Okay, okay… so, maybe the particle physicist on my team at the big Netroots Nations trivia match tonight would disagree with me, saying there’s scientifically no such thing, but after going to David’s Mass Elections panel tonight, it’s hard not to feel good about what we’re doing electorally in Massachusetts. In that way, Massachusetts could be seen as a microcosm of the greater grassroots and netroots movements across the country — and should certainly be seen as a model.
First, some notes on the session: David, Doug Rubin, Joan Vennochi and Richard Chacon all weighed in, with inside, outside and insidery-outside perspectives about the Massachusetts phenomenon. There were a huge swath of questions asked of them, but my laptop battery died halfway through (and my phone was already dead — egads, how could I have forgot my charger?), so I couldn’t and didn’t get to all of them. That said, I’ll leave some of my notes of the conversations in the comments for people interested in those nuts and bolts. Particularly, there were a lot of poignant moments discussed that I had trouble fitting within the context of this diary… so I recommend the notes.
Alright, back to business.
It all started in 2005, when Deval Patrick was running for Governor. He did something that no democratic gubernatorial candidate in this state did for 16 years before him… win.
I’d even go so far as to say Deval Patrick was the first major candidate to run that style of a campaign across the country and be victorious.
And we Bay State lefties were the first group of guys and gals to wield the netroots to such great effect.
The recipe for success was a brilliant mixing of the long forgotten but ever effective grassroots politics, combined with new netroots tools and energy. We were able to organize in ways we could never organize before, and we were able to create a messaging platform (the blogosphere) that could – for the first time – compete with what Republicans were doing with Talk Radio, Drudge and god knows what else.
Things have developed quickly since 2006. What we did here in Massachusetts was taken nationally, in the form of Davids Plouff and Axelrod. Both messaging lessons and a web-centric grassroots campaign were polished and turned into national standards.
Though I’m sure at least one of the panelists would disagree with me (hi, Doug :p), it’s entirely possible Barack Obama wouldn’t have been able to run circles around Hillary in the early going of the POTUS primary campaign that enabled him to win the election without that experience and expertise from Patrick’s efforts in ’06. There’s a lot of other things that campaign was great at which you could say the same thing about, but we’d be remiss not to recognize the importance the Massachusetts blueprints had in Obama’s ’08.
We’ve been moving forward in Massachusetts, too, though not always to where we want to go. If Patrick and Obama’s victories represented all the best of what Massachusetts tried-and-true grassroots and netroots organizing can be, Martha Coakley’s campaign wasn’t.
Everyone recognizes the Senate Special Election campaign as part disappointment, part debacle, but the state party, grassroots activists and the netroots have learned a lot from that race. We learned that we couldn’t sit back and hope we’d reach out and get the votes… we had to do it, and we had to elect candidates who wanted to do it.
2010’s Coordinated Campaign could almost be described as taking all those netroots and grassroots lessons we learned… and professionalizing them. We’re old hats at this now, having gone through multiple election cycles. It shows, and it’s why we were able to buck 2010’s national trends.
When Elizabeth Warren was first being talked about as a potential candidate, I was eager for her to jump in right away — afraid she wouldn’t have much time to linger over a decision, given how long it can take to build a grassroots movement.
In truth, things have been an almost instant success — she brought something to be excited about, and we brought the grassroots know how. Now it’s up to us, but we’re off to a great start.
I still have my worries, particularly over the long-term. The technology is changing — and as it’s changed, the progressive dominance of the web has faded. Republicans are just as good as Democrats at tweeting and social networking, so we can’t be resting on our laurels.
In the 1980s, we had this Governor named Michael Dukakis. He was pretty well known for his grassroots prowess, too. That focus on the grassroots and energy among the activist base faded away, and left us with 16 years of Republican Governors. So, I don’t think my worries are without merit.
My question is, how do we avoid that going forward? How do we make sure the netroots are a local staple that never goes away? How do we attract new people quicker than we lose old stalwarts?
The excitement and wonder of figuring what we all are that existed in 2006 and the proceeding couple years is gone. Our movement is no longer nascent. While these aren’t bad things — we know get the message out and knock on the doors — my worry is maintaining the level of excitement for future races. After all, we’re not always going to have a Deval Patrick or an Elizabeth Warren to drive up the enthusiasm, but we will always have a need for electing candidates with strong core values and know-how that benefit the 99%.
What say you all?
Okay, here are my notes from the session. They’re pretty much unedited, but I think people should get the idea. Feel free to add anything if you were there, and certainly include your thoughts.
“All about Massachusetts”
David: Is there something to this idea that Massachusetts is a bellweather for the next cycle?
We have to be learning from each cycle. 05-06 campaign; how did that happen, how did it serve as a dry run for the president’s campaign.
Rubin: not sure Patrick’s 06 strategy was going to work, but didn’t have any choices back then. The campaign was small.
Running against the attorney general, with lots of money, Patrick had “zero.”
It was a different model than Rubin’s past. Instead of trying to get into the media, they went going after meetings with voters and activists, all over the state. Gave credit to John Walsh – “deserves most, if not all, the credit on this.”
David Axelrod and David Plouff were there in ’06. “they saw the power of this kind of a model.”
Vennochi: he was right to stay away from the typical stories and go grassroots. She zinged herself that she ‘was as guilty as anyone else’ for focusing on horserace stuff, suggesting Patrick had a tough road ahead.
“A couple things connected with Deval Patrick.” The theme that we were all invested in the community together… the idea of mutual investment in the community, really connected with people.”
“running against the big dig culture… that connected as well.” (attributing BMG’s Charley for coining the term).
“he was very accessible with the press.” Says Warren should be, too.
Patrick “used blue mass group” well. Vennochi (and other members of the media) went there to look for those talking points and wrote about them herself.
She started with Mitt Romney –noting Massachusetts was the very first and only race that he has ever won and run. “Yes, we are a bell weather.”
“Deval Patrick was the anti-Romney.”
David: people outside of the state look at us and think everyone’s from Cambridge, but that’s not the case.
Vennochi: independents rule in Mass. We’re a little more socially liberal. For whatever reason, Republicans haven’t been able to connect and get to beacon hill.
If Elizabeth warren wins, it’s going to be because she’s not afraid to stand up for something. If Barack Obama loses, it’s because he is.
David: if liz wins, what’s the national lesson for democrats?
Rubin: people in the middle, left or right, want to see that you’re standing for something, and will give you credit, even if they don’t agree with you. Going to ‘the middle’ isn’t what he thinks is the right course of action.
Vennochi: Patrick and Warren similar in that they were outsiders, not well known in Massachusetts. The trouble with that, she says, is… that they’re new and outsiders (ie double-edged sword). Both Patrick and Warren faced some tough times early on. Patrick addressed them, Warren’s story ‘is still sort of forming.’
Rubin: one difference was that Patrick’s campaign was unknown for 9 months… so he got time to build the grassroots, getting bigger and bigger audiences, “basically unappeaded (by the media).”
“The exact opposite happened with Elizabeth Warren.” “Huge fan fare, national attention… everything we did was closely monitored.”
Vennochi: the plus side of that instant success is her ability to raise money.
(personal note: that’s a good point… if Patrick had a primary opponent with $10 million in the bank and the ability to raise gazillions more from Wall St., would his grassroots efforts been as effective?)
Vennochi: (on heritage-gate) the convention feels like a pivot point. “there’d have to be some new information” to turn it into a big story again.
She asks Doug if he saw it coming, why she didn’t answer the key questions earlier.
Other notes (this is basically where I had to turn off my laptop, so these are based on memory… feel free to chime in with corrections or other things I missed if you were there, or comment on what you think about the issues):
Ads: Universal agreement that the negative ads from outside groups running for Coakley in the special hurt Martha Coakley… and completely prevented her from being able to develop a narrative or a script, because outside organizations (even those trying to help her) would push her off it.
The “deal”: keeping outside PAC money came up numerous times. Vennochi thought it was a sly move by Warren, Rubin countered that most in the media thought Warren got played. Both campaigns looked at it as beneficial for themselves, after being hit by Karl Rove’s group (Warren) and the environmental groups (Brown).
No one really knows how it’ll work going down the stretch, but it’s worked so far… and another example of how Massachusetts could be a model for other states going forward, in a post-Citizens United world.
Gender issues: Lots of good questions about gender and how we’re really not moving forward on that issue. David recognized that we have a bad track record in Massachusetts of electing women. Joan Vennochi repeatedly brought up great examples of double standards — being judged on appearance, on just how women fit on the tightrope of
forgot to finish my last thought re: gender issues. Here’s what I was going to write:
“on the tightrope of being judged as too strong (ie shrill) or too nice (ie weak).”
(Personal note: There was a lot of agreement in the crowd that this was a distinctly Massachusetts problem… but I’m not sure I’d completely agree. Only around 16% of the US Congress is comprised of women, meaning we pretty much have a universally terrible record across the entire country.
We would do well to elect Elizabeth Warren and start to change that. Hopefully, we can help lead the way to electing more women like Elizabeth Warren across the country.)
This is somewhat of a tangent, but I think it needs to be a part of the whole picture.
I happen to be in the middle of Rebuild The Dream by Van Jones. Perhaps when I finish, I’ll write a post about my impressions. However, one thing he brings up early in the book is pertinent to Ryan’s post.
While some of us have been quick to blame Obama and and the Dems (when they had both houses) for what happened after the 2008 election, Jones spends time examining what happened to us, the folks who were fired up and ready to go during the campaign, who were essentially a part of the problem due to our non-action afterward.
As has been noted by many people many times, elected officials tend not to lead but are instead forced into action (think LBJ and the civil rights movement). To take one example, if there had been massive demonstrations in favor of single payer, or at least a public option, might the health care result have been different?
I am just now getting into the “solutions” part of the book, so if someone else wants to comment on what Jones has to say, please do. But I do think that one of the next steps, if Massachusetts Dems are going to continue their innovative role, is figuring out just how we (the grass/netroots) can strongly influence the people that we work so hard to elect one they are elected.
One problem with the grassroots is that we lack leadership distinct from the people we propelled into office. Governor Patrick tried to keep the grassroots engaged after inauguration and he ran into a problem.
What you probably want is for the President/Governor to be able to play “good cop” while the grassroots movement plays “bad cop”. In other words, the President/Governor can coax and charm legislators into accepting deals while we on the outside pressure them into accepting deals. At the beginning of Patrick’s term, though, that really didn’t work because legislators felt that Patrick was exercising negative pressure on legislators through his grassroots organization. It made it difficult and awkward to work with legislators.
We would be much stronger, then, if we had some means of having a voice independent of the Presidents and Governors we helped elect. Imagine if Dean, say, continued to represent our wing of the party from 2004 to the present.
and with DFA, he’s certainly trying to create a vehicle to help do that.
One other point to make is that we can mitigate some of the difficulties that present themselves in the Patrick scenario. You’re right that there were certainly leaders in the legislature who were miffed at the perception he was going to use the grassroots to force them in his direction, but that mostly goes away if there’s a critical mass of grassroots-associated democrats elected in the legislature, too. Particularly newer ones, who still ‘owe’ the grassroots something.
I don’t think it needs to be a majority, just enough to cause enough of a headache that the path of least resistance becomes the progressive course of action.
David brought up our own struggles to keep things going after Patrick won in 2006.
The netroots hasn’t really figured out how to respond to victory in a way that builds on our momentum, but it’s something leaders in the movement are clearly thinking about.
My suspicion is it’s always going to be difficult to effectively transition after winning a big first term victory, because there’s simultaneous exhaustion and elation that are universal to the base in those situations, and neither are particularly helpful toward keeping up the pressure and momentum.
I wrote more of my thoughts on the issue here, in large part responding to Van Jones’s points, which he made at his keynote.