[statecom-discuss] Think critically about Senate, Presidential races

[Ron Francis]

No need to personalize this....

Let's talk about ideas and not people.  Referring to people by names so much (not just this last email but all of us really) is the first step toward bullying.  Let's just stop it, please.

Agreed that people don't do as they are told in the party.   I personally never "tell" anyone what to do mainly because I don't believe in that.  As an award-winning physics teacher I know that people have to believe and act on things themselves if they are really to have a passion about it and TRULY learn or engage.  I only present an argument and then people can do as they wish.  Empowerment is the key.

We don't have a lot of local organizing I would argue because we are in a modality of always trying to run for office instead of trying to build local bases (which can include running for office,.. if done correctly),.. but basically I think our focus has not been on local base building and therefore we wind up doing other things that don't necessarily lead to local base building.  SPWG may correct this.

We need to figure out ways to turn candidate runs, if we are going to do them, into base building ventures.   I would have liked to see our last round of  statewide races focused on  a few communities for example.

Also, it is not just our gubernatorial runs which must be subjected to scrutiny but also our other statewide runs and even State Senate runs.   I think that each high profile candidate campaign, done over the last 7 years, from Nader forward, needs to evaluate itself in many areas including the extent to which local bases were built.

I have faith that our SPWG process will converge on local work as the primary need for party development, and I think we could even use a training on how best to do it (regardless of the varying modalities).

It will be interesting to see what comes out of SPWG as well as other local organizing initiatives including the Worcester effort which I think is promising.

Finally, it is not true that there has been no local organizing going on.  There has been in several areas.  And also it does not necessarily have to go through the "state" party apparatus in order to be legitimate local work; witness the Local Organizing Initiative which is poised to build more locals with the agreement of people in several communities to use the LOI model.  It will take time though.

Ron



gracegrnrnbw at aol.com wrote: 
 Ron continues to live in the world of theory- we need to recognize that people (certainly in this party) don't just do what they are told.? We have had more than half a year of no statewide campaigns.? Do we have local building oging on through the party?? No.? Proposals for local building were not brought through the party structure.? We have lost the the second membership director due to her leadership being undermined.

And, yeah, my ran used some energy - it generated hundred fold more energy - but wihtout a strategy and action to draw that energy into party building - it sits out there simmering relatively untouched -

so, yeah, folks need to build hte party, lets figure out why those active don't do outreach and why at least some of those committed to do outreach were pushed out of leadership-

Then let's train and get going.

Running should compliment and reinforce this -Love, grace


 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Francis 
To: statecom-discuss at green-rainbow.org
Sent: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 3:09 pm
Subject: [statecom-discuss]  Think critically about Senate, Presidential races










High Profile Candidate campaigns tend to draw a lot of energy because they just 
tend to be very sexy, for lack of a better word, and sometimes draw charismatic 
candidates that make them even more sexy.

There is no guarantee though that these campaigns actually leave us in a 
stronger position; sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

We need to be very careful here.

We should not just run because we have the ability to run.

The real question is whether or not the person-hours used up in running for high 
offices can be better used somewhere else.  Each person needs to evaluate this.  


The person hours used up in high profile races could be used to really build our 
party at the local levels - which is what many people have said in any 
"strategy" discussions that I have been aware of.

We need to walk the walk and not just talk the talk; can we have just one year 
where our main focus is building up local chapters ?  Just one year !... just to 
see what would happen.  If it doesn't work, then we can go back to the strategy 
of running for high office essentially every chance we get.

We get caught up in these high profile candidate races and all of our energy 
gets sapped and the number of our locals stays the same or decreases.  Our 
active membership can even DECLINE.  At some point we have to learn from our 
experiences.

We could have 30 or 40 thriving local chapters in one year's time if we use our 
energy appropriately, but we choose not to.  How long will this continue ?

Ron


_______________________________________________
statecom-discuss mailing list
statecom-discuss at green-rainbow.org
http://www.green-rainbow.org/mailman/listinfo/statecom-discuss



 


________________________________________________________________________
AOL now offers free email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.
_______________________________________________
statecom-discuss mailing list
statecom-discuss at green-rainbow.org
http://www.green-rainbow.org/mailman/listinfo/statecom-discuss