Below is a letter from David Bright to the State Committee. It is a lessons learned letter for the democratic party to improve itself in Maine. Jane Sanford asked me to forward it to everyone.
David Bright
4262 Kennebec Rd.
Dixmont ME 04932
207-234-4226
dbright@brightberryfarm.com
Nov. 20, 2006
Dear Maine Democrats,
As Jean and I traveled across the state during her U.S. Senate campaign over the past 18 months, we had many conversations with many people about what our party could do to improve, how it could help candidates, and how it could work to bring the Democratic ideals to more Maine people. We talked to life-long proud Democrats, disaffected Democrats who had left the party but come back to support various campaigns, and unenrolled and Green voters who saw potential in the Democratic Party but weren't yet ready to join. It's clear from these conversations that people want to be engaged in the political process, and are looking for a party – and party structure – that offers them an opportunity to increase their involvement in the electoral process.
Many of your picked up this letter at the State Committee meeting in Fairfield on Sunday. Several asked for electronic copies, and some State Committee members were absent. So I am sending this out to the entire committee, in hopes that it will spur some discussion.
Key topics we heard included:
The underlying sentiment of most of these suggestions is that people want a Democratic party that operates down to the county level 52 weeks a year. They want a party that never goes dormant, and that has the infrastructure and people in place to quickly ramp up during election cycles without having to start from scratch every two years.
We found strong support for the Howard Dean model of a 50-state strategy, with the top of the party serving as the support structure for the local organizations, which do the real work of the Party. We also found that Democrats reject the oft-cited claim by unenrolleds and third parties that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Democrats know there are many differences, and those difference are clear. They know their party stands for something, and they want their party to promote those ideals and the differences between Democrats and Republicans.
Obviously, the Maine Democratic Party is already doing many of these things. The results this election cycle on many different levels prove that. But I believe, and the people who took the time to talk to us believe, that our Party can do more, and that the issues we face in this state and country require us ramp up our political activity, so that as Democrats we can have the country we want. We need, as Jean pointed out so many times during her campaign, to enable and empower voters so they can vote for the America they want to live in. Those who felt that way offered their suggestions to us, and I offer them here to you.
.
David Bright,
Dixmont Town Chair
Member, Penobscot County Democratic Committee
Campaign manager, Jean Hay Bright U.S. Senate
Build and Maintain a Solid Party Infrastructure
Strengthen the Counties
Counties are where much of our work gets done. It's at the county level where we get involved in our communities, organize our GOTV, support our candidates. We know the people and the turf. We are most effective when local people work on local efforts to support all the candidates.
Everywhere we went we heard of the need for active, year-round county offices. The Democratic Party needs to be open for business full time. We need places where Democrats can gather, where the party has a public face in the community, where it can share its resources with other affiliated groups.
The state committee should work with the counties to provide year-round office space, insurance, telephone and internet communications, and computing resources.
It should work with counties to build the base from the ground up. It should help and encourage counties to recruit and involve local Democrats, organize towns around local House districts, then organize the towns in those districts.
Keep the VAN up to date and constantly improving
This year we finally stopped talking about a state-wide voter list and built one. Yes it has some problems, but it was a valuable tool when placed in the hands of local Democrats. It must be maintained and improved. And counties must be listened to when offering ways to improve it. Counties need to be given ownership of their data in the VAN, so that the data is solid, based on local knowledge, but available to all.
The Party should develop adequate safeguards to make sure the VAN is not hacked, that data can be changed but not completely deleted by a user, and that changes are tracked by user and date. Give counties the ability to make the needed changes in data, while protecting the integrity of the database.
Encourage towns and counties to keep it updated, using local knowledge and contacts.
Make a concerted effort this fall and winter -- working through the counties – to capture the history and absentee data from this election cycle.
Additional training on the VAN is needed. This should be done in computer labs or other sites where each trainee can get hands-on training and assistance. The state may want to develop a smaller, training database, so that students are not working on live data.
Start a program – in cooperation with the counties – to contact every Democrat on the list, either by phone or by mail. Use this contact to:
Fix addresses
Gather and correct phone numbers
Get an email address (if a Democrat doesn't want to give up their personal email address, consider finding a way to offer Democrats a second address that only gets used for party communications. (i.e. jane.doe@mainedems.org)
Make sure the household data is correct.
Use the VAN as a fundraising tool to raise small contributions from the base
In the course of contacting every Democrat to keep the VAN up to date, ask them at the same time to contribute to the Party, a small amount, perhaps $10, so more of our party funding comes from the base. Right now Democrats are pleased with our successes in Washington and Augusta. Let's build on that feeling, and get the rank and file involved beyond the voting booth by helping to sustain our Party's growth. People who are involved in their churches and social organizations understand that they need to contribute to keep those institutions going. More rank-and-file Democrats need to become part of our funding operation.
A VAN-based fund-raising effort, where half of whatever gets raised after the cost of the mailing goes back to the county, will let Democrats see the results of their contributions.
This local fundraising doesn't have to be done all at once. The state can help every county mail to one town at a time, then use the proceeds from that to mail to additional towns. The mailing could include information similar to the door hanger we used last spring, so the message gets out to the base and the base helps keep the message moving.
Build the idea with the base that it's their party, and they should contribute to it. Yes small contributions are a pain to process, but they give every Democrat a chance to take some ownership in the Party, and they often lead to larger contributions later on. If the base knows half of the money will stay in their county, and be assured of helping their local candidates, they'll be more likely to contribute.
Increase Our Party's visibility
Make MAINEDEMS.ORG a must-read page
Latest news reports on political items of interest.
Calendar of all political activities Democrats might be interested in, so we can do long range planning without bumping into another event.
Candidate section even during the primary.
Party and office-holder press releases.
Synopsis of key bills, appointment vacancies Democrats might serve on, nominations.
Running vote totals for ALL legislators, so we know who's voting how.
Widen our media reach
Keep track of the Republican votes as they happen so we can keep a constant message out there about the Republican failings, not just have to get the entire message out during election time. If we chip away at the Republican vision all the time we are in a much better place when election season rolls around. The web page or dedicated email blasts could provide information for:
year round letter writing
talking points in formal and informal settings, including call in shows.
The Party should also consider year-round media activities such as:
radio ads
radio talk show participation
TV talk and interview shows.
It should maintain and promote a speakers bureau
It should provide press services for House and Senate candidates and members.
Increase our visibility at parades, festivals, and fairs, even during the off year
Provide assistance to counties by helping to coordinate events when possible, assisting with cost of insurance and space rental.
Help to bring in Democrats from other counties to increase participation in parades (The Republicans hired a bunch of rent-a-kids this summer and sent them to every parade. Democrats should do that kind of organizing with volunteers.)
We should also keep track of who has parade-ready vehicles – old cars and show tractors, trailers that can be easily turned into floats, and other attention getters.
Grow peas!! The reception Jean got when her crews passed out shell peas instead of candy at parades was overwhelming. People loved it, even if they didn't get the "Give Peas a Chance" message. It promoted healthy nutrition and sustainable agriculture as well as Jean's peace message. Peas in place of candy became a signature event for our campaign. Instead of people just throwing things at the parade watchers, we approached people, and offered them something of value. It took a little extra work, but it made a personal contact, and people were more receptive to taking information. The Democratic Party is welcome to use that idea.
Start Planning NOW for the 2008 State Convention
Our last two conventions have been difficult. We need to make the Caucuses and the 2008 State Convention one of the showcases of the Maine Democratic Party. While the newly developed continuing Party Platform should reduce platform debate, we still need to plan for adequate time for platform debate without disrupting the delegate selection process and time for candidate presentations. We must be mindful of media deadlines. We need to plan a convention that can accommodate several active Presidential campaigns as well as the possibility of a large primary field in the First Congressional District.
(In the long run, we may be better off amending our by-laws to hold a convention every year – doing candidate issues during the on year and platform during the off year. An off-year convention built around platform would keep the public focused on the party every year without intruding on delegate selection and candidate promotion during the on years. Once the campaign year started we'd be able to focus all of our energies on candidate promotion and election winning.)
The convention starts with the caucuses, and we need to start earlier organizing them. Much of the pre-caucus work should be done in 2007.
Counties should be assisted in developing contacts in every town this year so we have as many conveners in place at the start of the year as possible.
RULES need to be codified and published by the beginning of the year. Caucuses in 2008 must be properly run. We can not do any of this "those who want to go to convention raise your hand" stuff. We need forms that are designed to properly identify the primary and secondary presidential preferences, and provide accurate contact information about the delegates and their alternates. These paper records must be preserved so we can accurately reconstruct the delegate selection process. We should not be doing issue surveys and volunteer sign ups on the same documents as the presidential preference documents.
Beyond the caucus we need an understanding of how the process will work right up to the close of the convention. This was not always the case in 2004. There were instances of rules being misinterpreted and incorrect information being disseminated. This must be avoided in 2008.
Candidate coordination and liaison, both among the presidential representatives and the congressional contenders, must be maintained. Everyone needs to be at the table and fully informed. During both the 2004 presidential cycle and during this last cycle there were many complaints and ill feelings expressed because there was a perception among some people that the party was working on behalf of specific candidates to the exclusion or other candidates. Whether that was actually the case or not doesn't matter, it was the perception that caused the problem. All operations of the party pertaining to candidate issues must remain open and transparent.
On caucus day we need to coordinate our schedules to maximize the coverage of both the caucus itself and the candidates -- again with an eye to the size of the fields. And we need to make the results an exciting event, like a real election night. The centralized presidential preference reporting ought to at least be as exciting as the school mock election reporting.
TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING.
Success at the caucus and beyond will come only with proper training. We must have conveners who not only understand the process but who can explain it to the caucus. And we need fast and accurate record keeping and data entry. In theory we have much of the contact information in the VAN. If this can be ported to the Convention database, and an on-line data entry system developed for the convention, data entry should be faster and much less prone to input errors.
The State Party should stop feeding off its candidates.
The current culture of the party is that primary candidates are to be left alone, offered no assistance, and should pay for everything they get from the party. This culture must be reversed. The party needs to understand that the primary season is not only designed to determine a nominee but to help prepare the nominee to move forward quickly. As such, the Party should be providing full resources to all the candidates. This would include full VAN access, free advertising and display space at the Convention and major party functions such as the JJ Dinner and major party fund-raisers, and other assets. It's important for Democrats to see how their candidates do with the resources they are given. (Think of it as Triple-A baseball. The reason the New York Yankees have done so well over time just may be that they pay attention to – and support -- their farm system.)
Convention facilities need to be adequate, and look good. We should be thinking about how it looks to the outside media as well – even down to possibly having the Party coordinate the signage. The haphazard signage outside our conventions make it look like a big ransom note. Inside is not much better. In the rush to get every possible location, signs get put up sloppily. This one-upsmanship approach results in poor presentation of the party. We need to revisit ways to fairly represent all of our candidates at convention without making the hallways look like a college dorm..
Continue our Local and County Candidate Recruitment Efforts
As we traveled around the state it was a joy to work with local counties and local candidates. The field of county, state house and state senate candidates this year was remarkable. It is a testimony to the work that our party leadership did in recruitment. We need to continue and expand this effort.
We should start looking for candidates in 2007 so we have them in place in 2008. We know which seats are term-limited. Other openings may appear as the year progresses. And there are still Republican seats that need to be won in the next election cycle. It's not too early to begin finding and promoting candidates. There are Democratic community leaders in many towns who only need a little encouragement to consider running. Again, these people are best found at the county level. They should be encouraged, but also cautioned that running for office is hard work, and they may face primary opponents as well as opponents in the fall. We have to be careful that we don't promise a potential candidate that it will be easy, or that they won't face a primary, but that should not stop us from always being aware of those in our communities who can make quality candidates.
We need to be prepared to help candidates get a good jump on the campaign year. Because of the national primary/caucus schedule, our caucus may end up being very close to the filing deadline in 2008. We need to be ready to help candidates – all candidates – with their nomination work and fund-raising. One proposal we heard was for a series of Democratic New Year's Eve parties all across the state. Invite your friends and neighbors and at the stroke of midnight bring out the nomination petitions and Clean Elections paper work. We have a good time, and get started right out of the block.
The Party did a lot of work helping candidates with media, training, issues and other activities during the year. This work needs to be encouraged and expanded. We also can work to help out candidates with connections to affinity groups and allies, such as labor unions, Peace and Justice groups, environmental groups, civil and human rights groups, blue businesses, College Democrats, the Democratic Women's League, and Young Democrats.
And speaking of Young Democrats, we need to make additional efforts to bring youth into the party. We met many energized and active pre-voters on the campaign trail. It was encouraging to see their enthusiasm. South Portland High School has a well-organized group, and we should be encouraging such organizations in other schools. And the College Democrats organization in Maine is active and an important part of our Party.
Continue our strong GOTV efforts
The Get-Out-The-Vote we witnessed in county after county was amazing, and shows how well we can do when the Coordinated Campaign works WITH the counties, by providing the support the counties need to do their work. Much of the voter ID work started at the county level with hundreds of dedicated volunters who gave up their evenings and weekends to contact voters. Clearly Hancock County deserves singling out here. Hancock – working out of its year-round office – made tens of thousands of calls and followed up with lit drops and media advertising. That effort was repeated in county headquarters all over the state. Where counties couldn't manage it, the Coordinated Camapign pitched in. The combination of quality candidates and GOTV worked. We have a Democratic State House and Senate to show for it.
There were other suggestions as well, many, of course, involving fund-raising and how to pay for all these suggestions. The pull between national and in-state fund-raising was a constant topic, especially as it affected Jean's campaign. It's clear that on the local level, many counties need help in fund-raising. But the general consensus was that as their local activities increased, and their visibility rose in the community, the money would often follow.
I'll start where I began – with a plea for a State Party dedicated to doing everything it can to promote stronger County Committees. Our county organizations are both the face and the backbone of our party. They deserve our respect and support.
