Looking for some advice.

[GenDem]

I just discovered this group tonight....I sure wish I would have found it two months age, because there is so much great information here.

To qualify myself - I worked starting last April on the 50 state strategy, was asked and accepted a job as a US senate county coordinator, helped run Dem HQ's for this past election, I'm also on my town and county committee. I put in probably close to 30 hours a week the last month before election day (this was besides my paying job)...so I worked my ass off.

I need advice on a couple of fronts.

1) How do you motivate other committee members to join in and help? This seems to be our biggest problem in our area. We had about 8-10 regular volunteers that came and helped with phone banking, lit drops, and GOTV. There are about 50 or more on our county committee. Do you know when we saw them? Election night for the party after the polls closed. With our small group we did unprecedented work, but the load would have been much lighter had some of these people showed up.
Things we did accomplish -
-- first ever county wide lit drop
-- more than 5000 phone calls to voters
-- kept our office manned daily

2) Old timer Democratic committee people that are set in there ways and act threatened by our new, bolder strategies. These are some things we heard out of some of them -
-- we never did it this way
-- your wasting your time
-- won't work

3) On election night we had problems with a breakdown in leadership. This resulted in a clash of a couple of over enthused volunteers grabbing poll results away from our very effective, qualified volunteer in charge of entering poll results into the data base we set up prior to election day. I know that when results start coming in it is a very hectic, confusing time, but because we had a system in place that would have been full proof - the results were -
-- angry data person
-- chaos
-- delay of results
-- confusion

There were other issues, too numerous to list. We are a very republican, rural county and the older dems on our committee seem either battle weary or maybe many of them are dinos.

I would like to set up the precinct/district captain strategy, which would force these dead weight committee people to work their districts, or relinquish their positions.

We have two years to reform our system and get ready for '08. Believe it or not, even with the problems, this was the best our county has ever operated.

I am looking for any and all advice. Thanks in advance.

[wildeyed]

1. Do you have the votes to get rid of the deadwood committee people?

In our area a year or so ago, a bunch of younger folks wanted to become precinct captains in basically inactive precincts. And, don't you know, the inactive precinct captains organized against them to hold their posts and then proceeded to do no work for the election. :eyes:

I wish I had some great advice for you. Have you tried getting in touch with DFA? They might be able to advise you on these issues. Best of luck with your task, and thanks for taking it on!

[GenDem]

2. We had a county committee meeting last night,

and the problems with the dead weight committee people was discussed at length. We have two committee people for each district, and we are going to implement a "work - or risk loosing your committee seat" Our chair is going to make a phone call to all of the slackers letting them know that they are on the chopping block. It's not like they weren't warned...he fired off a number of emails to the entire committee asking for their help throughout the campaign season. Of course your scenario is a possibility. Some of them are on our local councils, clerks, legislators, etc. When they are up for re-election they will expect everyone to pitch in and help them...and we will because we want those seats, but they have to help.

We had a great slate of candidates (mostly state and federal level) that we knew were going to win...I live in NY - and we had only one local candidate -- could that be the reason? If they're not running...who cares. I don't know.

I have gotten to know the DNC’er who is in charge of the majority of our NY counties. I am going to take your advice and rip off a letter to him and see what help we can get from them regarding a ground game for next time.

Thanks for the response..it was very helpful!

[walk softly]

3. Great thread

I'm also a new kid on the block on this blog but have been door knocking and making phone calls for over 30 years. Now that I'm getting too old to leaflet drop any more, I decided to become more involved in the planning and execution of campaigns. We've tried opening up our Central Committee to more than the usual two people to a precinct. We almost elect everyone who wants to help to the Central Committee. Becomes a little awkward on close votes etc, but certainly expanded our volunteer base. One thing we're sure of, many of these old timers have done their share of the hard work in the past, and we like to enlist them to work on committees with younger folks so they can pass on their expertise.

[Kixel]

4. Hard to deal with...

We have been encountering that. Most Precinct Chairs in our area are elected at caucus. As a result, you have to have another caucus to replace them. Our solution thus far has been to find Precinct Captains-they do the work of the Chair without the title. They basically have all the same "power" except they can't vote at our Central Committee meetings. That sucks, but when dealing with a Constitution, you can't really alter it!

[Kixel]

5. Long but hopefully helpful!

One possible solution that is working well for us…

Strategic Planning. We are in the middle of ours right now and it is going VERY well. It’s a long process but if you do it right, it’s a great tool. I’ve been through them at work before and they really do help.

I’m the Associate Chair of my Senate District and my partner in Crime (the Chair) and I were elected to our positions in August. Yes. I said August. That month where the election cycle is really going hard core? Baptism by fire, due to some untimely resignations.

Obviously, or Senate District had some serious issues, but we managed to get through the elections. The one thing we new had to be done was organization, and we were lucky enough to have a Director who was willing to help with her husband. Together, we put together our strategic planning sessions. Her husband did most of the facilitating originally, which worked well because he wasn’t active during the elections. We weren’t sure how many people would show up, so we invited a lot of people. Turns out, we had 40 people at our first meeting and 35 at our second (during the week, harder to get people). There are 50 people actively involved in this process and it has been amazing to watch. It has been focused and there have not been any arguments. Things are getting accomplished and there has been an amazing energy within the group.

This will avoid breakdowns in communications that you encountered because we are defining everyone’s role. It also has people who have never been involved at the Senate District level before involved now-and they are empowered to change things. We are divided into small groups through most of the process so even those who are introverted are able to share their ideas. I think it’s important to do because so many people aren’t necessarily comfortable in larger settings, especially if they don’t know who everyone is.

It’s also easier for people to accept change. In a strategic planning process, you look at your current state and then look at where you would like to be in your future state. It makes it easier to see that change is required to get from point A to point B.

It won’t cure everything, but it’s a start. Also, it has been warmly embraced by all participants-even those who were skeptical when we brought up the idea. We went from being one of the more chaotic Senate Districts to being one of the most together, active, and organized (according to our Congressional District Field Organizer). Without organization, it’s really hard to get people involved. The more people doing the organizing, the more engaged your party members will be.

This is from a deep purple part of the ‘burbs-though we did elect our first local Democratic House member in over 20 years this fall!

[GenDem]

6. Thanks so much for all the insight.

We are in a very "red" part of Western NY so I understand what your saying. I have noticed that many of my fellow dem's on our committee are dem-lite. It makes it hard to organize because they get very defensive when they see us coming in and trying to shake the trees a little.

We are lucky to have a small core group of progressives that are willing to fight for Democratic candidates and Democratic ideals.

ORGANIZATION is the key word, and I thank you for putting that one word out in the for-ground. Your post has motivated me enough to begin to plan a strategy. When I get all of my ideas together, I will submit it to our chair.

We made some great progress last election. One inroad was an up to date phone list. Now that we have that, we will break those numbers into databases of voting habits -- so we know who we can target in primaries, local elections, etc.

Thanks again, and I look forward to seeking out your help in the future.

[Kixel]

7. Hey-

We are here to help each other! I have a bit of a hint to get the ball rolling in the right direction-if you have any progressive business people on the committee talk to them! They will know the benefit of a good strategic plan.

I understand areas like the one you are referring to-sounds like where I grew up, only in Minnesota. The funny part about it-we didn't even talk issues, so even if the folks aren't progressive they can still get behind the re-org. It's all about looking at what works and what doesn't.

We split it into a bunch of different topics, Party Building, organizational development, candidate recruitment, external communications and voter education, fund raising and budgeting-we have never had a budget. That is not a good way to run things...

It can be done, if you have the drive to do it! It sounds like you do, so good luck!

[walk softly]

8. Strategic Planning

I happen to be one of the folks who used Strat Planning regularly at my job, but am finding it difficult to get our exec board to even discuss. We building a grassroots organization with precinct captains and teams, but this is only one pc of the change needed - but all we could get passed at the time. Hopefully we'll be successful this year and then we will be forced to move from old style committees to a broader understanding of what we need as support. Tks for the listing you developed - they make perfect sense because they are all encompassing - they allow some business as usual but drives us to look at things differently - and realize that don't work anyway. Will report back success and hope others do too.

[Kixel]

9. Ours is going better than we thought it would!

Our third session is coming up in a week and a half and our breakout groups are meeting on their own and getting things done!

I think the biggest problem in local units is control. People aren't as open to change, which is vital to making the units stronger. If you can chat with the Chair regarding how strategic planning has helped you, I think you could go a long way toward convincing the group. A lot of people have either had a bad experience or are not aware of how the process really works.

The coolest thing about the process is how people are taking ownership in our District. It's not lip service about how things should be done, it's formulating a real plan. Many of the old school Dems are some of the most aggressive in the planning. Change is hard, but if you can show people the reason for it, they do tend to embrace it! The SWOT analysis went a long way to showing why change was important. We included the Republicans strengths and weaknesses as well. It really made folks think.

You may want to get a group of people who have worked with strategic planning in the past together as well-they know the benifits and will fight for them!

Good luck!

[UrbScotty]

10. I have found that strategic plans work best when...

... A, they cover two years (one election to the next) and B, people are involved.

Odd years should be devoted to fundraising, partybuilding, and raising awareness of issues and how to get active (i.e. LTTEs, calling elected officials). Even-numbered years should also include some of the above, except that you will obviously focus more on that big day in November.

As for involving people: What a great story! 35-50 people at those meetings! Indeed as Democrats, we should never forget that our party's name is traced back to the Greek words demos and kratos, meaning "people rule." It is important to involve everyone and give everyone's ideas some weight.