Progressive Viewpoints

In 2000, Democrats led on terrorism

Shortly before 2 AM the other day, as I finished up drinks with a new progressive friend (and co-producer of the killer video “America's Party” that won the 2004 DNC convention award) I was mentioning how far ahead the Demcrats were of the Republicans in 2000 regarding terrorism.  Specifically, Al Gore's 2000 platform addressed it (and Osama Bin Laden  by name) directly, with many of the recommendations that have since become the cornerstones of American strategy, but some of which still languish.

In light of the national debate on the incursions into constitutional liberties that the Bush administration has put in place under cover of the “war on terror”, I thought I'd excerpt the terrorism section of the 2000 Democratic Party platform here for posterity, to contrast (a) the clear awareness by Democrats of the danger of terrorism which was ignored by the Republicans (note that the Democrats even predicted the Republicans would ignore it!), (b) the forward thinking about the issue, (c) the specific strategies of how to go about it, as well as (d) incorporating full consideration of and need for preservation of constitutional rights in spite of the danger posed (emphasis below is mine):

Technorati Tags: Al Gore, civil_rights, Constitution, National security, Osama bin Laden, Safeguarding America, Terrorism

Re: Ohio election challenge (Portland Tribune)

The cornerstone of our democractic ideals is that a citizenship of diverse beliefs can govern themselves.

The partisan tampering we've seen in each of the last two presidential elections, gerrymandering like the Texas redistricting scandal and other examples have gotten out of hand.

I was glad to see the objection to the certification of the Ohio electors as a symbol of the desire of millions of citizens to have a cleaner election system.

A system where highly partisan campaign chairs also aren't controling the voting booths, tallying systems and sitting in judgment on disputes.

A system where voting mechanics are designed to maximize the opportunity for everyone to vote, have the vote counted correctly ... and recounted as necessary.

A system where we have a federal constitutional right to vote, not just a state right.

Not a system that can be gamed to get one party or another an election advantage.

I was ashamed at the patronizing, hostile and disrespectful Republican majority response to the concerns expressed.

It is time for wholesale change in our election systems.

Re: 50-state strategy on MyDD

Bush ran -- and had to run -- a 50 state strategy because if he won the electoral college and lost the popular again, it would have been disastrous for him.  So he got out the vote in solidly red states to bring up the popular vote.

Kerry ran a 17-state battle-ground strategy, but if we had energized people and involved them and worked GOTV in CA, NY, NJ, etc. we would have added at least 1+M votes to his column, at the least driving the Bush win % to around 1%, maybe less.

Clearly one has to prioritize ... but not take it to ridiculous extremes.  Did all those huge rallies in last few days change anyone's vote?  I doubt it; he we preaching to the choir.

Re: Election discloses political fault lines (News-Register 11/27/2004)

(Published with some accepted edits 12/4/2004 as Numbers prove state is turning more 'blue')

To Reader's Forum:

Recently some have focused on the "red" versus "blue" notion and as characterizing Multnomah County as an island of blue in a sea of red.  In reality Oregon overall is trending more Democratic, not only by total vote, but at the county level as well.

Comparing 2000 and 2004, it wasn't just Multnomah that was blue, there were eight counties (the same eight) that voted for the Democrat.  And five of those are rural!  (Having no more than 3% of the state's voters.)  Then, comparing the ratio of Democrat to Republican in all counties, we see that Bush lost significant ground in 21 of our 36 counties (thus including half that were "red" in 2000), he gained ground in just 8 and stayed roughly even in the remaining 7.

Furthermore, this "blue" trend is confirmed in the pickup by Democrats of several seats in both the Oregon House and Senate in this election ... in districts outside of Multnomah County.

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

Oregon_2000.xls

Oregon_2004a.xls

Oregon_2004v2000.xls

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.

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.

Shoring up Weaknesses, Taking Advantage of Opportunities

Andrei Cherny  in The New York Times:

Democrats have a collection of policy positions that are sensible and right. John Kerry made this very clear. What we don't have, and what we sorely need, is [...] "the vision thing" - a worldview that makes a thematic argument about where America is headed and where we want to take it.

For most of the 20th century, Democrats had a bold vision: we would use government programs to make Americans' lives more stable and secure.

What is our economic vision in a globalized world? How do we respond to the desire of many Americans to have choices and decision-making power of their own? How can we speak to Americans' moral and spiritual yearnings? How can our national security vision be broader than just a critique of the Republican's foreign policy?
Why We Lost

I look at these two components below:

• Shore up our weaknesses
• Take advantage of opportunities

Poll monitoring in New Mexico

Wow, what a great experience!

New voters in droves.  True non-partisanship (one poll monitor said it took almost 5 hours to figure out people's political leanings).  Diversity amazing: we had college students, troops and families from the air force base, poor and retired folks from trailer parks, middle class hispanics, whites, blacks and asians, folks from new subdivisions of differing income levels.

About 40% had opted for absentee ballots or early voting.

At our polling location, two precincts were voting at the same location, which led to confusion about which line to stand in.  One had under 1000 registered the other had grown from 1600 to 2500 registered since the last election.

At our polling location, we probably assisted 3-4 dozen people, about half-dozen where our lawyer went in with voter to help straighten out issues.  We handed out about 1000 New Mexico Voter Bill of Rights sheets.  We redirected a dozen or so to their correct polling locations, assisted with obtaining provisional ballots, and redirected one or two to the County Clerk.

The most suspicious and outright negative attitudes towards us were from older white folks (although some were nice on the way out, and a few even ended up asking for help).  The election judges were great, supportive.  In New Mexico non-partisan activity like our can be within 50 feet of the building; partisan electioneering 100 feet.

Clear problems with current system in New Mexico:

• having to vote in your precinct
  - there are a large number of precinct expansions and consolidations (mergers) of precincts leading to many changes in precinct locations for people
  - with changes in precinct boundaries many people are not familiar with voting locations because theirs may have changed or the voting location nearest them is not for their precinct
  - there is wide disparity in quality and experience of precinct judges and they only work infrequently (at election times) so don't build up experience well  they have different systems for absentee (paper), early voting (machines), voting (another kind of machine), and provisional ballots (paper -- same as absentee, but handled differently) which makes the whole system more complicated to learn and manage for election judges
• one judge hadn't ordered enough machines for the growth of his precinct leading to up to 2 hour lines
• provisional balloting system unclear to both voters and election judges with respect to when/if it would be counted and which votes would be counted (only national, or everything that applies)
• no provisional balloting mechanism for voting from outside your county

Lessons on voting system, shows what a GREAT system Oregon has

• produced national record turnout (>85%)
• one system for absentee, early, voting (and provisional?) is simpler
• electronic signature-matching assures correct voter votes without ID restrictions
• don't have precinct level voting which means fewer inexperienced amateur judges since handled at county clerk level
• possible issue with respect to appropriate security of ballots during 18 day reciepts

Recommendations:

• require ID to register as proof of citizenship
• but use electronic signature matching at election time
• eliminate confusing requirement to vote at precinct location and move to county-wide or state-wide with secure ballot drop-off locations
• use only one ballot type
• allow provisional ballots anywhere in the state, but only count those votes that are in common with the precinct in which they are registered (over time, perhaps migrate to electronic system that can be used anywhere in the state to produce the right ballot for your precinct)