Reminds me of another post on the topic:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1159708#1159804And here's what I posted then:
Well, being a newcomer to politics, I can't really say, except...
Edited on Thu May-11-06 09:13 PM by Emit
We have a paid full time Field Ops Director here in my hometown, thanks to Dean, and we will have two paid staff members to help him out within the next month. We started meeting back in October for the upcoming November midterms, we have volunteer district coordinators, section coords. etc all the way down to doorknockers and phone callers, and we're still gaining speed -- adding volunteers to our list daily. We've already started canvassing our neighborhoods, have had all kinds of precinct training classes and computer training...
The list goes on and on. And as I understand it, it is all because of Dean wanting to hire people in areas such as mine, and areas such as Utah, as Begalia referred to. We aren't just picking our noses out here. We're working our butts off -- and the morale is good. With paid field staff who are working hard to put together teams of grassroots volunteers for this upcoming election and for '08 and beyond, I think the plan is working quite well.
I am new at this game, although I volunteered in '04 and worked my butt off then with a young, inexperienced, frantic, disorganized staff. This time around, with Dean's plan for grassroots efforts, I perceive a better focus and much more "ownership" of my efforts.
I've had some setbacks, with getting some doors slammed in my face, people hanging up on me, or, for example, throwing a house party for a local candidate (last night) and having only 10 people show up -- when we mailed out 53 invites and had over 20 RSVP's. But, I keep going. I have to. Like you said in a thread below, this door to door, grassroots, may be the only way.
Dean is taking a lot of shit for his methods. But, as a volunteer in the trenches, his methods are working. Since I made that post above on that Begalia thread, for my District Team (covering about 12,500 voters), we have added 2 more Section Leaders, and about 6 more Precinct workers. Our goal is to have a 1:100 voter contact ratio with these teams we are building. Dean's plans have allowed us to have a full-time Field Operator with two part-time staffers, and they are holding trainings for volunteers every week -- and the trainings are full -- and it's all by word of mouth and by calling and door knocking. We simply can't do this type of team building -- without these paid staffers. And without this approach, we wouldn't have been able to start so early either. I will not be in the position I was in in 2004 with our last minute get out the vote efforts (we were a targeted battle ground state -- NV-- and we had tons of volunteers pouring in from CA and elsewhere, but our Party staffers were way in over their heads!)
Aside from the organization and team building, Dean and his people are also providing us with key talking points that keep us on message and that is funneling down to our volunteers at the very grassroots level. An example of this is our door hanger that we have been using to get our message out to the voters:
http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/03/print_your_own.phpWe first used them on April 29th, when we did the National Canvassing Day. In our city, more than 200 volunteers showed up on that Saturday and we knocked on a lot of doors.
madfloridian, thanks for the update and for the info you posted. I don't really know all the arguments against Dean (I usually ignore that stuff or occasionally read the various messages) but, all I can say is that if it weren't for his decision to hire paid staffers early on, I wouldn't have the team I have today and I'd be trying to do what I'm doing now in September or October like I did on '04 -- too little, too late. We'll be ready for this election, '08 and beyond.