Replies

That is not to say that just because conventional grassroots organizations are outclassed by the new cyber/Alinsky methods they should be abandoned. To the contrary, we have got to go with what we have if only to mitigate the disparity. But in doing so must not deceive ourselves that we are accomplishing very much.

As far as organizing on the ground is concerned (which is the the foundation of politics) the sad truth and yet the opportunity that still lays before us is this: we have never come close to approaching the kind of organizing we can and probably must do.

We do not need tricks. We have the basic resources we need. We have the plans that have worked* and will continue to work. We just need modest money, focus, determination, and the commitment to utter camaraderie and utterly no division.

I could go on and on (and have, including training materials and a fund raising prospectus).
____________________

*plans that very effectively recruit a big "sleeping giant" of very available people direcly into bottom-up electoral activities, not the top-down, crippled 501(c)4's of the 1980's and 90's.

The same old same old failed in 2006 and 2008 what makes you think that more of the same will generate a better result now? Even if you are right that we do not need tricks but a return to fundamentals, we need above all a sense of urgency, a sense that we are in mortal peril.

I am unconvinced that we can safely ignore the threat posed by marrying Saul Alinsky to the Internet and continue on with 20th-century methods.

What we need is a ramrod who can energize an organization. someone who can exploit the Internet. Michael Steele is clearly not that man. Whom do you propose? We need a real turnaround artist, not a country club Republican.

To: Volunteers for Poll Watching Cuyahoga County.

I’m writing to both explain and apologize for the problems and failures which occurred during the election.

I first arrived in Cleveland on October 20th, as a New York volunteer for the Republican Party. Including election day I spent 10 days working to recruit Poll Observers and during that time spoke to many of you, asking for help defending the polls from illegal voting. Many of you agreed and following that agreement never received either an assignment, credentials that had been promised, or both. Many of you waited anxiously on November 3rd for credentials and assignments.

The details of multiple communications failures are a long tail of miss-steps that included spam filters, lack of training, multiple qualifying procedures, overtaxed volunteers and lack of co-ordination with workers in Columbus headquarters. Only after the fact did I realize that there were only a few polling stations that we could place observers in that were not in the heart of Cleveland, the most challenging areas of town. Columbus was making an effort to further qualify people for these difficult assignments after I had already spoken to many of you. They then excluded many because they couldn’t contact you in time. If they didn’t recontact you then you were never assigned. Even if some of you were contacted concerning a location the time was so short and the staff in Columbus so taxed for the time available that some were left hanging with a location, no credentials, but plenty of anxiety.

This is the short answer to what went on and why I am writing to apologize for the failures prior to the election. Hopefully things will run more smoothly in the future.

Thanks to all of you who stepped forward to protect the integrity of the voting system. My best wishes go out to you all.

This was the email apology I received. I volunteered on both the local and state level. I attended the training. I made numerous attempts at contact. I was ready, willing and had even taken the day off from work to be able. I lost a days wages, I cleaned the house, and we lost an election. They knew this was a battle ground state, they knew for weeks the crime being committed in Ohio, they knew what Brunner was pulling...and yet the Republicans were this unprepared and unorganized. Everything done on a local level had to go through the state level and then back down. What good is grassroots organizing if the blockade is within our own party?

Yes, I am still angry and bitter at my own party’s failure.