Facing the Pain
By Don Hazen, AlterNet
Posted on January 4, 2005, Printed on January 16, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/20878/
This interview is excerpted from the forthcoming book
by AlterNet, "Start Making Sense: Turning the Lessons of Election 2004 into
Winning Progressive Politics." It will be available in March, published by
Chelsea Green Publishing.
Howard Dean wants to remake the Democratic Party. Perhaps
he already has, to some degree. The physician, former governor of Vermont and
2004 presidential candidate made waves during last year's primary season when he
rewrote the book on how to run for president, using the Internet for
unprecedented grassroots funding and effective two-way communication with his
supporters.
After the election Dean formed
Democracy for America, with
the objective of helping concerned citizens run for office, with some success.
Now he's one of a half a dozen "candidates" vying to take over the reins of the
Democratic National Committee and the party apparatus – in an election by
approximately 440 party types on February 10th.
In his quest to lead the Democratic National Committee,
Dean is still shaking things up – by applying his bottom-up approach to the very
top-down DNC. It seems clear that with Dean at the helm of the DNC, local party
officials may well have more resources and tools to do battle with the
Republicans.
AlterNet talked with Howard Dean in December.
Don Hazen: What can we learn from what the
conservatives have done organizing the Republican Party?
Howard Dean: The conservatives have very efficient
coordination among the think tanks, the training institutes, their media
messages and their grassroots efforts. We don't do that. Rob Stein has been
showing an important PowerPoint [presentation] demonstrating how the
Republicans' model is so effective. It is very convincing. We have a lot of the
infrastructure we need, but we don't coordinate. And despite some successes by
America Coming Together (ACT), we are way behind the Republicans in the field.
We had the best field organizing I remember seeing in this election. We had
thousands in the streets in Ohio, but the Republicans had 14,000 homegrown
people in the party doing the work there.
Yes, the Republicans have effective grassroots –
churches, legion halls, gun clubs, chambers of commerce. What do you see on the
Democratic side that can challenge the conservatives at the base?
We can do the same as they do with unions, with more
moderate churches and efforts like our
Democracy for America, where
we engaged people to run for office. We only raised about $5-$6 million this
time, but we can do much more, and a bunch of our people who have never run for
office before won.
People learned from a lot of the innovations from our
campaign – we did the Internet, we blazed the trail for grassroots fundraising,
but the most important innovation in our campaign ... we learned to use ideas
from bottom up – wasn't tried in the Kerry campaign. We truly learned from the
grassroots of our campaign.
Can you give me an example of how that happened?
Well, the MeetUps themselves [local gatherings organized
on the Internet]. We didn't plan them, they planned us. My key staff person Kate
O'Connor noticed this thing on the Web as a way to get people together. But it
was done by people in the field. There were meetings in 850 different locations
once a month ... focused on how to get me elected. Some of them are still doing
it today. On the day after the election there were a number of MeetUps. The
Kerry people went. They needed a place to go and talk ... they had just got
clobbered in the election. In a sense, the MeetUp model could do some of the
things that the right-wing church provides – a place where people can go that
has community, and common views and values. And by the way, the MeetUps aren't
progressive, they are reformist.
What's the distinction?
Well, what brings people together is not ideology. There
are progressive as well as moderates, McCain Republicans, Greens, and even some
evangelicals. They are united because they all feel the need for change. The
evangelicals are attracted because they see the hypocrisy of the pro-life people
who are pro-life only until the child is born. They don't accept some of the
teachings. They are against gay-bashing. We have a powerful moral attraction,
because we care about the lesser among us ... our movement empowers those people
who have been left out, the young people who have been left out. We are all
fighting the fact that religious bigotry is back in favor, encouraged by the
president. Our organizations encourage a lot of different kinds of people. We
show respect for differences.
What about unions and the ideas Andy Stern is pushing
to revitalize the labor movement? The SEIU was a big supporter of yours.
Well, some unions are different than others ... the union
movement has many of the same problems we've been talking about. You have to go
with renewal. Andy Stern understands that we have to have change. He is a good
friend and he is key. But I want to give John Sweeney a lot of credit. Sweeney
began the outreach to immigrants and low-wage workers. The labor movement needs
economic and social justice.
What about the job as head of the DNC – how is it going?
Well, that is a complicated background dance, behind the
scenes with the some of same phenomenon we're talking about here – the need for
change. There is enormous angst in Democratic Party, among those who are running
it, whose grip is slipping and the push toward decentralization.
Do you think that the national DNC should control the
state parties like they do in the RNC?
No, I don't. In order to make good on the new empowerment,
we have to genuinely give power to the states and grassroots. That's what we did
in our campaign. I believe in order to have power, you have to give up power. I
know that sounds Zen-like, but it is true. In order to get it back, in order for
us to win, we have to empower the grassroots.
Ultimately outsiders have to take over the party and that
is very painful for the insiders ... insiders can't make this work out. Power
needs to come from the grassroots. The current Democratic Party is the old mode.
You know, they say people go to see the psychiatrist when the pain of doing the
same thing becomes more than the pain of changing. It is time to face the pain
of change.
What was the single lesson you took away from the 2004
election?
Oddly enough, it is hope. We ran a better campaign in the
field than I have ever seen. There is genuine difference out there and we have
to prosper by moving outside, by empowering people in the community ... and I
know – in giving up power some people are going to screw up, but that is part of
the process. We really do have to believe. We are not automatons like the
Republicans are. We don't get the orders on high.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/20878/
| 
Democracy
for America
-
Orange County
