You gotta give 'em hope
Submitted by NCFarmTeam on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 6:12pm
I've found in recent years that life moves too fast for me to be angry. I see all of this rancor on Blue NC and in this Chair race coming from people who marginalize themselves with their enmity, and I beg you to look past it and look to the future. I'm doing the same.
Now is the time for people who are willing to work hard and lead. I appreciate everyone who has helped the Farm Team over the past two years. We've done a lot of good, and we've failed here and there, but it's been a lot of fun. I'm wondering, however, what's next? I believe I'm going to pursue opportunities to work even harder to build the bench for the next generation of Democrats. I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts.
Thanks again for all of your hard work. The night is always darkest before the dawn. I wish everyone here a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Holiday season, and the warmth of those who love us.
Cheers,
Sam Spencer
Executive Director and Founder
Grassroots Farm Team
I can't speak to the "hope" question
When it comes to "what's next?" I can't see any way around a hard focus on cash. At least for the foreseeable future, finding new ways of raising (and spending) money is the name of the electoral game. Democratic candidates, especially young progressives, have to be able to raise money and spend it more effectively than their adversaries.
James
PS At the risk of undermining Christmas cheer, I think you're underestimating the impact of anger. It seems to me that winning elections in today's environment requires coming out on top in terms of (1) hope or (2) fear/anger. From everything I've seen, fear and anger carry the day 9 out of 10 times.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Well, to quote the Governor
Well, to quote the Governor of California, "Anger is more useful than despair." But one doesn't have to be angry to channel anger ...
I agree on the fundraising. I hope this will be the year that we see some great effort and advocacy from young people ... the CDNC is a great example of a successful organization raising money to empower young Democrats and win elections. They're filling a vacuum in the wake of the disintegration of other organizations, and their president is doing great work. They've earned my time, effort, and support.
For those unfamiliar with CDNC
it doesn't mean Chinese Domain Name Consortium.
(Try this instead.)
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
I agree, Sam
I know a lot of folks reading this have labored and sacrificed for years for the Democratic Party, and in many cases, those efforts have not borne the fruit that was hoped for. But feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and broad distrust never got a damned thing accomplished.
The work of communication, organizing, issue advocacy and policy evaluation still needs to be done, now more than ever.
Anger is a usefull emotion.
Anger got the Tea Party candidates elected in 2010. And anger got Howard Dean and Jerry Meek elected to their chair positions in 2005. And anger got Dems elected in 2006, and got Dems elected in 2008. It wasn't all "hope and change" - believe me!
Anger can help you focus on the things that are important, especially when there are way too many "touchy-feely" people out there using way too many words to push out the same sort of candidates for NCDP Chair that we've had in the past. Anger got the Tea Party candidates elected.
It also helps to remember your history so you won't be doomed to repeat it.
For example, anyone who is the choice of the Governor or any other sitting officeholder is the kiss of death for me. Why? Because all that person stands for is the status-quo. Protecting the money-donors, the money-launderers, and the money-spenders. Dean's 50 state-strategy and Meek's 100 county-strategy upset them. And they came back on both the national and state fronts in 2009 - and look what we have to show for it. Governor Perdue's endorsement of anyone makes me angry.
And when I talk to the candidates and they tell me their carefully rehearsed position points, I get angry because they have no "fight" in them. They aren't telling me what I want to hear. Do they really expect me to volunteer all that time just so they can sell out at the last minute? Sorry - I gave up things you can't even imagine in the 2009 and 2010 election cycles and the people who asked me to give it up for them weren't worth a damn.
I want to be hopeful, but if I see the same idiots paraded in front of me with the same elected officials telling me how important it is to elect the people they want to be running the party - and these are the same people who sat by and saw Bev's hand-picked Chair and Heath Shuler's hand-picked ED run the Party into the ground in two years and lose damn near everything we gained from 2005 to mid 2008 - then I will not be hopeful. I am angry that these morons lost the ground we fought for. In a military situation, these commanders would be fragged for giving up so much territory and sacrificing so many resources and troops. In a sports team, such a coach would be sacked. But you ask us to be happy and hopeful?
While I worked hard on the 2009 election, my mother was in the hospital. My county chair was taking a joy-ride to China with Bev Perdue (not sure what the hell for), and the NCDP was paying to upgrade Bev from Coach to Business Class so she could sit with her millionaire husband - whose ticket was 100% paid for by the Party. I saw my mother a few days before the November 2009 elections and she was lucid and able to talk with me. I thought she was getting better. After the election, she wasn't able to talk and really recognize me. Her health declined and she died 10 days after the election. I said goodbye to her but I never knew she if she heard or could understand me. I will never get those days back with her that I spent working on the election.
That is an extreme example of the things that people give up for candidates, campaigns and for the Party. So when any of those players fucks up again and again, please don't tell me not to get angry. It won't do any good and it makes me even more angry.
After my mom died in November 2009, I worked on the Wake GOTV plan for 2010 only to see our county party chair decide that he had to run for county commissioner - leaving the county party hanging for much of the year with no effective leader and no fundraising effort to pay for our GOTV plan. All the board members saw this each and every month - no chair and no funds - but only one of them had the guts to stand up and say the emperor had no clothes - and they savaged her for doing so. Why - because she was telling them that they were screwing up and that we were gonna get screwed in November if we didn't wake up and take the reigns. But they waited too long and we all lost bigtime.
I won't do that again - the Party and candidates have to be worthy of my best efforts or you won't get me to lift a finger for you. I will not work my ass off and sacrifice anything anymore just to feed the greed and personal ambitions of any candidate or consultant or paid campaign like OFA ever again.
I'll be the best damned precinct chair you have ever seen, and the same goes for being an SEC member. But remember - I work for the people who elected me - not for Governor Perdue or President Obama, not for Tim Kaine or David Young or the next NCDP Chair. It would be a wise thing for other elected officials up the totem pole in the party and in elected public office to remember that they work for the people who elected them. And when you make them mad - some will want to get even by tossing you out on your asses!
Chris Telesca
Wake County Verified Voting
http://noirvnc.blogspot.com
http://statewideirvnc.blogspot.com
As we've seen in the past
As we've seen in the past, productive people in political movements channel the anger of others for their own uses. But are they angry? Angry people often don't evaluate or understand their anger, and end up being used or, as I said earlier, marginalize themselves with their emnity. They see everything in the context of their anger and get laughed off. Some are productive and do great things. Others remind me of a Billy Joel song.
As for history, more often than not anger is exploited by American elites from Davis to Hearst to McCarthy to Beck, and it engenders everything from nativism to intolerence to extremism. Your logic is seductive, but it reminds me too much of Darth Vader. No thanks.
Darth Vader?
Someone has been watching too many "Star Wars" marathons on Spike TV! Care to explain why my logic reminds you of Darth Vader?
I have so far heard many people who have been active in politics talk about how "demoralized" Democrats are. Well of course they are demoralized - all they are doing is attending dinners, MeetUps and other functions where they listen to so-called experts tell them how things will change here in NC now that the Republicans have won a majority in the Legislature and Art Pope bought and paid for the election.
But where is anyone who is analyzing the REASONS WHY we lost so big and what to do about it?
I remember being contacted by young folks working to elect David Young as NCDP Chair and being told that he'd be a great NCDP Chair because he had been a candidate numerous times and therefore knew how to win elections. The funny thing is that he had just lost a statewide primary election and had been supported in his primary bid by some pretty powerful backers and consultants. Still - he lost that election so I failed to understand how that particular rationale for voting for David made any sense at all.
Similar logic is being applied to candidates for NCDP Chair this year. I am being told to support particular candidates because they listen, have a good skill set, know how sausage is made, etc. None of it makes any sense to me.
Here is what I do know. I have seen how activist Dems in Wake County have been treated by the candidates, campaigns, consultants, the NCDP, OFA, the coordinated campaigns, etc. - and I don't like any of it. We had ObFA stop "Constructing Victory" in June 2008, after the DNC and the NCDP spent much time setting it up. I attended many meetings and wasted countless hours listing to explanations of how CV worked and why I should sign up and take part in it. It made sense to me to use it because it was "Votebuilder Lite" - allowing me to help other precinct volunteers identify 20 voters to contact, and cut turf/create walk lists to use in doing so. So why did ObFA kill it?
Then of course there is the well-known "poaching" of Wake Dems volunteers by ObFA, as well as specific messages from ObFA staffers to Wake Dems activists (including the former county chair) that working for the Party was a waste of time - come volunteer for ObFA! After that former county Chair objected to this poaching and to the message, we were told that we would get the list of ObFA volunteers in Wake County so we could use it to help build our party. Of course that never happened. One current NCDP candidate acknowledged those concerns shortly after the 2008 election. We were later told that the reason why we didn't get the list was because not everyone who was an ObFA volunteer was a Democrat or would support the Democratic Party. In Plouffe's book he claims that would be about 20%. But that means that they ignored the 80% who might be Democrats or would support the Party.
Even so, the application of ObFA campaign tactics to other elections across the country from the GA Senate Runoff in December 2008 through the Coakley-Brown Mass Senate race in early 2010 showed that what worked for Barack Obama wouldn't work for everyone else. Yet someone OrgFA staffers (un-elected mind you) were brought on board the coordindated campaigns and trained workers in other campaigns, and had a seat at the table. What good did it do?
So after being told how great a job we have been doing and how many voter contacts we have made, who can blame many Democrats for being demoralized. They got people who they want to trust telling them to do stuff that played a big part in losing big-time, and now these same people are telling them to vote for so and so for the NCDP Chair, offering up reasons that defy logic.
As to your bringing up American elites exploiting anger, and then claiming that my logic is seductive but reminds you of Darth Vader - how about explaining what you mean by that?
What I see instead with the NCDP Chair races is a bunch of colorful words being used to claim that we should vote for certain candidates - but the words are colorful but they really don't mean anything. Does listening mean that you will really be heard and understood - and that your concerns will be acted upon? I wanna hear specifics, and empty promises don't get me demoralized - they get me angry and motivated to think carefully and take action.
Perhaps the powers that be fear a thinking angry mob who won't be conned by the same old song-and dance anymore?
Chris Telesca
Wake County Verified Voting
http://noirvnc.blogspot.com
http://statewideirvnc.blogspot.com
It's a specific reference to anger
In a particularly powerful scene, Darth Vader tries to get Luke Skywalker to surrender to his anger, which would carry him to the dark side. It's a temptation we face every day.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Loud and Clear
YES! EXACTLY!!! We on the left, in or outside the Party, have every right to be angry, and that anger should be channeled into productive reforms. I do my best work when I'm angry.
It's time for a bottom up take over of the Democratic Party, from the precinct level on up to the National Committee. The Tea Party may be an AstroTurf organization, but they made a good point of how to take over the existing apparatus and use it to our advantage. There are many lessons to be learned there and if those running the show in our camp didn't learn those lessons on the last run through - toss'em! They're too far gone for rehabilitation.
Anger, properly channeled, can be extremely productive. There are a great many of us out here who are really, really pissed off over the last few years. One or two more election cycles like this and no one will be able to hold back the pitchfork wielding masses.
Then again, that might not be a bad thing.
http://thurmanhubbard.com
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority." ~ Elwyn Brooks White