Election 2009 Part 3

Before I dive back into the Decision '09 series, I want to extend a warm welcome to all of our new followers, contributors, and readers. Feel free to respond and post your ideas! And now, part three of our series on how the Democrats can win in 2009:

Mobilizing!

Perhaps one of the biggest advantages we could have that no local candidate has had in recent memory is the massive wave of new voters that Barack Obama has so kindly created for us. If we can keep the momentum for Barack alive and redirect the need for change in America to change in New Britain, we can not just win, we can win BIG.

The first step to keeping that wave going is to think like Obama. What gave Obama the ability to succeed on the grassroots level was his background as a community organizer. This experience was central to his entire campaign, as he essentially used the principles of community organizing to organize the entire nation. Compared to an undertaking like that, organizing New Britain should be a piece of cake. Of course compared to an undertaking like that, winning the Superbowl is a piece of cake. So let's stay realistic but positive.

The first rule of community organizing is: Don't organize people around your agenda, organize people around their agenda. Get out into the community, into people's homes, businesses, churches, community centers, meetings, festivals, soup kitchens. Find out what issues in this city matter most to them, not what we perceive to be the biggest problems. Hunt for allies, not potential converts.

And let's be thoughtful about how we approach people. Many people are naturally distrustful of politicians and their minions. We need to approach them on their terms. Reach out to college and high school students on Facebook and MySpace. Send Spanish speaking volunteers into Hispanic neighborhoods and Polish speaking volunteers into Polish neighborhoods.

Psychological research shows that the best way endear yourself to someone is to ask for their help, not to offer them yours. So get the people we engage involved by asking them to help us spread the word. Make each person who wants to be help responsible for recruiting five people from his or her community, and then make each of those five responsible for recruiting five more. That way, the task doesn't seem overwhelming for each new volunteer. When the people we've brought in are talking to others on their own, it's now a movement. Do you think Tim Stewart and the local Republicans are ready to take on a movement? I don't. Time to move in for the kill.

Once we have a buzz going and have figured out what people want done, we need to keep them in the loop. Snail mail and e-mail lists are of course standard. But what other ways can we reach people?

One outlet that has to become a factor this year is Spanish language media. The Spanish media is not a low-budget underground operation. Spanish newspapers, radio stations, and TV channels are owned by the same giant media conglomerates as their English speaking counterparts. Spanish speaking media is HUGE business, to the tune of millions of dollars a year. And it is very present in New Britain. In 2008, our Spanish radio stations, WRYM and WLAT, were instrumental in registering over 1,200 new Latino voters. Most of those votes went to Obama. New Britain's Latino community has a big heart but feels like it has never been invited to the table. Now is the critical time for us to we send a much-deserved invitation.

One of the newest and most viral methods of organizing is text messaging. Cell phones go everywhere a person goes, so text messages are usually checked as soon as they are received. A texting tree provides one of the fasted ways imaginable to spread information. Meetings and demonstrations can be organized within minutes. Rumors and campaign attacks can be debunked before they are even common knowledge, and attacks can be launched without an opponent's knowledge.

In April of 2006, when hundreds of thousands of Latinos turned out in US cities to protest the ugly House Immigration bill, cell phones and especially text messages were instrumental in organizing the protests. Demonstrations that would once have taken weeks to organize were put together in a matter of days. When controversy erupted over non-American flags being flown at the protests, text messages immediately went around from coast to coast calling for only American flags to be flown. The change happened so fast that a media talking point which could potentially have discredited the movement was killed on the spot. Thus is the power of cell phones.

Plus, be honest, how excited were you when you got a text from Barack?

Facebook and MySpace also provide powerful tools. They provide all the advantages of e-mail, but they take the now-hardy old system quite a few steps further. Groups create automatic messaging lists and discussion forums. Mass Facebook messages allow all users to see each others' responses, allowing for easy group discussion without worrying about forwarding and e-mail privacy. Users can display their support for a candidate on their pages for all to see. And most powerful of all, each user comes stocked with his or her own Friends list full of potential new supporters.

Of course, texting and Facebooking is all well and good for those who are plugged in, but for those who aren't into the technology thing or can't afford to be, nothing beats good old fashioned hand bills. Fliers have a way of getting around. They get left at bus stops, in cafes, and in grocery carts. A single flier has the potential to reach two or three people in the course of its life. Not to mention put its initial recipient in contact with a real live volunteer (recruiter).

This process takes quite a while to build, and even when it peaks we shouldn't expect to see anything like Barack had going. But if we start early, keep trying, and keep people engaged, I certainly think we can build a strong enough coalition to generate some real noise in the streets that will penetrate the walls of City Hall.

How the Democrats Can Win the Mayor's Office in 2009

Despite absolutely dominating the Common Council and maintaining a big presence in all other municipal offices, the Democrats still can't seem to overcome Republican mayor Tim Stewart. The road ahead is not easy. Stewart, despite a lot of shady business, has a broad coalition behind him, including the "Democrats for Stewart" who helped provide his sweeping victory in 2007. But the Democrats have many reasons to believe that this could be the year. The key to victory: Find a candidate that can build a stronger coalition than Stewart. Democrats out-number Republicans in New Britain by nearly 4:1. There is no reason why the right candidate can't rally the City behind him. Over the next few articles, I will be presenting a series of campaign strategies plucked straight from the Democratic victories on the national level in 2006 and 2008. Today I present what I consider to be the most important factor of all:

Find a candidate who stands for something.

Democrats everywhere should thank Bill Frist. In 2005, in the midst of a Senate showdown, Frist gave away the secret of Republican success when he said of the Democrats: "They stand for nothing."

You can't run a successful campaign if you don't represent something in the human heart other than a set of policy proposals. That is because, despite the 18th Century ideas about Reason and the human mind to which Democrats continue to cling, people are not rational actors. They don't make decisions about who to vote for based on logic. They make those decisions based on their values, and then they use reason to justify those decisions.

It is no accident that Republicans always talk of values. They know it is the key to victory. Yet Democrats shy away from talking about their values because they are afraid of sounding like their moralistic counterparts. But they don't have to. Think of Barack Obama and what he just achieved. Remember the early criticisms: "He has no specific ideas, it's all a bunch of talk about Hope!"

That was the whole idea. Obama did have specific proposals, some of them very good. They were available on the website for all interested parties to see. Beyond that, he didn't waste too much time discussing them, because he knew that no candidate can win an election based on policy. Instead, when he had the public's ear, he talked about his values. His liberal values. He stood for something.

Similarly, George Bush stood for something as well. Perhaps the reason we found him so revolting was how openly he talked about his Conservative values. He spoke little about the specifics of his policies, which we mostly atrocious even by Conservative standards. It didn't matter. His values won him the White House despite John Kerry's intellectually nuanced positions on every issue backed up by white papers and statistics.

The reason Jim Wyskiewicz fell so flat in 2007 was because as a candidate, he represented the same core values as John Kerry: He wasn't his opponent. And so he was eviscerated at the polls. Today, the City sees a mayor and his two stalwarts who stand for some kind of vision for the City up against a big clump of Democrats who stand for not caring much for the mayor and calling him out on all his abuses of power and shady deals with private contractors. The problem is, where would the Democratic vision be without Tim Stewart to find so appalling?

Jason Jakubowski may have failed. But a very young and inexperienced challenger came close to taking out a popular incumbent because he ran his campaign on a vision for the future of the city that spoke to our Democratic values: Project Hope. Sound like someone else we know? He came up short because he never set the public at ease about his liabilities. A more seasoned candidate with a slightly longer resume could take that success even further.

I'm calling on all Democrats to ask themselves the question: What are our values? What do we need our candidate to stand for? I'll even submit a few to the group for consideration: Prosperity should be shared among the people rather than concentrated in the hands of a privileged few. Healthcare is a right and not a privilege. People of all genders, races, ethnicities, orientations, and creeds should equally valued and welcomed in our society and given the same opportunities to succeed. Those who have benefited the most from society should give the most back. Just food for thought.

Then we need to communicate those values to the people, which will be our next topic: "Take Charge of the Message."