( – promoted by odum)

This is my first attempt at a diary, so forgive me if I commit some blogging faux pas…

On Thursday night, I attended an ‘Affordability Agenda’ meeting with Gov. Douglas here in Essex.  The meeting was interesting not so much for what the governor had to say (almost nothing of substance), but how he positions himself vis a vis the Democratic legislature.  To hear Douglas tell it, he is the last bulwark preventing the Democrats from taxing/regulating everything to death.

Now Essex is pretty conservative by VT standards, but it was striking to me how people really buy into the Douglas narrative.  Douglas offers no new idea, but rather positions himself as the voice of reason.  It is extremely effective – because it appeals to that ‘in the ballot’ booth moment of truth when voters get nervous about their pocketbooks.

Scudder Parker was blown out of the water largely due to this narrative and we will get our hats handed to us again if we don’t come up with an antidote.

I think the antidote should be comprised of three components:

1) The Dem platform should make reform of education financing its #1 agenda item with the stated goal of reducing spending and adopting a progressive (read not property taxes) strategy to finance the bulk of education needs.

2) Adopt some sort of economic development strategy.  Hell, anything would be better that what is on the table now.  The Next Generation Commission report is a disaster.  Douglas’ half-assed Green Valley initiative is a joke.  The state needs to get serious about building new industries that create high value jobs.  Those high value jobs can provide the base to support local agriculture and other sectors we consider vital to the Vermont way of life.  The renewables industry train has pretty much left the station (Oregon and Washington state are CRUSHING us), but we might be able to catch up if we get serious.

3) Recruit candidates for the governorship from outside the legislature, who can speak to the above points (along with other Dem priorities on environment, health care etc) with credibility. 

I realize the above points may not be terribly popular in this forum, but I raise them now because I think we should think carefully about how to position the party in 08. 

I am going out of town this weekend, but will do my best to reply from the road….

cross-posted from the new ActBlue Blog

On Monday I posted a tip for spicing up ActBlue fundraising pages by embedding video into ‘asks’. This is a very powerful fundraising tactic–especially when the asker and audience have an existing relationship.

Over at Calitics, a great community blog in California, they’ve taken that suggestion and run with it. I’ve included a screenshot of their pitch to the right (click on it to view a bigger version in a new window). Besides the video, Calitics’ blogger Brian uses several of the principles of fundraising to make a really compelling plea for his candidates.  Some of the successful elements they have included:

1. Create Urgency- The pitch is for end-of-quarter donations.  Brian clearly states that there’s a deadline before which donors need to fundraise.  And he timed his pitch just a couple of days away from the end of quarter.
2. Be Specific- Rather than overloading their page with a dozen candidates, Brian stuck with three candidates that have a common theme.  The majority of ActBlue donors give to an entire page’s slate of candidates…remember that when choosing your slate of candidates.
3. Make it Personal- Brian, a Calitics blogger, is asking his own blog readers to donate. They have an existing relationship and a degree of trust built up. Potential donors are more likely to give when asked by someone they know and the pitch is personal.  They’re less likely to donate when spammed by someone they don’t know.
4. Think Longterm- The Calitics’ ask offers the option of giveing once or of setting up a recurring contribution. Recurring donations are growing in popularity on ActBlue, with over 1000 users having chosen that option for a variety of candidates.   If a donor can’t contribute a lump sum amount at once, recurring contributions allow them to invest in the page in installments.

Most of these elements are included in their Calitics ActBlue fundraising page as well. To improve the impact, some ideas might be to include the text from the Calitics post next to the video on their ActBlue fundraising page itself or add the recurring contribution buttons below the embedded video. If that happened, their ActBlue fundraising page could be e-mailed around to additional friends or registered users of the Calitics blog extending the end-of-Quarter ask into a new medium.

One other thing that might help the effort is to set a goal, similar to what the bloggers at Raising Kaine have done (screen shot at left again, click to enlarge). They are shooting for $20,000 to all their endorsed candidates by the end of the state quarter on Saturday, giving a real sense of momentum to their efforts. Adding some text about that immediate goal on their fundraising page would be perfect to tie it together with their blog posts.

While it is early in the cycle, bloggers can build upon their early adopters to make effective asks in creative ways that fit their audience. What ideas might you add?

So now it’s official. As odum predicted first, the Governor has chosen attorney Jon Anderson to replace Representative Francis Brooks, now the Statehouse Sergeant-at-Arms. While possessing Democratic bona fides enough to give Douglas a weak pretense of justification (he was briefly city chair and has hosted a few fundraisers), the fact is that there’s a reason why the Montpelier Democratic Caucus rejected him so soundly (out of five possible candidates to appear on the list forwarded by the committee, Anderson came in dead last with 5 total votes including his own – the winners were Mary Hooper with 16 votes, Cary Brown with 15 and Matt Levin with 11). So now the citizens of Montpelier have their own little Joe Lieberman. Thanks, Jim!

The reason, of course, is that he is conservative by Democratic standards in general, and off the charts by Montpelier standards. If you ask people who work around the Statehouse, all you’ll hear is shock at the idea that he is anything other than a Republican. He works with anti-environmental interests and allies himself closely with Douglas’ people – which is, of course, exactly why he got the job – he’s a ‘yes man’ to the nth degree.

But he won’t hold it for long. Mary Hooper is likely already making calls to prepare her primary campaign, and she trounced him by an overwhelming margin in one citywide race already. Montpelier Dems will be livid at this kick in the nuts from Douglas and Anderson and Montpelier residents at large will not put up with a right-winger representing them in the legislature any longer than they have to. Especially in a leftie town like Montpelier.

( – promoted by gnome)

It’s become political hegemony that the reason for George W Bush’s ascendence is the unparalleled genius of Karl Rove. That Rove is so good at what he does that liberals of all stripes have found themselves perplexed and outmanuevered at every turn going all the way back to Bush’s defeat of the much beloved Ann Richards for the Texas governorship. That Rove is the sort of master gamesman Democrats wish they had on their team. Here’s an example, clipped via Steve, who has an interesting Rove thread going:

(Clip from July 12, 2005)

(Chris) MATTHEWS: Do you think the Democrats wish they had a guy as good as Rove?

Senator JOE BIDEN: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But I hopefully, yeah, yeah.

Steve is using the clip to bounce off of Glenn Greenwald, and two are making the point that the pundit class simply can’t bear to have a conversation about the merits of any scandals consuming the White House without changing the subject. That they must always demonstrate their imagined superior insight by crudely attempting to repackage such discussions in such a way that they fit into their simplistic notions of amoral Washington gamesmanship. In the process, of course, they come off as idiots.

But what Steve and Greenwald are breezing over is that the fundamental thesis to this particular narrative – that Rove is a political mastermind – is just as much bunk as every other piece of their argument. Unfortunately, it’s bunk that has crept through over the last six years, enough so that most political observers accept it as fact.

Let’s debunk after the fold (and yes, there is a Vermont corollary…)

Any arborist will tell you that a monocultural stand of trees is vulnerable. As tall and robust as they may seem, without some sort of agricultural diversity, the entire population could be wiped out by a single, otherwise passing blight that it’s limited genetics happen to be susceptible to.

That’s not to say that the blight is a genius. That its assessed the situation and made a masterful strategy. The blight is just doing what it does – and it happens to be in the right place at the right time.

That’s what we’re looking at with the Rove phenomenon. The Washington political culture has, over the last few generations, become a sort of monoculture that is uniquely susceptable to the blight that is Karl Rove and George Bush – and not because they’re smart. They’re not – and in fact, if Rove was nearly as smart as everyone likes to think of him as, his brains probably would’ve tripped him up.

The fact is that Rove is so crude, so relentlessly politically sociopathic and so bereft of any concept of going too far that he caught the greater political establishment completely off guard. Time after time, Rove’s shameless audacity astounded the political class, and time after time that same audacity paid off with success because the insiders couldn’t believe he was doing what he was doing and were incapable of facing it, let alone defending against it.

And yet when you look at what Rove has been doing or saying, its as simple as it could possibly be – be as slimy as possible from every possible direction at every possible moment. It doesn’t matter what your strengths and weaknesses are, or what your opponents’ are. Just throw everything at the wall, regardless of whether or not it is “fair game.” It’s pure bull-in-the-china-shop.

What the insiders really notice is what, to them, looks like jiujitsu of the most audacious kind; specifically, going after the president’s opponents on the terms of what, at first glance would be their strengths and Bush’s weaknesses. But the truth is that this is almost incidental – Rove goes after everyone on anything and everything. It’s just the unconventional attacks that seem so… well, unconventional.

And that’s why they’ve been so effective. Not because he’s so smart by a long shot.

Imagine Being There if Chance the Gardener were a troglodyte.

And what we’re finally seeing is this blight running its course. Eventually, the fact that Rove is actually a twit was going to get him into trouble. The bull-in-the-china-shop schtick is, after all, all the guy’s got. Seriously – the GOP has lost both houses of congress, Bush is still in the doghouse, and the scandals that are front and center at present date from actions the administration has taken since the election – not 2-4 years ago. Does this sound smart?

Now that we’re all finally developing some meaningful – if tenuous – defense against this approach, all that remains is Rove the bumbler. Rove the fool. Rove the incompetent.

Which was all he ever really was to begin with.

In Vermont, former Chair Jim Barnett played much the same role to similar results. Barnett was focused on the top of the ticket, of course, and was a great fit with the Governor’s tendencies to play nasty. Barnett has also enjoyed the strange status of “genius” bestoyed on him by the media, despite the fact that his approach has left the state GOP in shambles.

But Barnett is a lot smarter than Rove. He saw an out with the McCain campaign and took it (and just before the auditor recount).

Slick. And slickness will get you far in this business.

The Rove phenomenon proves that smarts, on the other hand, are simply optional.

I’ve been a big fan of Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users blog for quite some time.

Like Zack Exley in the political world, she writes about exactly the kinds of things I’m interested in — using the power of technology to create new relationships between institutions and their supporters. To move beyond the top-down vs. bottom-up arguments to create a new kind of synthesis that works to the benefit of both.

Like her recent series, How to Build a User Community (Part One and Part Two), she offers fantastic ideas on how to do this.

So, it was very disturbing to learn of the truly weird attacks being waged against her.

And it is causing a very profound ripple effect on the many thought leaders of this whole movement — as it exposes the darkness of human nature which clearly exists in both the real and the virtual.

The BBC has more…

And since Vermont’s own political blogosphere hasn’t been immune to semi-anonymous, rather vicious and aggressive behavior in the past nine months, this is an important story to keep on eye on.

Keep the faith, Kathy.

And, it’s all Newt Gingrich’s fault.

From UVM’s student newspaper, the Vermont Cynic…

The College Republicans club was derecognized by the Student Government Association (SGA) on Tuesday, after failing to repay year old debts.

The group owed $6,548 from a $7,000 loan they took out in Oct. 2005. The loan was initially taken out in order to pay Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to speak at UVM.

When the club failed to pay at the first deadline in Nov. 2005, their account was frozen and they were reminded of the consequences if they were unable to pay. The club proceeded to ask for two more separate deadline extensions, and was given one in Dec. and one in Feb.

According to the College Republicans president, senior Heather Baldyga, the club had been warned twice of a possible derecognition should they fail to repay their loan.

Now that the club has been derecognized SGA will repossess their budget, which will cover the debt the College Republicans owe, according to senior Jessica Banks, SGA treasurer.

If the club is rerecognized it will be on their own terms, and financially “they’ll be back at ground zero,” said Banks. They will be treated like any other new club.

College Republicans expected the profits from Newt Gingrich’s presentation to help cover the loan, but there was a smaller turn out than they had expected.

“We were not able to pay back SGA because there was little or no effort to fundraise in the past few semesters. It is also difficult to fundraise for a Republican organization around here, because we don’t have many fans in this area,” Baldyga said.

( – promoted by JDRyan)

I’ve had enough of people (who purport to be liberal) who can look at an amazing, spontaneous, truly grassroots statewide movement that brings together Dems, Progs, Independents and even the more radical left, and only roll their eyes and see a pain in their ass that will complicate their schedules.

I’ve had enough of waiting for some real leaders who can take this energy and pull us together – even over disagreements – rather than ignore, scold or berate folks for not shutting up and letting them drive.

I’ve had enough of people whose support for any officeholder rises and falls on a single issue, or on whether or not that officeholder does things exactly the way you demand they should.

I’ve had enough of people who are more interested in sticking it to politicians they don’t like than to support them in helping people who need it.

I’ve had enough of attacking the wrong people (especially when those leading the attack, as it were, are merely using the opportunity to promote their own rumored political ambitions, such as this one and this one)

I’ve had enough of being told I just don’t understand why my concerns are irrelevant.

I’ve had enough of political leaders who are more concerned about placating a tiny percentage of the religious right than the majority of their own constituents.

I’ve had enough of dance halls. I’ve had enough of pills. I’ve had enough of street fights. I’ve seen my share… oh wait. Sorry. I got off track.

I hope everyone has been taking notes over the last few months. Next biennium we could all stand to make a better show of ourselves.

Edwards, Hillary, Obama. It’s just too damn early for this. A combination of Democratic eagerness for a rematch (where, it is to be hoped, the game won’t be rigged this time) combined with the surge of State Pride (and desire for campaign cash) have pushed the primary season ridiculously early.

New Donkey, the centrist Democrat blogger, posted on this subject about a week ago- and I think it’s worth a read.

cross-posted at Rip and Read

New Donkey writes:

This [the rush to nominate] … is simply crazy. February 5 is nine months before the general election, and roughly six months before the nominating conventions … It virtually guarantees that three factors: money, name ID, and success in the earliest states, especially Iowa,will determine the outcome. And it may well snuff any serious chance for the lower-tier candidates in both parties ….Most importantly, the emerging calendar will provide zero opportunity for second thoughts after the early rush has anointed nominees. It could be a very long spring, summer and autumn if a nominee commits some major blunder, or some disabling skeleton jumps out of a closet [emphasis added].

New Donkey goes on to say point out that this problem could be solved by having the Democratic National Committee take a leadership role to stop thmadnesses:

…what should happen before the next go-around, is a truly national approach. Whether it’s a lottery, or a carefully matched series of states around the country, or regional primaries, or just the kind of spread-out process that prevailed until recently, it could be imposed by the DNC through a combination of (a) strict rules against seating of delegates chosen outside the calendar guidelines, and (b) an aggressive effort to recruit all candidates in advance to support the decision, with ejection from DNC-sponsored debates, or if necessary, a ban on speaking opportunities at the Convention, being the stick.

But if we don’t get seriously angry about this abomination right now, we’re going to find ourselves in the same situation four and eight years from now.

Given the source (New Donkey is after all, usually butting heads with MyDD and Daily Kos), it’s possible that these ideas will be rejected by the netroots and others who will write off anything said by such folks as “Republican-Lite” rhetoric.

But…given the fact that HRClinton is the likely beneficiary this year of this insane process…I think it’s a conversation in which all should participate.

The Occupation Project, who inspired last week’s non-violent protest at Peter Welch’s office last week is having another sit-in at Bernie Sanders’ office tomorrow in hopes that he will not vote to approve the supplemental funding for the war. From the press release:

Citizen Sit-In  and Call-In at Senator Bernie Sanders’ Office to Protest War Funding
Meet in front of Burlington City Hall on Church Street at 2pm Tuesday, March 27 to plan
Walk to Bernie’s Office, 1 Church Street, between 2:20 and 2:30 pm

There will be a Citizen Sit-In and Call-In at Senator Bernie Sanders’ office in Burlington on Tuesday afternoon to voice dissent about the $100 billion supplemental war funding up for debate in the US Senate. Inspired by a national movement called The Occupation Project and Voices for Creative Nonviolence,  participants from all over the state will be asking Senator Sanders to vote no on the funding approved by the US House on Friday.  Iraq Veterans Against the War, college students, members of local peace organizations, and concerned citizens are all planning on participating either by visiting Sanders’ office or calling the office. They will meet in front of Burlington City Hall on Church Street at 2pm Tuesday, March 27 to plan.
They will then walk to Bernie’s Office, 1 Church Street, to arrive at 2:30 pm.  Participants will each decide for themselves how long they would like to stay at the office.

Odum’s post here last week discussed the war bill, and many of you were not in support of it. I called Sanders’ office a few moments ago, and the person on the phone told me that Sanders has not indicated how he will vote. His statement on the website isn’t clear, either:

In the coming week, the Senate is set to debate legislation that calls for a troop withdrawal from Iraq. Having originally voted against the war, Senator Sanders has been an outspoken advocate for bringing our troops home as soon as possible. “We have got to use the budget to tell the president that this war cannot go on. We have to bring our troops home as soon as possible,” Senator Sanders told Thom Hartmann during his weekly Air America interview program “Brunch with Bernie.”

So, if you are in opposition to the continued funding of the war, this is an opportunity to let Bernie know loud and clear.