On September 2nd, Democracy for America is organizing nationwide house parties during President Bush’s speech to the Republican National Convention. While George Bush is speaking to his base of corporate executives, special interests and other elites gathered at the Republican Convention in New York, Governor Dean will spend the evening with his base of grassroots volunteers across America. Governor Dean will be participating via a conference call.
The proceeds will support DFA as well as another group of your choice that is working to elect progressive candidates. Any house party which raises over $500 will have the opportunity to tell DFA how to spend this money -- DFA will send 50% of what you raise to a candidate or organization suggested by you.
For the night of September 2nd to be successful, we need to organize house parties in as many cities as possible.
When you sign up to host a party, you will be given information about setting up a house party BAT for those who wish to contribute to your house party but will not be able to attend.
After you have signed up, don't forget to post it here in the Washington section.
This is a great opportunity to get people involved again. If you have lists, get them out and use them.
Let's take our country back!
Carol Cates
DFA-WA state contact
Friday, August 20, 2004
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2 comments:
I would like to comment on a comment I read in today's DFA blog (Aug 25), authored by "nordy" of democracyforwashington . (I am posting here because nordy's name-link on the blog took me here.)
First, here's what nordy wrote:
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From today's BFA blog:
http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/004993.html
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Today I sent the following email to HQ.
When democracyforwashington.com announced that Gov. Dean would appear at a Seattle shrimp feed Aug. 31, I signed up in a hurry. At $25 for a disabled person, I could afford it.
I couldn't afford the Congressional Campaign Committee funder with its admission price of $100 and up.
A lot of other people signed up for shrimp, too. DFW reported "hundreds" of RSVPs.
So I'm sure you can understand my surprise and disappointment when I received your email "correction" advising that the "only" place I'd get to see Gov. Dean was the CCC "VIP reception" with its minimum charge of $100 per VIP.
I'm not a VIP. Few disabled people are. However, I spent a lot of time volunteering for Dean's campaign.
I wonder how this fiasco happened. I suspect that hundreds of people wonder along with me.
Some insights may be found a piece by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly. It ran today, and I am sending you excerpts.
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In The Northwest: Dollars for Democrats -- a fund-raising frenzy
By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
Money is the mother's milk of politics, the late California Assembly Speaker Jess Unruh often quipped. By next week, our state's Democrats are likely to feel milked and udderly manhandled.
Pursuit of campaign dollars has taken center stage as the Dems prepare for the Friday-Saturday John Kerry visit, and a Monday-Tuesday stopover by ex-Gov. Howard Dean in what was a "Deaniac" heartland ...
[T]he high rollers are getting rewarded ...
The Dean visit presents an even more blatant case [than Kerry's], using Marilyn Monroe's words from "Some Like it Hot," of how worker ants get "the fuzzy end of the lollipop."
Howard Dean was the pre-primary wonder of Democratic politics ... How better to greet him than to revive the famous Mike Lowry Shrimp Feed?
The event was given a modest price tag ($45 adult, $25 senior or low income), a hot Cajun band -- Cayenne -- was booked, and Democrats looked forward to "a grand old reunion" in the words of Karen Marchioro, who worked more than a year on the Dean campaign.
"We nailed down the date, August 31. I mailed out 4,500 fliers and then heard the bad news: Gov. Dean is not going to come," said state Democratic Chairman Paul Berendt.
Dean is going to a competing event. He is attending a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fund-raiser at Bell Harbor Conference Center. The tab is $100, with "hosts" who raise or give $1,000 getting a private reception ...
Why would Dean snub his own troops? ...
Well, first off, he gets a cut of the gate at Bell Harbor. The event will also benefit a Dean political committee called Democracy for America.
"This is a hard-core business decision for them," Berendt explained. "My understanding is there is also a no-compete clause where Governor Dean cannot go to another event." ...
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To date, the DFW site lists one signup for the VIP event. He's the event coordinator.
This whole thing is pretty tacky, and I think if Gov. Dean knew how it was handled, he wouldn't like it either.
Meanwhile, I am awaiting refund of my $25 from DFW. I'm also contemplating some new realities about life at the fuzzy end of the lollipop.
Posted by: nordy at August 25, 2004 10:13 PM | Link
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And here is a posting I made to the National Grassroots Network (formerly DeanLeaders) Yahoo list in response. I hope y'all don't mind that I posted it here. And if you do, I have no issue at all with your deleting it.
Thank you,
Richard Hoefer
San Francisco
(I participated in DFA1 with the creation of DeanPort.com, Dean Media Team, Dean Rapid Response, DeanPhotos.com and DeanMall.com, in addition to shooting about 100 hours of documentary footage since April 2003. I have now been working on the creation of a mainstream-branded new progressive media network, which is making headway. I have also created a new portal site to help stitch together the whole of the new emerging progressive landscape. The site's at http://www.ProgressiveStart.com - and it's a beta version 1 site... later to be designed more similar to the interface of DeanPort.com)
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My reply to nordy's post -- which can be found here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NGdiscuss/message/3911
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I have a serious question -- not intended to stir the pot, but simply to get information:
Does an organization like DFA2 have to publically disclose or file (somewhere) its operating budget and who makes what in salaries?
I ask because I seriously wonder: How many people are in management roles there? And what is the aggregate amount of money paid for those management salaries? And what specifically do Tom McMahon and Tom Hughes each make?
The kinds of errors DFA2 is making are not acceptable -- not after the DFA1 management debacle. Theoretically a serious organization learns from its mistakes -- and failure presents the greatest opportunities for learning. Even the most uninformed Dean Supporter from DFA1 understands and knows that one of the biggest pitfalls of the DFA management team was in its poor hiring choices, and in its exraordinary lack of constituency comminication competency.
Here we are now, in version 2 of DFA, and they've already managed to tick off northern California -- one of the areas of strongest local and statewide Dean-related grassroots organizing -- and now they're ticking off their Seattle based constituency -- another of their strongest areas of grassroots support.
Who is accountable? Who is responsible? What specific steps are being taken to correct these problem areas? Is there anything specific anyone can point to which demonstrates DFA has even established a constituency communication system (not the blog)? If so, is it working very well? If not, WHY not -- given the inescapable conclusion that two-way constituency communication was one of the biggest incompetencies of DFA1?
It is stories like these which make a number of people I've spoken with from pockets all over the country really seriously wonder -- is DFA2 sustainable as an organization? NOTE: the question is specifically NOT "Is *Howard Dean* sustainable as a politcial force in the Democratic Party?" -- because the answer to that is an obvious and resounding YES. Dean has been indefatiguable in his commitment to getting Bush out -- seeding local elections with progressives -- and as soon as possible begin reforming the Democratic party -- wrestling control away from the DLC. There is no question that Dean is now and will remain for the forseeable future one of the most influential progressive politicians this country has seen in quite a while.
So the issue is not Howard Dean. The question is: Can DFA2 demonstrate core competency -- and thereby earn sustainability? Or will they eeek along supported by the undying devotion of the core-blog-grassrooters who will carry them in spite of their shortcomings?
Curious minds want to know... because right now the new lines are being drawn in the sand... We all know MoveOn is the most stable player in the new progressive movement... But organiztions like ACT are proving to be far more competent than DFA2 ... And there is only so far that the conceptual reputation of "DFA" as a transformational agent for the progressive movement can stand without measurable results against dollars spent.
MoveOn, about a month or two ago, published to all of its membership a remarkable self-audit document which measured MoveOn's effectiveness against their targeted goals set the prior year.
If one were to audit the dollar-effectiveness of DFA2 in a year, are we likely to see a good return on investment? People have invested not only their money -- as the blog comments above state -- but also their time -- large large commitments of time. And if nothing more, they deserve a reasonable return on their investment.
That does NOT mean everyone's entitled to VIP access to Dean for a $25 price of admission... but it DOES mean that every DFA supporter and every DFA-inspired organization across the country deserves respect and consideration from the DFA organization itself. That includes clear and two-way communciation, and access to correct problems as cited in the complaint above.
my 2 cents
rh+
I think you mean the Democratic Party of Washington, not Democracy for Washington, but thanks for posting this! DFA2 is running a difficult race, and hard business decisions like this are really important. This was a mistake that we must hope never happens again, but the only way to ensure that is to get involved.
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