Dean on Voting and Volunteering
Okay, this post is too long. Executive Summary:
- Democracies can fail
- Voting is not enough. Voting is the bare minimum.
- Volunteer. If you don't have lots of time, try to give just three hours a week to a political campaign.
- Make politics a part of your daily life and conversation.
- Run for office.
How's that? The long version follows below the fold.
If there's a crux of Howard Dean's message, I think this is it.
Dean said he came to realize this over the course of his campaign, and I'd agree that I did too, but at some other level - didn't we realize this in high school civics class? Didn't we know this when we first figured out the implications of the electoral college? This is a fundamental of Democracy. This should be in the users' manual.
I'm just glad Dean is out there spreading the message.
What's the message? The message is Voting is not enough.
In this country only 25-50% of registered voters turn out in any given election, and we like to bemoan that fact. We get out the vote, and we register new voters. And we tell those people, "If you don't vote, who's going to represent you? If you don't vote, all those people you disagree with - they'll represent you."
Truth is, the problem is deeper.
Voting is not enough.
- Voting should be the bare minimum.
- Dean said he always thought democracy was the highest evolutionary form of government. That nations developed until they got to a democracy, and there they stayed. Stable. Now, he says, he realizes this scary fact: Democracies can die.
- Democracies can die if people stop caring, if people stop voting, if people become uninformed, if people become detached and uninvolved.
- As people who care, we have to do more than vote. We need to make politics part of our daily lives.
- Volunteer on a campaign. Even if you think you don't have a lot of time, work just three hours a week on somebody's campaign.
- The work you do for one progressive candidate will benefit progressive candidates up and down the ticket because when your voters come out to vote for your candidate for dogcatcher or whatever, they will vote the rest of the ticket.
- Talk to everyone you know, wherever it's appropriate to talk about politics.
- Your being involved and concerned makes an impression on the people around you. (There is a ripple effect from just your being you! - my interpolation)
- (Someone asked about trying to convert Republicans, one of whom was pretty nasty in response.) Don't waste time engaging the real conservatives, especially the virulent ones. There are certainly lots of moderate Republicans and independents we can sway to our cause, but if people are nasty, we can't reason with them, we can't play nice with them, and we don't want them. It is more profitable to get the progressive base to actually be concerned and involved and to vote.
- Run for office. Don't expect to win the first time or the second time, but run for office, get experience, spread your message.
- Even if the electorate is very conservative, it's important to get our message out there.
- Every office is important. Run for school board, run for city council, for neighborhood council, for dog catcher, for Congress. We need good people at every level of government.
- In Vermont, some positions are part time. You can hold elected office and keep your regular job. (Dean continued to practice medicine while serving in the Vermont legislature!) Look for positions like this if you can't afford to put the rest of your life on hold.
- Everybody has some of the same basic needs: jobs, health care, education. The progressive platform will appeal to people when they realize that the people they've been voting for aren't fulfilling these basic needs.
[I'm sure I could go on, but I want to get this out. Maybe I'll add more later. As always, comments appreciated.]
Posted by betty at May 3, 2004 07:19 PM