Activism

Obama Camp Looks Down-Ticket In 50-State Voter Drive

Mose Buchele — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:02:40 -0700

Late last week, the Obama campaign announced a plan to launch a massive voter registration drive, dubbed "Vote for Change." The campaign plans to mobilize its army of grassroots supporters to register thousands of new voters for the general election. The plan is an ambitious one: not only does the campaign hope to bring voter participation in the general up above 50 percent, it also targets all 50 states, even places where Obama is thought to have zero chance of winning.

Since the announcement, Vote for Change has been widely reported on as an example of the campaign looking beyond the primary to an eventual general election battle against John McCain. But according to deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, the massive registration effort is also a way for the Obama campaign to have a far-reaching impact on down-ticket Democratic races across the country:

Hildebrand cited Wyoming as an example. The March 8 caucus state got little attention from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and it's a long shot as a Democratic pickup in the presidential election. But Obama, who beat Clinton in Wyoming easily, built a volunteer team there that can now be dispatched to aid Gary Trauner, who lost a 2006 race for the state's at-large House seat by 1,000 votes. Trauner has a better shot this year: The GOP incumbent who beat him, Rep. Barbara Cubin, is retiring. "We're looking for opportunities beyond the presidential campaign," Hildebrand said.

While Vote for Change doesn't officially kick off until after next week's elections in Indiana and North Carolina, the primary itself continues to motivate record numbers of people to sign up. The Washington Post reports that one million new Democratic voters have registered in the last seven primaries, and people registering to vote have flooded the election boards in the run up to the May 6th elections. In North Carolina, 165,000 new voters registered before deadline and 150,000 have signed up in Indiana.

HB 1826: From Facebook To The House Floor

Mose Buchele — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:41:08 -0700

Over at his blog, Hiram Wurf has a post up about House Bill 1826 and the grassroots movement that has risen up to support it.

The story begins with a Facebook page, “Students for the Illinois Marriage Equality Bill”, which attracted over 8,000 online members and ultimately the attention of one state legislator:

State Representative Greg Harris, an advocate of Civil Unions recognized that these self-organized, grassroots voices represented an important part of an activist movement to support his House Bill 1826, historic legislation to extend basic legal protections to committed opposite-sex, same-sex and senior couples in Illinois by creating civil unions. Now there is a website.

That website, CivilUnionsIllinois.org, is a helpful clearinghouse for information about the fight for equal domestic partnership rights, and it offers suggestions on how to get involved. For instance, the site provides a ready-made letter that you can send to your representatives in the statehouse, urging them to support HB 1826.

Wurf has also collected some compelling stories about real Illinoisans who would benefit from the passage of this common sense legislation.

Let's Bring A "Politics Of Service" To Illinois

Josh Kalven — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:00:00 -0700

David Sirota recently took to the web pages of Chicago’s own In These Times to spotlight two national non-profits that are working to “ensure that the recent surge in Democratic voter turnout becomes the foundation of a lasting political infrastructure for progressives” — not just a passing fad.

One of these organizations, the Seattle-based Democrats Work, seeks to "mobilize grassroots Democrats to perform community service projects." The other, Blue Tiger Democrats, encourages its members to "strengthen[] the roots of party organizations at the local level through civic engagement."

From Sirota’s piece:

“People only see the Democratic Party at election time, and that has to change,” says Mark Brewer, the Michigan Democratic chairman who, along with New York party officials, is employing Blue Tiger’s methods. In the forgotten corners of both states, Blue Tiger sponsors food drives, roadside cleanups and computer training seminars — all under the banner of the Democratic Party.

Democrats Work and Blue Tiger Democrats are merely two examples of Democrats’ renewed focus on turnout and base participation — a more logical priority than the party’s old “swing” strategies that concentrate exclusively on winning independents. After all, Republican strongholds like Colorado, Nevada and Ohio contain overwhelmingly Democratic population centers. A sustained turnout boost in those cities could easily tip statewide results — and thus, alter the national political map.

But changing red states to blue states is only one objective of the permanent campaign. Deepening the hue of existing blues is another.

Sounds like something Illinois progressives should get behind.

Sirota goes on to provide a case study in how grassroots organization recently led a progressive challenger to victory in a Maryland Democratic primary:

Just weeks ago progressive activist Donna Edwards crushed Maryland Rep. Al Wynn in a Democratic primary. She attacked the more conservative incumbent for supporting lobbyist-written legislation that helps banks gouge consumers. Edwards won her underdog race thanks, in part, to two other wings of the permanent campaign: Liberal blogs helped her raise money, and groups like the Service Employees International Union aided her get-out-the-vote operations.

The support, along with the presidential primary hype, doubled the district’s turnout over the last election. Edwards, who lost the contest two years before, won the same race by a wide margin and is now the presumptive general-election winner. In other words, the rise in Democratic turnout helped the more progressive candidate win. Such a dynamic could be replicated in other down-ballot races if the permanent campaign succeeds in raising voter turnout for good. And over time, that would move the Democratic Party in a more populist direction.

Counted together, Democrats Work and Blue Tiger Democrats have a presence in more than ten states. Unfortunately, Illinois isn’t one of them.

So what will it take to change that?

Anyone can get the ball rolling. Indeed, Democrats Work offers clear instructions on how, with their help, you can organize a DW service outing in your area: Simply pick a project, find local organizations and public figures that might be willing to partner with you, direct folks to the sign-up page you set up on the DW website, and off you go.