comments_image -

Grassroots: The Democratic Party's Real Hope for Change

Already, the word "change" has gone from a bumper slogan to a fact-based phenomenon.
 
 
LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
Join our mailing list:

Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.

 
 
 
 

The swirl of the primary season is intoxicating and the media love it. If the ratings records set by the recent political debates are any indication, the ongoing primary battle may yet save cable TV. "Super Tuesday" -- the night that was supposed to wrap everything up -- didn't (for either party). Clearly, this extended nomination contest is getting people excited, but will that excitement translate into substantive change -- for Democrats in particular? The past offers some hard-knocks lessons worth thinking about.

Give this long primary season credit: It has, at least, turned that overused word "change" from a bumper slogan pooh-poohed by all knowledgeable pundits into a fact-based phenomenon. In the closest thing the nation has seen to a countrywide primary, first term Senator Barack Obama overcame Hillary Clinton's double-digit leads in major states and national polls to win a majority of states on February 5th and draw into a tight battle over the delegate count. The two candidates closed out the evening with their spinmeisters already talking up Beltway Tuesday -- the next catch-phrase friendly multiple-primary day -- while promising more debates. Now, their operatives are off to Ohio for a March 4th primary that everyone assumes will be crucial.

The chance to be seen and heard in more than just a handful of quirky early-primary states has already made a striking difference for the Illinois Senator, who was the clear underdog when he entered the race. "What was a whisper has turned into a chorus," Obama told his hometown crowd in Chicago on Tuesday night.

But a whisper, many would like to know, of what? For more than thirty years, Democratic voters like those pouring out of their homes to get involved this primary season have doggedly trooped to their polling places with no expectation of having an actual impact. Young voters, poor voters, urban voters, anti-war voters, women, people of color, lesbian and gay (LGBT) folk, immigrants, the Democratic party's so-called base -- would turn out - and then be sent home. Come the general election, Democratic candidates typically tacked right, ignoring those reliable, old blue-base voters. Thanks to the tyranny of the two-party system, they could remain confident that the base wasn't going to defect to the -- gasp! -- ever-more rightward-tacking GOP. And mostly, they were on the mark.

For Democratic base-dwellers, in normal times there was only one party season when anyone wanted to hear from them -- this one. Primaries are the one period in the election cycle when contenders suddenly seek to curry favor with the Party's most activist -- and progressive -- part. That's one reason a primary season this long is significant; but, for those voters, will it make any difference at the level of policy? The most positive answer is perhaps.

Fuelled by frustration with the way the Party's been conducting its business and propelled by disgust at the policies of George W. Bush, base-level Party activists, with help from liberal bloggers and others, have already pulled off an organizing feat that's changed the face of the presidential race. Helped by online databases and social-networking software, volunteers can have new impact. Unpaid volunteers have been building attendance at local meetings through their own voter-initiated websites in red and blue states alike. The most significant result so far has been the record turnout. Democratic turnout was up 100% in Iowa and South Carolina, while Georgia witnessed its biggest turnout in a primary since 1992.

The presence of a nominee who was once himself a grassroots organizer and recognizes the value of such work, state by state, has had its own transformative effect. Altogether, grassroots organizers have made the candidacy of Obama, at one time a long-shot nominee, more than viable. And that's pushed Party veteran Clinton whose campaign-style is naturally more top-down and disciplined to invest her resources heavily in "field." Before this Tuesday, the candidates were both openly competing for the label "grassroots." "We've put together a grassroots campaign," Hillary Clinton told a rally the Friday before Super Tuesday. "We will call one million Californians this weekend." Obama's northern Californian spokesperson told reporters: "We are running the biggest field campaign in California since Robert Kennedy in '68."

submit to reddit

-
Email
Print
Share
LIKED THIS ARTICLE? JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST
Stay up to date with the latest AlterNet headlines via email
See more stories tagged with: clinton, obama, grassroots, grassroots organizing
Advertisement
Most Read
Most Emailed
Most Discussed
On REDDIT
On DIGG
 
loading most read content ..
Advertisement
Fox Blames Obama for Manufactured "Gas Crisis," Even After Prices Fall

By Shauna Theel | Media Matters

 
 
Why Did the Associated Press Make an Anti-Choice 'Correction'?

By Robin Marty | RH Reality Check

 
 
Minimum Wage Not Enough for a 2-Bedroom Unit in Any State (Unless You Work Way More Than a 40-Hr Week)

By Staff | AlterNet

 
 
Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board Will Investigate ALEC for Lobbying Violations

By Kristen Gwynne | AlterNet

 
 
Obama and Targeted Assassinations: Had Secret Kill List, Calls Killing American-Born Cleric "Easy Decision"

By Sarah Seltzer | AlterNet

 
 
Romney Excuse for Birther Trump Endorsement: I'm Running for Office and I Wanna Win!

By Adele M. Stan | AlterNet

 
 
Women's Center In New Orleans Destroyed By Arson, Third Incident in the South

By Sarah Seltzer | AlterNet

 
 
US Productivity Up, Wages Stagnant

By Sarah Seltzer | AlterNet

 
 
Scott Walker's Recall Strategy: Avoid Anyone Who Isn't A Walker Voter Already

By Laura Clawson | Daily Kos

 
 
Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Contaminated by Fukishima Reaches US Shores

By Agence France-Presse

 
 
 
 
 
loading ...
POWERED BY DIGG'S USERS
 
[ page served from web 1 ]