Progressive Viewpoints

Dean for DNC Chair

Note to the Draft Howard Dean for DNC Chair petition:

Running DNC involves 3 roles: operations (infrastructure like in IT: the voter database, etc.), fund-raising, and spokesperson.

Howard Dean is the only one out there that has significantly innovated on all three. The third role, spokesperson, needs to be much more elevated so we have had so far: we need someone who can always respond to the administration and the right's maneuvers ... a lightening rod to take heat off others and who isn't distracted by other duties as Senator or Governor and the immediate political concerns of those other roles.

Democratic Party Leadership

Democratic Party Leadership

The party needs three kinds of leaders, in equal measures but with very different roles:

Chief of Operations, espeically IT, GOTV, mobilization and campaign infrastructure

• the democrats are 6 years behind the Republicans in developing their nationwide voter database, and making it available to workers at the precinct level --
• the democrats haven't effectively leveraged technology to mobilze "affinity groups"/"communities" to be influential, nor to reach rural supporters
• the current folks have done a bad job and need new blood

Chief Fundraiser - most of increase in fundraising in this cycle came from innovations from people like Howard Dean, working outside the party infrastructure

• again, the current folks have not seen and seized opportunities and need new blood

Chief Spokesperson - we need a voice of the opposition, a person who can take the fight to Bush and Republicans every day, so it has to be someone with backbone, quickness, ... and doesn't have a "day job" as a politician

• we need a lightning rod to attract attention
• to make the Democratic case
• every day

Oregon counties trending Democratic

Following up to my concern that The Oregonian is misleading the trends and values of Oregonians as reflected in their votes for president, I recently completed a comparative analysis of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections at the county level.  In contrast to the Oregonian's view that Multnomah county isn't representative of the state, what I found was that overall Oregon is trending more Democratic, not only by total vote, but by looking at the results of each county's votes.

Overall, in both elections, the same 8 counties voted for the Democrat.  However, comparing the ratio of Democrat to Republican in all counties, we see that 2/3 of the counties (thus including half or more that were "red" in 2000) have a higher percentage of their voters voting Democratic.  Bush lost ground in 21 of our 36 counties, he gained ground in 8 and stayed roughly even in the remaining 7.

Whether or not we factor out those counties for which there was only trivial variance between the two elections, it is clear that there is an overall shift to the Democrats in Oregon.

Factoring out "trivial" shifts:

• 21 counties got "bluer" and 8 got redder (2.63)
• 14 of the 28 red counties got bluer (and only 7 got redder) (2.00)
• 7 of the 8 blue counties got bluer (and 1 got redder) (7.00)

Raw shift:

• 23 counties got "bluer" and 13 got redder (1.77)
• 16 of the 28 red counties got bluer (and 12 got redder) (1.33)
• 7 of the 8 blue counties got bluer (and 1 got redder) (7.00)

Multnomah county's trend may be stronger, but it is the same direction as the rest of Oregon: more Democratic.

Methodology was to compare the ratio of Kerry v Bush to Gore v Bush, ignoring the third party candidates.

"Trivial" was those with only about 1% shift in the ratios.  Because these are ratios, it takes more change of a county with large disparity to move the dial measurably (Crook (30/65 > 30/68) and Linn (38/57 > 38/60)).  Yamhill had a net 1% gain (40/54 > 42/57), the remainder were under a point change, with both parties gaining 2% in each county.

Sources: Oregon Secretary of State, Unofficial 2004 General Election Results, United States President / United States Vice President Results by County and November 7, 2000 General Election.

Re: Voting in a Bubble (Oregonian 11/07/2004)

Last week in "Voting in a Bubble", the Oregonian described Oregon's election results as the blue island of Multnomah County surrounded by a sea of red.  Funny, last I checked in Oregon, it was one citizen, one vote ... and not by geographic area.  The entire premise is misleading about Oregonians' preferences.

Although the emphasis was put on Multnomah county, in fact eight oregon counties went "blue" in 2004, representing 50% of Oregon voters.  Of those, five (that is, 72% of the "blue" counties) each had 3% or less of Oregon voters, so most of the "blue" counties were rural counties.  In the "red" counties, almost 400,000 people actually voted for Kerry.  While those counties tilted "red", there are a lot of rural Kerry supporters out there whose views and values are essentially being dismissed by the punditry.

Reporting in a Bubble

Last week in "Voting in a Bubble", the Oregonian described Oregon's election results as the blue island of Multnomah County surrounded by a sea of red.  Funny, last I checked in Oregon, it was one citizen, one vote ... and not by geographic area.  For example, three of the "red" counties each have fewer people in their entire county than the 1312 undergraduates enrolled at Reed College in Southeast Portland this year: Gilliam, Sherman, Wheeler.  They may be larger, but they don't reflect a significant percent of Oregonians.

The entire premise is misleading about Oregonians' preferences.  Let's take a closer look.

Although the emphasis was put on Multnomah county, eight oregon counties went "blue" in 2004, representing 50% of Oregon voters.  Of those, five (that is, 72% of the "blue" counties) each had 3% or less of Oregon voters, so most of the "blue" counties were rural counties.  In the "red" counties, almost 400,000 people actually voted for Kerry.  While those counties tilted "red", there are a lot of rural Kerry supporters out there whose views and values are essentially being dismissed by the punditry.  In fact, more people voted for John Kerry in the "red" counties than voted for Bush in the "blue" counties.

This oversimplified "blue island vs sea of red" geographies ignores the realities:
- citizens vote, not counties
- Oregon voters as a whole (not just Multnomah county) are more blue than red
- several rural counties swung blue
- Kerry voters were located in substantial numbers throughout the rural part of the state
- Kerry got more votes in the "red" counties than Bush got in the blue counties

See Oregon Secretary of State, Unofficial 2004 General Election Results, United States President / United States Vice President Results by County.

Re: Abolish Election Day (The Nation 11/13/2004)

[Published in Voting by Mail in  the online edition of The Nation on 12/02/2004]

I would heartily support, as suggested in the article "Abolish Election Day" (The Nation 11/13/2004), the move to all-mail voting.

As an Oregonian who voted by mail, then travelled to New Mexico as an Election Protection poll monitor, I was able to compare the two systems up close.  I had always appreciated the ease of vote-by-mail and the resulting higher turnout (85% of registered voters for 2004!), but hadn't appreciated how much simpler it makes the rest of the system as well.

Where I was assigned in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the polling location had two precincts.  One hadn't ordered enough machines although registration had grown from 1600 to 2500, and had two hour waits all day.  In addition, many of the folks working there only do that work every two years.  It is hard to train them up effectively and introduce new concepts like provisional voting and new voting machine system to hundreds or thousands of inexperienced workers in the days before an election.  Our Election Protection team helped at least four dozen voters resolve issues, often because the precinct team wasn't skilled or was too busy to work with the citizen to ensure they could vote if they were eligible.

By moving to a mail-in election, the counting and verification work moves from hundreds or thousands of precinct-level places and poorly trained amateurs to dozens of counties.  The counties tend to have a higher level of professionalism and it is easier for all political parties to participate in oversight.

Lastly, in New Mexico they had different voting systems for different types of vote: paper for absentee, early voting machines, different machines for voting day, etc.  In Oregon, it is all the same paper ballot.

As mentioned in the article, signatures for every ballot are matched to those on file in Oregon, electronically.  If the system rejects a signature, it is examined by a person, with the usual team of overseers from political parties.  The voter is contacted to come resolve the issue. So no ID is required to vote once you've initially established citizenship.

Before this election I liked Oregon's vote-by-mail system for how easy it made it to vote.  Now, I wouldn't trade Oregon's system for anything else I've heard of because it is a better overall voting system.

Statement on election petition

My statement on MoveOn's election investigation petition:

I was with Election Protection in New Mexico, and personally helped 3-4 dozen people with registration/location issues.  Waiting lines were consistently 2 hours.

We had reports of problems with trying to vote for Kerry, but having Bush show up.  I'm not sure anyone voting with those problem was ever convinced that even when it showed Kerry that it was necessarily recorded correctly.

Judges for the Vast Majority of Americans

I firmly believe that the vast majority of Americans want judges that the vast majority of Americans believe are fair, that they will judge fairly and impartially without preconceptions along lines of ideology.

To that end, the Senate rules on filibuster have provided a means, judiciously used toward that end of preventing extreme judges from either the left or right.  For example, in Bush's first term, almost all of the 200+ Bush nominees have been approved and just 10 held up.  But Senate Majority leader Bill Frist is out to ensure than any bare majority can ensure appointment of the most extreme judges:

"One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end," Frist, R-Tenn., said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. "
Washington Post

This is but one example of the bigger issue of the "tyranny of the majority" that Republicans are seeking to impose in wake of Election 2004 and the hope that they have created a "permanent Republican majority" (otherwise known as a one-party state).  For more on this see my blog section on Tyranny of the Majority, and from a year ago, see this blog entry.

Feedback to ACT

America Coming Together (ACT) asked for feedback. Here's what I sent them:

I was a big supporter of ACT, and still am. Here's why: ACT brought a level of professionalism to the GOTV effort. First, the concept of developing a "relationship", engaging over time with people. Second, the use of technology to tie together all the interactions (calls, direct mail, door knocks). Third, and related, using "tele-sales qualification" to identify good targets and not waste resources unnecessarily.

I hope all that worked. (You'll have to evaluate how effective it was, but it sure made sense.)

For next time, we need to develop strategies for non-target-rich environments -- that is, not just battleground states, but all states; not just blue states, but red states, not just urban centers, but rural areas. We need to reach the whole population and win the popular vote registration and turn-out as well as the Electoral College vote.

And of course, all the messaging needs to be in a language and strategic framework that casts our values and resulting positions in a way that is inclusive of the most people.

Prioritze and Strategize

None of our issues or concerns went away, nor were they repudiated given Bush barely got a majority at 51%.

.... "Bush and Karl Rove declared war on Blue Staters; Blue Staters have the right--and obligation--to defend their land and fight back."
David Corn

And he's right: they will continue the relentless march and we can't pause more than the few days that have passed already as we see with Bush's plan to immediately begin privatizing Social Security before opposition with a sane and affordable fix to Social Security can be mounted. And there's plenty more under the radar, I'm sure!

While it certainly can be frustrating and even depressing that so many fellow citizens were bamboozled by fear of gays and terrorism to look past Bush's record of lies, runs on the constitution with the torture memo, etc., remember that 70% (way more than Bush's winning percentage) of the electorate agrees with progressive positions on environment, healthcare, safety nets, fiscal responsibility, civil rights, etc. That means a huge percentage of Bush's own base agrees with our vision of America and what should be done. We could see this with Republican defections, vast newspaper endorsements.

We should learn from our mistakes (messaging probably the most, candidate weaknesses probably low -- after all, it was Bush that lost 13% in the first debate, and Kerry who gained after every single one).

For more general thoughts, see my blog entry Shoring up Weaknesses, Taking Advantage of Opportunities

Below are some specific ideas, organized as:

• Prioritize.
• Strategize.
• Surmount Challenges.
• Overcome Threats.