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Monday, December 13, 2004
Simon Rosenberg & the "Lackluster" State Parties
Posted by DavidNYCAs you probably know, this past weekend, the chairs of the state Democratic parties have been meeting in Orlando, FL to discuss whom to support for DNC chair (among other topics). Jerome at MyDD has been keeping up a cattle call of who's hot and who's not. His remarks about Simon Rosenberg struck me, though, as being particularly relevant to Bob's post below:
Simon Rosenberg could at least be glad that his message got out at this meeting. Rosenberg has spent the last year alerting the Democratic Party to the powerful machine that the Republicans have, and the other candidates listened. But the understanding here of what that means, in terms of building that opposition, was the larger argument that Rosenberg is just beginning to make.
It's particularly relevant to the State Parties (& their lackluster websites). If they want money from the grassroots, they need to start giving the netroots the tools to get involved, rather than just giving lip service but only really wanting their money. Simon's support is going to come partly out of DC, and partly through the web-users that are connected to the blogosphere--and there were few of those DNC members in attendance at the ASDC meeting. (Emphasis added.)
Bob is definitely on to something. The state parties seriously need to get moving.
Posted at 01:30 PM in General | Technorati
Comments
The more I think about it the more torn over the failure of State Parties online. It appears to be an utter lack of leadership from all involved.
On one hand, it is so simple to use online tools that there is no excuse for state Parties not to take advantage.
On the other hand, if you understand how to create one state party blog than it is almost as easy to create 50 state party blogs. This suggests a leadership failure from the DNC and ADSC.
On the third hand, at least a few states have been very success harnessing netroots support. Why have these states not shared their knowledge?
Simon is right. But there is no shortage of blame to go around. While I find the lack of netroots action troublesome, I also think this proves the inability of Democrats to deploy best practices. Currently, when one Democrat learns success the only vehicle for duplication is happenstance. So we continue to re-invent the wheel with all of the inherent failure of such a puzzling strategy. We can do better than this.
Posted by: Bob Brigham at December 13, 2004 01:57 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Further analysis of the list of shame shows that on 7 states out of the 32 with 2006 Senate races have blogs. Maryland is one of those 7 and the Maryland blog only has two posts. With 80% of state parties unprepared for the 2006 senate elections I believe it is fair to demand action.
This utter lack of preparation is disgusting as we look to the next election cycle.
Posted by: Bob Brigham at December 13, 2004 02:20 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
A post originally destined for Kos...
Blogs get people involved on a daily basis far more effectively than any other method. If it wasn't for me stumbling on SSP a number of months ago, I would have sat back, watched the results, complained about it, and moved on. Now, I've been engaged in the discussion since before the election and may even <gasp>volunteer</gasp> for an eventual Biden campaign in 2008.
Posted by: Dan Hogan at December 13, 2004 03:12 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Thanks Dan, you bring up a good point. While blogs aren't a silver bullet, they do get people interested...then activated.
As I watch the ultra-close recount in Washington State I can't help but wonder what if. What if the Washington Democratic Party had a blog? What if that blog helped involve more people and spread the Democratic message to more people? What if's don't get us anywhere, but when races are this tight, taking advantage of all of the tools seems essential.
Posted by: Bob Brigham at December 13, 2004 03:39 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment