DISCLAIMIER: If this diary does not apply to you, then this diary does not apply to you. Thanks for playing.
Okay people. I've had about enough with this bitching about fundraising and databases and how much the Democrats suck because they don't have the super-mega-ultra-database and we're all gonna lose and Howard Dean has gone over to the darkside and Busby lost because the democrats don't know how to do GOTV blah blah blah.
First of all, WE NEED GODDAMNED MONEY!
WHY???
WHY???
There is no clean money for campaigns, so this is what it takes to win elections. Lots and lots and lots of MONEY. It's the end of the quarter and it's a key time for candidates so they WILL come and they WILL ask because they WANT to WIN. DON'T YOU??!??!?!
If you can give, GREAT. If not, VOLUNTEER. If you can't do that, OKAY. SAY NO. And GET OVER IT. Plus, they will ask you AGAIN whether you give or not.
WHY????
WHY????
If someone asks you in a way you don't like, ask yourself which you like better, feeling good about how people asked you, or THIS:
The Democrats will make mistakes, and they are working out the kinks, and Howard Dean is changing A LOT of things about the way the DNC does business. But it takes TIME. and MONEY. and LOTS OF VOLUNTEERS. Can we stop BASHING them for it along the way? I know we are worried about people turning off voters, but many of you are taking that concern way too far and are making way too big a deal about it. It's not that we shouldn't bring this stuff to their attention, but geez. We at least, could avoid being petulant about it.
I would also like to note that I think people are missing a lot of the point about the voter database business. I'm fairly sure there is more to that story, and I'm going to work on getting answers for people and write it in another diary tomorrow or some other time once I get it together. For now, here's what Howard Dean has said about it so far:
Dean: I'm never overconfident. I believe if you're overconfident in politics, you lose, so, you know, I never ... I believe we can win the House
back. Certainly we're not going to pick up 54 seats, but I think we can win
the House back. And I think if we win the House back, we have a decent shot
at winning the Senate back. The Senate is always more independent because it's more candidate-dependent and state-dependent. The House is more dependent on a wave, and that's what I'm trying to generate, a wave.
As far as the Voter File, I can tell you that Hillary Clinton has nothing to
do with any of this, and that was just speculation, which was unfounded.
What Harold wants to do, I think, is build a big proprietary Voter File. There's some legal problems having us use the voter file because of
McCain-Feingold. And there are some problems because one of the things he wants to do, which I think is a good thing, is to incorporate lists from, you know, sympathetic organizations -- environment, women's rights, so forth. That's a very difficult issue for us. The bottom line is the DNC
needs to have a Voter File. And we need to have a Voter File that's
available, and we have a relationship with the states, of using the states
as substrata for building a Voter File that nobody else has. So we've got to
do this, it's got to be owned by the party so it's available to candidates
without fear or favor of whomever may be running the proprietary Voter File.
I actually consider myself a good friend of Harold Ickes. We also went
through the wars during the Clinton administration. I think he's terrific
and, you know, I wish him well in this, but we've got to have our own Voter
File and we've got to be able to use it for candidates, and we've got to be
able to have the candidates build it and we've got to be able to share it
with all candidates. I'd like to make it free. We will make it free -- we're
raising the money to pay for it so that we can make it available to
candidates from all over the country. Harold, you know, is not going to be
running this Voter File forever. And a proprietary Voter File that we have
to depend on is not the right way for the DNC to go. That doesn't mean he
shouldn't do it. I'm sure this Voter File will be very useful in other
capacities -- for example, if there's a sequel to ACT or something like
that. But we have to have a Voter File that we build that works, and it has
to work the way I described it, which is, as you use it, it gets built
immediately. Because we've got to end this 30-year process of the day after
the presidential election the DNC goes into hibernation -- unless we win --
and then we emerge three and a half years later. That is not a successful
strategy.Look, my basic job here is to establish a long-term plan for the Democratic Party. Chuck and Rahm need to focus on the '06 races and we're going to be as helpful as we possibly can there, but I'm focusing not just on '06 but '08 and '12 and so forth and so on. There needs to be a permanent, ongoing, well-run campaign organization that's always campaigning. They have it on the other side of the aisle; we need to build it and that's what we're
doing.
Thomas Edsall: Will your data file be as sophisticated as the Republicans
claim theirs is, with all these consumer lists and being able to develop
targeting by all kinds of identities and views and religion and so forth?
Dean: We already have that data. Terry got that data in before. It's all
commercially acquirable, and we did all that. The problem was the platform was too small and the folks at the state level weren't trained to use it. And there were some kinks, there was actually too much data. There were
about 900 data points per voter, so it became essentially unusable. So we
don't have to reacquire the data, we do have to update it. All we have to do is build a different kind of platform so we can make it work, and then we
have to train the heck out of people at the state level. Now we have a great
relationship with the state parties for the first time in about 30 years and
we're going to be able to do that.
If you want to help with the database issue....SEND THEM SOME FRIGGIN' MONEY!!!
Or, SIGN UP FOR THE DEMOCRATIC REUNION.
DON'T BE AN EEYORE!