Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

You don’t look like us.

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I thought it was funny at the time and I’ve told the story often.  I’m beginning to see why it’s not a laughing matter.  It was back in 2012, after I switched my voter registration from independent to Democrat in order to do as much as I could to elect Elizabeth Warren to  the office of United States Senator From Massachusetts and equally important, rid us of Scott Brown.   As many of you know, prior to being an independent voter in Massachusetts, I voted Republican when I lived in New York before moving here in 2001.  In the years following, I voted less red and more blue.  Maybe it was something in the water.  Maybe it was my growing disappointment with the Republican Party.  One thing for certain, the rise of the Tea Party scared the crap put of me and since I was an admirer of Elizabeth Warren prior to her entering politics, it was an easy call.

I was proud to register as a Democrat.  I was even more proud to be elected as a delegate by my town committee and attend the convention in 2012 where I got to vote for Elizabeth Warren,

And then the story part of this comes in.  As an active volunteer for the campaign, I got to know several of the people running things.  After Elizabeth Warren had won the nomination at the convention, there was press gathering with Elizabeth Warren in front, fielding questions as her supporters stood behind her, holding up campaign signs.  I was asked to be part of that group.  As I entered the area, I grabbed a sign and stood in back, letting the people who wanted the front row have it.  I was happy just to be there and do not have the urge that so many do to have their photos taken with celebrities.   One of the campaign organizers pointed at me and said “You, in the blue shirt, can you come forward?”   At first I thought I was in trouble (a guilt complex after being raised Catholic, I guess).  What did I do wrong?  Was I not supposed to be here?

The organizer placed me in the front row, to the side of Elizabeth,  in full view of the cameras and said “We need you in the front row.  You look like a Republican”, followed by remarks that plenty of other demographics were on display.  I thought it was funny, and given my history, she was correct.   In any case, I was willing to do anything to help Elizabeth Warren get elected.  (and that holds true today).  I do not fault the organizer for her words or her actions. What she did was important in a world where “optics and image” mean so much.

But what does it say now?  Does it say that as a working class white guy, I look like a Republican, or do I not look like a Democrat?  And if I do not look like a Democrat, we have our work cut out for us.  As the Boston Globe reported:  Cities and towns with a large population of working- class whites broke strongly in Trump’s direction, according to a tabulation of election results and demographic data from the American Communities Survey by the US Census.

As I have pointed out many times, our Massachusetts State Committee has NO outreach for this demographic, none.  It is because they don’t look like us?

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Comments

  1. …at the Unity rally with Clinton following the 2008 primary. I had always wondered who got to stand back there and always figured they were volunteers or staff, neither of which I was at this point. I learned it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. There are lots of eyes on you and you feel like you can’t blink, yawn, rub your nose, etc. If asked again I would probably pass.

  2. From Democracy Corps:

    First, we believe Hillary Clinton and Democrats could have won this election if Democratic base voters turned out at higher numbers and appealed to enough white working class voters, particularly women, to win the Rust Belt.

    Second, it should not be ignored that some of the reason for Trump’s upset is malicious interference by the Russian Federation and their allies at WikiLeaks, as well as reckless politics by the F.B.I. in the post-debate period. Battling back against this media coverage forced Clinton to take her foot off the pedal. She was unable to end the campaign turning out her voters by talking about the change they were demanding.

    Democracy Corps’ research for WVWVAF and Roosevelt has consistently shown the importance of putting forward a progressive economic agenda and message of change to motivate a changing electorate, reach out to persuadable voters, and consolidate the Democratic base. In our polling we found that Hillary Clinton gains her biggest leads when she is calling for an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected, and puts forward bold policies to end trickle-down economics. Debate dial-meter testing for WVWVAF found voters became more enthusiastic about Clinton and viewed her more positively when she went after Trump for proposing massive tax-breaks for himself and failing to release his own tax returns.

    Instead, the campaign closed by attacking Trump and few voters remembered her bold economic plans and the change she was promising. The result was an election where the “New American Majority” did not turnout in anywhere near the numbers expected.

    Meanwhile, Donald Trump was on message running on cleaning-up the political system, attacking Clinton as a tool of big business and Wall Street, and offering a reprieve from bad trade deals that cost American jobs and greater public investment. For those who voted for – or considered – Trump, his vow to repeal Obamacare and keep liberals off the Supreme Court were the most important reasons to cast their ballots. But nearly as important were his economic plans and how his business success prepared him to create jobs.

    So it looks as if johntmay has a point…

    • Per the Washington Post:

      I believe that we have better ideas. But I also believe that good ideas don’t matter if people don’t hear them. And one of the issues the Democrats have to be clear on is the given population distribution across the country. We have to compete everywhere. We have to show up everywhere. We have to work at a grass-roots level, something that’s been a running thread in my career.

  3. The title of your post is “you don’t look like us.” But what the organizer actually said was, “You look like a Republican.” Those two things are not the same.

    One way to fight stereotypes is to subvert them; it’s a strategy. The organizer was saying, The stereotype is a lie, and this guy is the truth, let’s show the truth.

    Whatever the shortcomings of the party, that is not a knock on you. To the contrary I would say.

    • And I hope that was the motivation behind putting me out in front. Maybe that’s a message to our party? From what I can see our our literature, publications, and so on, we do not put guys who look like me on the cover.

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