Friday, May 9, 2008
MoveOn.org regroups in a nationwide brainstorming session, and finds not everyone is quite ready to just move on from November's election.
Nov 22, 2004 | At political singer and satirist Laramie Crocker's place in Berkeley on Sunday night, the forest green Subaru Outback parked out front still bore a "Dean for America" bumper sticker and another said, "It's up to the women ... vote! Kerry/Edwards." A scrawled, taped-up sign on the door of Crocker's wooden front gate read: "Party On at Laramie's." The "party" was one of more than 1,600 house parties across the country designed to shape the future of what's arguably the country's largest progressive organization, MoveOn.org. Sunday's get-togethers linked thousands of MoveOn's more than 2 million activists by speakerphone and computer and had a simple goal: to identify issues the group should focus on and strategies it should deploy to "move on" from the defeat in November's election.
But not everyone at Crocker's house was convinced that Bush really won -- and they're not ready to move on. Fliers circulating through the party urged Crocker's 50 guests to call Sen. John Kerry's Senate office and demand that he "un-concede immediately" and "Demand a recount, and in suspicious counties a re-vote with a paper ballot." Another handout decried a "news media blackout" on the Nader-requested recount in New Hampshire and another recount effort in Ohio: "It's up to us to spread the word -- if nothing is done about this -- why have another election at all?" the flier exhorted. Whether because of outright fraud, voter intimidation or electronic voting machine irregularities, many of Crocker's guests believe the president may have stolen the office -- again. The mood among attendees as they munched a polyglot potluck of Red Vines licorice, hummus, carrot sticks, blue chips and pasta salad was both mournful and urgent.
"Things are so bleak now. I feel like it's prewar Nazi Germany here," says Arianna Siegel, who campaigned for Dennis Kucinich and teaches English as a foreign language. "There's a fascist government in control. There are a lot of angry people out there," she said, while waiting for the nationwide conference call to begin. An African-American woman from Emeryville, Calif., who refused to give her name for fear of government reprisals, said that since the election: "I don't even read the news anymore. I can't handle it. I don't want to listen to news about him every day." No one had to ask to whom she was referring.
Alan Davis, a salesman who says he made between 800 and 1,000 get-out-the-vote phone calls to swing states before the November election, thinks he knows what went wrong for the Democrats: The party's base has been eroding for the last 20 years. "If you think of the party as a brand, we're not able to communicate the brand effectively," he said. He thinks that's in part because of the conservative TV and radio where most Americans get their news. "We can't frame the discussion." Davis partly blames the consolidation of the media, which his wife, Norie Clark, says has her even more worried about federal appointments to the Federal Communications Commission than even the Supreme Court.
As everyone packed into the small Berkeley living room, sitting on the hardwood floor and standing, crowding around the conference call, Eli Pariser from MoveOn came on the line from a New York house party. He started by acknowledging the big loss in November: "It really was a blow, and we don't pretend the next four years will be easy." But he reminded those assembled: "More people voted against George Bush than voted for almost any president in American history," adding, "We should be winning 75 percent of the vote."
Then MoveOn field director Adam Ruben got on the call to list the group's accomplishments, such as raising $50 million and sending out 50,000 volunteers on Election Day alone. A heartwarming story about a committed dad who knocked on doors while pushing a 3-year-old, a 1-year-old and a day's supply of pretzels and cookies drew appreciative laughs. But even while these impressive collective efforts were being commended, everyone knew all too well that they weren't enough.
But it's no use wallowing. After Pariser and Ruben spoke, the Berkeley group broke up into smaller groups to discuss issues and strategies for the future. The host, Laramie Crocker, strapped on a guitar and donned a cowboy hat decorated with a crown, and a sign taped on it that says "W 'O4 Emperor," to perform a short ditty with lyrics like "Mr. Ashcroft says dissent is just treason" to get everyone in the mood.
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