The 2016 Election Planning Begins Today.
The 2014 election is over. The results are not good. We did not make gains, but lost ground. So, now we must turn to 2016, where every House member is once again up for election and another batch of Senators will be trying to hold on to their phony-baloney jobs. It's time to start working toward the next election. But how to do that?
Starting today, it's time to begin looking for progressives to run for every office, from the school board, city council and county board to state legislators, statewide offices, Congress members, and the President. We need to find people who want to run, are capable of winning, and who support the things we want them to support. The best people will require encouragement to run, because elected office is a shitty job that brings more pain than pleasure. I can't even imagine why anyone would want the grief that's involved.
We need to move into position in our local Democratic Party organizations so that we'll be able to promote the people we think will be the best candidates for all those jobs. Right now, those organizations are idle, pretty much, and we can move in and volunteer to do stuff other people don't want to do. That's how a person gets involved at the beginning. That's how leaders step in.
We need to start building our own personal networks in the political world. We can blog. We can speak. We can communicate. We must do those things, because the failure to do that caused many people to skip voting this year. They didn't vote because they couldn't find a reason to vote. We have to find out what the reasons are that will get them to vote in 2016. We need to find ways to stimulate their interest and motivate their actions.
We need to talk to each other, too. If we have a single issue that is the only issue we think is important, that's going to be difficult, because everyone has issues they think are important. We have to talk to each other. We have to agree to disagree to some degree on which issues are the most important. We have to form working groups who can actually work together, because 2016 is just two years away, and there's no time to waste.
We have to be willing to do some hard work. Getting people elected is hard work. It's always hard work. It's hard for the candidates. It's hard for the Party organizers and leaders. It's hard for those who do all of the things that are required to win elections. If we're not willing to do that, we shouldn't even start, because hard work will be required of everyone.
We have to get along with each other, in a broad range of ways. We can't insult each other or call each other names. We can't say to each other, "You are not part of this." We can't do that, or we'll fail. Everyone we reject is no longer someone who can help.
2016 started when the polls closed yesterday. It doesn't end until the polls close in November, 2016. In between those two dates are many milestones. We have to prepare for each of those milestones well in advance. That is how we build a network that can actually win elections. There is no other way.
Good luck to us. We'll need it.
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