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If you look back at election returns over the last decade, before 2004 Travis County was trending more republican. Bush won a plurality in 2000 and after the 2002 elections the Travis County delegation in the Lege was split 3-3. Of course there had been a large Nader vote in 2000 and loads of TRMPAC money in 2002, but overall it was an alarming trend that we really had to mobilize against in 2004. Two grassroots groups---Democracy for Texas and Austin4Kerry---played a big part in the big voter registration drive and GOTV effort that reestablished Austin's bona fides as a blue bastion.
After the 2004 elections, DFT, with its links to the national Democracy for America organization and its Deaniac core was obviously going to continue to exist. The future for A4K was more in doubt. The national Kerry campaign had never really understood or embraced the grassroots meetup groups like the Dean or Clark campaigns had, and around the country a lot of the Kerry Meetups faded away. Some of the A4K organizers were determined not to let that happen here. A whole lot of people had become politically active in 2004, and it would be tragic if they were just allowed to become depressed, demobilized, and alienated from participating in politics. If the Texas Democrats are really going to come back, we need to keep those people who in 2004 were saying "I've never done this before" active; and add to their number.
We spent some time analyzing what we had done in A4K and tried to distill some lessons. One thing that we felt was very effective was tying national issues to local races. We had figured out early on that there really wasn't much point in sitting around and talking about what an awesome President John Kerry would be, because we were all going to vote for him (even if some of us weren't totally convinced he was all that awesome.) What was more useful was to have a meeting with the theme being the effect of the elections on the courts and then bring in all our local judicial candidates to educate the audience on why it was important that they keep voting in all the down-ballot races to elect Democrats to those positions. Let's face it: Kerry winning Travis County was personally satisfying and good for bragging rights, but given the way the Electoral College works essentially meaningless; booting Perry's appointee Patrick Keel out and replacing him with Stephen Yelenosky was a real victory.
We were also clear that we weren't setting up an organization to compete with Democracy For Texas. We recognized that DFT is an activist group---if you needed a hundred people to spend their Saturday sticking voter registration packets on apartment doors, that's who to call. Our goal, we decided, was to build a community of people around progressive ideas, who would remain politically engaged and educated. People who would continue to vote, maybe do a little volunteering for a campaign or cause that interested them, pick up a yard sign; most importantly, be politically knowledgeable persons who would be opinion leaders in their social, work and family circles.
We launched Keep Austin Blue about a year ago. We try to keep the formal parts of our meetings short and entertaining, because we really emphasize the community-building aspect of our mission. We encourage people to get to know one another and welcome newcomers.
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