We Hold the Advantage; Yet We Are Not Using It!

In the last several conversations I've heard on NPR and other venues, I was absolutely astounded to learn that the Democratic Party knows that it needs to change and is looking to the “grass-roots” as a guide to the way it should reorganize.

Hold on a minute. Why didn’t anyone tell us? Most of us didn’t realize that we possessed the "power. "

I don’t know about you but the rank and file, the entrenched membership of the Party do not seem to happy to cede power to guys like us. But, you know, tough! Perception is 99% of the battle!

The big guys seem to think that we are the future. And you know what, they are right!....But here’s the key: They hold the perception that we are the future. And we’d be damn fools not to use that perception to shape a new Party, a party that shows some inner strength and does not resemble a jello mold.

Much of the perceived influence evolved and was shaped prior to the last Primaries when Howard Dean was able to mobilize a force that up to that point was never acknowledged for the sheer weight of numbers it could bring to the liberal/progressive argument or its capacity for raising huge amounts of money.

Dean showed what could be done leveraging the Internet to create ‘Meet-Ups” that gave him a virtual army of volunteers numbering into the hundreds of thousands. At one point, we had more than 650,000 volunteers committed to the election of Howard Dean. And as a result of the internet, we held outside meetings, raised funds, organized parties, got out the volunteers, organized telephone banks and posted signs. We attended parades, fund-raisers and spread out to involve others who stood on the fringes but realized that they didn't like what was happening in this country.

The fact that we didn't make it in Iowa did not cause us to go away. Many of us formed grass-roots organizations linked via the Internet with weekly phone-ins and others actually began the process of running for office.

In short, while the rest of the Party looked like they were on sleep medication, we were doing something. Perhaps that's why we are thought of today as the ‘movers’ and the ‘shakers’ of the democratic party.

But at the same time there is a problem we face. The trouble is that many of us are not moving that advantage forward. We are not acting as if we hold the future in our hands. We have not connected with our local parties or tried to organize at the local level. With the loss of Dean on a day to day basis, we seemed to have lost some of our inertia in many parts of the country.

We need to leverage our ‘strengths.’ We need to take the bull by the horns and believe in ourselves. We have to believe that we are perceived as the power holders in the party, the minority that can make a difference. And, believe me, as an attendee at many democratic functions throughout the state, our contribution is sorely missed inasmuch as democratic politics is proceeding in the same slow pathetic way it did for the last fifty years, virtually unchanged by real world events and that dooms us to perdition for another four years. But that doesn’t have to happen if we grass-roots people, the so-called "radicals," lefties, progressive liberal types of the past start finding our common ground and start pulling our weight at the Party level.

Remember, perception is 99% of the battle and we already have it. It's time to find like minded souls in our areas and branch out. We need to pinpoint those who are fed up with the inertia we have had to endure for eight years and recognize that we need to start making a difference now. The clock is running out; the competition, the Repugs have had thirty five years to practice their form of media assasination and persuasion. If we don't act now, the question is when:?

Yet, never has an opposition party had more issues to use for ammunition. Never before have we had a better opportunity to toss out the baggage that can’t see beyond wars and self-interest.

Nevertheless, this has not translated into a benefit at the polls; and the existing Democratic structure has failed to capitalize on its advantages.

Clearly, if there is going to be change, it is going to come from the “grass roots;” and that means us. So, in addition to sending emails, we need to get out there and beat the bushes (literally, I hope). We need to band together, gather converts and change the party dynamics that is mired in apathy and blind to reality.

This forum needs to be open for debate.

Les Aaron