Need Ideas on Grassroots Organizing

[welshTerrier2]

I just returned from voting in the Massachusetts primary ... the "nice little old ladies" working at the polling place told me that turnout was extremely light ... incredible !!! the home of the "Massachusetts Miracle" and the Route 128 technology belt has an unemployment rate higher than the national average, and voters are staying home today ...

I'm afraid if there's not a horserace, voters just won't participate ...

About a month ago, I switched my registration from "Unenrolled" to "Democrat" ... I'm something of a Green-O-Crat politically but thought that this year, the dems need all the help they could get ... at my first meeting of the democratic town committee, I signed up for a group headed by my state rep to help her energize the party ... last week, I attended the first meeting ... it was totally depressing ... the great action item was to make a sign to hold at the polling place on super tuesday (no one was there holding a sign when i voted ...) ...

I suggested that we needed to develop a contact database of all democrats, greens and unenrolled voters ... i suggested that we needed to find local "block" captains to have neighbors call people on their own streets to try to get them to vote and perhaps get involved with the party ... i suggested that we should develop some type of survey where we could give local democrats an opportunity to provide some feedback to us ... voters need to be listened to, I argued ...

"That's a lot of work you're talking about ... and it would cost too much money to print surveys ... perhaps we could hold some kind of milk and cookies event to raise some money ... I'll bet with a couple of events like that, we could easily add another 15 people to the town committee ..."

We ended up voting to make a sign ... "Please join the Ashland Democrats" ... ooooh, it gives me goosebumps ... the revolution has begun !!

So DU, how do you go about changing this sad state of affairs ???

I'm looking for proven techniques to build a grassroots movement of people who will not sit still for this apathy ... any ideas would be very appreciated ...

[bobbieinok]

1. in the 70s and 80s, IA democrats had a really good list and program

I remember it as very good but don't know how it was developed.

the democratic party where I was (Story Co) was very well organized.

maybe the party headquarters in Des Moines (Polk Co?) or the Story Co democratic party in Ames might have some info.

they were really good. light years beyond what seems to be the situation in OK.

[einniv]

2. Shameless self promotion

I tried to argue in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1176043

that perhaps the number one on my list there(reform of voting methods, proportional representation, pairwise counting methods etc) is something that a broad base of support could be built around (from all sides of the political spectrum).



I thuink this is so because.

#1 It crosses party boundaries and would be more likely to produce "spin offs" that also cross such boundaries. It reaffirms something we all trust and want more of. Democracy.

#2 It is a super easy sell. We aren't talking about wild theories but solid mathematical studies of voting done long after 1789 when the constitution was created. Most modern democracies have adopted some of these measures.

#3 The only real reason to oppose it is raw, naked party interest so it will tough for politicians to say no.

#4 With a better system for representing the populace and more voices , we will get more and better solutions to problems. This is the lynchpin I think. Once we fix the institutions and practices that are hampering true Democracy (gerry-mandering etc) where we all want to head will much more easily fall in place.

[einniv]

3. More along the lines of what you were asking about.

I also asked about any interest in a P2P political application.

Ad-hoc chat rooms . Finding , anonymous identities of people in your area who you can later decide to reveal to once you trust them etc.

Didn't seem to be much interest though(still hehe).

[welshTerrier2]

4. So, Is that all ??

not exactly the input I needed to "start the revolution" ...

any additional suggestions would certainly be helpful ...