Reply #6: Thanks for feedback, here's mine [View All]

[JNelson6563]

I'm up in Traverse City, a famously RED area. Much of the north is red actually.

We had a CC person in our office. Ironically, for so very long, as I schlepped on with the grunt work of party buildig and fundraising, I used to daydream of how nice it would be to have some help from Lansing. I never before realized how much truth there was to that old addage: Be careful what you wish for....

It started out bad and got worse. CC decided to schedule events for our Grand Opening 8 days before we were even scheduled to move into our storefront office. Just imagine what sort of chaos rushing things to meet an 8 day early deadline created. We were still trying to get our phone-lines arranged.

CC promised us 3 phone lines and $ toward rent as well as swag and incidentals (i.e. paper, cartridges, etc.). We got the phone-lines put in and lemme tell ya, what a nightmare. We worked with SBC (I don't know why or how they came to be our phone co.) and the confusion that ensued due to the fact we were a political entity was a horror. OTOH, UAW promised us three phone lines and within 2 days they were up and running, we didn't have to arrange a thing. All we did was buy 3 phones. UAW had also promised us some $ toward rent which we also had within two days of promise being issued.

They sent this guy who didn't know anything about politics to be their guy in our office. Nice enough fellow and all but clueless and highly disorganized. His boss was some 20-something gal who knew as much as him. She shows up to this organizational meeting we arranged with all the volunteers we'd raised and she's wearing this barely there tee-shirt, no bra, low hip-huggers. A real here-is-my-naval-and-these-are-my-nipples outfit. (I have no problem with this sort of thing in a more appropriate setting, like the bar scene or a social party) Then she keeps addressing the crowd, many gray-hairs among them, as "you guys" with a real valley girl style of speech. It was disappointing to say the least. None of my future contacts with her were any more impressive.

So, local CC person is in office alone with volunteer one day, early on. We hadn't had time to do much volunteer training due to the accelerated schedule. A couple comes in and wants to make a $10,000 donation to us. Volunteer is unsure what to do. CC guy tells couple he doesn't think a local party could accept such a large donation so they need to give it to the CC. We tried to get in touch with this couple to coreect misinformation, to no avail. Thanks to Mr. CC-guy $10,000 walked out thinking they couldn't give it to us. Think about how incredibly happy we were about that. Grrrrr.

So time goes by, CC-guy schedules phone-banks in our offices. They come in at night and do their thing and trash office. CC-guy leaves mess. All the time. No matter how much grief he gets, he always has excuses as to why he didn't clean up or have phoners clean up after themselves. Of course we kept the pantry stocked with snacks and water, etc. (mostly for our office volunteers) and CC-guy's folks consumed massively.

We had some events, for example Bush came to town--we had a protest. We did all the organizing and leg-work, some higher-ups show up day of event and inform us they'll do any press (obviously us yahoo's in the north couldn't handle it). Of course we ignored them and handled the press ourselves (they were always off somewhere, busy with their Blackberries--very important stuff). As I stated out in the forums yesterday, the time Elizabeth Edwards came to town was a major undertaking. CC didn't call to let me know advance team was coming till I was in my 2nd meeting with them. They didn't even come to town till about an hour or two before event began, just as the cameras started rolling.

All the time CC's man on the ground here is printing shit like crazy and using our postage. If anyone who was called by phone bank had question or concern they'd get 8-10 pages of shit off the net sent to them. It was ridiculous. That is way beyond how many pages is one stamp's worth of weight (1 oz.), it consumed massive paper and toner--none of which they ever supplied. I finally put a stop to it--covertly. ;-)

Then there's swag. We got none from them. We bought tons and kept counties around us supplied much below our own cost of it--they had no money. Again, CC-man on the ground was making personal promises to others and giving out big chunks. We'd be down to 100 or 200 and he'd give out 100 or so to a county. Had no concept of supply and demand. Sure, we'll get the county what they need but in a few more days when our next 1,000 comes in. Idiot.

Everyone connected with CC acted as though our resources were there for the sole purpose of use by them. We never got any of the promised money until we called and made several big stinks. Only after we threatened to a.) kick their guy out of the office and b.) call Brewer and tell him how screwed up CC was--did they start meeting their committements.

The whole thing was so shoddy. No one knew what anybody else was doing, nobody showed a bit of consideration for local folks or concerns and no one seemed to give a thought to any of the promises they made once the words left their mouths.

In spite of the frustration we all seemed to experience this last election season, I am really glad to hear of those who are doing party building efforts and all that important stuff on their own. We here in the north have always been ignored by the MDP so we have taken things into our own hands and the progress is great. I hope you all achieve great things and share them with us here!

Julie