Am I missing something here?
Am I missing something here?
I have been involved in politics for many years, primarily with the Democratic Party or in issue advocacy. I have a degree in Political Science.
I, and so many other Democrats, have so often been left scratching our heads, wondering who is in charge of strategy under this big tent. Can you feel me? There is something basic missing here, though I don’t think it’s really all that complicated.
Billions of dollars are being spent during election cycles to reach an increasingly smaller group of undecided voters, the bulk of it spent on tv ads. We really don’t have an accurate way of knowing how effective these ads are. There is a strong possibility those ads are just as effective at turning out voters who will vote AGAINST the candidate being promoted. What’s wrong with this picture?
In the 2022 Midterms, 45 million people who voted in 2020, did not show up to vote in 2022. Why not? Yes, I know that midterm turnouts are always lower then Presidential Elections, but this one set a record. And it comes at a time when we’re perilously close to losing our democracy.
Where is the Democratic Party with party building efforts? I’ve researched this and found some pacs and allied groups working on such efforts. I live in a red state and have attempted to reach out to the state party to find out what’s going on and making suggestions about what should be going on. Mostly, the response has been disheartening. All 100 of our state reps were up for election in 2022. 40 of those races did not have Democratic candidate. A State Rep (retiring after this year) told me that the Dem Caucus was cold calling registered Democrats trying to recruit candidates. She told me it was an in futility that left them bummed out. I find this unacceptable.
There needs to be serious resources put into party building efforts. Identifying swing voters is critical as well as ascertaining which issues are important to these people. When the Democratic Party is on their side on the issues they care about, we need to make sure voters know about it. We need a dedicated program for identifying potential candidates and campaign professionals. This can be achieved as part of Party building. Doing outreach to voters is a great way to find out if you have what it takes to be a candidate. And if that’s not your cup of tea, maybe you can be a campaign professional.
We can and must do better. Our future is riding on it.
If you now of party building efforts that are producing solid results, please let me now about them.
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
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