The Trouble with the Confederacy - Why Democrats faill on Election Day in Georgia (Part II)

The Trouble with the Confederacy

The linchpin of party’s GOTV strategy is predicated on a belief that organizations it exercises little control over will rise up and do the heavy lifting necessary to win elections. The model positions the DPG as the operational hub coordinating the activities of Country Parties and traditional allies like Labor Unions and Civil Right groups.

Our current model is one of “Confederation". It consist of a small, weak central authority which attempts to expand its limited authority to extend the DPG brand, fundraise and mobilize using a mix of organizations that may or may not have an effective statewide reach or with local organizations which may or may not be able to muster its own membership for the duration of the mobilization effort.

After 12 years in the political wilderness and staring at another four or maybe eight years of the same, we need to make a cold, sober assessment of this model's effectiveness with a particular focus on the confederation with the County Parties.

The fundamental challenge both the state party and statewide candidates have faced is that county parties are an unpredictable partner in substantive statewide GOTV efforts. We need to understand why, but we also should be clear that the problems we face are institutional in nature and have little to do with current or even recent leadership at the local party level. More importantly, it has been the DPG responsibility to fix the problems and it has neglected to do so. If we are going to return to a competitive position, we must address these issues.

Born in a Different Era

Georgia’s Democratic County Parties were born largely in an era when all of Georgia was deeply blue and GOTV apparatus was neither developed nor needed. Local Parties simply never developed in a way that lends itself to the type of visibility and organizational heft necessary to make the substantial effort in fundraising and infrastructure development required to close the numerical gap we are seeing. For some counties, the money flowed easily to support local Dems. For others, there was never a need to raise money because there was little or no opposition presence in the county: Since the GOP had no money and no infrastructure, why should the Dems bother to build their own?

This problem has been compounded by suburbanization and gerrymandering. Our Core Counties have become so Democratic and our elected officials so safely seated that for races internal to the county, there is no need to configure the organization in a manner that supports GOTV efforts for County offices or even the state legislatures. As a result there’s literally no machinery to support statewide nominees when the State Party asks the Counties to step up.

Operationally Disconnected from the Grassroots

There is an even more fundamental issue at play. County parties, born in a different era, have grown up with a deliberative orientation rather than an operational orientation. They are organized to facilitate diverse and equal representation at monthly meetings and to make sure all voices are heard. There is nothing wrong with that, and given state history it was important to make sure we got that right and generally speaking we did. That was an incredibly important thing to do at the time but it has wound up being an end unto itself.

The problem is that because of when we formed up county organization, the state was deeply Democratic; and we put an inordinate focus in how the county committee is composed and who was in charge rather than the task at hand. The problem is the focus has been on coming together as a party and celebrating our diversity and unity rather than on developing lower level (precinct/grassroots) organizations, which is needed for GOTV efforts.

Mahoning County, OH Take a look at the County Committee. It has 321 members that is roughly the same size as our entire State Party. Its Executive Committee has nearly 100 members; that’s larger than any county party in the state of Georgia; They have 11 officers! This is a county the size of Chatham. Turnout in Mahoning was 69% (122,000) in 2012 with the President getting 64% of the vote. On the surface it weems like organization overkill given the solid but unspectacular performance. Bur ccording to Chris Redfern, Ohio Party Chair, the Mahoning Dems actually raised $1 Million in 2012. The difference is those 321 positions at the Precinct level. Each Precinct sends its captain to Central Committee. (There are just five vacancies, by the way) But that “Big“ committee raised about $3,000 per precinct in a precinct that averages less than 1,000 people and 2/3rds of the voters are Democrats. Understand this.  In 2012, the Youngtown Democratic Party alone  raised  more money than  the Democratic Party of Georgia and all the county parties  combined.   The reason is inclusiveness and visibility in every conrener of the county  which  in turn  drives  fundraising and  party dominance in local politics even if   the  cote totals  are somewhat  pedestrian.

We tend to define our membership by those who are elected to serve as committee members. We tend not to have any established purpose for our members other than to attend meetings. We tend to be more concerned about the meetings rather than why we meet. We tend to be insular and largely benign and disconnected from the voting public.

As a result, Local parties are disconnected from sufficient sets of those “Boots on the Ground" who can support election efforts with their voices or their front yards or their bank accounts.

Because of the way County Parties have developed in this state, they are not centers of political power, and outside of the elected official and candidate class, they are largely unknown entities that are largely incapable of delivering the type of turnout necessary in off year elections as they are currently oriented.

Re-orientating the County Party from one focused on “Post Holder” to one energized by “Precinct Captain” is extremely difficult because it is such a completely different paradigm than what we know.

The County Parties have not successfully navigated the changes in statewide demographics and politics or the general abandonment of the party by more conservative white voters because the DPG has not told them to or trained them for operational success. Even if the training was available and accessible, the underlying fact is that there are substantial cultural hurdles to transforming a county party from a deliberative association to a “political machine".

County parties  ought to be  a dominant force across the political landscape  in larger counties across the state, but they are not.  It would be incredibly subjective   to   characterize the  vitatality  and  political vigor of the  county parties.  There is an  ebb abd  flow to   these things  and   county parties  are at different leveles of maturation and  atrophy.  Suffice it so say, our statewide and statehouse  candidates need them  to be  powerful institutions to drive political commerce  and high  vote totals.  That they are not  the GOTV machines  we need them to be should not be in dispute.

Organizationally Disconnected from the State Party

Even if we could retool, reorganize and reorient the County Party system for statewide purposes, there is a more fundamental challenge that inhibits the type of reform that is needed.

County Parties, while chartered by the State Party, do not operate as local units of the DPG (I.e. a Field Organization). They are largely autonomous organizations that the DPG has little authority over. There is nothing in the state bylaws that speaks to any authority of the state party has to compel the local parties to do anything at all. The State Party Charter alludes to such authority but only in passing and has not truly in any operational sense ever exercised its theoretical authority.

C7.2 Duties of County Committees shall be to elect State Committee members, promote development of Party organizations and activities, to seek and encourage qualified candidates for public office, to support Democratic nominees, to perform such primary and election functions as are required by law, to maintain appropriate records, to promote and add logistical support to the State Affirmative Action Program, to raise funds for the above purposes, and to perform such other duties as may be required by the State Committee. 

The state party has not asked the counties to change their perspective and priorities. It’s not going to happen. DPG has no authority and no resources to leverage or control what the County Parties do or don’t do.

If the County parties operated as local units and their leadership reported up the chain to the DPG Chair, it would be far easier and we might have better outcomes on state races, but that is not our reality. The prospects for retooling the Counties for what is necessary are presently bleak. There are too many counties, too many personalities, too many varied local histories to navigate and way too many operational challenges.

Rather than working doggedly when there is not a looming election to fix these challenges by developing the types of organization and tools needed at the local level, the state party has sat on its hands and in some ways shut county party leadership out of places of authority within the DPG organization when it ought to seem obvious that inclusion in the affairs of the State Party would be beneficial for both sides, let alone Georgia Democrats.

Let’s be clear: The challenges we face are the result of 50 years of benign neglect and not the neglect of current leadership at any level. The writing has been on the wall since 1964. Democrats in Georgia held power for two generations after the Voting Rights Act while doing precious little to build any sort of statewide political infrastructure. That neglect, exposed again and again in shrinking vote margins, which ultimately collapsed in 2002, has remained neglected until today.

Precisely when the DPG ceased to be an extension of the Governor’s office in January, 2003 there needed to be a concerted effort to build a new type of field organization to support statewide candidates. But that never happened and the County Parties never grew to be more than they had historically been.


The dominoes that began to fall from 2002 (because we chose not to act) have severely damaged our visibility and our ability to fundraise. In turn, it has hurt our ability to message and run statewide campaigns; in turn it has created a credibility gap and ultimately a GOP supermajority and being shut out of the Executive.

Bobby Kahn failed to act.  Jane Kidd failed to act.  Mike Berlon  failed to act. But neither did the  State Committee and  there are all sort of resons  for that.. Perhaps  DuBose Porter  will move the issue to  the front burner and  bring it to the boil.  But we should not be dependednt  wholly upon the State Chair to  champion this issue. It must  come  from the grassroots up.  The State Party  needs  a concerted effort  to try and fix these issues.  There is quite  literally  too much at stake  to wait  for  better demographics.