The late former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil coined the phrase that I've used for my title. I think he meant that national races affect the lives of people at the local level. But it also works the other way.
If you want to control national politics, the place to start is your own community.
The largest number of voters come out for presidential elections. The number tapers off as you work your way down through elections where a congressman is the highest candidate on the ballot. It gets downright thin when the ballot has nothing but mayor, city council and school board.
And that's something we need to change if we're going to change the way our government works in the long run.
I'm a Michigander. I live in the metropolitan Detroit area, in an inner-ring suburb.
I am appalled at my state Legislature. The "vagina" incident is just one example of how our Legislature has become completely divorced (another word that probably distresses my state lawmakers) from the people it supposedly serves.
Michigan has a Republican majority in both the state House and Senate, and we have one of the most intensely corporatist governors in the United States.
This is a very disturbing situation in a state that was the cradle of the American labor movement and which was once a Democratic stronghold.
Michigan went for Barack Obama in 2008. Even the very blue-collar town I live in went for Barack Obama. That surprised me. I don't know whether it will choose him again this November, but that's beside my point here.
In 2010, the Republicans ran rough-shod over us. Our progressive, woman governor, Jennifer Granholm was replaced by a former business executive corporatist Republican, Rick Snyder. The state House and Senate became redder, more male, more right wing. (In fact, our Legislature is now farther to the right than our corporatist governor.)
They took money from the schools, from senior citizens, from programs for the poor to give big, highly profitable corporations big tax breaks. There are rumblings of making Michigan -- the cradle of the labor movement -- a right to work state.
Why did it happen? Part of it was the Tea Party wave. But that wasn't all of it. Our state party organization has been asleep at the switch. One of the most important jobs of a state party organization is developing candidates. The Michigan Democratic Party hasn't been doing that to the extent that it should have.
We knew Granholm was term limited. Nobody seems to have given any thought to who was going to be her heir apparent. Lt. Gov. John Cherry didn't last to the primary. He'd never been very high profile during the Granholm administration, so he just didn't have the base to run for governor.
We ended up with a candidate who I believe would have been an excellent governor (Lansing Mayor Verg Bernero), but he never really had a shot at winning because he started out with little name recognition outside the middle of the lower peninsula, and didn't get enough funds raised early enough to get his name out statewide at the beginning.
The Michigan Democratic Party went into the 2010 election without a good stable of "farm team" candidates to choose a gubernatorial candidate from.
Where do those potential statewide and national candidates come from?
They come from the state legislatures, from county offices and ultimately, from city councils and school boards.
If our local candidates are weak, our statewide candidates are going to be weak and on up the line.
A couple of weeks ago, I was coming home from grocery shopping and was getting my bags out of the trunk of my car in my driveway. A pleasant young woman walked up to me and introduced herself. She was Sarah Roberts, who is running for the Michigan House in my district.
I had my arms full of groceries and I wanted to get into the house before my frozen food melted so I was a little short with her.
"Democrat or Republican?" I asked.
"Democrat," she answered.
"Good. I'll vote for you," I said -- mostly hoping to get rid of her fast. It worked.
It was a quick encounter, but when I started to think about it afterward, I realized that it was the first time EVER I had met a politician going door to door. I decided to find out a little more about her.
I found out she was one of four Democratic candidates for the seat, who are facing off in next week's primary. The only other name I recognized was a former county commissioner who is a bit of a machine politician and male.
With a little bit of Googling, I found Roberts' email address and sent her a message where I asked her five questions about state and local issues. The questions covered: 1. The vagina incident
2. The role of the state in helping communities devastated by the real estate crash
3. Where would you find the money to restore to schools?
4. Do you support getting the state insurance exchange mandated by the Affordable Care Act going?
5. Where do you stand on building another bridge to Canada in Detroit?
I can't reprint her answers here because I haven't asked her for permission to publish what was a private email. But suffice it to say, I found out that I was talking to a progressive Democrat with a very good handle on the major issues that will face the Legislature in the coming session.
So, I'm supporting Sarah Roberts. I think she has a pretty good chance of being the Democratic nominee and of taking the seat in the general election. In the longer run, she seems to have the potential to move up. And that's what we need. We need to work on the local level to develop and promote candidates who can form a pool for candidates to higher offices.
That isn't going to mean much to most of the people reading this. This is a national forum, and only a few of you live in the same district as I do.
And Roberts is only one candidate for one seat. If she wins, it's only a tiny portion of what it's going to take to turn the Legislature around. But if we're going to take back the government of the state of Michigan, everybody needs to stop and ask themselves, who is running for local, county and state office in my district?
If you live in a solidly red district, find good candidates to support anyway. Maybe they'll lose. But the only way to change a red district to blue is to support blue candidates.
I support President Barack Obama. But if he wins and the Congress stays the way it is, or heaven forbid, the GOP keeps the House and takes the Senate, we're just screwed. The president won't be able to do a thing. If Romney wins and we manage to turn the House blue and keep the Senate, we'll be better off than we are now.
So, while it's important to support our president, it's even more important to look at the down ticket races.
We need more better Democrats. We need more women Democrats.
All politics is local.