state parties

For all you history buffs, or anyone looking to create major institutional changes within the DNC or the Democratic State Parties, I can't recommend highly enough Daniel J. Galvin's 20-odd page history of the DNC from the 1980s 1990s through the final days of Howard Dean's chairmanship: Changing Course: Reversing the Organizational Trajectory of the Democratic Party from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama (pdf). Major hat tip to J.P. Green at Democratic Strategist for bringing it to my attention.

The main thrust of the paper is that, with Democratic Majorities firmly established, Clinton abandoned long-term party building to have the DNC focus solely on the passage of his policy agenda. As a result of this focus on policy, not party building, Clinton and the DNC were slow to adapt to the new playing field after the 1994 Republican Revolution. What followed was a slow climb out of a deep whole - both of substantial financial debt and a severe lack of sophisticated infrastructure.

Galvin argues that as the Democrats suffered electorally, first in Congress, and then in the Executive Branch, party building - and electoral innovation generally - became the norm within the DNC and the Party, culminating with Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy and the mass movement that was the Obama campaign. The crux, though, is that it was defeat which spurred innovation, while success created inertia and stagnation:

The notion that competition drives the minority party to adapt, innovate, and rebuild is not new to political science. A long tradition of scholarship has identified the political “losers” as “the desperate ones; they are the ones whose survival is at stake; they are the ones driven by their despair to seek ways to triumph; they are, therefore, the inventors. Defeat is the mother of invention.”

In the wake of defeat, losing parties are driven to act in an innovative fashion. They develop new policy alternatives, elevate new issues of salience, and co-opt the opposition. They rebuild their structures and strategies, experiment with new techniques, and seek to develop new organizational capacities to regain their competitiveness.

[...]

New electoral conditions created new incentives for party building, but translating the actors’ new motives and purposes into durable organizational change happened only gradually, over the course of many years. Indeed, in the Democratic Party’s journey from its deep and durable majorities of the post-New Deal period to its great uncertainty in the 21st century, we can observe the emergence of the party-building impulse as well as the challenges involved in changing the course of party history.

Why do I bring this up? Not just because it's an excellent lesson in history of which we should all be aware. I bring it up because many of us in the youth community - especially those who work in partisan organizing - still see that we have a long way to go before young voters, who were so important a player this election cycle, are truly integrated into the party's infrastructure and outreach strategies. Our work is not yet done. As Obama pollster Cornell Belcher noted in his memo to Howard Dean, there was a 20% drop-off down ballot in young voter turnout. Now is not the time to dial down the 50 state strategy. Now is the time to turn it up with a focus on youth and communities of color. As Galvin notes, though, history suggests this is not likely to happen:

It is an open question, however, whether a President Obama and his fellow party leaders would perceive a need for further party building in 2009 and beyond. If the Democrats manage to bring strong majorities into Congress and make significant gains at the local level, as some are predicting – if Obama succeeds in building the “new majority” about which he speaks 76 – will the Democrats’ collective commitment to organizational development survive? As discussed, the party-building impulse is intimately related to the desire to build a new majority, and the more comfortable the party’s competitive standing, the less motivation we should expect for party building.

[...]

From what we can glean from the past, this much is clear: changing the organizational trajectory of the Democratic Party has not happened quickly or easily, and it certainly has not followed automatically from changes in the political environment. Party leaders have been motivated by the decline in the competitive standing of their party to make long-term investments in party organization, but their changes have been incremental and their gains have been cumulative. If Democrats are to heed Bradley’s advice and continue to “build a stable pyramid from the base up,” then they should plan to look past the results of the 2008 election – whatever they may be – keep up the momentum, and continue building upon the gains made over the last decade.

Across the country, at all levels of government (on average), Democrats are sitting pretty. I fear that in they eyes of many party strategists and campaign managers - particularly at the state and local level - the battle is won. Our winning coalition is forged all we must do is sit back and reap the rewards. But as the Belcher memo shows, we're not sitting pretty. We're likely leaving millions of votes on the table. The question now is this - will the DNC and state parties sit back, content with their gains? Will they give in to the inertia of WIN? Or will they stay hungry and work to adapt Obama's successes to down-ballot races?

For our part, we're going to need to recognize this inertia and find ways to combat it.

One of the great side-effects of high youth turnout this year is a comparable increase in youth participation within the state parties. Here's two such stories.

First in Hawaii:

The infusion of new blood and energy is a blessing for many party activists eager for a "second wave" of new Democrats to keep the party in the majority in Hawai'i. With the state party's leadership in generational transition, the timing of the Obama surge is fortunate. The blend of new faces with party regulars enthusiastic about grassroots activism gives the convention a richness and vibrancy that has often been missing in recent years.
...
The number of party members under 35, according to the Young Democrats of Hawai'i, has jumped from under 1,000 to about 5,100 during the membership drive that surrounded the caucuses.

And in Wyoming:

Wyoming Democrats say the selection of two 18-year-olds as delegates to the party's national convention this summer is representative of an upswing in youth interest in politics -- a trend both Democrats and Republicans hope will translate into votes.
...
Mike Bell, chairman of the Laramie County Democrats, said this year's state Democratic convention was unique because of the competition for delegate positions and the number of young people involved. The young participants were well organized, he said.

"In years past, they've had to scramble to get people to go to the convention," Bell said. "There hasn't been this kind of excitement in a while."

You also probably remember that there were literally hundreds of young voters interested in delegate positions in California earlier this year.

These are all good signs, but we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back just yet. This is all anecdotal data from just a few states at the moment. Here are my top questions about youth participation within the state and national party structures:

• How many young people were successfully elected as pledged delegates at the state conventions this year? Are those numbers reflective of the youth share of the electorate in those states? If not (probably not), how can we use that to leverage the state parties and DNC into implementing the the mandatory youth affirmative action goals in the DNC charter?
• What resources will states put forth in organizing young voters this cycle? Which states will hire staff and actually have those staff work on youth identification and GOTV?
• How many young people are DNC committee members? Is that representative of young people's share of the Democratic electorate? If not, (probably not), how can we get more young people elected to the DNC?

I know that the DNC Youth Council is collecting data on the first issue. Many states have not yet selected their delegates and others are having problems collecting reliable data on delegates who qualify as "youth" (under 35). Hopefully we'll have a clearer picture of that soon. As for the other two questions - so far I don't know if anyone is working on that. The matter of how states dole out organizing resources is a tough one that will require a lot of local youth advocates making the case within their state party. The third issue seems to be a matter of data collection and self-organizing: find out how the election process works in each state and then help potential candidates navigate the system.

I'm flying down to Nashville this afternoon for the YDA Convention. I'll be asking around about these things.

Kevin Bondelli is on fire this week, first with his post about why and how chapter-based youth orgs should blog, and now with a new post outlining why young people should become involved in state and local parties, and a few ideas for how to go about doing it.

Here's an excerpt, go read the whole thing:

I know that’s what your thinking, and trust me, as a former state party employee I feel you, but the rewards of involvement will vastly outweigh the costs if you and your organization commit. Here is why:

• The local and state parties determine the allocation of a lot of resources, and if nobody is there to advocate for youth programs, they are going to be overlooked.
• Elected Precinct Committeepersons and state committee members (at least in Arizona) vote on who becomes delegates to Democratic National Conventions, so while advocating for youth representation goals in delegate selection plans is important, having a number of young democrats involved will make the biggest difference.
• Some of those older activists are actually quite interesting, and talking to them and learning from their experiences can be an invaluable education for you and your members.
• Fundraising lead generation. The members of your state and local parties are the high-efficacy donors, even if they are small-contribution donors, and knowing them personally will give you a much better opportunity of raising money.
• You can sell your organization and young voters in general to party regulars, and getting your message out to them will increase your legitimacy and exposure.
• You are officially changing your role from “future of the party” to the “present of the party.” As long as young democrats are absent from the regular party apparatus it will appear that Young Democrats is AAA and the local/state party is the major leagues, and when you get older you graduate and get called up.
• The more your state party knows you the more you will be able to partner up with their big events. In Arizona the state party works with YDAZ to have after-party fundraisers following their big dinners.

This is a little dated, but Kate Sheppard over at Tapped clued me in to a 2003 CIRCLE study (pdf) that examined the role that state parties play in engaging young voters in the political process. The study found that among Democratic and Republican state party leaders, an overwhelming majority thought that senior citizens were the most important demographic for the long-term health of the party. Yeah, wrap your head around the logic of that one.

When asked an open-ended question, only 5% of Democratic Party leaders and 8% of Republican Party leaders thought that younger voters were the most important group for the future health of their party. Each official was asked this question two more times, and at the end of the survey, only 32% of Democratic leaders and 26% of Republican leaders mentioned young people as a constituency of any importance to the party.

Granted, this study was published in 2003, a few months before the youth organizing boom revved up, and it was over a year before youth turnout began it's upward trend. But this is a good indication for how clueless the parties were - and to a large extent continue to be - about the importance of engaging young voters.

I'd love to see a follow-up to this study. My bet is that the situation wasn't much changed as recently as two months ago, though after Obama's big youth turnouts, it's an open question now. The youth organizing movement now has a huge opportunity to push the state and national parties into putting real resources into young voter engagement and turnout.