It seems that nearly everyone in the blogosphere has covered the Washington Post article about the Democrats in Virginia targeting the GOP in the 2007 election, as if that were some kind of surprise. It’s been discussed nearly everywhere that the Democrats are looking to gain control of the General Assembly in 2007. Chalk it up to a slow news time – after the elections and before the session starts.
One thing in the article caught my eye (emphasis mine):
Political analysts say Webb, who brought several thousand activists into the party for the first time, Kaine and Warner may prove a formidable team.
There is no doubt that the Webb candidacy engaged a lot of people who have not been involved in party politics. But, at least from where I sit, these activists have not joined the party.
Webb won all but four of the precincts in Norfolk, where there are some 105,000 registered voters. About half of the Norfolk voters consider themselves Democrats. Yet membership in the Norfolk City Democratic Committee hovers around 100 members. I suspect that the same may very well be true for the other committees across the state.
Among the many reasons why the committees are so small compared to the voting population is that each candidate builds its own volunteer base. As the result, the activists get involved to support that particular candidate, but not the party as a whole. From where I sit, I think this is a major problem. Instead of party loyalists, we have candidate loyalists. Every new candidate has to reinvent the wheel. (There is other problems associated with the small committees, but that’s another article.) People come out and support a candidate and then disappear.
I’ve spoken time and again about the need for people in a successful campaign. I applaud the activists who worked tirelessly in the Webb campaign. But while Webb won, the Democrats failed to capture a single additional Congressional seat. That, in and of itself, should be enough of a wakeup call to Democrats across the state that this model is not working. We have an election in Virginia every single year, yet every single year this process of recruiting campaign volunteers repeats itself.
I know we all consider ourselves Democrats. But until and unless we figure out how to turn activists into party supporters, we will continue this ever-ending cycle of activists-in-a-box: pop out when you have a candidate you can fall in love with and pop back in when your candidate’s race is over.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
George – as Sleepless said, not all committees are created equal. It sounds like you have a fantastic committee going in the 11th and I certainly applaud you for it. I really do wish all of the committees were like yours. As for your comment about resistance – well, that is certainly the topic of another post 😉
Sleepless – I was aware of the absentee program but only because someone from the VBCDC mentioned it. I’m not sure how that information got passed out but it was not something that I would have been aware of without that comment from the VBCDC member.
I’ll meekly raise my hand and say that I’m sorta one of those people who show up for the election cycle and then fade. That is, I am generally more motivated to get out and volunteer on behalf of a candidate, instead of a party. Also, in the case of a well entrenched incumbent, I’m simply going to choose to devote my time and money elsewhere. I can’t imagine putting in nearly the effort for, say, Jim Moran, that I did for Jim Webb.
I’ve been to the occasional Arlington County Democratic Committee meeting since moving here (almost 10 years ago), but I never came across an opening with them where I felt I could be useful. Of course, I could have probably found one if I’d looked hard enough (or made one, even), but I always ended up feeling as if I could contribute more efficiently through individual candidates. Post-2000, I’ve become more involved in election protection (i.e., ballot access) efforts, which I suppose is a more institutional thing (2004 found me outside of a community center in Norfolk, all day long).
I do think that both the “netroots” and established local committees would benefit greatly from becoming more familiar with each other, and taking some lessons. Unfortunately, you’ve got two groups that think they’ve got the answer, when they’re really got half, at best.
Sleepless – sorry I missed the link earlier to that document. Thanks for that – I’m printing it out now 🙂
And MB – I do understand what you are saying. The only problem is that when volunteers work for a single candidate instead of the party, well, some of those down-ticket races just don’t get the help they need. Perhaps if we had D volunteers instead of Kaine volunteers, we would have taken all three spots instead of just one.
Vivian, Glad you are printing out the Leadership Manual. Since my county committee is in the “stone age”, I have used it continuously, coupled with lots of internet research, to learn about grassroots methods and how to do the grassroots tasks that are needed for electing Democrats. Lots of other state websites have documents like this on their website (NC, CO, MA and more).
Vivian and others reading this thread, what do you think of it?