Party Builder

Sorry everyone -- I was on the road for most of the day, and I had attempted to schedule these posts, but apparently they didn't go through. Things will be better next weekend! --Craig

To answer the question in the title, I argue that no, charisma and party-building should not be mutually exclusive.

At Democratic Strategist, J.P. Green examines the Democratic Party's relationship with charisma and the Republican Party's simultaneous relationship with party-building. Green argues that while the Democrats were distracted from party development efforts by Kennedy's charisma, Republicans got to work in the 1970s, launching direct mail efforts, building a large communications infrastructure, and starting multiple think tanks. Green's main point is that we can't let that happen to us again.

After undergoing a thorough rebuilding process over the past four years, which did pay off in 2008, it might be tempting to sit back and relax, enjoying our president's charisma and believing that it will take us where we need to go.

Gallup released presidential approval numbers a few days ago reflecting the bounce Obama got from his speech Tuesday night. What's most remarkable about this is the impact he's having on Republicans, who had hopped off his bandwagon in recent weeks. Take a look:

Eventually we'll begin peeling more Republicans off the GOP base by showing them what competent government looks like. As Obama uses more and more of his charisma to communicate with disaffected GOPers, they'll begin to entertain the idea of joining a Democratic Party that, all of a sudden, has proven its worth to the country.

Our particular challenge, of course, is to provide room for these new arrivals, while continuing to better position the nation for the future (specifically, the future majority). If we want to avoid what happened to the Democratic Party a few decades ago, the 50 State Strategy, the focus on recruiting youth, and continued investment in the netroots are all an imperative part of our strategy going forward. Unfortunately, we can't have President Obama around forever; there will be Democratic presidents who are far less charismatic. Ideally, though, these presidents will be helped by a gargantuan infrastructure to continue spreading the message we all believe in -- that successful government relies on the citizen's faith and participation in the political process.

Correction - I've been informed that I'm using the term VAN incorrectly here. It is the Voter File itself, not the VAN, that is the impediment here because the voter file is what contains the out-of-date data on young voters. Also I should note that Party Builder is a wide set of tools and the functionality I'm discussing here specifically is the neighbor-to-neighbor field program.

On Friday I went to a presentation for bloggers on the DNC's new field tools - Party Builder. Still in beta, Party Builder is essentially a neighbor-to-neighbor decentralized field tool that lets local activists access and use the Voter Activation Network (VAN) to canvass people within a few hundred yards of their house. Party Builder will also let users download and customize select, approved pieces of campaign literature. Eventually, this customizable content and distributed model will allow the DNC to deploy micro-targeted field campaigns at the national and local level. You can see an older demo of Party Builder here, but the stuff they showed us on Friday still isn't online.

This is going to be a great tool that will help Democratic candidates up and down the ticket with their field work. Unfortunately, it's going to be almost useless in reaching young voters this cycle. As anyone who's worked in youth organizing knows, the VAN is almost worthless in reaching young voters - particularly students - who move on a yearly basis: dorm to dorm; dorm to apartment; apartment to apartment; city to city. This means that the VAN is almost always out of date.

The obvious fix is to allow trusted users to upload new information that supplements and corrects the VAN. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be in the cards this time around. I brought this up during the presentation, and the DNC is well aware of the problem. They suggested that sort of functionality would not be included in the initial launch but would be in included in a version 2.0 for the 2010 or 2012 elections.

In the meantime, they recommended that youth organizations continue relying on strategies from 2004 and 2006 to ID and GOTV young voters - creating ad hoc voter files using Facebook and campus registries, etc. (A good reference for what works in reaching young voters can be found at Young Voter Strategies (pdf). I'd also recommend reading the final report from the Minnesota Youth Coordinated Campaign (pdf).

While the VAN data and walk lists generated by Party Builder will be of limited use to youth organizers this cycle, it was suggested that the content editor/downloader might be of use to youth organizers who want to be on message with the state coordinated campaigns. Theoretically, someone who wanted to canvass their dorm, apartment building, or local bars/coffee shops could sign up for Party Builder, customize and download some pre-approved lit, and distribute them at those locations. Decisions as to what issues and messages will be contained in these lit pieces will be made at the level of the state coordinated campaign tables.

In the last few years we've learned that the messenger and the medium matter far more than the message in turning out young voters, but if we want the national, state, and local campaign literature to address youth issues, we're going to need to get strong representatives a seat at these coordinating tables.