A guest submittal
I am an old style campaign organizer. It does not mean I am necessarily old processes are the best but a believer in basic principles of campaigning established long before any of us were alive. The basic structure of both major political parties suck. The “legalized†hidden money now controls everything. You know the kind of money “legally†disbursed through no-bid contracts and funneled back into campaign activities. We saw the money flow in the 2014 Sioux Falls municipal election and it will be seen in the limited campaign finance reporting to be completed by our just completed state and federal campaigns.
I don’t get into campaign rah-rah hoopla anymore. It hasn’t happened in years. This year was another one of those years. I tried to get involved again this year. It was hard. The inexperienced helpers think their “modern†methods are going to work. They don’t. They only give a momentary mental rush. I attended events to observe the turnouts of the limited faithful. We got to see what happens when the worthless Facebook gamers are combined with party funders who have their personal reasons to limit the helpers physical reach out to voters. It is disturbing.
David Montgomery had a nice quick analysis of the just past election in the Argus Leader. Both parties lost this year. Why did they both lose? It just comes down to a multi-year everyday drudgery called get out the vote. This effort should be the primary daily process of the party, not a process to be done by each campaign at the last minute. The rah-rah events and parties should be motivators, not the focus of the particular party.
For example: we see people “first†issues placed on the ballot by the Democratic Party actually win at the polls. Why not take the same effort and build a political party? What a waste of time and abuse of limited financial resources. Several issues have been handed to the Democratic Party leaders over the last 10 years which could have built a principled party. What have the operators of the party done with it? Ignore them. Let’s play pretend. Let’s dream of things we could do if we were in power.
A few years ago I tried to have a meeting with an elected Democratic official and move a voting issue along. This person told me “I won’t do it until after next election (2 years away) when it is my last possible term.†You know what happened? This person’s last term was that year because an important stand had to be taken. I could have been wrong in my issue but the elected official was afraid of taking a principled stand. An elected official wins with principled stands. An election or two might be lost but in the end more quality elected officials will win.
No one seems to be interested in the long term things like party base building. Some of us have been fighting our battles for a long time. The Democratic party lost its last unified front by 1976. It showed in 1978 and thereafter. It will now be 44 years out of power before the Democratic party can even be attempting to change the system from the inside. Now South Dakota does not even have a public voice or possible elected public power voice to move things forward in the media.
So what to do? Give up? Some of us just don’t know how to give up. We might be momentarily disgusted by the process we see, but we look for ways to rebuild.
It’s a shame the Democratic Party of South Dakota has to get out the 3 x 5 index cards and rebuild the party from scratch. The South Dakota Republican Party is not far behind. Complacency after an over-whelming victory is very destructive to a party structure.
I hate to remind people, elections are not NFL Super Bowls. There is no single victorious winner takes all in United States elections. We are a democracy where we protect the unprotected. Our system is not to protect the privileged or just the winners. Have your party to celebrate the victories but be prepared to govern for the least amongst us.
Why care who wins anymore?
So why be involved?
Some of us just care.