email to: Jim Messina, Do Not Want Donation
Dear Mr. Messina and the Obama Campaign:
Cheri Bustos winner in IL 17th
This great network of yours has the possibility to more efficiently compete with money. The resources to do this grassroots everywhere project are available because the initial foundation is already in place. Expanding it is so much less demanding of resources than the standard DCCC or DSCC approach. People want to be informed, involved, and enthusiastic. People have lives they need to have a method to participate and still live their lives. These Congressional groups could help recruit candidates, formulate district specific policy, become reliable and trusted sources of news and information for members of the group. It will allow people to concentrate local resources not duplicate or waste them.
A real life example, one of the newly elected Democrats to Congress is Cheri Bustos, she was attacked by Crossroads GPS ads for voting as city councilperson to build a street from her house to a country club. TV was saturated with animated images of Bustos in a golf cart headed to the country club. Eventually she put out response ads, Bustos was never a member of the country club. Her ad mimicked the golf cart, effectively undermining the attack. If there had been an established network for her district, this fact could have informed the district without money and lost time. One person could refute any water cooler discussion about the Crossroads attack ad. A person informed from the network that Bustos had never belonged to the country club. Using such a network is a far more effective method than TV ads, it provides a quicker response and requires only a little money.
Another specific example of our failure to win more seats, in Central Illinois the GOP incumbent Tim Johnson announced retirement after the primary. The Obama 2012 campaign network was focused on getting supporters in Illinois to call people in Iowa and Ohio, but what if we had turned out a few more votes in Decatur? The Democratic candidate was running for a third time, he had never been close before. Turning out another 1288 votes, would have gained a Dem win. Why do we not have an ongoing party network so that in every district we have a viable candidate? Our top down money approach has to prioritize where leadership sees winnable districts.
Glenn Beck has a different understnading of dashboard.
The Obama 2012 infrastructure network could be expanded into an ongoing party building and candidate recruitment endeavor. Every district would grow more competitive without requiring any expenditure of top down dollars. We should not expect each campaign to start from scratch every cycle; we are not using the tools available to us. Our party is complaining we have to dig with a stick because we cannot afford enough shovels, while we are ignoring the Cat backhoe behind us.
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