It is Time to Evolve The DPG!

By the most obvious measure, vote margin, Georgia Democrats continue to proceed in a fundamentally wrong direction over the last several cycles. Republican victory margins have increased by 50,000 votes in each of the least three elections. It is not that more people are voting for the GOP; our people simply are not showing up. In comparing 2008 to 2012, the GOP Turnout was flat, a mere 17,000 more votes, but Democrats were down by 85,000.

In the Gubernatorial races, the margin trend is inconclusive for a variety of reasons but the 2010 GOP margin was twice what it was in 2002.

What we need to ask is whether the numbers are just so daunting that no strategy would ever have worked and that Republican gerrymandering in the aggregate actually reflects a new reality? Are we essentially no better positioned than either Alabama or South Carolina? And if so, do we need to prepare for a long period of retrenchment and reset our hopes? If Mark Sanford can come back after his hike down the “Appalachian Trail,” is there any hope at all?

The numbers are daunting. But our challenge has little to do with some sort of sweeping Red Tide that hit us first in 1980 when Ronald Reagan captured the South and instantly transformed the Electoral math for the next generation. There are actually some very hopeful signs that the red tide has stop surging and that somewhere in the not too distant future our prospects will begin to improve. There is data out there to support such a conclusion.

But we would be mistaken to be gleeful about that prospect for a number of reasons. It could be years before things improve. We need to get 350,000 more voters to the polls in 2014 than we did in 2010. It really is that simple. If we want to compete, that is what we have to do.

The challenges facing the Democratic Party of Georgia are substantial. There certainly is a financial component that cannot be minimized.

But the truth of it is, money has come to be thought of as a leading indicator of our success far more than racking of victories or vote totals. In fact, money is actually a trailing indicator of how the electorate -- and more importantly the donor base and the volunteer base -- view the party. Money is absolutely necessary to execute a winning strategy, but we have had money in the bank in the past, and it has not solved the underlying problems that have dogged the DPG for the last decade and a half. Managing to a budget is essential. Scheduling “Call Time” with “High Dollar Donors” is certainly an issue, but we ought to be far more concerned about global participation in the DPG’s Yellow Dog (recurring small dollar donor) program. It is a far more telling indicator of where we are as a state party.

It is mu contention that that our challenges with funding, like our challenges with getting out the vote, have much more to do with the visibility and vigor of the DPG than some would like to admit. The DPG has become fundamentally, woefully, disconnected from those whose help we need the most to execute whatever strategy we devise. Money does not solve that problem. Our challenges run to issues of organization and operations and, as direct consequence, brand. If we can fix those problems in fundamental ways, the votes and the money will flow.

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Over the next several days,  I am going to be posting sections  from the Evolve Document  I penned at the beginning of the summer.   I am doing so  to elicit more comments  from a larger audience in gearing up  for  what I anticipate is going to be   a  real substantive debate withing the State Committee about  Reform.