Heads Up for Progressive Democrats
The New Republic recently published an article (2/21/05) by John B. Judis that makes an important point for progressive democrats who want to do politics differently -- like planning to win elections. Philocrites, who apparently subscribes to The New Republic, (TNR does not post their back articles online) has pulled an interesting quote (below) -- that makes me want to go to the library and look up the whole article.
The quoted man, Ernie Cortes is an organizer affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, which teaches the organizing philosophy of Saul Alinksy. Judis writes that Cortes "is a legendary community organizer. In 1974, he set up the Communities Organized for Public Service in San Antonio, which helped get the city's Mexican-Americans involved in politics and was partly responsible for making San Antonio one of the most progressive cities in the Southwest. Since then, under the auspices of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) ... he has built a network of community organizations in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California...."
"When I had seen him in Washington [last September]," Judis continued, "Ernie had insisted that George W. Bush was going to win because Karl Rove and Ralph Reed knew how to organize and the Democrats did not. He feels vindicated by, although unhappy with, the outcome. 'The Republican strategy was developing organic infrastructure,' he tells me. The GOP, he explains, worked through churches and urged parishioners to get their fellow parishioners or their neighbors to the polls. By contrast, he says, Americans Coming Together (ACT) and MoveOn 'parachuted' volunteers into places where they had little in common with the people they were trying to organize. Afterward, they vanished. 'They left nothing behind,' he says scornfully. He thinks that, if Democrats want to win elections, they have to rebuild the 'institutional infrastructure' that used to exist around churches, union halls, and precincts, but he doesn't think ACT or MoveOn have any interest in this kind of patient, person-to-person organizing."
Earnie Cortes is right. If progressive democrats want to build for power -- to make our values real in public policy -- we need to build our own electoral organizations, in our own communities, based on long term personal political relationships. Email, web sites and blogs are fantastic communications tools that can help facilitate this work -- but they are not substitutes for it. Here in Massachusetts, Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts has a vision of person-to-person organizing and has established local organizing committees in a dozen communities in the past 18 months, with more on the way. Neighbor-to-Neighbor has a different style, and focuses its efforts in low income urban areas of the state. But the basic principles of person-to-person organizing are the same.
As useful as groups like ACT can be, what they do is not to be confused with actual grassroots organizing, as Cortes points out. They function just like traditional, top-down campaign organizations. People are generally told where to go, and what to do; they follow a script, write down info which is put into a central data base, and then they go home.
Cortes is also right about how the Christian Right has operated. Last fall I briefly summarized The Secret of the Christian Right -- about how they have built political strength and won elections.
Actual grassroots organizing takes patience and time, as personal political relationships are built; as people learn how to work together and gain the knowledge and skills necessary for sustaining local, and statewide electoral organizations. Six months or a year out from an election -- it is too late to start building the kinds of relationships it takes to have an effective organization when the campaign starts. That's why we need to build permanent organizations that function all across the election cycle -- working to increase electoral capacity -- which to my mind, means taking back the power of citizenship from big money, political consultants, and delusional TV pundits. This was the genius of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. We need analogous organizations, appropriate for our communities and our values.
The quoted man, Ernie Cortes is an organizer affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, which teaches the organizing philosophy of Saul Alinksy. Judis writes that Cortes "is a legendary community organizer. In 1974, he set up the Communities Organized for Public Service in San Antonio, which helped get the city's Mexican-Americans involved in politics and was partly responsible for making San Antonio one of the most progressive cities in the Southwest. Since then, under the auspices of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) ... he has built a network of community organizations in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California...."
"When I had seen him in Washington [last September]," Judis continued, "Ernie had insisted that George W. Bush was going to win because Karl Rove and Ralph Reed knew how to organize and the Democrats did not. He feels vindicated by, although unhappy with, the outcome. 'The Republican strategy was developing organic infrastructure,' he tells me. The GOP, he explains, worked through churches and urged parishioners to get their fellow parishioners or their neighbors to the polls. By contrast, he says, Americans Coming Together (ACT) and MoveOn 'parachuted' volunteers into places where they had little in common with the people they were trying to organize. Afterward, they vanished. 'They left nothing behind,' he says scornfully. He thinks that, if Democrats want to win elections, they have to rebuild the 'institutional infrastructure' that used to exist around churches, union halls, and precincts, but he doesn't think ACT or MoveOn have any interest in this kind of patient, person-to-person organizing."
Earnie Cortes is right. If progressive democrats want to build for power -- to make our values real in public policy -- we need to build our own electoral organizations, in our own communities, based on long term personal political relationships. Email, web sites and blogs are fantastic communications tools that can help facilitate this work -- but they are not substitutes for it. Here in Massachusetts, Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts has a vision of person-to-person organizing and has established local organizing committees in a dozen communities in the past 18 months, with more on the way. Neighbor-to-Neighbor has a different style, and focuses its efforts in low income urban areas of the state. But the basic principles of person-to-person organizing are the same.
As useful as groups like ACT can be, what they do is not to be confused with actual grassroots organizing, as Cortes points out. They function just like traditional, top-down campaign organizations. People are generally told where to go, and what to do; they follow a script, write down info which is put into a central data base, and then they go home.
Cortes is also right about how the Christian Right has operated. Last fall I briefly summarized The Secret of the Christian Right -- about how they have built political strength and won elections.
Actual grassroots organizing takes patience and time, as personal political relationships are built; as people learn how to work together and gain the knowledge and skills necessary for sustaining local, and statewide electoral organizations. Six months or a year out from an election -- it is too late to start building the kinds of relationships it takes to have an effective organization when the campaign starts. That's why we need to build permanent organizations that function all across the election cycle -- working to increase electoral capacity -- which to my mind, means taking back the power of citizenship from big money, political consultants, and delusional TV pundits. This was the genius of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. We need analogous organizations, appropriate for our communities and our values.
posted by Frederick Clarkson at 6:41 AM
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