Mike's Message for Democrats

A California college student and blogger named Basie, has an important interview with Michael Dukakis -- who has a message for the Democratic Party.

Jonathan Singer: Your one-time Lieutenant Governor John Kerry came very close to the Presidency this fall. What are some of your thoughts and feelings towards the election?

Michael Dukakis: I think the one great missing piece in this campaign, and it's something that we Democrats have got to get serious about at every level, was that we still aren't doing the grassroots job the way it has to be done. I happen to be a product of grassroots campaigning, grassroots organization. I wouldn't have been elected dogcatcher in my state had it not been for that.

When I'm talking about grassroots organization, I'm not talking about parachuting kids in with two weeks to go from seven states over. I'm talking about a precinct organization with a precinct captain in every precinct and block captains -- maybe a half a dozen per precinct -- who systematically make contact with every single voting household in that precinct, beginning early. This is not something you do in the last couple of weeks. You have to start months in advance. And you do it on a 50-state basis. I don’t care if the state is red, blue or polka dot.

We didn't do that. We didn't even do it in the battleground states. That isn't to take away from what otherwise I thought was a very strong campaign with a very strong candidate. I thought John did a good job and was a much better candidate than I was, frankly. I think his campaign was much better than mine.

We still aren't doing this grassroots job. I know there are people who don't think that old-fashioned grassroots campaigning works. They're just plain wrong. They've never done it, they don’t understand it. And that's what we have to do beginning now.