Washblog

doormat and serf grassroots for "leaders"?

This focus the energy to the top paradigm -

Save the Gov & Get the White House, THEN all the down ticket will prosper

- this is a tried & true, failed, unimaginative dinosaur paradigm.

well, unless we all shut up and do what we are told.

oh, and, it does work great for all the people living in consultant / insider world.

ugh.

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

by rmdSeaBos on Wed Dec 20, 2006 at 05:06:29 PM PST

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Man, these State dems are USELESS.  What we need is a Party that speaks to ordinary people.  We need protests.  We need rallies.  We need five dollar speaking tours and plenty of grassroots action.

We need a whole lot more than some lameass email list.  We need a real party that does what the Social Democrats did in Germany before Hitler put em all in concentration camps.  We need to build a real progressive movement.

I heard a woman call Thom Hartmann talking about the Blue Tiger Democrats, suggesting we should be donating our time to charity.  Sounds good to me.  Whatever convinces non-voters to vote for our candidates is the right approach.

by Tahoma Activist on Wed Dec 20, 2006 at 08:36:39 PM PST

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I agree that the state party's website could be far more useful.  A place to promote meetings and other events, maybe with a search function by zip code, would be wonderful.  And I think there should be a place to share ideas/successes like unique fundraising ideas, etc.  Obviously, downloadable flyers, signs, yada yada would be great!  Podcasts would be cool.  And more.  There are a lot of ways we could improve and streamline what we do by having a better state party website with more tools.  But I disagree with the idea of a blog.

Yes, a blog could be used against the state party.  In my area, we had to go from having a public Yahoo group to a private one where we have to approve membership to view the posts.  This happened because someone got on it and then forwarded various posts to our local conservative talk show host.  They took some radical ideas that the majority of our participants didn't even agree with, then discussed them on their radio program incessantly.  Even when some of us called and said that they were misrepresenting the local Democratic Party and these were not ideas endorsed by the local party, they refused to let up.  They basically said we were lying and that we didn't have the guts to stand up publicly for what we were advocating in private.  It was very frustrating and we had to do a fair amount of damage control.

So, while I enjoy the ability to share ideas in a wide-open forum, and that's one reason why I visit this place and other forums/blogs compiled at the PNW Portal, I can understand why the party would be opposed to having an official state party blog.

I will, however, as a state committeewoman, try to push toward incorporating technology better by incorporating some of the other good ideas referred to in my first paragraph and any others that people present.

by funkycamper on Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 11:37:05 AM PST

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And this is where some kind of weekly/monthly email newsletter would be handy to alert us to such things.

by funkycamper on Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 09:19:00 AM PST

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What we need to do, and what I've been working on in my "spare time", is an inventory of our communications infrastructure.  What mailing lists are out there, and how active are they?  What blogs push the progressive agenda, and who 'owns' them?  Who is putting together calendar systems and activist lists?  Where do we have a comprehensive list of what elected offices will be up for re-election in 2007 and 2008, and where are we tracking the incumbents to determine whether we should support their reelection or if we should find someone to run against them.  And I'm not talking about partisan offices alone.  I'm talking about ALL of them.  Water Districts spend tax money.  So do Cemetary Districts.  We need progressives in all of them.

Progressive Majority has the right idea, but we can't leave them to do all the work.  We need a Legislative Progressive Caucus, that pushes progressive legislation in Olympia during the session, and supports progressive candidates outside the session.  We need a County Progressive Caucus, to do the same in our 39 counties.  We need a Progressive Cities Caucus, to do the same in our cities and towns.  There is no possible way that PM can do all that, but it needs to be done anyway.

Can the party do this?  Sure, with in influx of about 10-20 million dollars and nothing else to do with their time.  It's not up to the party, it's up to us.  Always has been, always will be.

by chadlupkes on Sun Dec 24, 2006 at 09:22:06 PM PST

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Great idea.  How can we help?

by funkycamper on Tue Dec 26, 2006 at 11:37:18 AM PST

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