Early in the Civil War, General George McClellan’s Union Army was poised for a decisive victory over Confederate forces. But, inexplicably, McClellan wouldn’t attack! For days, President Lincoln ordered and even begged the general to move. But nothing – so the Confederates slipped away. In firing McClellan, Lincoln wrote: “If you don’t want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while.”
That’s what today’s grassroots Democratic Party activists are saying to their aloof campaign generals, who stay ensconced in Washington, refusing to deploy their ground troops in the field of battle.
The great strength of the Democratic Party is its army of volunteer door-knockers across the country who have the local knowledge, connections, and lingo to relate to local voters. Yet, in the past 30 years, fat-cat donors and high-dollar consultants have taken over the “People’s Party” and abandoned high-touch organizing for high-tech “digital outreach.”
Thus, the Democrats’ passionate army of local campaigners is unused, only called on by emails to send more donations to fund Beltway consultants and negative political ads. As a friend of mine recently said in exasperation: “I wish the Democratic Party would stop asking for money and start asking me for ACTION.”
Well, change is coming, for the grassroots Democratic army has been taking charge in many areas and mobilizing itself! And in a huge advance, the Party’s new National Chair and its new chair of State Democratic Committees were both elected this month on a bold program to move the Party’s focus back to year-round, grassroots activism. After all, voters aren’t mere consumers of politics, they should be valued as the whole purpose of politics and its primary producers.
To get involved with this grassroots rebellion, and to hold the leadership accountable to their word, sign up with your local or state Democratic Party committees— a list of state parties’ websites can be found here.
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