Disappointed-need a pep talk- Clubs Vs Party (long)

[liveoaktx]

I live in a county where there are a lot of Democrats, probably more than Republicans, but the party is not an active one. The people who are in party positions are interested only in doing the elections and not much else. When I first got involved in politics here, the county chairman told me that he couldn't get people to go to meetings unless there was free food, he made little effort to hold regular meetings (in contrast to the highly organized Republicans who hold meetings every month, invite representatives to come speak, and had a meeting right before the last special vote to tell their people how to vote). Half of the precinct chairs, he said, didn't come to the chair meetings, and that was true. I started in about having regular meetings and I had some difficulties about it that were mostly due to a whos-in-charge issue. He had health issues and in the fall a new county chair was appointed in the interim-she has had, since September, only one meeting and that was the rally right before the election. At the rally, she said that Democrats need to quit being ashamed of being Democrats, and that she didn't know how much time she would be able to devote to being the chair, but she was learning all the paperwork ropes. She told me in a different conversation that she was happy to be the chair, that she was doing it as a promise to the former chair in ill health, that she didn't see the need for regular meetings except at election time, that the precinct chairs only wanted to do elections, not work their precincts and she wasn't going to make them change because (something like, change comes slowly). Don't get me wrong, she's a nice person and I like her, I just couldn't see how, without activity that brings Dems together, how we would get the party going in this county.

She won tonight against a challenger, and I'm discouraged. I don't think she will be holding meetings because there's sort of a ramp-up-for-the-elections-only mentality.

I went to a grassroots training in another county a couple of months ago and one of the things said was that Democrats can start groups or clubs that are independent of the Democratic party (say, Dean for America, or Democratic Women, etc) I was waiting till after the election because the challenger's platform was holding regular meetings and I figured if he won the issue would be solved. But he didn't.

So here's the deal. I have several action oriented things I want to do and I want to have meetings. I have thought about just doing something like a twice-monthly "meet for breakfast" type thing-I know of at least a few people right now who would like to do that and I think it would build from there. I don't want to conflict with the Democratic official party but compliment it-maybe be the activity arm versus the monitoring-elections arm.

Has anyone found themselves in this position? What did you do? Did you have any problems with the local party?

[Jane Austin]

1. I've never been in your position, but you can organize a meetup of

like-minded people: maybe young people, or progressives, or grannies or activists of some kind.

If you meet at a fun place, you can do that several times, and then organize some community projects like collecting for a food bank, or keeping a section of highway clean - - something you can get a little publicity for while doing some good.

If you find your little group is compatible, you can start registering voters, and doing more traditionally political activities.

Good luck with this. It sounds like your area needs you and some like-minded people.

[crispini]

2. Yes, you can go ahead and have meetings and start a club.

And I think you should.

At least in my county, the entire Executive Committee (all of the precinct chairs) is a rather unwieldy animal-- there are something like three hundred of us. We do have quarterly meetings, and I think that's pretty appropriate. Not a lot of the true activist work gets done at this level. The Executive Committees have subcommittees that do some of the work, and the various clubs have activist people in them that do some of the work here.

I would encourage you to go ahead and start your own Democratic club. Then you can focus on the activist stuff you want to do. I'd write some bylaws kind of early, so you can actually become an official organization, solicit a few members, and open a bank account. PM me if you want some help and suggestions. You probably want to handle it in such a way that you work on your ideas offline and then take them to your club to have them adopted. As opposed to showing up and expecting people there to take initiative. It's my guess that there are a LOT of people who will be willing to show up, and will be willing to do specific tasks you ask of them, but will not be willing to take initiative. I think you will find in a new organization that if you show up and expect stuff to automatically get done, it won't. You have to take the lead and make a plan to get it done, and then that will help.

Back to your discussion about meetings for a moment. One of the biggest beefs against our PREVIOUS county party chair was that she wouldn't hold any meetings of the Executive Committee. (There were other beefs too.) Now, it IS possible for the members of the Executive Committee to call for a meeting themslves, by signing a petition or something, so that if the majority of the committee members call for a meeting, there is a meeting. Of course THAT particular meeting rapidly degenerated into something resembling a brawl. So if you are interested in continuous harmonious relations with your current chair you might wanna not go that route. It's a long story.