Dean, Driven by the Grass Roots
truthout.org
"By Lois Romano
Washington Post
Monday 22 September 2003
Bottom-Up Strategy May Turn Politics Upside Down
By day, Jennifer Powers is a grant-writer for a school for the deaf, a Gen X'er who in past elections was like millions of others who vote but don't pay much attention to politics -- and certainly don't lift a finger to help any particular candidate.
That changed for Powers a few months ago, when the 32-year-old Philadelphian, driven by a newfound passion, switched her voter registration from independent to Democrat and became an unpaid operative for Howard Dean's presidential campaign in Pennsylvania. Today, Powers sits on a Philly4Dean (philly4dean.com) steering committee she helped set up, overseeing grass-roots volunteers she helped recruit, and communicates online with a database of 2,000 prospective Dean supporters that she helped build.
She said she does this 30 to 40 hours a week after her day job and with only online direction from the Dean campaign -- and she is not alone.
Thousands of Dean supporters -- many of whom profess never to have been active before -- have taken to the streets on their own initiative to pass out Dean fliers at urban fairs and farmers markets, donate blood and clean up beaches in his name, and raise millions of dollars for the former Vermont governor at house parties.
Although few of these volunteers have ever spoken to anyone from the national headquarters, Dean, once among the least known of the Democratic presidential field, now appears to many to be among the best organized as he leads the pack in fundraising and surges ahead in polls.
Political strategists say that what began in January as a quirky, long-shot Internet strategy to attract online supporters to the dark-horse candidate could revolutionize presidential politics by minimizing the importance of television media and empowering grass-roots organizers. Advisers to Wesley K. Clark, the latest addition to the Democratic field, have indicated that the retired general will use a similar model and try to translate the success of the online Draft Clark movement into a national grass-roots organization.
"It's just extraordinary," said Dick Morris, a political consultant who advised Bill Clinton. "It's part of a new era -- back to basics. Howard Dean is using the Internet in an entirely guerrilla marketing approach. By this process, he's developed a massive grass-roots list. It's active and participatory, and people feel engaged. . . . You're brought in by friends and family. It's bottom-up, and people love that; they feel empowered."
Dean's field operation has taken on such a life of its own that campaign officials have been frenetically working to stay out ahead of it by continually developing Dean's already intricate Web site to better communicate with supporters and by starting to tap the largely unknown volunteers for specific projects. On Saturday, the campaign will dispatch to Iowa and New Hampshire 500 "Texas Rangers," Dean volunteers from President Bush's home state, to push for Bush's defeat next year.
Campaign officials have posted on the Dean Web site, www.deanforamerica.com, Federal Election Commission regulations that govern contributions of time and money to ensure the largely undirected, novice volunteers stay in compliance.
Tom Rath, a GOP New Hampshire national committeeman, said that what has impressed him about the Dean organization is its ability to turn out enormous crowds at events. "That tells me they are touching people that haven't been touched before. They have generated a system that no longer relies on the best signs or best precinct captains."
But Rath and other veteran political observers also emphasize that it is too early in the process to conclude that Dean's unprecedented cyber support is any more than just an extension of Internet chat rooms, which may or may not translate into votes. "The downside, I believe, is not knowing whether they will stick with him. Can you sustain this support through balloting?" Rath said. "Suppose they get some bad information on Dean, something contrary to his image. We have no idea how committed they are."
Indeed, what remains unknown and unsettling for Dean's primary opponents, as well as for Republicans, is who exactly these activists are -- and whether they will have a long-term impact on the process and stay with the Democrats should Dean not win the nomination.
"Did he simply unite the Bush haters or did he expand the base of the Democratic Party to something new and potentially potent? The jury is still out on that," said Richard Bond, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. "If these are independent swing voters, soccer moms, who ebb between the two parties and decide elections, then that's a threatening development for Republicans."
Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi said that anecdotal evidence suggests Dean's supporters are a mixed bag of the party's liberal base, reinvigorated Democrats who had either dropped out of the process or were never engaged and political independents who supported Ross Perot in 1992 and favored Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2000. Trippi said he believes they will go to the polls for Dean.
Nine months ago, there were 427 supporters signed up for Dean online. Now about 413,000 people have signed up to join the Dean campaign -- and 150,000 of them have contributed money. This month, there are more than 1,200 local Dean events posted on the campaign Web site, generated almost exclusively by volunteers on their own steam and their own dime.
"The great myth of American politics is that Joe Trippi is running the Dean campaign," said the campaign manager. "I've done six of these already in my life, and it's always been command and control from the top down. The challenge here for us has been to let people create their own energy."
Dean campaign officials, as well as volunteers throughout the country, insist that -- with the exception of Iowa and New Hampshire, where Dean had always planned to front-load resources -- the campaign has done little to direct this grass-roots effort. It's only recently, say campaign officials, as momentum has built for Dean, that the campaign has enhanced its Web site, offering more tools to enable supporters to communicate with the campaign and -- just as important -- with one another. "Deanlink," the newest tool, has attracted 10,000 people in two weeks.
Dean supporters first began self-organizing through Meetup.com, an independent and free Web site that enables people of like interests to meet in different cities. Initially, the campaign suggested only loose goals to tackle at the meetings. But at the July and August monthly meetings, in an attempt to use the tens of thousands signed up (113,900 as of now), the campaign asked each person in attendance to write a letter to the 50,000 undecided voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. The campaign provided stationery, stamps and the sentiment to be conveyed -- and generated about 60,000 letters to potential voters, some of whom received two handwritten notes.
In states with early primaries, Dean has recently hired paid staff to try to coordinate volunteer efforts. In Washington state, the campaign hired a coordinator to make sure the activists understand the caucus system of voting there and bring people to the polls on Feb. 7.
Trippi said that as balloting draws nearer, the campaign will dispatch "SWAT teams" into some states to organize volunteers. The campaign now lays out more specific goals and objectives on the Web site -- but largely leaves it up to the volunteers on how to achieve them. "In the next ten days of September, we're asking every Dean supporter to do at least one thing to increase the visibility of the grassroots in your community," the site advises, as part of its "September to Remember" promotion.
Similar stories of independent activism emerge in interviews with a number of volunteers who said they were drawn to the Web site after becoming impressed with Dean's blunt way of talking on a news show or by his antiwar stand.
Powers's Philadelphia group this month gathered 80 volunteers in Dean T-shirts to sit together at a Phillies baseball game -- and they were featured on the scoreboard. In Berkeley, Calif., Montessori teacher Laura Deal, 39, on her own, has distributed Dean literature at the local farmers market almost every Saturday since May, signing up hundreds of Dean volunteers.
Erica Derr, 34, a single mother from Greensboro, N.C., became curious about Dean when she saw a flier at her local library asking, "Do you want your country back?" Derr began working about eight hours a week for Dean. In July, when she received a $400 child tax credit check, she sent a letter to Bush informing him that she was mailing the check to Dean because she disapproved of the government rebate. On her own, she crafted a news release and faxed it to the Associated Press and the local paper, which published her letter.
Judy Weinstein, 44, an executive at a California entertainment company, is the self-appointed director of Dean's voter outreach for the San Fernando Valley and sits on a steering committee for the Los Angeles area. In June, with no direction from the campaign, she organized 14 volunteers over two days to man a Dean table at the Van Nuys Aviation Expo. It was the only table for a presidential candidate at an event that attracted 100,000 visitors a day.
Tim Cairl, an Atlanta health care consultant, said he became impressed with Dean when as governor Dean signed a civil unions bill in 2000 allowing all couples the same rights regardless of sexual orientation. Today, Cairl is the self-selected director of volunteers for Dean in Georgia and part of a self-organized steering committee overseeing Georgia for Dean (georgiafordean.com). He said he spends 30 to 40 hours a week setting up events, organizing house parties and guiding a growing stable of volunteers. "We take our cues from the national campaign and urge the volunteers to do it themselves," he said.
As for Powers -- she is having the time of her life, and for now Dean is her life. She has met any number of "very cool people" who work and play together and have taught themselves about grass-roots politics. But will she stay with the Democrats if Dean is not the nominee?
"This is a question that I have asked myself. I would certainly campaign against George Bush, but it would be difficult to work as intensely as I am working for Howard Dean. He feels less like politics as usual -- which is not what I am interested in." |
