Blowing the dust off of the politics blog
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to that day-after political sensation when you know that you’ve been through a rough and tumble election. For many of you, this experience comes at a remove, because you may have only been voting and fretting about results. Some of you actually made phone calls, texts, or went door-to-door working for a candidate/issues that you believed in.
In any case, a lot of you are fairly new to the process.
As a former Old Political Hand from the liberal left (not Justice Democrat, not Democratic Socialist, not Progressive), it’s time for me to start beating the drum that I talked about on a low, local level during the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Your next step is to organize at the local level. Stop fuming about national-level strategy. All of that is short-term and reactionary. It doesn’t change a damn thing.
Did the Democrats support far-right Republican candidates in the primary, for example, in order to guarantee weaker candidates? Yes.
(P.S. Republicans do it too.)
Is this a long-term, sustainable strategy?
NO.
It is a short-term, desperation tactic. What you want to have happen is to have good, solid, reasonable candidates that appeal to the voters—and a large stable of them.
How do you get there?
By grassroots organizing. By building up your local party organization. By testing and training candidates by running them for lower-level offices and building up a reliable record.
Back in the ‘90s, I wrote a series of essays for a Portland-area zine about political organizing. Many of the precepts just need some updating for the current day (especially with regard to vote-by-mail, the rise of ranked choice voting, and other new strategies).
I’m going to be dropping a few essays on the topic here. Please subscribe if you want to get them either via email or the Substack app. I am not going to be posting everything on every social media platform that I’m on for various reasons, and given the nature of algorithms, you may not see them.
I don’t charge for access to my Substack, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.
So. Such a deal. Listen to an old lady former pol blather.
Check it out.
Oh. My credentials?
Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Oregon, with an emphasis in electoral politics. County precinct committeeperson in Lane and Multnomah Counties during the ‘80s and ‘90s. Off and on membership in the Oregon State Central Committee during that era. Various positions in College and Young Democrats. Two Legislative terms as an intern, one for a lobbying group, the other for an openly Socialist Democrat. Lobbying on several issues. Testifying at public hearings, including a Federal field hearing on wilderness additions where the committee administrator told me I could easily go national. Participation in an attempt to organize a union for a skeevy Federal defense contractor. Participation in a month-long teacher’s strike, union building rep, and union local’s secretary.
I…might know a little bit about politics, shall we say?