Where's the Plan?

In the July 17, 2006, issue of The Nation, now available on-line (www.thenation.com/doc/20060717/berman), Ari Berman writes about what did NOT happen on June 6 -- Francine Busby did not turn out the vote to win the special election in San Diego for the 50th Congressional District (Duke Cunningham's old district). Berman asks, "where's the Democrats' plan for voter mobilization?"

Berman notes that elections are won on the 3 M's -- message, money and mobilization. In Busby's special election, when they knew that turnout would be low, they focused on those who voted in 2004 who did not vote in 2002 -- the "dropoff voters." Busby's message was arguably OK, though there was some concern about a late Busby gaffe when she told voters that "they didn't need papers to be able to vote." What she meant was that you could vote even if you didn't have your state-issued voter ID card, but what Republicans heard -- and what became the last-minute ads -- was "Busby wants illegal aliens to vote." Busby's campaign worked hard, and they raised a lot of money for a special election, but the Republicans spent twice as much money and made 6 times as many phone calls. Republican Brian Bilbray won by 4 percent. Busby got only half as many votes as John Kerry had received in 2004 -- which is actually not a bad turnout for a special election, but nowhere near good enough when the Republicans are running flat out. Berman's conclusion is basically the same as the conclusion from 2004 -- despite all of the current reasons why the electoral climate should be trending to the Democrats, Republicans are still better at the money and mobilization aspects of campaigning.

We saw that in 2004 in Ohio -- Democrats worked extremely hard in Ohio, but Republicans mobilized their people better. Democrats spent money in Ohio, but Republicans spent more.

Berman's article asks the question, "Where's the Plan, Democrats?" He describes campaign officials and party workers waiting around for Howard Dean to come out with the Master Plan, which, when handed down on stone tablets, will turn things around.

Berman's article reflects a fundamental problem with Democrats and pundits. Elections aren't won by pundits. Elections aren't won by local party officials waiting for some Master Plan to be handed down from on high. Elections are won by local party officials looking around and saying, "Who can we bring to the table? Who will knock on doors for us? Who will help get people to knock on doors?" Elections aren't won by having a lot of money in the bank on June 30; they are won by having enough money in the bank on August 31 to be able to run advertisements when people are paying attention.

So what do we do in 2006?

The glib answer is, "well, just work harder and collect and spend more money."

Let me re-phrase the question. What do we in Virginia do in 2006 to elect Jim Webb and Democratic Congressional candidates?

We knock on more doors than we have ever knocked on. We make more phone calls than we have ever made. We make a campaign contribution that is bigger than what we made last year. We get 2 friends to come knock on doors with us.

I have talked with a lot of local Democratic party leaders in Virginia in the last few weeks. Many of them are waiting for the Master Plan. I have talked with some folks connected with Jim Webb's campaign about coming out with at least some sense of a Master Plan, if only because too many local folks are waiting for one. So far none has been communicated. In fairness to Webb, he has only been a statewide candidate for three weeks, and there is a lot of deciding to do. What I have gotten from the higher-ups is that there will not likely be any field offices, at least not any time soon, and that any canvassing efforts that are organized will not likely conflict with any activities that may come later. So here are things that can be done even without a Master Plan handed down from on high.

1. If you are a Democrat in a Congressional district with a Democratic Congressional candidate whose campaign is organized for grassroots voter contact, let's figure that that campaign will take the lead in doing the door-to-door canvassing. If you're in the Fifth, I know that Al Weed's campaign is doing canvassing even now. Let's face it -- if a voter is going to vote for Al Weed, she's going to vote for Jim Webb too. The same should be true in the other districts, though I understand that there is no Democratic candidate in the Fourth or the Sixth. But that Congressional canvassing operation should be the primary focus of grassroots action in that area.

2. If you are a Democrat in a Congressional District that does NOT have a Democratic Congressional candidate, or if you have one who doesn't seem to be organizing for a massive grassroots voter contact operation, your local jurisdiction committee needs to see itself as an extension of the Webb campaign. The "boots on the ground", to use the military metaphor. You can get campaign materials from the Webb campaign and organize yourselves to get out there. It is important, though, that the local committee not think that it can get going on Labor Day. The organization effort needs to start now.

3. Under FEC regulations, every local committee is allowed to spend up to $5,000 for campaign materials -- yardsigns, bumperstickers, etc. -- provided that they distribute those using volunteers and not paid party staff. Each local committee should do that. Buy 1,000 yardsigns -- bought in bulk, they cost about $1.50 a piece, and most people will chip in $5 if asked. Buy 1,000 bumperstickers for 35 cents a piece and ask for $1 from people. When we did this in 2002 and 2004, the Charlottesville Democratic Committee actually turned a profit on the sale of bumperstickers and yardsigns. This can also start now. A yard sign that is up for 4 months will be seen by more people than a yard sign that goes up in October.

4. Go to organizations like the Sierra Club or the NAACP or Ducks Unlimited -- any group that has an interest in the issues that are involved in these races. Ask if you can send a mailing to their mailing list for contributions and volunteers. Speak at their meeting in August or September (October is too late). If the organization wants to maintain "neutrality," ask that they schedule a meeting at which a representative of the Democrats and a representative of the Republicans can come and speak. If you choose the group carefully, you know that the members will agree with you -- what you want to do is to persuade them that it is important that they get involved NOW, as individuals. You aren't looking for corporate action -- you're looking for action from the individuals. I have found that members of groups like these often don't think they know how to get involved with a campaign -- as though you have to be already in the inner circle to volunteer. So if you make it easy for them to express an interest, they will.

Note that these actions don't require that the Webb campaign do ANYTHING for you, except to provide some campaign materials when you ask.

Back to the 3 M's -- Jim and the Democratic Congressional candidates will have the better Message. We won't have as much Money as George Allen will, but with luck and a lot of hard work, we'll have enough. We need to make up for that deficiency with Mobilization. And we can do that locally, without waiting for the Master Plan.

Lloyd Snook

It's Not That They're Stupid -- They're Wrong

George Lakoff makes a very important point about how we Democrats treat the war in Iraq, and the response to Katrina, and other instances of "incompetence." His point is that we make a mistake -- and lose a vital opportunity -- if we portray these as evidence of George Bush's incompetence. We need to portray them as the inevitable consequences of the conservative, or neo-conservative, philosophy.

This is true for two reasons.

First, portraying Bush et al. as "incompetent" sort of fits with the "Aw shucks" mentality that voters kind of like. We have seen that in Virginia, where the road is littered with the bodies of Virginia Democrats who thought that George Allen is just too dumb to be Delegate/Congressman/Governor/Senator. Southerners in general have been accustomed to being looked down on as "stupid" by Yankees and elitist "Metropolitan Opera"-listening liberals and the liberal media; if those folks say that one of our good old boys is "stupid," that's not news, and it certainly isn't reason to disown him. So when the "frame" of the debate is "those liberal folks don't understand us" -- as it is in many cases -- it doesn't help Democrats to keep calling him "incompetent". It reinforces the notion that we are elitist.

Second, suppose the answer is that we get a "competent" conservative? How about a Bill Frist in 2008, whom everyone agrees is a very smart guy? Is the "incompetent" label going to stick to him in the same way? Is that how we really want the debate to go?

No, the real answer to this debate is that we have to be clear about the choice between the Republicans and the Democrats.

When Republicans cut taxes and ignore things like roads and levees because they want a smaller government, that's going too far. A Democrat who can say, "Folks, I'm for a smaller government too, but our government has to be big enough to build levees that will hold and big enough to be able to respond well to a disaster like Katrina" will find resonance.

When Republicans send us to war based on the idea that the United States can use its military to reshape the geo-political realities of the Middle East -- or even, if you accept the more benign view, to spread democracy -- that is not an issue of competence. That is a neo-conservative philosophy that is fundamentally wrong.

Lakoff and his coauthors, Marc Ettlinger and Sam Ferguson, write in their article "Bush Is Not Incompetent"(find it at www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/lakoff/incompetence):

"The manipulation and disregard of intelligence to sell the war was not incompetence; it was the product of a conservative agenda."

Lakoff, you may remember, is the University of California linguistics professor who has been trying to explain to Democrats the principles of cognitive psychology -- why the Republicans have been winning even though they are so WRONG on so many issues.

So what does this have to do with Jim Webb and Virginia politics?

First, it means that sneering about incompetence may be counterproductive. It fires up the base, but may not be terribly persuasive to the folks whom we need to attract back to the Democratic Party. Remember, back in 1980, when Democrats were just gleefully that the Republicans had nominated an actor whose costar had been a chimpanzee (Bedtime for Bonzo)? We sneered about intelligence -- after all, our guy was a nuclear engineer! And we watched as Ronald Reagan carried 49 states.

To put it in Lakoff's terms, unless a different "frame" can be constructed for this picture, incompetence is not a sin. As Lakoff explains in his book Moral Politics, it is very difficult to get people to change their frames. A transforming event like the Great Depression could do it. Or 9/11. Or you could spend huge amounts in advertising dollars. None of those is likely in the next 4 1/2 months.

So if we're stuck playing in this frame, let's understand it.

Lakoff pointed out that the Republicans have successfully painted themselves as the strict father -- the kind of father who could protect you from bad people when you were a kid. Remember how Bush said in his campaign in 2004 that "you may not agree with me, but you'll always know what I believe and that I'll stand for what I believe." President John Wayne. President Harrison Ford. Remember in the movie Air Force One, when President Harrison Ford tells the hijacker, "Get off my plane," and punches him out the door?

Jim Webb has a chance to do well in that frame. First, he has a track record. Even John McCain has said, "His patriotism can't be questioned." Medals for heroism earned while George Allen was sunning himself in Southern California. Second, he can make the point that he knows better than the chicken hawks what fighting an insurgency is like. Third, his line about wearing his son's combat boots because there are more veterans than cowboys in Virginia is a great one for the macho sort of atmosphere that this frame demands.

That's why the flap this week about the Flag-Burning Amendment was so crucial.

Webb's campaign manager is Steve Jarding, co-author of Foxes in the Henhouse, an explanation of how the Republicans have become so strong in the rural areas of the South. He was incredulous that John Kerry allowed himself to be Swift-boated in 2004. He wanted Kerry to come back with outrage -- "George W. Bush is hiding behind other people to make these charges, because he doesn't have the guts to stand up and fight for himself. And back in the 1970's, it was the same thing -- he didn't have the guts to fight the war himself. He let other people -- people like me and my friends and the kid whose guts were blown all over me do his fighting for him. Etc. " So when Dick Wadhams (Allen's campaign manager) talked about the fact that Webb is opposed to the Flag-Burning Amendment, and did so without directly questioning Webb's patriotism (note that in this "frame" he doesn't have to to be effective), Jim Webb's campaign staff came back with an almost over-the-top diatribe about how Webb was fighting while George Felix Allen Jr. was sunning himself in Palos Verdes Estates. The ferocity of the counter-attack stunned even some of Jim Webb's supporters. The Washington Post went "tsk, tsk," to both of them, saying, in essence, "Oh, come on, Jim, he didn't challenge your patriotism." Which just proves that the editorial writers of the Post don't understand the subtext here. (And while we're at it, how about Wadhams' complaint that Jarding got Allen's name wrong? That he isn't George Felix Allen, Jr., but just George Felix Allen? How is that distinction going to work for Allen?)

The subtext of the past week is simple -- Jim Webb is a fighter. And if you don't think he is, he'll knock your block off.

Democrats have to be smart enough to let him be that way. If we insist that our Senatorial candidate spend his campaign time being warm and fuzzy on domestic issues, we lose, and Webb loses. We Democrats can talk about the environment, and affirmative action, and libertarian reasons to support Roe v. Wade. Webb needs to talk about fighting. And that is not bad for us.

Lloyd Snook

Welcome!

I am convinced that Virginia is turning toward the Democrats. Mark Warner, then Tim Kaine, now Jim Webb and various Congressional candidates. The State Senate will continue to trend toward the Democrats, as will the House of Delegates.

I have been a Democrat as long as I have been old enough to vote. While I have occasionally voted for Republicans, that was "long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away." Always an active Democrat, in 2000 I became a VERY active Democrat.

The collapse of the Virginia Democratic Party in the 1990's was a phase in a cycle -- too many dinosaurs who wouldn't adapt to changing times, too many party leaders who thought that the way to beat the Republicans was to sound more like them. Mark Warner brought his energy and his money to the campaign in 2001, and helped Virginia Democrats to realize that things aren't so bleak after all. Electing Democrats takes money, it takes lots of work, it takes candidates who aren't afraid to stand for something and who are smart enough to say what the stand for in a way that is politically acceptable.

Tim Kaine continued Mark Warner's efforts, and he has been helped immeasurably by the inability of the Republicans, either in Washington or in Richmond, to govern themselves, the Commonwealth, or the country. Now, in 2006, we have a candidate -- Jim Webb -- at the top of the ticket who can win. We have candidates for Congress who can carry the Democratic message into the suburbs and rural areas, and who can win.

This blog is devoted to turning Virginia blue.

Let's get to work!