Category: Politics and Grassroots

State of the Unions

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Washington, D.C. is under about eight feet of snow, the federal government has called it a week already, and the House has started their Presidents’ Day Recess a few days early.  Heck, the Metro isn’t even running trains to outdoor stations.  With no action on Capitol Hill, a Quinnipiac University poll showing that Republicans are gaining public trust has become the big political news of the day.  Analysts have pondered the falling support of the Obama administration among independents and speculated about what that means for the electoral chances among Democrats.

It’s a valid question, but Politico brings up an even more relevant issue: falling support of Congressional Democrats among their own Big Labor base:

Union leaders warn that the Democrats’ lackluster performance in power is sapping the morale of activists going into the midterm elections.

“Right now if we don’t get positive changes to the agenda, we’re going to have a hard time getting members out to work,” said United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard, in an interview.

Please note that the term “work” in Gerard’s quote refers not to the members’ day jobs, but their efforts on the campaign trail.  As many jokes present themselves about this being the only time a hardcore union activist actually works, this is an important source of energy for a Democratic campaign.  These are the folks that make phone calls, knock on doors, march in parades, and do all the other things that are so important leading up to election day.  And even though many snide remarks could be added about using a blackjack as a get-out-the-vote program or a beat down rod as a debate strategy, the truth is that boots on the ground that know what they’re doing make those things unnecessary.

Now, Democrats have some tough choices.  Pushing the Big Labor agenda means things like removing secret ballots from union formation elections and other ways to drum up union membership – meaning more union dues are siphoned out of paychecks, meaning more money in the coffers of the AFL-CIO, UAW, and their fellow travelers.  After unsuccessfully trying to sell the health care overhaul as a matter of “the people” versus “special interests” how does a Congressman face his or her constituents with a vote to whip up union membership fresh on the voting record?

Fiscal conservatives are sheep. Some are demon sheep.

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 6 Comments

Carly Fiorina’s Senate campaign gets points for creativity – releasing a web video to make a detailed case against her primary opponent, Tom Campbell, that just couldn’t be made in a thirty second ad.  But whoever cut and approved this ad has done more harm than good:

Likening conservative primary voters to sheep is a bad idea on its own, but Fiorina’s folks take it a step farther with the “demon sheep” at the very end.  It’s funny, but in a so-bad-it’s-funny kind of way, which is a bad thing for a political ad in a charged primary.

Sure enough, the parodies have begun almost instantly, and they have been thorough.  You can follow the Demon Sheep on Twitter (@DemonSheep) and ask questions of the unholy beast.  Campbell is using the ad as fund raising fodder, and it has likely helped his name recognition among prospective non-California donors.

More important, the ad – and not the message the ad was trying to convey – is the subject of discussion and media coverage, some of it quite tongue-in-cheek.

Oh look, there’s The Point flying away

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The National Tea Party Convention, which starts today, has been criticized for being a thinly-veiled attempt to profit off of grassroots excitement.  Whether or not the criticism is valid, the event has reportedly drawn 1,000 activists from across the country.  Event organizers are now expected to announce a national organizing strategy for 2010:

Volunteers here intend to propose a series of broad “First Principles” which have already been generally embraced by most Tea Party chapters around the country. They include: fiscal responsibility, upholding the constitution, and national security… Once elected to office, members would be required to join a Congressional Tea Party Caucus, attend regular meetings and be held accountable for the votes they cast. Those who stray from the Tea Party path would risk losing it’s support and a likely re-election challenge.

Here’s a major flaw: tea party participants across the country were largely dissatisfied with either party and almost universally with the system of incumbency and party politics which had taken over DC.  For movements that rail against centralization, tTop-down organizing structures are doomed to fail.

Good journalism, bad journalism, and Mary Landrieu’s office

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 3 Comments

Very few people actually know what happened last week in Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office.  That didn’t stop multiple news outlets of dropping the phrase “wiretapping” around liberally (no pun intended) when reporting that James O’Keefe, Stan Dai, Joe Basel, and Robert Flanagan were arrested.  Of course, that meant echoes of Watergate coloring the commentary – even though the official documents make no such accusation.

Watergate makes for an interesting comparison here – not in any crimes perpetrated, obviously, but in reporting.  Anyone who has read All the President’s Men – or, like me, simply seen the movie – knows that Watergate was exposed by tireless investigative journalism by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  They spent months digging, to prove their case.  They did not print half-truths and echo reports from the AP.

Beyond the statement made by O’Keefe, I know nothing about this case.  I am a fan of O’Keefe’s and Dai’s work from their days at Rutgers and George Washington, respectively, which I got to witness when I was working at the Leadership Institute.  I have a strong suspicion that whatever information they were looking for probably would have been politically – but not personally – damaging to Sen. Landrieu.

But to make any allegations beyond that would be wrong for me and certainly wrong for anyone who considers themselves an actual journalist.  MSNBC and other outlets showed no such restraint.

In fact, one might argue that these arrests – like the Watergate arrests – are the beginning, rather than the end, of the questions.  These guys were looking for something – O’Keefe says that Landrieu’s constituents were calling the office but couldn’t get through, and he thought they were ignoring calls.

If citizens are trying to participate but can’t, isn’t that a pretty big story?

Sunday Funnies: Learning economics doesn’t have to suck

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The President’s proposed spending freeze has touched off a debate between Keynesian liberals and free marketers over the role – and capabilities – of government spending.  Perhaps you have seen talking heads bickering about these theories, but the best way to articulate this century-old dichotomy of economic theory is, of course, a rap battle:

What does it say about the state of journalism that this actually outlines economic theories better

Viva la revolucion

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Patrick Ruffini, one of the consultants who helped Scott Brown take back the people’s seat in Massachusetts, wrote an extensive wrap-up of the campaign’s online fundraising in the last month.   The whole thing is a good read, but his assessment of the recent online innovations of each party at the very end is intriguing:

As we have written in the pages of the Washington Post, during the right’s online wilderness years (this “wildnerness” being the mirror image of being in power in Washington) many pundits wondered whether the right was at a permanent structural disadvantage online… [N]ow that the right has needed to use grassroots tools to break the Democratic lock-hold on Washington, they’ve done it in a big way. And it’s happened much faster, and with greater early electoral success, than the evolution of the liberal “netroots” which didn’t really take off until the end of Bush’s first term.

Much has been written about the Massachusetts race, and most of it is an exaggeration.  But the studies of Brown and Virginia’s Gov. Bob McDonnell successful use of online tactics in winning campaigns underscores a running theme – like President Obama, their innovative campaigns were seeking to win an office held by the other party.  All three were on the outside looking in.

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.  Political parties are made up of politicians, so of course they tend to be risk-averse – unless they have no office to risk.

Text donations to…

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

In the wake of the wildly successful mobile fund raising campaign for earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, my Mom emailed me with a thought: could candidates do the same thing to raise money for a political campaign.  The answer: while this method worked very well for Haiti, it may be more trouble than it’s worth for 2010 candidates.

The Rothenberg Political Report discussed some of the regulatory hurdles earlier this week:

First of all, candidates and campaign committees need to collect basic information about all donors including their name, address, and occupation. This is not necessarily prohibitive but candidates would need to establish a “best effort” to obtain the information after the contribution, according to a Federal Election Commission spokesman. This is more of a practical roadblock than a legal one.

Rothenberg also points out restrictions on corporate giving directly to campaigns, which would make it necessary to have an intermediary firm collecting and processing donations.

Then there’s the campaign cost: while the carriers likely waived any fees they would have collected for the Haiti effort, a similar fund raising program might result in charges of up to 40% of the donations, according to one industry source.  That means for every $10 you donate, a campaign might see $6 – and less if there’s an third party processing the campaigns.  Considering the up-front costs of creating the program and sending the texts, the program would have to be wildly successful to pay for itself.

Mobile and text messaging will continue to be important conduits for get-out-the-vote efforts and other messages from a campaign direct to voters, but the infrastructure to turn your cell phone into a “donate now” button isn’t there right now.