest-every-seat strategy, but we’re not waiting for the DNC–there are
some big elections in Maryland this year.

I will be posting here every week or two with updates on our progress.
Let’s all break out the blue paint!

Here’s a photo from our first meeting at a member’s house. The dog’s name is Gus: