Progressive’s Mandate: Do and Do Some More

The Republican’s record setting fundraising for the first quarter of this year has already been mentioned here; however, I think that it needs to be underscored, bolded, and set in all caps: REPUBLICANS RAISED $32.3 MILLION IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF THIS YEAR. If, after reading this line, you’re not left with a great sense of urgency and a renewed sense of responsibility, then lemme respectfully suggest that you’re not paying attention and that you need to double your efforts to provide our party with the resources we need to bring the fight to every state and neighborhood in our country.

The AP article that reported on the GOP’s record setting first quarter also included this from Ken Mehlman, the most important item of the entire piece:

“One of my lessons from the 2004 election is that voter registration and grass-roots-building needs to be year-round permanent, which means that in places we’re likely to have competitive races in ’06, we’re now working with state parties to build the grass-roots and to register voters and to make sure we have the grass-roots we need to be successful next year,” Mehlman said in a phone interview from Atlanta, where he was raising money.

Please read that paragraph again.

In 2004 our opponent’s Get Out the Vote (GOTV) effort simply kicked our asses — yes, there were voter irregularities, etc., but we cannot count on that explanation alone to justify the results of 2004. And now it appears that the opposition will mount their own permanent round-the-clock GOTV grassroots infrastructure, just like we hope to do with our 50 State Campaign Strategy. In previous elections we had been able to count on one fact, our GOTV — we thought — was better than theirs; in 2004 we finally learned that this was no longer the case.

In a previous entry I posted what I consider to be the short-term tactical mandate for progressives, which boils down to: Do and do some more. Here’s what I wrote in that previous diary:

• If you’re not attending a MeetUp (Democratic Party, DFA, Kossaks, Progressive Majority or any other grassroots group that’s actively working to elect Democrats) on a regular basis, then start now!
• If you’re attending a MeetUp on regular basis, make sure you’re working to grow your group — letters to the editor, providing more organization and creating an infrastructure, etc.
• If you’re already doing both of the above, then considering taking on a greater leadership role within your local group or, better yet, within your local Democratic party.
• And, finally, here’s something we should all be doing on a periodic basis, monthly, quarterly, whatever you can afford: provide resources to the DNC — that’s right, let’s give our party the resources to bring the fight to the opposition.

I’d like to add one more item:

• If you own a blog, website, email account, etc., you should include a link to our party’s campaign contribution page: https://www.democrats.org/support/ and encourage your visitors, friends, colleagues, parents, co-workers, etc., to make a small contribution. Let’s all become DNC resource-raisers. Wouldn’t it be awesome if every progressive blog or website out there had a button to donate to the DNC? Won’t you consider making a small contribution yourself, it’s easy?

I know that there are draw backs to be constantly asking people to open their wallets; however, just like we did during the general election, where people were using innovative ways to encourage friends to donate to the campaign of their choice, I think that we can once again find that level of enthusiasm and innovation to encourage each other to provide our party with much needed resources round the clock. Finally, sorry if this seems a bit preachy, I know that we all do a our bit in this community and, so, I thank you. Now, if you’d like to read more disclaimers on how I know that this community rocks and, too, how I know that we all hate feeling like ATMs, please read my previous post — there you’ll also read some very brief thoughts on the importance of nurturing a sustainable progressive movementt.