"Herding Donkeys" has some real insight into the problems facing Democrats right now.

[madfloridian]

I had to read several of these paragraphs a few times to see if I agreed, and I mostly do agree.

In 2003 something happened to us politically, and it was not about left or right. It was really about honesty basically. We worked on the Dean campaign with local Democrats, Independents, Greens, and some Republicans.

There was one thing we had in common. We did not like the lies and propaganda surrounding the invasion of Iraq. Many of us were broken-hearted that our government would do such a thing, and we were even angrier that few Democrats were opposing it vocally.

So I think Ari Berman got a lot of it right in his new book "Herding Donkeys". It is not about left or right, it is about inside DC and outside DC, it is about right and wrong. But most of all it is about doing the correct thing even though it is not politically expedient. He just worded it differently than I did.

Herding Donkeys, an excerpt

Obama's movement did not begin on the steps of the old state capitol in Springfield, Illinois; it began in the governor's mansion in sleepy Montpelier, Vermont. Howard Dean, the five-term governor of one of the country's tiniest states, entered the Democratic presidential primary in 2003 because he wanted to talk about a balanced budget and healthcare reform. But after he became the first major candidate to denounce the war in Iraq and aggressively challenge the Bush administration, his campaign, quickly and unexpectedly, became much bigger than that—an experiment with a new kind of politics aimed at revitalizing American democracy, reviving the Democratic Party and ending the Republican Party's electoral dominance.

Dean's run for the presidency embraced and amplified a few unique notions that profoundly altered modern American politics, namely, that committed volunteers are cheaper and more effective than the same old crew of professional campaign consultants; that small donations in large numbers can do more than large donations in small numbers; that the Internet and new social networking tools can level the playing field for seemingly quixotic candidacies and attract hordes of new people into politics for the first time; and that Democrats needed to compete everywhere (including in the hinterlands of long-forgotten red state America), stand up for some core principles and stick with them. The cause was as much about the means of doing politics as the ends. Dean and his followers fervently believed that the Democratic Party could still be fundamentally reformed, and they focused their activism toward that end. This spontaneous new insurgency—a response to the corporatization and triangulation of the Clinton era—wasn't about left versus right as much as outside versus in. The soul of the party and the future of politics were suddenly up for grabs. Dean certainly did not intend to become a catalyst for these changes, but that's where his campaign ended up.

I think the comparison between the two campaigns is apt up to a point. They both empowered people and made use of the grassroots. But things changed after the election.

Berman's description of how OFA has been handled shows that things changed when Democrats got their majority. Obama for America became Organizing for America. And it changed.

Despite locating OFA in the DNC, changing the Democratic Party didn't rank as Obama's foremost priority. He had more pressing problems on his plate—not least, digging the country out of its worst economic crisis in decades. In those critical days following the election, OFA opted largely to circumvent the party rather than enhance it. On November 5, 2008, the DNC's nearly 200 local organizers, the core of Dean's fifty-state strategy, awoke to the news that their contracts were expiring at the end of the month. The e-mail from headquarters called it a "bitter-sweet moment." When Obama's DNC reconstituted Dean's strategy a few months later, funding OFA staffers across the country took priority. Unlike the organizers hired under Dean, who worked to strengthen the party at the state and local level, the new Obama organizers were instructed to focus strictly on helping to pass the president's legislative agenda, forming a parallel structure to the existing party. "I'm not trying to build a bigger and better Democratic Party," says Colorado OFA director Gabe Lifton-Zoline.

With a Democrat as president, the DNC chairman exists to further that president's agenda.

And that is now what OFA does as well.

OFA operates under the assumption that the president's policy is always the best possible one. But what about when it isn't? What are Obama's supporters to do then? They are told to sell the policy, but they can't influence the shaping of the product. "There's a certain hubris among the people around Obama in the White House that they were above the fray and didn't have to pay attention to the base," says Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. "Certainly a president has to govern from the middle, but you've got to reassure your base that what they did and how hard they worked was worth something." Much of the tension can be traced back to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a consummate Beltway insider, who replaced David Plouffe, the Obama inner circle's past conduit to the grassroots, as the central figure in Obama's orbit.

Howard Dean said basically the same as Harkin, that you can't just use your base and then forget them.

There is a difference between being "post-partisan" and using common sense. When the party of no is obviously not going to give any support to Democrats, it is time to start appealing to those who are on your side. And it is time to give them the due respect.

[thunder rising]

1. Fucked fact: focus strictly on helping to pass the president's legislative agenda

ousted Dean and embraced the Republicans and the DLC.

And that's why there's and enthusiasm gap.

[mdmc]

3. yup..

and that's the gap..

[stray cat]

2. If we elect moderate dems instead of the GOP -there is more disagreement in the party

If we only elect one dem and give the rest of the government to the GOP-we can be happy with our minority of a single pure progressive

[madfloridian]

4. I don't pretend to know the answer.

I only know that we can't keep letting the other side have so much say in the agenda if we want to have any change.

[unkachuck]

5. K&R....n/t

[madfloridian]

6. Oct. 5: Katrina vanden Heuvel, Ari Berman, Howard Dean discuss book

http://www.nationbooks.org/events/326

October 5
Herding Donkeys: Howard Dean and Ari Berman on the Future of the Democratic Party
Where: 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, New York City
When: 7 pm
It's Super Tuesday at 92Y Tribeca! With the midterm elections exactly a month away, Nation Institute Fellow Ari Berman talks about his new book, Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics, with former Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean. Herding Donkeys tells the inside story of Dean's visionary yet controversial 50-state strategy, charts his unpredictable journey from an insurgent presidential candidate in 2004 to the chairman and conscience of the Democratic Party and shows how President Obama's campaign—particularly its groundbreaking embrace of grassroots organizing and activism—built upon Dean's blueprint. Sure to be a fascinating and timely conversation, Dean and Berman will shed light on the upcoming November elections and the possibility and peril of this new era in American politics.

Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel will introduce and moderate.

$12 general admission, $10 with valid student ID (one per customer).

[struggle4progress]

7. We can win as progressives, but we should count on the fight taking at least a decade

The other side has the money to buy organization: we have to build organization with volunteer power, and we have to be able to build a volunteer organization that works with at least as much professionalism dedication and rather more manpower than the other side can buy. That means we need good volunteer tracking of regulatory and legislative issues at both the state and national level, and we need the community organizers willing to burn shoe leather and wear callouses on their fingers punching phone buttons to get ordinary people involved and to keep them involved. It requires time and hard work and a real love of people, and you'll always feel like you're carting a wheelbarrow full of cats or trying to herd a swarm of butterflies, but frankly I think it can be done

[westerebus]

8. Funny thing about donkeys, they have very good memories.

They are very smart and have excellent people skills. The DNC, not so much.

[madfloridian]

14. Maybe that is why the DNC changed the logo.

And it is no longer a donkey.

[leveymg]

9. Obama's movement . . . began in the governor's mansion in sleepy Montpelier, Vermont.

Obama's movement did not begin on the steps of the old state capitol in Springfield, Illinois; it began in the governor's mansion in sleepy Montpelier, Vermont. Howard Dean, the five-term governor of one of the country's tiniest states, entered the Democratic presidential primary in 2003 becauObama's movement did not begin on the steps of the old state capitol in Springfield, Illinois; it began in the governor's mansion in sleepy Montpelier, Vermont.se he wanted to talk about a balanced budget and healthcare reform. But after he became the first major candidate to denounce the war in Iraq and aggressively challenge the Bush administration, his campaign, quickly and unexpectedly, became much bigger than that—an experiment with a new kind of politics aimed at revitalizing American democracy, reviving the Democratic Party and ending the Republican Party's electoral dominance.

Dean's run for the presidency embraced and amplified a few unique notions that profoundly altered modern American politics, namely, that committed volunteers are cheaper and more effective than the same old crew of professional campaign consultants; that small donations in large numbers can do more than large donations in small numbers; that the Internet and new social networking tools can level the playing field for seemingly quixotic candidacies and attract hordes of new people into politics for the first time; and that Democrats needed to compete everywhere (including in the hinterlands of long-forgotten red state America), stand up for some core principles and stick with them. The cause was as much about the means of doing politics as the ends. Dean and his followers fervently believed that the Democratic Party could still be fundamentally reformed, and they focused their activism toward that end. This spontaneous new insurgency—a response to the corporatization and triangulation of the Clinton era—wasn't about left versus right as much as outside versus in. The soul of the party and the future of politics were suddenly up for grabs. Dean certainly did not intend to become a catalyst for these changes, but that's where his campaign ended up.

Never were truer or more insightful words written about how we got to the crossroads we find ourselves at now. The Blue Dogs are really the second wing of the GOP. Every time we try to stand up and oppose corporate power, they kick out the chair from beneath us. Corporate power really runs this country, and controls both parties. The only chance we have is to try to regain control over the Democratic Party. If we have to form a Left version of the TEA movement to challenge the centrist party leadership, then that's what we have to do.

[HughMoran]

10. Obama won and wanted to pass his agenda?

There's a surprise. Obama won, no matter how people frame it, it's really about acknowledging the fact that Obama is the President and sets the agenda.

[chervilant]

11. hmm...

Really? And, you find no disconnect between the agenda he alleged during the campaign, and the agenda we've watched unfolding over the first half of his term?

If and when the donkeys (one and all) recognize that the Corporate Megalomaniacs are (and long have been) in the driver's seat, we might see a meaningful (and supportable) agenda out of our government. However, I am NOT holding my breath.

[HughMoran]

13. He's been more successful than any President in 40 years

And the agenda is what I voted for. You may not support Democrats, but I do.

[chervilant]

22. Ah...

I see... Did you intend a rather condescending tone, or are you asserting a moral high ground?

I encourage you to step outside the "agenda...(you) voted for" and consider why some of us are growing ever more concerned with what's happening to our politics, our economy, and our planet.

We humans are manifesting a level of mental dis-ease that is both frightening and corrosive. Far too many of us are in react mode, driven by inchoate fears and resentments. Far too many of us are willing to pollute our spirits with negativity, eagerly engaging in name-calling and other forms of vilification (et tu?).

We seldom acknowledge the import of overpopulation, but Calhoun's research with rats has proven that when a critical level of overpopulation occurs, the outcome isn't pretty. With rats, abnormal sexual behavior, hyperaggression, eating their young, and increased mortality are a few of the problems that occurred. With humans, well...perhaps, it's past time we acknowledge that our species has passed a critical tipping point.

Getting your panties in a twist when people express concerns about "Mr. Obama" and the "Democrats" is not helpful. Suggesting that I don't support "Mr. Obama" or the "Democrats" because I have expressed some of those concerns is not helpful.

Much like the past six presidents, Mr Obama is a simulacrum, a mere mortal who must struggle to appease a variety of opposing factions, not the least of which are the corporate megalomaniacs whose money and power hold a great deal more sway with our politicians du jour than the eager and often futile machinations of the hoi polloi.

I'm sure you've heard that acceptance is the essential first step on the road to recovery. I would like to think that our species can effect that level of change--in fact, I DO think that we can. It's just that sometimes even I cannot see the forest for the trees, especially given the stresses of being unemployed or underemployed for the better part of the last two years.

[chervilant]

24. Furthermore...

As Teddy Roosevelt said, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

[Jim Sagle]

21. He doesn't set my agenda. And if he runs as a Dem and governs as a GOOPer, fuck'm..

[chervilant]

23. Well,

when Mr. Obama casually remarked that teachers are "resistant to change" when "things aren't working," he rather condescendingly denigrated those of us who have consistently advocated for systemic support for improving public education. His cavalier attitude about our concerns is reprehensible, and he certainly doesn't help promote a healthier system of public education by alienating the multitude of intrepid souls whose daily efforts to teach are grounded in our love for our nation's children.

I could enumerate other reasons I am increasingly concerned with Mr. Obama and our politicians du jour--the health care debacle, the 'Commission to Strengthen Social Security,' our continued presence in Afghanistan, our furtive forays into Pakistan, the fact that Bush and Cheney and their co-conspirators remain free and are unlikely to be charged with the war crimes they committed--but I hesitate to further inflame the diehard Obama supporters whose finer sensibilities rarely allow them to even ponder that most idols have feet of clay...

[laughingliberal]

12. "They are told to sell the policy, but they can't influence the shaping of the product."

Pretty much the crux of the issue. People will work a lot harder to sell a policy they feel they had some part in shaping.

[xxqqqzme]

15. So true.

I remember the email "...On November 5, 2008, the DNC's nearly 200 local organizers, the core of Dean's fifty-state strategy, awoke to the news that their contracts were expiring at the end of the month..." I knew a few people this hit and it sent a shock wave through the rest of us. It was the very first time the DNC had actually paid attention to red Orange County. Howard Dean knew how involved our DFA group was/is and sent OC a helping hand. Because there was an organizer here instead of LA, the Democratic registration was up and the OCDP was energized. Our Democratic registration is now second, in the entire state, only to LA county.

This year there is no co-ordination and we are back to being treated like LA's stepchild. But a stepchild w/ money because everybody comes here w/ their ATM card. Money goes national and NOTHING comes back to support our candidates. We have ONE candidate the DCCC is beginning to acknowledge because she has now raised $500,000. I guess that is the magic number. It is difficult to see how close we got under Howard Dean's leadership only to see it all slip away under Kaine. But Kaine is not a grassroots guy, he's DLC.

[madfloridian]

20. They had no intention of continuing Dean's strategy.

Too many enthused and active people make governing harder...I hate to say it but I think it is true.

[Lorien]

17. A lot of them are working feverishly to sell it here

on DU, too-but we're never allowed to talk openly about that.

[Lorien]

16. "Certainly a president has to govern from the middle"?? When did a repug President ever

do that? The "Middle" is now the old Right, while the New Right is off the far end of authoritarian Fascist insanity. Obama was elected because he promised-and the people elected him because they wanted-CHANGE. He's not listening to the majority who voted him into office, so either he doesn't understand the concept of Democracy or he has more in common with the opposition.

[howaboutme]

18. Is herding donkeys the problem or is it

getting un-compromised politicians elected into office with a philosophy that the USA must be governed first and foremost for "we the people" just as it states in the Constitution?

That means a government for "we the people" not for the benefit of banks, corporations and commercial interests whose specific mention is no where to be found in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence or any other papers of those that formed our government.

Instead we have a government where the needs and interests of the people are put on the back burner while the supposed commercial needs, creating jobs, etc take precedence. That is what has led to wars, to harmful products, to corruption, to lobbyists, to policies that do not benefit the people and most everything that is wrong with the USA.

We must convince politicians that the people are their reason for being and our government and our nation should be run with that singular view, and business and job creation etc will take care of itself.

The Democratic Party of old was much more in tune to the people.

[phasma ex machina]

19. +1 America needs a party that puts people first. nt

[Eugnid]

25. The simple physics of "coming home"

Headline:

REPUBLICAN LANDSLIDE....OBAMA FAILURE WILL RESULT IN VOTERS OUSTING DEMS FROM CONGRESS!!!

Oh yeah, I heard this from a lot of Dems. They're so scared-- exactly as in 2004-- that they now just want to copy Rove tactics again because that's what political operatives do: COPY SUCCESS!!!

But wait a minute, Obama's no failure.

Sure, he compromised a lot and what he gave us kind of stinks. Yet, he gave us something. And, if you just stop and compare it to what Bush and the Republicans gave us for 8 years-- then take a deeeeeeeep whiff-- you'll suddenly realize that you're smelling ROSES when you smell the accomplishments of a Dem Congress!

Now what Dems need to do is stop being elitists and realize that Americans-- even Teapartiers-- have noses just like theirs. Of course, when you're screaming mad you can't smell, but after all the campaign hoopla, each American is going to be alone in the voting booth facing a screen with names on it. The list will be: those that are "in" vs. those that want TO BE "in." That's when, in the quiet of the booth, calm and collected, they will suddenly stop and think-- with no sneaky ads from Americans for…” to listen to-- just their brains telling them: THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE!

First they'll say outright: What did Obama and the Dems do for me? NOTHING!

Then they'll say: So what's the alternative?

Suddenly a thought will come to them: wait a minute, the alternative's not something NEW or unknown...It is the same people who ruled with Bush...THEY'RE THE ONES WHO GOT US INTO THE MESS WE'RE IN.

So whom do I want?

(a) The guys whom I'm mad at because they have NOT YET succeeded but are STILL TRYING....

(b) Or the guys who put us all into this situation that wrecked my life...

Obviously, if I vote-in the Dems, they'll just keep trying...

But if I vote in the Republicans they'll just drop us down from the few inches Obama took us up and will drive us deeper past the bottom, this time into the sub-sub-sub-basement.

So if I vote for the Dems it's not to reward them for a job well done!

But:

a) they’ll keep the Republicans from really finishing off me and my America…

b) I’ll give them more time to move things in the right direction

Yea, yea ALL POLITICS ARE DIRTY AND ALL POLITICIANS ARE PIGS. But the issue here is more pure physics:

So far Obama has tried to take all these Congressional forces (represented as vector arrows that sum up as one big "RESULTANT" arrow of pluses & minuses) but hadn’t had enough resultant force behind him to fly us to the top where America belongs. But the little that he did do sums up into a resultant which points in the RIGHT DIRECTION !

So, if I vote Democrat, I'll just get a longer lasting resultant of accumulated Democrat vectors in Congress, all pointing in the same UP direction….forces that just might yet produce a resultant that rockets us out of the hole.

But if I vote in Republicans, I'll be left with an enfeebled President fighting a much bigger resultant forcing us deep down again, this time well PAST THE BOTTOM!

It's all a matter of survival physics. I'm mad at Obama for failing-- SO FAR-- but I'm not going to crush my face to spite my nose. I'm not going to elect the DEVIL in protest of disappointment with what God did for me. I may be disappointed with the good but I'm not going to join the evil in protest. Nope, I'll just give the Dems another chance because I know their efforts WILL CONTINUE to be in the right direction. The worst they could do in the next two years is to bring us only a little higher from where they brought us in the last two. But that's still UP...for the Dems took us in the right direction.

The Republicans are corporate cannibals. THEY EAT LITTLE PEOPLE. And all those angry teabaggers are little people being eaten by corporate funds disguised as the Tea Party of angry Americans. Yeaaaa, I remember all those town halls where the teabaggers came in snorting and shouting. They all had SCRIPTS, scripts written by the Rove&Co. stooges of the cannibal corporations. And now, the several candidates the Tea Party put up are all blow-up sex dolls and weird freaks from another planet, shills for perverted big money guys, hiding behind corporate anonymity like "Americans for this..." and "Americans for that..."

HEY DEMS, REMIND PEOPLE OF ALL THIS, EVEN THOUGH THEY WILL REALIZE IT AFTER ASLL THE HOOPLAH IS OVER AND THEY'RE THINKING QUIETLY TO THEMSLEVES IN THE VOTING BOOTH. Don't hide from or deny your failures because, LIKE YOUR SUCCESSES-- they're all in the right directions. The Republican vectors are all IN THE WRONG DIRECTION for they are paid to feed you to the cannibal corporations that left you half eaten and suffering as Bush left office. Do you want them now to finish you off in the next two years?

Tell people that it's all simple & clear physics. They're not dumb, they're just mad, so they'll grasp your point. But you've got to do it door to door, not from some convenient phone banks or distributing leaflets. They have to see what an Obama Democrat looks like and realize: "Hey, I like that kid."

THEN-- AND ONLY THEN-- WILL THE DEMS GET ANOTHER CHANCE. Why even if you do nothing, beautiful Momma Polosi will still be swinging the gavel for the next push IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION as Speaker of a Democrat House....It is simple physics!