No One Listens to Zathras
I think money has only accomplished the disillusionment and discouragement of voters. The Democratic Party is spending money on ads to compete on television, but I have doubts it is doing anything to motivate voter turnout. If two thirds of people voted instead of stayed away, it would be a different power structure. Our goals would be the priorities of Congress. We need to use resources: to involve, to inform, to do so in geographic regions, our congressional districts. It will require changing our perspectives. If we started by standing on our heads we could see from the world upside down. Perhaps we are looking at the world outside down now, and only require standing up to reorient ourselves to see it clearly.
Just 36.4 percent of eligible voters turned out in 2014
We need to use our resources to get voters to the polls, yet most of our social media resources are used to raise money. I think the multiple ways to request donations for the midterms depressed turnout. How can the polls be explained; the priorities of the vast majority of Americans align with the majority of Democrats, but Republicans were elected? I am reminded of the infamous words from the movie “Cool Hand Luke” delivered by Captain (Strother Martin) to prisoner Luke (Paul Newman) “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” The problem in our age of information is we are overwhelmed by communication. Yes, you were sick of the emails begging for money. How many did your contributions elect?
We need voters and how can that happen without begging for money? We can build a virtual community of people in each district. We have far too much top down national contact and not enough coordinating with people in our own districts. Lack of connection to our own local organizations results in poor candidates or no candidates in GOP dominated congressional districts. It leads to a candidate who is not even a Democrat being elected in my district’s primary. I realize my district is one the national party thinks is a sure Republican seat. A young former military family man lost to a more Tea type candidate with a similar name who had run in Republican primaries previously. This shows the bankruptcy of effective communication with the DCCC and local party efforts. As the GOP/Tea Party becomes more extreme the opportunity for a Democrat to succeed grows in our district. Our party should think like it could win in every district because it could.
Organizing for Action
The OFA originally Obama for America was a start but never used as an effective communication tool – it was a money collection effort. If OFA would be the base for a new network of intercommunication it would be a great resource on the path back to power. It must create specific to congressional district groups putting voters, party leaders, activist groups who are in the same district in touch with each other. Thousands of virtual friends, followers, or contacts do not create dialog or lead to people showing up to nominate candidates. We must communicate with and know who is registered in the district. We could be far more effective at outreach in every congressional district. This is an approach as old as the American political system is itself with local units becoming a part of state units to form a federal government.
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