Embracing the New Politics and Perfecting the Old
Donnie Fowler
November 2004

In a time where America's progressive movement and the Democratic Party feel the pain of defeat, Democrats must reaffirm our soul and commit ourselves to a new politics.

History is our guide. Our nation's greatest achievements have come from leaders who were liberal for their time and who, in the face of troubling odds, kept true to their values. Today's Democratic Party is the legacy of the many progressive successes that have changed who we are forever and for the better. Standing in the way were conservatives, whose tradition continues in today's GOP. Whether marching under the banner of the Tories (Revolutionary War), the Democrats (Civil War), or the Republicans (civil rights movement), conservatives have consistently resisted progress that we now consider obvious and natural:

These monumental advances, considered liberal or even radical in their day, have expanded opportunity, increased equality, and delivered progress. Unfortunately, the Republican Party is working openly and aggressively to turn back the clock, repeal the Twentieth Century, and ignore the hopes of so many who look to our nation as the great beacon on the hill.

Why, then, is today's Democratic Party so dangerously close to giving our government up to those who have defied progress at almost every moment in our history?

Democrats must remember our soul and stand up for who we are. We must not concede a progressive agenda while they exceed their mandate. We must not concede the values argument while they succeed with their plans. And we must not concede red America while they proceed to dismantle the blue. We must fight.

Here is how...

Democrats must practice the new politics. The electorate has changed dramatically in the last fifty years and so must we. So has the way they get their political information. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again but expecting a different result. Recognizing that there is a new politics requires changing how we think about and approach the voters.

New citizens join our democracy every day, constantly changing the demographics of the country. Meanwhile, historic voting patterns shift and realign. Democrats must adjust the lenses through which they see the electorate, moving away from the coalitions of the 1930s New Deal and the 1960s Civil Rights/Vietnam War era. We must also recognize that voters are far more fragmented now than at any time over the last century. It would be a tremendous mistake to continue relying on an aristocracy of consultants who see the country as a static, monotone, one-size-fits-all place. The Democratic Party must look beyond the Beltway, decentralizing its approach, and choose tacticians who do not rely exclusively on polls and conventional wisdom. Local leaders, local parties, and local knowledge must contribute.

Democrats have also been slow to adopt the tools of the new politics. When we do, our understanding has been very shallow. The Party's understanding of the web and other technologies has not kept up with the extraordinary speed of the advances. Fortunately, there are great Democrats in Silicon Valley and other tech centers who can help where we have already tried to help ourselves by ourselves. Technology is much, much broader than putting up a website and giving a volunteer a $200 Palm Pilot. Not only does it provide vast new means to raise money, it provides us uniquely different ways to communicate to voters through email and websites. The Internet is not television, radio, or direct mail, so communicating across it must be approached differently. The Internet is interactive (like talk radio on a more limited scale) and it is decentralized, allowing activists to organize themselves without waiting for the "go" signal from a national or state headquarters. While this frightens many traditional operatives, self-starting grassroots means that more folks can participate in more ways than ever before. Technology also provides us dramatically better ways to identify and speak to narrow slices of the electorate. Powerful database technologies already exist in Silicon Valley so we need not create these tools from scratch.

The Democratic Party must embrace the new politics as we perfect the best of the old. We must also remember that ours is a party steeped in principles and traditions, not just a list of policies and tactics.

Democrats must cross the values threshold. Democrats love issues. In 1996 we said the election was about Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment. In 2000 Gore guaranteed a Medicare lockbox. In 2004 Kerry argued he was more competent to win the war on terror, would better build alliances, and would give our troops the equipment they need. We Democrats love issues so much that we forget to put them in a context that voters understand and, more significantly, that they feel. We don't tell voters what all those issues mean to us or to them.

Before a voter asks what issues a candidate supports, they ask themselves whether they can relate to that person, whether they trust her, and whether they are comfortable with her philosophy. One might say that they require a candidate to pass the Budweiser test – would you want to have a beer with her? Put differently, voters want to feel they would invite the candidate to come to dinner with their families. Only after a candidate (or a party) passes a credibility threshold will a voter listen to the views on abortion, the war in Iraq, tax cuts, or health care. This values threshold is much, much larger than the looks of a candidate, the color of tie he wears, or the state where he was raised. It is about an instinctive impression that a voter gets, just as one might get when first meeting someone on the street. Is this person credible? Can I believe what he or she says? Only the oddest of us wonder where a new acquaintance stands on abortion or the war in Iraq when first meeting someone.

Democrats love to comfort each other by saying, "We lost the election, but look at the polls. The American people agree with us on almost all the issues!" Who cares? Why does that matter if we have no power to enact our agenda?

Democrats must remember our soul. Find it, bring it out again, show it off. We must restate our core principles – our most sacred values – before we jump into the issues debate. If we do, we win.

Opportunity is a value. Access is a value. Getting a fair shake is a value. Security is a value. Adequate health care is a value. Tolerance is a value. And, yes, religion means values.

Until the American people see the Democratic soul again and understand the values of our candidates, they will not vote for us. Until they want to bring us home to dinner with their family, they do not care how smart or logical our policies are. Nor will they care that our policies are "in their best interests."

Gun control exemplifies the issues versus values problem. When many Democrats talk to hunters and country folks, they make academic arguments like, "You do not need a machine gun to shoot a deer." Do we need to state the obvious? The problem is that gun control is not a rational issue. Urban and suburban voters hear "gun control" and hope their kids will walk to school without getting shot or that they can drive to the grocery store without having a bullet come through the window. We talk about trigger locks and seven-day waiting periods to these voters, but that's not really the point. Likewise, rural Americans and hunters hear the same two words – gun control— very differently. They think, "You don't respect my way of life. You don't respect me. You want to change who I am because you look down on me." Gun control is not about the minutae of the issues or airtight logic of the arguments. It's what the issue represents – two very different sets of values. We must honor and be comfortable with both.

Take another problem that faces the Democratic Party. We ask, "Why don't blue collar Americans understand that the Republicans will do nothing for them? Tax cuts for the rich! Jobs shipped overseas! Why don't they get it?" The question should be, "Why don't many Democrats get it?" Making an intellectual, economic argument misses so much of what people consider when casting their vote. Politics is not just an exercise in good policy and pocketbook behavior. It's about principles, ways of life, and, yes, values. We're losing groups of voters like working class white ethnics. They once were the heart of the New Deal and civil rights coalitions that kept the Democrats in power for decades. Democrats must understand where these voters come from, their frustrations, and their challenges, not treat them as if they should recognize that we know better. The electorate has changed and so must we.

Democrats must find new voters. Democrats cannot rely only on traditional base voting groups whose numbers remain steady, like African-Americans, or are even dropping, like union members. We need new voters just to survive. Despite organized labor's unmatched skill at political education, union membership is dropping. In the African-American community, our turnout operations have gotten so good in many places that more GOTV will not mean more votes. The last two presidential elections saw historic black turnout for Gore and Kerry, but both men lost. To make matters worse, too many Democrats blame African-American voters when Democrats lose, but give them no credit when they win. The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections prove that this is both wrong and unfair, and it's no way to maintain their faith in the Party.

To remain a force, the Democratic Party must include and respect our most loyal voters in every possible way – talking with them all year; ensuring that the Party includes them in leadership, staffing, and consulting; helping to bring a new generation of leaders to the forefront; and making sure that the agenda always reflects the priorities of the base. To regain the majority, we must also recapture those who have left us, and we must find new voters to add to the progressive coalition. Latinos, college-educated women, students and youth, rural voters, Southerners, and religious voters have arrived, changed, or shifted over the last forty years. Our Party has not responded. More of the same is not the answer.

In some ways, the Democrats have even turned on themselves. The constant struggle over whether Democrats must focus on base voters or swing voters has paralyzed the Party. Democrats are fighting each other over the 20% of the issues where we do not have agreement rather than standing up for the 80% of issues we have in common. Base or swing is a false choice. It is, in fact, not a choice at all. The Democrats must have every voter we can find. It's not a question of either "Classic Democrats" or "New Democrats." Jesse Jackson has said that an eagle cannot fly with only one wing. To rise again, we must have everyone moving together.

Democrats must remember that voters don't live in Washington. The national Democratic Party has gotten itself caught in a web of conventional wisdom and turned itself over to a professional political class. While there is nothing naturally insidious about this, Washington's insulated culture has produced two deadly things – a loss of perspective on what is truly important to voters and a belief that conventional wisdom reflects reality. Issues that folks in DC believe are life-altering and world-changing are usually small or non-existent to those beyond the Beltway. While DC focuses on who the chairman of a Senate committee will be or how an omnibus appropriations bill will pass, the average voter (even the average activist) has no idea that these supposedly mega-issues even exist nor will they determine by themselves how one votes. "What in the world," most Americans would ask, "is an omnibus?"

This loss of perspective about what really matters to voters usually combines with a self-preserving network of pundits and professional politicos that weave the web of conventional wisdom. Correct only half the time (and nobody knows which half), conventional wisdom results from DC-based political reporters and consultants talking to each other each other, dining with each other, vacationing with each other, and depending on each other as sources and validators. It rarely results from asking voters and leadership at the state and local level what they see and hear.

When conventional wisdom wants to know what is going on "out there," someone commissions a poll. It's just not that simple. In the 2000 presidential election, for example, leaders in West Virginia and Tennessee raised red flags almost a year before election day: "Gore is going to have a tough time and here's why." Conventional wisdom refused to believe and act on this, arguing "West Virginia always votes Democratic!" and "Tennessee is Gore's home state!" By the time the truth bubbled up from legislators and state party leaders, it was too late to recover. The Democrats beat an incumbent Republican governor in WV, but Gore lost. And, even though Clinton won it twice, Gore lost his native Tennessee. In 2004, the Swift Boat and social conservative issues at different times dominated the conversations among voters in the battleground states. Conventional wisdom and the polling that informs it did not see this. The grassroots intelligence was discounted, even dismissed, until the damage was already done. The result of accepting reality too late was that the electorate questioned Kerry's ability to lead the military and doubted that the Democratic Party had a core set of values. This cannot happen again.

Democrats must recognize that local people know better. We must learn the lessons of Democrats who have succeeded. Why, for example, did Montana's Democrats take over the state government this November when Kerry lost the state by 20 points? Why does Georgia elect and re-elect Thurbert Baker, a Democratic African-American attorney general? Why did Kerry win Pennsylvania and Michigan, but not Ohio? There are many, many lessons to be learned and re-learned from people who have succeeded in their own backyards.

The philosophy is simple: local people know better.

The Democratic Party must look local as it develops its messages and as it rebuilds its machinery. State parties, local parties, activists, and elected officials can describe what voters are thinking in their world as well as or better than any poll. Even more, local leaders know how to address the issues in the accents and in the language of their communities. A wealthy national party armed with all the political science, polling, and instinct one can gather will not succeed by listening only to those at the top. The DNC must share the resources with and incorporate the wisdom of those who know voters by their names. State and local parties must be strengthened; new revenue sharing ideas should be implemented; and DNC members must recapture and exercise ownership of their Party.

Our Party knows how to do this. The DNC has worked marvelously with the battleground states during the six months before the 2000 and 2004 elections, providing vast resources, sophisticated targeting, and superb election training. But what has happened during the three-and-a-half years between presidential cycles? Where is the permanent campaign that the conservatives wage? The national party and state parties must change their mindset, especially now that we have neither the Congress, the White House, the judiciary, nor a majority of the governors' offices.

The DNC must also find ways to be more than a presidential committee. Elections won at the state and local levels build the base for presidential victory in the future. It is the DNC's responsibility to be comprehensive in its view of the Democratic Party. It must support states that may not turn up as presidential battlegrounds but need to win other down ballot elections and prepare for the future.

The Democratic Party must increase its communications capability. An essential part of remembering that voters live outside of Washington is communicating to them where they live. To regain power, the Democrats must operate where the voters live and communicate through media they actually see.

Conventional wisdom believes that every American reads the Washington Post, subscribes to Vanity Fair, and watches Tim Russert. The truth is, Americans read the Portland Oregonian, Tampa Tribune, Cleveland Plan Dealer, St. Louis Post Dispatch, and other local newspapers. Voters watch their local television news – almost 2½ hours are available every day compared to the half-hour of national network news. And on Sunday mornings when Meet the Press is on, America is at church or recovering from Saturday night.

Voters take their strongest cues from local leaders like mayors and ministers rather than from talking heads on cable TV or a national party spokesperson. The information they trust comes from local sources they know more than out-of-town places they do not.

During presidential campaigns, the DNC has had strong political and media operations in swing states. The new politics requires sophisticated, year-round political and communications strategies located in regional offices, perhaps with key state parties. The state parties themselves need aggressive communications training and a strategic communications plan using every media outlet and the latest in research techniques and technology. The occasional press release is no longer enough, nor is reliance on a political event or convention every few months.

Taking the best of the traditional and combining it with the new politics is the winning path. The new DNC chair must be at the center of these efforts. Congressional leadership has long worked together on messaging. Our senators and House members now need to connect with governors and mayors in a deliberate, concerted way. These broader conversations must also include state parties, Democratic campaign committees (e.g., DSCC, DCCC, DLCC, and DGA), allied groups, Internet communities, and issues organizations. Republicans have learned to focus on disciplined use of the language, even to the point where they use the same phrases in every corner of the country and through every media outlet. The DNC has made important advances in creating effective communication between our leaders and activists all around the country, but we have not seen the promise of what can be done. While improving communications through the traditional media outlets, the Party must work with the creative new media operations, like Air America and the Democracy Alliance. The DNC and state parties must also fully embrace the extraordinary potential of new technologies like the Internet, viral marketing, data mining, and blogging.

We must stand up for our beliefs. Democrats, as Bill Clinton has said, must be defiant in defeat. Republicans do not apologize for what they believe and do not timidly advocate it. Yet when we face Republican claims that Senator Cleland is unpatriotic and that Senator Kerry did not deserve his purple hearts, our response is to declare the charges unfair. We even pout. Enough is enough. Challenge them: "How dare you? How dare a draft-evading President accuse two men who served their nation in battle?"

This "lie down and take it" strategy has already happened at least once since this November's election. The Republicans have encouraged the belief that the 2004 election was about values, specifically about religious values. Unfortunately, they have won the argument. Could Karl Rove and Tom DeLay be any happier? Citing a single, misleading exit poll, they claim that voters who have values voted for Bush. So clearly those without any values must have voted Democratic. This reinforces the right-wing's position that one cannot believe in God and be a Democrat. Our response? We fear talking about our values because we are concerned that we will judge those who may think differently. We lie down and get run over. God does not belong to the Republican Party and patriotism does not belong to George W. Bush. Who do these right-wingers think they are? Stand up and shout it from the mountaintop!

We must take risks. Standing up for what you believe means taking a hit every once in a while. But political professionals and politicians who fear the consequences of mistakes avoid the risks of trying something new. Take conventional wisdom's early belief that the Internet movement was only a bunch of kooks and kids. Suddenly in 2003, Howard Dean's campaign proved them wrong and almost set the Democratic Party afloat on its wild river. Similarly, Wesley Clark nearly flooded the other presidential candidates in the fall of 2003 when his "Draft Clark" movement, composed of non-traditional Democrats and Independents gathering across the Internet, moved him in one week from a non-candidate to first in the polls and the cover of Newsweek. The reaction to these grassroots movements by the weavers of conventional wisdom was swift and negative, so Clark's and Dean's failures gave them an excuse to say "I told you so." (The detractors, though, did love the fundraising possibilities.)

John Kerry and the DNC did learn some of the good lessons by the spring, but they were late to the game. George Bush's campaign had already built the most powerful Internet organizing tools yet seen, activating hundreds of thousands of activists and communicating to millions of voters. Progressives still have the advantage on the Internet in the same way that conservatives continue leading on talk radio. Hesitation will cost us the lead and, perhaps worse, might alienate the millions of netizens who have joined the political discussion.

This fear of new things defines those who do not understand that politics constantly evolves. The Democratic Party's failure to grasp fully what technology can do for the progressive movement is similar to those who rejected television in 1960. John F. Kennedy understood and embraced that revolutionary advance in communications, beating Nixon in the nation's first televised debates. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson applied those early lessons, using television, through the famous "Daisy Ad," to paint Barry Goldwater as too extreme to trust him with our nuclear arsenal. Some say the modern conservative movement rose out of that overwhelming defeat forty years ago. Perhaps the progressive movement in the U.S. can rise from the ashes of Democratic defeats in 2000, 2002, and 2004.

We must coordinate our opposition to the right wing. The progressive movement in the United States is not going away, and the Democratic Party will continue as the primary vehicle for its agenda. There is no way that the national party can function without a national organization like the DNC. The Party's ideology, its agenda, its organizing principles, and its infrastructure depend on it. Congressional Democrats cannot do it by themselves; our governors and local elected officials cannot do it by themselves; and the dozens of independent organizations and interest groups will not return us to power by themselves. The House and Senate provide one type of opposition party, but the Democrats as a whole, in every corner of the nation, need to develop an organized and coherent opposition. This must start with message and work its way to strengthening county-level organizations that are now hit-and-miss in terms of their effectiveness.

Progressives have for too long scattered themselves among many uncoordinated and uncommunicative groups, but not the conservatives. The recent campaign finance reform laws have only encouraged the natural tendency of the left to splinter into dozens of competing organizations. The proliferation of 527s and non-profits in the past few years demonstrates this fact. Not one of these groups has the legal, practical, or realistic ability to replace the national party, though they do enhance it and contribute tremendously to the progressive movement's potential.

Some independent and allied organizations have claimed that they are the DNC's successor, even its replacement. While this is a nice marketing concept, it will not work. First, if a third group were to actually become a DNC clone, it would then become a "political party" under the definition in the federal law and would immediately fall under the rules that the existing Democratic party must follow. Second, many of these groups represent only one issue or one flavor of the progressive movement. In the United States, as under similar non-parliamentary democracies, political parties have only succeeded when they bring together many divergent issues under one roof. Why, other than narrow issue agendas or the egos of a few go-it-alone leaders, would the progressive movement think it can to return to power in fragments? A divided opposition will always remain in opposition. Even more, why would the Democratic Party need two DNCs? Resources would be divided, messages would be further split, and our elected officials and voters would not know where to turn.

The DNC will and must be the focal point of this organized opposition – a clearinghouse of sorts – because of its unique role as the central vehicle of the national Democratic Party and the progressive movement. The DNC must, however, rely on progressive elected officials, DNC members, and activists at every level of politics. It must also work with the many outside organizations and think tanks to provide the intellectual capital and the leading lights that can speak out in opposition.

Democrats and progressives have so many assets, both in Washington and in the states, that the Party would waste an opportunity by not developing a shadow government of sorts. Primarily a communications vehicle, the operation could be set-up under several project areas: Coordinating, but not subsuming, the progressive movement through the national party will make everyone more effective, smarter, and more efficient with our resources.

We must raise money. Even the best car is useless without fuel to make it run. The DNC and the progressive movement in 2004 nearly matched the financial resources available to the Republicans and their allies. That was an outstanding achievement.

Continuing this success requires that donors have faith in the process, but faith has been shaken among many. First, donors give money because they believe in the cause and because they agree with the message. Without a positive message, donors have little to which they can attach their checks. Relying on a negative message, like this year's powerful anti-Bush sentiment, is not a reliable strategy. Many donors are asking, "What was the Party saying in 2000, 2002, and 2004 that resonates with the electorate?" (Many voters asked the same question.) Second, donors want accountability. The DNC must demonstrate what specifically it will spend money on and then, more importantly, report back to the donors that the spending was done responsibly and successfully. Of course, the best proof of accountability is winning. The losses of the last three elections, some of which are blamed on the national party, could make fundraising more difficult. In many ways, the national party's inability to define a positive message and win elections has even contributed to the rise of independent groups that offer alternatives for money, ideas, and organization.

Expanding recent fundraising successes means continuing to use every fundraising tool available. The traditional large donors and the institutional givers, like unions, must have the belief that their money will elect progressive candidates. Direct mail fundraising is still a major source of financing, but we have not caught up to decades of Republican seed work. The DNC must continue improving this program. Internet fundraising is the new frontier, and Democrats have exploited the lessons that John McCain, Howard Dean, and Wes Clark taught. Finally, in 2004, the Democrats have found a way to identify $25, $50, and $250 donors and get them involved in the process. It is a new audience that we must nurture and include in our planning.

We must measure what we do, hold ourselves accountable, and review our progress. Many observers believe that politics is a gray, undecipherable business. That gives some political operatives and party leaders the excuse to avoid measuring their work and being held accountable for it. The DNC must orient itself to performing more professionally by setting measurable goals, quantifying its progress, holding staff accountable so that they get both credit and blame for their work, and reviewing its activities on a semi-annual basis (rather than every four years).

There is a saying in Silicon Valley that what gets measured gets done. Of course, measuring fundraising is relatively easy, but politics depends on human beings, their passion, and their unpredictability. All of this is difficult to quantify, but it is not impossible. The DNC, for example, should quantify the number of times a week Democrats get on talk radio, the number of active county chairs and precinct captains in a state, the number of people who visit progressive Internet sites, and the number of voter contacts made during a monthly phone bank. During an election season, the DNC does this in a very specific way. The campaign managers know how many phonebanks are running, how many canvassers are going door-to-door, and how many surrogates are on the road in each battleground state. The DNC can and must set objective goals for its staff and its programs all year long while quantifying progress toward those goals.

Similarly, political operatives must be held accountable for their work. Job descriptions of staff and consultants must be clearly defined. Overlap between roles must be avoided so that the DNC does not suffer from the inevitable finger-pointing when something goes wrong. Everyone will know precisely when they will get blamed and when they will get credit. Finally, everyone will know to stay in their lane, permitting the flow of information and resources to move more smoothly. Like so much else, the DNC succeeded at this during the last few months of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections but it lacks the discipline needed in the intervening years.

Democrats must return to the majority. The Democratic Party is more than a collection of issues and elected officials. We represent the noblest side of the American political tradition – a progressive movement that has torn down barriers of race, region, and gender while lifting our citizens up. We have brought economic opportunity and economic fairness to millions of people who look to our nation as a beacon of hope. Yet recent elections have made us doubt our ability to recapture the agenda that progressives have always pursued. The Democrats, as embodied in state parties and the Democratic National Committee, will return to the majority when it finds the money, new technologies, enhanced communications tools, and an approach to managing that measures what we need to accomplish. Most importantly, we must rediscover our soul, embrace the new politics while perfecting the old, and reconnect with voters where they live. This is the path to joy and to victory.