The Powers may be the corporatists who are afriad of real democracy. Time to gear up DFA again.

Terry McAulliffe want's the support of Virginia Democrats in the primary next year - go tell him to use his influence within the DNC to urge them to keep the 50-state strategy.

I agree - we need this!  Not just in Virginia but nationwide.

The corporations and the DLC are scared spitless of the grassroots, and they don't get mad, they get even. Time for another bottom-up rebellion? I cannot believe that Obama spent so much time, money, and organisational skills creating a ground game in almost every locality in this country to throw it all away as if there's no tomorrow. Or is the under-the-radar-plan to end up with Obama's Chicago office running his vast network set-up, bypassing the DNC?  

Folks like Susan and Joe are worth their weight in gold.  

If the DNC feels financially strapped, all they have to do is send out fundraising appeals to the effect that "We want to keep these 50-state organizers on, but we need your $$ to do it."  That would easily generate the money needed to keep them going.

If it's a strategic move, then the grassroots indeed has to send a message to the DNC that this is unacceptable.  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.  Nov. 4 is one day out of the year, but we need to spend every other day keeping an eye on our elected (and unelected) officials to make sure that they're keeping faith with the American people.

what folks like Susan and Joe did for us here.

What does the DNC think that it is doing?!

If doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the classic definition of stupidity, is the following also true:  Is doing something completely different from what worked the first time and expecting the same (desirable) results the classic definition of stupidity?

We won a resounding victory.  A lot of that should be attributed to the 50 State Project, which went out to red states and challenged Republican domination there.  We won Virginia after 44 years of Republican victories in presidential elections.  We won North Carolina.  We won back Florida, which hadn't voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton.  We were successful in Colorado.  We challenged and won so many areas that the Democratic insiders had written off as "not ours" for years.

We did more than just win back the White House.  Unlike in the Clinton victories in the 1992 and 1996 election, we won resounding victories not eked out narrow ones.  Nobody can challenge the legitimacy of Obama's win by claiming, as they did about Bill Clinton in '92, that it was less than 50 percent.  Much more than Bush's close victory in 2004, Obama has true political capital and, yes, he does have a mandate for change.  Because not only did he win a solid, undisputed victory, he had coattails.  Democrats up and down the U.S. won seats in Congress from red states.

So, why would the DNC ditch the program that brought us these successes?  It just doesn't make sense.

First sentence should have read "If doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the classic definition of insanity..."  

Sorry about that.

Thanks, Lowell; I'm glad that you've alerted us to this possibility, and I certainly agree with all the sentiments expressed herein thus far.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the reason why Virginia (and so many other states and/or localities) has "gone blue" over the past couple of years is directly related to these various efforts incorporated by and into Howard Dean's 50-state strategy along with other manifestations and vestiges of it.

Susan Mariner is the perfect example of an incredibly effective political operative and organizer whose absence from Virginia's political landscape would bode badly for next year's major statewide raises as well as those contests in our various districts and localities.

At every governmental/political level - at least here in Virginia - we need to maintain and support that effort and intensity and spirit of hard work, dedication and accomplishment, and this is most definitely NOT the time to do anything less.

Lowell, please consider assembling an online petition drive to keep people like Susan Mariner employed by the DNC, DPV, etc., and, if that doesn't work, then let's use these same resources for a fundraising drive toward the same end.

We may not be able to accomplish the retention of Dean's 50-state strategy nationally, but we can certainly have a positive impact on keeping that mindset - and practice - alive here in newly blue Virginia.

Where do I send my check?

Thanks again!

Steve    

We need these people!  It worked!  Don't change it!  They deserve a raise!

At a local Republican gathering this morning it was clear that the fight for Virginia is on. George Bush, Sara Palin, and Jim Gilmore were gifts that won't keep giving after January 20.

No one, not even Terry McAulliffe, can win the gubernatorial race without the operational link between the state and the local committees/candidates. So it really is in the Party's interest to keep this structure in place.

and then we should still have some juice from this one. Also, they seem to ignore the fact that we here is Virginia have a major election EVERY year and many if not most of the other 50 states don't. As usual campaign workers are disposable and can be re-hired again when they think they need them..... Yeah, right ??!!!.... give them a plaque, a certificate, a recommendation, a bonus (Ha!!) and a lay-off slip.

Also, face the facts, for the next four years at least, no matter who gets elected DNC Chairperson the Obama campaign will be the basis of the national party core .... "to the victors goes the spoils"

We have come so far in Virginia not just because we had a GREAT!!! candidate this year, but because of the incremental progress that really started after we lost in 2004 and we started getting our sh%$ together. We really got organized because of the specific efforts and talents of people like Joe and Susan and the concepts of coordinated campaigns at least at the Virginia state level..... We have been the proving grounds for much of the DNCs and Obama campaign technology and strategy. We used it very effectively..... now how do we justify keeping the core team and institutional knowledge together???? How do we avoid losing most of the logistical support structure until 2012???? if not 2016????.....

And DON'T forget we have the 2010 Census coming within the terms of this next state-wide election next year that will determine the Congressional districts for next big elections for the next ten years after 2011..... Sooooo 2009 campaigns are going to be a huge factor at the state AND federal levels for that reason alone......

the purpose of the 50-state program was to bulk up local Democratic committees - which has largely been done.  At least in battleground states, the massive lifting has been done.  Local committees are flush with cash, even after the election.  Volunteer lists are huge, voter files are thorough and very accurate.  The last 2-3 cycles have brought a lot of Democratic candidates out and a lot have won.  At least in Virginia, there's really nothing at this time for DNC to accomplish.  Two Senators, good-sized margin of victory in the Presidential election, and a new 6-5 congressional majority.  If you look at the 50-state program as a seeding and cultivating effort, which it is, then the work is done - for now.

If I were DNC, I would focus more resources on Missouri, the South and Arizona.  We need to rebuild the party in some states like South Carolina and Alabama.  Others, like Arkansas and Georgia, actually have good Democratic efforts at various levels for local, state and federal.  

As far as Dean, he's almost certain to get a cabinet position or a plum ambassador slot somewhere.  But I agree, I would keep the 50-state program on for the next few months - Joe and those guys aren't making that much money - then with the new DNC honchos next year, let them make the decision on where to focus assets.

And I don't need but two words to do it:

Rural Virginia

Already underserved by the party, now the hope of a CenVa organizer just went out the window.

Rural Virginia is still here, folks, and it's not going away. Big gains like Prince Edward, Nottaway and Buckingham (22 votes!) are bordered by Charlotte, Cumberland and Mecklenburg.

We will need to get this straightened out some year. I am still waiting and working.

the purpose of the 50-state program was to bulk up local Democratic committees - which has largely been done

Please do not assume that this is the case everywhere. And to assume that the influx of folks in a presidential election year will translate into additional bodies for 2009 is a mistake.

It is ludicrous to me that the 50-state strategy would be abandoned.  

the rural areas.  While we loves us some Joe Montano---- His position is not needed in NOVA where there is strong committees in @ least Fairfax, Arlington & Loundon.

I think that this is a pre-courser to Rahm's dismantling of the Dean Machine.  The conflicts between him and Howard Dean during his tenure as the DCCC chair in 2006 are legendary.  As White House CoS, Emanuel will insist on firm control of the DNC and will be too busy to worry about what Dean is up to behind his back.

I have always liked the 50-state strategy, though I think the intentions of some who argued against it back when it got going had the best intentions.

But they were proved wrong, and Dean was proved right -- everyone can see that.

Now that we will have a Democratic president with the support of a clear majority of the people, and firm control over the House and Senate, we should expect results: Out of Iraq, a middle class tax cut, national health care, a program for alternative energy and energy independence, jobs, jobs and jobs.

If our newly elected leaders and their appointees choose to spend their time jockeying around in a huge game of office politics, I predict I and millions of others will quickly lose patience.

The GOP is finally headed to its long-anticipated ideological fracture. It was precipitated by an administration that failed at a practical level, in major part due to an untenable governing philosophy that became visible only in the context of excessive corruption, cronyism and incompetence.

The Democratic Party is not immune to this.

Joe Montano that is.

Where will be the grassroots  infrastructure for Obamas 2012 reelection bid?

This is like the space program getting  cut just after landing on the moon  back in 1969.

...to have around. Not only has he done a tremendous amount of work over the last few years here in Virginia, but I know many organizers (including myself) have asked him for advice about the work they were doing. His influence has therefore spread out into many other campaigns and organizations and he should be commended for all his hard work.

but I find it financially imprudent for the DNC to fund the 50 state efforts in the holiday months when there is little organizing to be done. We're all going to wrapped up in the Georgia runoff and the building of the new administration until mid-January at the earliest. As long as this program is reignited in limited scope for 2009's off-year elections, and nationally for the 2010 midterms, then I think this is a fiscally and politically sound decision.

The 50-state program is a political program; it runs on people power.

Organizers aren't machines that you can just put on the shelf and haul down again when it's convenient.  They're people; they need to eat and pay rent like the rest of us.  

And their work involves building and maintaing relationships, and planning ahead -- two things you can't do when you lay off people with talent and experience, then decide months or a year later to crank back up again.

I'd be up for an honest evaluation inside the DNC of the accomplishments, strengths, and weaknesses of the 50-state program, and the priorities for the next three years.  But this business of "suspending" before "reevaluating" smells like something much less good-faith, not a decision made with the interests of the whole organization in mind, much less with the participation of the people most affected.

have always been our own worse enemy. We ( again, Democrats) have found a plan of action that works, so now we decide to dismantle it and "re-evaluate"?

Let's oust the DNC leadership and do this thing ourselves!

He said that Obama will fill the DNC with his person. Howard will probably be the Sec of Health and Human Services and work on the health care problems.
He doesn't want DNC chair after four years.
I doubt they want to dismantle the program but the new chair will probably change it somewhat.

on this topic was  

"Or is the under-the-radar-plan to end up with Obama's Chicago office running his vast network set-up, bypassing the DNC?"

After reading the later comments here and thinking about it, recalling how Obama took over the Democratic Party national organisation, or most of it, running everything from Chicago so there would be a unified control and message---- well, I do not believe Obama will throw it away. I do think he will re-organize, re-structure according to  his game plan and community organizer experience. He has already told us he will be calling on his Obama-Democratic supporters during his efforts at making Change come true.

Therefore, whatever happens, I expect to see a broadly-based, wide-spread national Democratic set-up presence ready to work for  President Obama. This man is cool, thinks ahead, and lays his groundwork carefully. Never fear, I think Susan Mariner and other dedicated, proven local organizers will have a place in that Obama New Democratic organization.

But it wouldn't hurt to tell Obama what you think. He can multi-task, remember?      

generally seemed to know what it was doing at the strategic level, but excessive centralization and the effort to control the tactical level from the center sometimes can lead to confusion and collapse, as with the much vaunted "Houdini" system's crash on Election Day and with "Chicago's" unwarranted panic about "line management" and possible Republican voter suppression tactics at the end of the polling day in NOVA.

That panic at Chicago's end scrambled and confused the GOTV effort in NOVA at the very end of the day. Maybe we didn't end up losing many actual voters in the Chicago-induced chaos, but chalk it up as another case of a Chicago general (or colonel) trying to direct a squad's every step at long distance. It is normally better to let the sergeant make the tactical calls based on the truth on the ground.

Dean's 50 State Strategy and Obama's campaign have helped to revive and energize the grassroots, but as Obama himself as repeated again and again, change must come from the bottom up.

We should not be shrinking timidly from making our views known from the bottom of this massive pyramid. "Chicago" won't always know what works best down here in the precincts or what the local ramifications might be of every national level policy initiative.

We Democrats are, after all, the reality-based party. If sensible commands are to come down to us, we need to send accurate and candid data upwards in the first place. The Netroots don't owe Obama and his brain trust a honeymoon. We do owe our continued participation, and when it seems called for, our disagreement with the way things are going.

on Election Day, except that I was too lowly a private to be exactly sure of the details; thanks for the insight. Us barnacle-encrusted oldies remember how the Oval Office monkeyed with the squads and companies in Vietnam, and how Whiz Kids came up with self-induced and panic-driven last minute nightmares that screwed up the field operations... a fog of war in reverse, resulting from the head shed having perhaps far too much information fed upline to it, and armchair generals thinking they knew better than the poor slob on the ground.

Sp, how do we get this message to whoever Decides before too much damage is done?  

Thinking about "how" to send a compelling message upline, what's wrong with bearding the fearsome Rahm Emmanuel himself? He is a known control freak and enormously loyal to Obama. Disabuse him of the notion the local organisers are Howard Dean's creatures. Convince him they belong heart and soul to Obama, and don't throw them on the trash heap, Rahm. Use them. That's how a Lowell-directed petition should be phrased, marketed, signed by all, and forwarded ASAP tp Rahm. What do you think?

If Lowell wants to generate something upwards to remind the DNC and "Chicago" that the Netroots/grassroots are here to stay and will remain actively engaged and not serve merely as servile tools, he surely has the credibility to do it. Most of us at RK would surely sign on.

I'm hoping that Obama's selection of Emanuel to be WH COS was intended to make use of Emanuel's head-cracking abilities rather than  to demonstrate a nod to his DLC "centrist" (i.e., rightist) policy inclinations.

(I also wonder whether bringing Emanuel into the White House might not help prevent the legislative road blocks that he could have set up to a more balanced Middle East policy--if Obama chooses to press for a genuine settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as with other states in the region, especially Syria. By co-opting Emanuel within his inner circle, Obama may be neutering his ability to set up roadblocks to such a settlement.)

Fortunately, we won't be needing to ask anyone's permission to think, write, or organize. The folks at Daily Kos, Hullabaloo, Eschaton, Crooks and Liars, The Nation, Salon (especially Greenwald), sites like RK, Slate, Huffington Post, NYT (especially Frank Rich and Paul Krugman), and Rachel Maddow at MSNBC will voice progressive views and will continue to press for a people-based and reality-based agenda--in contrast to the corporatist looting agenda.

At the Netroots, we can give our contributions and canvassing time to "better" Democrats, just as we did in the Congressional races in Virginia this fall.

Emanuel has promoted a lot of unreliable Blue Dogs, including the former scumbag Republican millionaire Mahoney (defeated now after his sex scandal) as a Dem candidate in Florida.  Rahm, solid corporatist that he is, seems to detest the grassroots.

Let's hope that Obama will continue to embrace the grassroots and listen--even through multiple layers of intervening political filters. We shall soon see if Obama was serious about the "bottom-up" meme that infused his campaign.

was predictable and I don't know why they didn't emphasize using the web-based on-line system instead.  There were plenty of volunteers to run the name books to local data entry points - like a Starbucks - where that stuff could have been entered in minutes.  The on-line system was up and working fine while the phone lines were clogged.  That should have been expected when the entire Eastern Time Zone called in about the same time to enter in hundreds of 4-digit numbers each.

As far as the rest, better safe than sorry.  Lots of worried calls about end-of-day lines when Fairfax flowed silk smooth all day, even with the morning rush.  We tend not to have lines in the afternoons because, with traffic, everyone knows to vote before work or if you can, the middle of the day.  I haven't seen a big 6:00 PM rush in a long number of years.

That said, the Houdini phone fiasco was the only down part of the day's plan.  Everything else worked amazingly well IMHO.

There are bunch of basic things we did really well that are the direct result of evolving our efforts from the last 5 to 6 years. Such as, in addition to the newest technology on-line stuff, basic things like precinct circuit drivers keeping information, materials, snacks/water and moral boosting constant.... the PTV people were amazing at all of our polls. They made a BIG difference getting problems solved and communicated upstream immediately as things happened.

I believe there are dozens of good ideas that we can share to improve our performance even more.... and most are not secret, they are obvious, and they worked WELL.....

In fact, tonight, we have the Fairfax PTV lawyers on our "Inside Scoop Virginia" TV show between 6:30 & 7:30 PM EST..... it will be carried through-out NoVa on Cox cable and Verizon FiOS as far south as Fredricksburg and far north as Loudoun County.... but for the rest of the state and beyond it is "Live" on UStreamTV.com on the web with live Q&A by phone and Blog.... You can get the link from UStreamTV.com or from the website/blog at http://www.InsideScoopProducti...  

We start web-casting a little earlier while we set up and get ready, but right after the show the entire one hour recording is now available almost immediately for replay off UStreamTV's site on the Inside Scoop channel.

Tonight is Virginia issues, tomorrow night's show will be on the national topics/elections and starts at 7:00 until 8:00 PM EST

Even manually marking the turf packets at precinct staging centers with the voters' data run from the polling stations might suffice and even save time.

At the end of the day, one last canvassing/door hanger push at 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. could remind the non-voters that they still have time to go to their neighborhood polling station at "X address."

your right on the mark. Obama has an opportunity to enlist his "base" on most any issue and bring the people's collective political opinion and will to the problem (whatever he defines).

Susan Mariner is great! She's very inspirational ..... so I expect she'll always contribute.

here now, as I hear it. Undoubtedly the top management is doing (or has done) their own report. What we need is a Grass Roots After-Action Report with all the good points already touched on right here. I am sure, if asked, we could pry out other astute observations from the grunt to middle-management level. It needs to be collated, made into a narrative with bullet points by someone from the grass roots' upper echelon who has a god's-eye view and some credibility. I'll help, but am not important enough to have the god's eye view and credibility thing). Do it fast and shoot it to where the  facts and conclusions will do the most good--- copying everyone significant. Demand a response, publicize on RK and on major progressive blogs.

I see no other way to stop the murder of the 50-state strategy's organization. We owe it to Obama and ourselves constantly to seek improvement.  

I suggest 5 things to make this work from the bottom up....
1. New Diary at the top level with the intent well spelled out to get the maximum participation.
2. Do this SOON before the euphoria wears off and the memories get a little cloudy
3. Get buy-in by the county committees i.e. Precinct OPs who have all been right in the middle.
4. Get the PTV people in on this because they have such a good log blow by blow of the problems and some of the solutions that worked.
5. Get Joe and Susan involved since it really should be able to go through them anyhow yet.

Process and procedure.....

A. Get the raw suggestions from everyone via the blog, max one day....
B. Somebody clean it up and consolidate it, max one more day....
C. Play it back on the blog for "buy-in" and a second pass... one more day max
D. Help distribute and disseminate it to where it needs to go at all levels.... ASAP with the guidence of Joe and Susan and I'm sure some others such as assorted key members of assorted committees at the county, state, and DNC that we can definitely get this to.... this may include face to face meetings, video, whatever.... As I said, I'm in !!

Lowell, Ken, Josh, etc. etc. your thoughts????

from Howard Dean about this situation? I'm really puzzled here, especially that they claim they're going to reevaluate AFTER they've already told the 50-state organizers they're FIRED!! WTF?!?

Also, this is a national issue, not a Virginia-specific issue.  I would hope that the national blogs would take this up...

you can't keep up with the quantity and diversity of the traffic that comes out of no where.... shear volume will minimize the value and our ability to move quickly..... besides, aren't we always helping to lead here in Virginia, the home of the "Webb Net-Roots" :)

Regional and other areas will grab this and add to it, trust me.... there is a hunger to contribute, and besides activists need a way the come down off the adrenalin from last week.... addictions takes some time to kick.... Cold Turkey is painful

Why stop now