Lone Star Democracy Builders Association

I've just signed up do to a screening of the new Wal-Mart documentary at my house in north Austin on Sunday, November 13th at 6PM. You can RSVP for the screening at this website, or you can look for other screenings in Austin or around the country at this page.

I got to meet some of the filmmakers at Democracy Fest back in June. They are the ones who did Outfoxed back in 2004, an expose of the bias at the Fox News Channel. They've got a smart campaign to release this film, with different themes for each day of the release week. The effort to both make the film and get it publicity has been huge and widespread; they've been talking to customers, employees, suppliers, management, politicians, health care workers, and churches to get stories about how Wal-Mart affects the communities in which it's located. I have high hopes that the final product will be thought provoking and a useful contribution to the debates on issues like living wages, universal health care, and globalization.

Posted by Ben at 3:27 PM in Action & Economy | Permalink

I couldn't help myself. After getting another request for cash from the TX Democrats, I had to make some demands. What good are folks on the ground for precinct organizing if the party doesn't give voters a reason to pay attention to it? I'm sick and tired of being in the party "that isn't those bumblers." I want to be in a party that's doing things for people and is engaging people in government instead of scaring them away (note engaging them in government, not politics). My response to their fundraising is below.

I want to support your campaign. But my contribution has strings attached regarding the www.txdemocrats.org web pages.

I'll give you the following donations if the web pages are improved between now and November 7th:

• I'll give you $X if I can see a link to information about the Nov 8th constitutional amendments without scrolling my browser (my screen is 1440 × 900).
• I'll give you $Y (more, or by itself) if the "Learn More" links on the amendments take me to readable prose instead of dry analysis. Recommendations for or against the amendments and/or pro/con snippets would be helpful. But some text that helps me figure out if I should care about the amendments and helps me make up my mind.
• I'll give you $Z (more, or by itself) if the main www.txdemocrats.org web page (again, without scrolling) has more screen space showing what Democratic elected officials are doing for me than what troubles the Republicans are having (currently 0 items to 2, the wrong way).

I understand that the dollar amounts may be small regarding the work involved (although that first one's a steal). But this is my small way of trying to push the party to give voters a reason to pay attention to it.

Sincerely yours,
Glenn M

Posted by GlennM at 10:35 PM in How To Communicate & Texas Organizations & Venting | Permalink

Today's the start of early voting here in Texas. If you're in Travis County, here is a list of early voting sites. This vote isn't for any candidates, it's just about amendments to the Texas constitution. The Austin Chronicle has an editorial online that explains all of them. They endorse voting "no" to all the amendments, a position on which I agree. The most egregious amendment on this year's ballot is number two, the one which would prohibit Texas governments and business from recognizing committed same-sex relationships. This is being fought by the No Nonsense in November campaign, a group that deserves your support. Even if you don't care about the other issues, it's important for you to go and vote against hate

Posted by Ben at 12:58 PM in Austin & Elections and Voting | Permalink

The Texas Democratic Party is organized as a hierarchy of county groups which are composed of individual precincts. One of my bits of homework from our recent DemBuilders face-to-face meeting was to find out in what precinct I live, determine who was the precinct chair, and get in touch with that person to find out what I can do to help.

Here in Travis County, you can find out your precinct by looking up your voter registration records online. When I did that, I found that I'm in precinct 259. The Travis County Democratic Party has a PDF file posted on their site that lets you look up the different chairs. In my case, my chair is Reuben Leslie, Jr.

In my case, I then found something very surprising. I did a Google search and I found that my chair has built a precinct 259 website.. This has information about the precinct and the Texas Democratic party, along with specific calls to participate and act. I love it!

I still need to email Reuben and see how I can help, but I'm really glad that rather than being frustrated that nothing was happening, I was able to find a local resource for democracy right in my backyard.

Posted by Ben at 5:10 PM in Austin & Our Infrastructure | Permalink | Comments (1)

Via Pam Spaulding at Pandagon and media girl: 28% of voters polled would not support a woman for president regardless of which party nomated her.

Posted by Skye at 5:00 PM in Women | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last Saturday, Glenn and I attended the second general meeting of Austin Moving Forward, a group that's trying to organize Austin's progressive groups into a coalition that can tackles the problems of our city. It's a worthy goal, and the last meeting provided plenty of examples of groups like this making a difference in cities like Los Angeles.

One of the big issues with the last meeting was the lack of diversity in the crowd, and the organizers made an effort to address that with this meeting. The lead speaker was Greg Hamilton, the African-American sheriff of Travis County. He talked about taking on the good ol' boy networks in law enforcement and his experiences with talking to diverse communities. He had a great story about meeting Martin Luther King III and Coretta Scott King on a visit to Atlanta, and he reminded us that we need to hear all the voices, not just those that are the loudest.

After this opening talk, we gathered into groups by table to work on enumerating our core values. The theory is that as an coalition, we need to discover how to state our shared values in a way that will highlight what's in common among the different organizations. That will let us find the connections in the issues that will let us all work together.

The facilitator at the table where Glenn and I sat was former Austin City Council member and LBJ School professor Bill Spelman. There were five other people at the table, including Valinda Bolton, a Democratic candidate for seat 47in the Texas House. Our group quickly filled up a big sheet of paper with ideas about things that were important: government as an empowering resource, civic responsibility, stewardship of shared resources, having fun, caring for all people. We talked more about the core of these different ideas and chiseled it down to a few key statements that we presented as part of the wrap-up. There were about 15 tables, and we all took a slightly different interpretation of the assignment, but by the end of things, there was an encompassing vision of what's important to Austin's progressives appearing, although I don't think we were able to come up with any strong priorities.

As part of the synthesis of all of these presentations, several tables strongly felt that we needed to look at racism in Austin. I tend to agree with other elements in the room that the problem isn't strictly racism but is more a symptom of how Austin handles class differences, although many of those differences are due to the legacy of racism and a system that makes it so difficult to get out of poverty.

The Moving Forward group has some good plans for the future. Their immediate action is to take all the values listed at this meeting and try to come up with a set of values that the coalition can publish as a motivational statement. They are also forming a committee to work with that data and develop a list of issues of local importance that will be used to organize the next general meeting. They are also working on improving their web site and using it to point to the many progressive organizations in Austin, providing an organized resource for people to find groups that fit their interests. I know I'm looking forward to helping them out in this process.

Posted by Ben at 10:46 PM in Austin | Permalink | Comments (2)

Neil the Ethical Werewolf in a post on Ezra Klein's blog:

Suppose you had the money and power to start three small liberal organizations -- 527 groups, think tanks, PACs, ninja strike teams, or whatever. What would they be?

The commenters suggested, among other things, building a dorm for progressive interns in Washington, funding a group to help Democrats work (or attack) the media, and investigating electronic voting machines.

I'm not a big fan of starting more organizations. I think we have plenty of them lying around. But I'm going to play the game for a few minutes.

First, I would start a group devoted to developing progressive strategies for reaching people who don't care about or enjoy politics. I'm one of those people, so perhaps this is a bit self-serving. But I think many people who are overwhelmed or alienated by the ugliness of politics could be allies in public problem-solving if approached correctly.

Second, I would cheat and throw some money at the Public Works project at the Demos Center for the Public Sector:

Public Works is undertaking a deliberate campaign, grounded in the states, to build a vision of governance for the contemporary context that can restore respect for public service, trust in government's protective capacities, and belief in the efficacy of government intervention on behalf of the public good.

I don't believe that there was ever a time in American history when everyone trusted the government and paid taxes willingly, but I do believe our nation's vision of government could use some work. We won't have high enough expectations of it if we don't believe it can achieve great things. My funding for Demos would include one condition: stop using the word "efficacy".

Third, I would fund an organization to work in coalition with groups across the country that organize in low-income neighborhoods. Its goal would be to generate voter turnout that leads to victories for progressive candidates in local elections - then help communities hold those elected officials accountable. Shakespeare's Sister made the point recently, also in a post on Ezra Klein's blog, that the median income of the electorate is much higher than that of the country:

It’s easy to dismiss this line of reasoning with the old “there’s obviously a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans” line, as if that ought to be enough, and for many of us, that difference is apparent. But I have worked with the truly indigent - not the working poor, but families who have been homeless (or are homeless), or have languished generation after generation in the projects - and the differences we may see between the Democrats and the Republicans do not help them. Neither party effectively addresses their needs. They didn’t “do better” under Clinton than Bush.

If we want lower-income people to be engaged, we have to deliver on our promises. And quite honestly, if we want to live up to our progressive values, we'd better care about what happens to people in these communities and be willing to fund leadership development there. Local is the easiest place to see success, and a success story in one community can be used as a teaching tool in the next community.

Posted by Skye at 8:31 PM in Our Infrastructure | Permalink

My new Kodak DX7440 wouldn't focus on the cell phone screen to save my life (note to self: read user manual), but the trusty Palm Zire 71 did its best:

Ben got his reps into his phone, and I have some of mine done. Good job, team!

Posted by Skye at 9:01 PM in Action | Permalink

Hey kids, tomorrow would be a REALLY good time to make a few phone calls. Says CPPP:

One month ago, as part of a national effort, we asked you to urge your senators and congressional representative not to cut federal spending on critical health and human services such as Medicaid and Food Stamps. Because of your efforts, Congress delayed taking action, but congressional committees are again moving ahead with plans to mark up cuts during the week of October 17, with the Budget Committees slated to package the cuts around October 26, and Congress to consider bills making the cuts shortly thereafter.

Leadership in both chambers is now pushing to make even deeper cuts than the originally proposed $35 billion. For example, the Finance Committee is apparently considering cuts of as much as $12 to billion in Medicaid, even though the original target was $10 billion.

Make three calls, one to each senator and one to your representative. When their office answers the phone, say something like: "My name is [name] and I live in [your town/city]. I would like [name] to oppose $35 billion in cuts to Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other vital services, and to oppose $70 billion in more tax cuts. We need help for low-income Texans, not more tax cuts for those with plenty."

For those of you who live near me:

• Senator Kay Hutchison, Phone: 202-224-5922
• Senator John Cornyn, Phone: 202-224-2934
• Congressman Michael McCaul, Phone: 202-225-2401

If you live elsewhere, look up your national reps at Project Vote Smart. Look on the left side. If you don't know your 9-digit zip, they have a handy link to the U.S. Postal Service website so you can look that up.

I promise, calls to these offices are really easy. No one is going to attack you, argue with you, or raise your blood pressure in any way.

And here's a thought: put the reps' numbers in your cell phone. That way, you won't have to look it up next time.

Posted by Skye at 8:50 PM in Action | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am practically incapable of talking about politics with anyone who does not already agree with me.

I know quite a few people who vote Republican. Most of them are family. I should be able to calmly and cheerfully explain to them why I vote Democratic, what Democrats stand for, and why the state and the nation would be better off if they followed my example.

But I can't. When it's family, I get anxious and angry and defensive. I usually retreat and pretend it isn't happening, or I make one or two challenging statements and then ignore the conversation. Or worse, find myself trying to agree with something they're saying so we can put down the conversation on a positive note and I can calm down. When it's friends, I just smile and make noncommittal statements.

All this even though I have it easy compared to some of my friends. At least no one I know listens to Rush Limbaugh!

Since I have difficulty with the talking part, I've decided to start by listening. The last weekend of October is the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. My parents live there, and I will be going to stay with them for the weekend. I am going to ask each of them to sit down with me and answer a few questions about their political views. (I'm also going to try perceiving my dad as a complex person for the sake of this attempt, rather than writing him off as a knee-jerk Republican.) Then, I'm going to go over it while I'm not in the middle of the situation and see if I can figure out their core beliefs or frames or what have you. The research design is still in progress. ;)

After that, I'm going to go back and talk to them again, but I'm trying not to think about that part yet.

To give you an idea of who I'm dealing with:

My mother is a devout Methodist Christian who has traditionally voted Republican but considers herself an Independent. I have reason to believe that she voted for Kerry. She was very worried about the impression that George W. Bush has given the world with the War on Iraq. Her Christianity tends to express itself more in the "help the poor" mode than the judgmental mode, and she got involved for a while in a church-based effort to assess the damage that Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) cuts were doing to children in Houston. She is offended by churches that make it hard for gay Christians to worship, and by the young rich families in her congregation who seem to truly believe everything is fine as long as they have what they want.

My father is a devout believer in "bootstraps make it possible." However, he reads a lot about urban development and knows the history of redlining, racial segregation, de-industrialization, and suburbanization that have afflicted many cities - and he doesn't dismiss it outright as irrelevant to the residents' condition. But also, in his oft-stated opinion, the hippies ruined everything in America. He was deeply upset about the attack in New York City, as he used to live there and is still in love with the city in many ways, but he also was deeply upset by the start of the war. He doesn't believe corporations have any obligations to help people (such as those with AIDS in Africa, which never should have come up at Easter dinner). He believes that if you are caught by the police, it's your job to prove you aren't guilty. Last time I saw him, he also said Ken Lay should be executed.

My mother reports that he went outside and hung up an American flag when George W. was declared the winner in the next presidential election. She got him to take it down before I got home. I think she believed I'd pick a fight with him about it. Hello, that's so 15 years ago!

I'm brainstorming questions for them:

• What do you think government is for?
• What do you think of politicians in general?
• What do you think of President Bush?
• What's wrong with the national media? Was it always that way?

Additional question I have for my mother: What has made you vote for Democrats when you've done so?

Additional questions I have for my father: What is the problem with energy, and what are the solutions? (He worked for an oil company for a couple of decades.) What did you see happen during the 60's that changed society?

Please let me know in the comments if you have other questions I could ask. I don't want to hold them hostage for 2 hours apiece, but y'all might have some better ideas.

Posted by Skye at 9:55 PM in How To Communicate | Permalink | Comments (2)

My co-author GlennM often notes that it would be more satisfying for him to give to various causes if they were specific about how they were using the money. Oxfam Unwrapped does just this, though it seems to be for the UK. They've set out specific amounts that would fund a first aid kit, a goat, health worker training, etc.

I would think this could be used by political campaigns as well, and here are some examples with completely fabricated numbers:

• $40 for pizza to feed volunteers for three hours of phone calls, and here are the number of calls they could make
• $25 for enough paper, ink, and postage to send out postcards to so many residents of Austin (perhaps state it as "one entire zip code" or something that feels satisfying)
• $100 for four hours of technical assistance by a computer guru who can automate our website

You see my point.

On a more ambitious scale, I also liked the strategy described in "Adopt-a-Spot: Breaking Rules to Raise Money and Awareness." The article tells the story of the October 22nd Coalition and its Adopt-A-Spot campaign, which produced PSAs and then used them to fundraise. I'm flipping the paragraphs around from the order they appear in the article:

Operating on a shoestring budget, Lindblom and his colleagues produced over twenty PSAs featuring parents of the victims of police brutality, leaders of the African American and Hispanic community, and news clips catching police in horrific acts. The emotionally potent thirty-second spots asked viewers to send in stories about police brutality and to wear black on October 22nd, a national day of protest. Traditionally, public interest groups set their media budgets first and then produce their PSAs, but the Iris Baez meeting [see below] proved that the rules could be broken.

Three years after this tragic incident, Physicians for Social Responsibility invited Iris to speak at a meeting the group was hosting in New York City. After Iris talked about her son's murder, the invited guests - about twenty doctors and other concerned community members - viewed several public service announcements produced by the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation. One of the PSAs memorialized Anthony's story, and the guests decided to "adopt" this spot. Money was collected specifically to purchase airtime on Black Entertainment Television (as opposed to simply submitting the PSA and hoping BET would choose to show it). This paid broadcast ensured that Anthony Baez's story and the broader issue of police brutality would be brought to 250,000 households across America.

I've noticed MoveOn using similar techniques.

Posted by Skye at 6:24 PM in How To Communicate | Permalink | Comments (1)

While the star of tonight's Democracy for Texas meetup was Kirk Watson and the start of his campaign for the Texas senate, my favorite moment of the night was the conclusion of John Courage's remarks to the group. To quote the candidate:

Bush needs a brain, Cheney needs a heart, and Congress needs Courage!

Way to play the Wizard of Oz card! I look forward to seeing that used a few more times before the 2006 elections.

Posted by Ben at 12:22 AM in Austin | Permalink

At the Democracy for Texas meetup this evening it was interesting to see the difference between novice and seasoned candidates. The first few folks that spoke were new candidates. One of them started off by going through the usual Republican bashing. I'm sure she'd do better than the incumbent, but I kept thinking "I don't want to be part of the whiner party."

Then Kirk Watson spoke (with a nice intro by Will Wynn). He started off by talking about things Texans shouldn't be proud of. Our ranking of uninsured children. Our ranking in SAT scores. Yeah, there might have been some bashing mixed in. But the focus was on the issues he wanted to tackle, and why they mattered -- whey they affected us. He also asked for our support, which was something most of the other candidates failed to do in a room of hard-core activists. There's a reason why the TV cameras came on for Watson.

Posted by GlennM at 8:55 PM in Elections and Voting | Permalink

I gave a little cash to John Courage today. Courage is a Texas Democrat running in House District 21. I first heard of him when he was in the audience at a talk given by Project 90 at this summer's DemocracyFest. Walter Ludwig, the Executive Director of Project 90, started the organization to support Democrats running in solidly Republican House districts.

I left Ludwig's talk completely persuaded that we need to run folks in those districts. It forces Republicans to spend in districts where they don't think they need to, and it keeps them from funneling as much money to their fellow R's in districts with strong D opposition. Republicans with no challengers raised $63 million between 2000 and 2004, and they gave a lot of it away to their friends. It's also a party-building endeavor, bringing the idea of the Democratic Party alive in areas where fewer and fewer people even know anyone who identifies as a Democrat. Plus, Project 90 used the races they ran in 2004 as a laboratory for new techniques and to train new campaign staff.

Heck, I didn't see how anyone but the DCCC could oppose the idea. ;) However, I'm easily taken in by well-spoken, charismatic individuals like Ludwig - and there was no one at the seminar to give a counterargument. So I tried to think critically about it when there was an outbreak of conversation on the topic by some of my favorite bloggers late this summer:

• Charles Kuffner supported the strategy, believing that it's essentially an investment of resources that helps develop the party's volunteer, donor, and voting base.
• Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest saw it as the DCCC not understanding that we have to win people back, not just get our base to turn out. That means more work on the ground, everywhere at once.
• Kevin at LeanLeft said he understood that the DCCC and DSCC need to focus on regaining a majority, yet felt that the Dems need a long-term strategy, and running in all 50 states is it.
• Ezra Klein thought we should be spending more money in more places, but not throwing away money "on principle" by running everywhere.

I felt somewhat shaky about evaluating any of these claims, since they all seem to be theories. I prefer actual information, especially since I don't have any campaign experience against which I could evaluate the theories.

Then Charles Kuffner pointed to some research that he found via Ruy Teixeira:

....[I]t is hard to peg the exact point at which the returns from campaign spending become so negligible as to be worthless. Still, it is safe to say for the vast majority of candidates that the impact of expenditures beyond $1 million is heavily attenuated. What that means is simple: spending past $1 million gains far fewer votes (and maybe none at all) than does earlier spending. Targeted races are inevitably among the most expensive in country with both sides going all out to help their candidate across the finish line. Diminishing marginal returns mean that the effect of their help is severely limited.

I didn't rigorously evaluate the study Teixeira mentioned, but it gave me a little something to go on. I should probably look into it a little more so I can reassure myself that my money goes where it matters. But for now, when John Courage came back across my radar screen (by winning the Democracy for America Grassroots All-Star endorsement), I donated to his campaign. I'll let the big races take care of themselves for right now. Hopefully my few bucks can have a big bang in Courage's district.

I also checked for a Project 90 website, since Ludwig had said they had one in the works. None yet. I'll keep checking.

Posted by Skye at 9:20 PM in Our Strategy | Permalink | Comments (2)