The Power of the Democratic Party

Photo by Rodolfo Clix

I’ve thought a lot about how to appeal to the decision-makers in the Democratic party. They have so much power at their fingertips, and I want them to put it to use. Not just in elections, but year-round.

Their power isn't in their effective ActBlue fundraising, ads, or mailers. Their power is in the people. It’s the volunteers, the national and state delegates, the county committee members, and most of all the registered voters. I want relational organizing to be their number 1 focus.

Wisdom will tell you that there are no shortcuts to winning an election. No amount of money will help if we do not have effective field organizing. If a campaign is not creating an effective relational organizing campaign that will spread like wildfire, that campaign will not win. Cue eye roll by everyone who makes their living off of fundraising and ads.

This is not for them. This is for the other decision-makers. This is for the Field Directors, and field organizers. This is for the state and local leaders. This is for the ones who know we can be more effective, and know how critical outreach with voters is to winning not just elections but the narrative.

But who am I to say this? Sure, I have a degree in political science, but that means little in the actual political arena. By day I work as an IT Developer. By nights and weekends though, I’m a volunteer.

That’s right. I’m the lowest wrung of the political circus. I give my time, energy, and skills away for free. What a fool! I do it because we need fools. Fools who believe in democracy and show up when it counts. We pound the pavement even in the pouring rain, sweltering heat, and blistering cold. We make phone calls til our ears hurt, and our throats are sore. We send texts and provide resources to voters, to ensure everyone can cast their ballot.

Now before I talk about how our last election fared, I’d like to review the 2020 season. During that election, I was a volunteer moderator with the Biden/DNC coordinated campaign. I made calls for my State Senate race, helped When We All Vote with texting, and generally signed up wherever possible. I volunteered with a variety of campaigns and found that every single campaign, state and local parties, and GOTV organizations are reinventing the wheel with their field organizing programs.

Some are absolute dumpster fires. These programs burned out volunteers and voters. People opt out of talking to the campaign and never want to talk with any other campaign or organization again. Volunteers feel their time is wasted, and give up on trying to help Democrats get out the vote. Volunteers are the most valuable asset Democrats have, and yet some campaigns devalue them so much, they end up spoiling the relationship with volunteers across campaigns and the whole party.

For those who have directly worked on campaigns, stop me if you’ve heard this from your consulting team — “ What is your budget for mailings?”, “How is call time going?”, “We need to ramp up your fundraising efforts and determine what the ad campaign will look like”, or “Updating a website takes work. We suggest you keep it more static, so we don’t have to constantly change it”. Just a small note here, I am experienced at working with WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace. Even as a volunteer, I have helped manage content on campaign websites, but only once I was able to show to the CM and/or candidate that they were paying sometimes upwards of $1,000 for a consultant to copy and paste content onto an issues page.

Consultant groups have 1 goal — bill their time. It’s not to win elections, though they will swear up and down that they don’t look good if they don’t win. They will put on a great show of fighting the good fight, but their entire business model is not built around the betterment of campaigns. It’s around the advancement of their billing.

Conversely. I have met fantastic field organizers, directors, and general talent out there. They build comprehensive programs. They have documentation for volunteers, and for the staff and volunteer leaders who run the programs. They ensure there is an inclusive environment, and they take feedback from volunteers and voters seriously. They build gates for ensuring that people doing field operations are properly trained, ensure there is a process for sweeping or checking their work, and provide guidance to ensure that those representing the campaign and/or party are doing it well and with excellent support from the campaign team.

They should be valued way more than they are. They really should be the heart of every party, campaign, and organization. The really talented ones know how to build out their team, promote experienced volunteers into volunteer leadership roles, and allow their staff to accomplish even more. They run a tight ship, relying on tools that allow teams to collaborate, work consistently, and incorporate good QC processes.

After the 2020 election was over, I started to think about how the Democratic party could streamline a lot of what we do across the country and across campaigns, at the national, state, and local level. How we could help Democratic candidates not have to reinvent the wheel, while also encouraging strong field organizing programs by providing toolkits, resources, and documentation to get them going.

In 2021, I signed up to volunteer for the challenger in my city’s mayoral primary. I ended up taking part-time PTO for a month and working as their Field Director. I worked my way into that campaign the way I generally do. I started out helping them make phone calls. It was literally me, the Campaign Manager, and another volunteer. We reviewed a dialer platform, and then I made a phone bank training slide deck and offered it to the CM.

I eventually told the CM a bunch of stuff they needed to be doing in the campaign. He called me an armchair quarterback (we laughed) and then he hired me 2 weeks later. We won that primary by over 30 points, and with no general challenger, we won the race.

During this 2022 campaign cycle, I had similar challenges in simply attempting to volunteer.

I had some campaigns during the primaries allow me to really help them. As a volunteer, I can make calls and send texts, but I can also set up phone bank programs and run them. I can run texting programs. I can edit websites, help with maintaining and cleaning financial lists, work in VAN/Votebuilder, NGP8, and more. I know the benefit of utilizing short links, messaging boards, and organizing a google drive to share resources in the campaign. I can organize and manage a slack workspace, and train volunteers and volunteer leaders in basically any aspect of field organizing. Despite this, campaigns and state parties gave me a hard time when I offered my help.

If Democrats really want to get their house in order, they need to start by paying attention to the power of their volunteers. Can anyone say that we would have had the wins we had in 2018, 2020, or 2022, if it were not for the massive amount of people who volunteered their time, energy, and skills to help campaigns, parties, and organizations mobilize voters to the polls?

This is what I think we should be doing. It doesn’t require the DNC to do it, although they should want to do this. Each Democratic state and county party/committee can do this regardless. The more that do, the more we can work together, and help each other be more effective.

I’ve decided to share what I think Democrats should be doing, because sometimes going through the front door doesn’t always get results. Emailing the info@ doesn’t always get a response.

We have to be as efficient as possible in running field organizing, and that involves being able to stand up programs with ease. We need be engaging with voters *between* elections. Our volunteers have the potential to be our block captains and help us keep communities informed about issues throughout the year. If we do this right, we will grow our base, be able to deconstruct lies and bad-faith arguments, as well as ensure the public can readily see the difference between what elected officials are saying and what they are doing as our representatives.

This is a vision for what I believe we can accomplish if we start the work now.

Community Outreach

We need to be harnessing the power of our volunteers year-round, and not just during election time when we want people to show up and vote. By working with our volunteers to engage with the public on local issues, we can build relationships that will make turning people out to the polls easier, because we will already have people on board with the issues.

When legislation is being proposed at the city/town, county, state, or congressional level, our volunteers should be reaching out to their people in the community to ensure they know what’s about to be voted on by their representatives.

• Phone bank or text when people should contact reps to encourage a vote for or against legislation
• Host meet-ups on local legislation — share on social media and email, encourage supporters to bring neighbors, friends, family
• Social media engagement on legislation and the issues they affect — quick links for people to take action

Party Messaging

Create consistent party messaging, for long-term issues, and rapid response messaging. This includes Presidential messaging, Congressional, as well as state and local level work.

• Determine organizational structure for agreeing on specific messaging
• Determine an organizational tree for disseminating communications
• Training for elected officials on social media use
• Cybersecurity training for elected officials and campaign staff
• Rapid response to GOP talking points, in real-time
• Utilize trained volunteers to spread messaging year-round
• Social media amplification of legislation being proposed, passed, and prevented — show the work. How will this help or hurt regular people?

Organizing Programs

Create a set of organizing tools and recommended implementations, that can be offered to campaigns working to engage voters in the democratic process of elections and governing.

This means documentation of recommended configuration on the admin side, some templates for campaigns in platforms where that can be done, slide decks for training, and documentation for end users.

Also offer certifications to volunteers who become sufficiently trained in the use of various tools, which can then allow them to be onboarded with various campaigns and organizations faster and with abbreviated training, focusing on the particulars of a group’s work and less on the tools.

4 Year Organizing and Engagement Plan

Create best practices for organizing and messaging at all levels of campaigning and serving. Develop and cultivate volunteer and voter engagement.

• Develop and disseminate toolkits in the next 3 elections
• Develop and streamline messaging, including rapid response
• Develop a consistent volunteer base engaged in local, state, and national issue-based outreach
• Identify fundraising overlaps with engagement and clean-up to ensure maximum effectiveness (reduce over-contacting the people who give you money and volunteer, thereby pissing them off)

Toolkits to Offer

• Training Slidedecks
• Documentation guides for training volunteers
• Documentation and resources for volunteer leader programs, e.g. shift calendars, leader nomination forms, expectations documentation, leadership workflows and processes for various roles, etc.
• Phone banking and texting tool configurations
• Canvassing best practices
• Voter resource template guides

Tools

Organizing and Communications

• Mobilize
• Slack
• Google Drive

Phone Banking

• Scale to Win
• GetThru (Thrutalk)
• Hubdialer
• Open vpb

Texting

• Scale to Win
• Spoke
• Thrutext

Canvassing

• Minivan
• Reach

CRM

• VoteBuilder (VAN)
• NGP8
• Numero

If state and local parties work on doing this now, by the time we are really into campaigning for the 2023 elections next fall, we will be in good shape. While many may roll their eyes at the thought of gearing up for 2023, those wins and increasing turnout, will fuel local power for the 2024 elections. We need these local elections more than people realize.

If nothing else, for the love of Pete, fire the damn consultants. They are bleeding you dry, and they’re an insult to everyone who donates to you.