This study group will examine the strategy, tactics and techniques of modern electoral organizing. The goal of the series is to provide participants with a solid understanding of the strategy as well as the nuts and bolts of organizing on the ground in a modern campaign. Guest speakers will include several of the most experienced organizers from the Democratic Party and groups that organize outside the party structure. In addition to providing students with an insight into the path for getting to 50% +1, speakers will share stories of the past 20 years of presidential races and look ahead to what the 2008 campaign will bring for their organizations.
Study group participants will explore the ways in which organizations and institutions approach elections. Are they investing in strategies that grow their organization by increasing membership, strengthen and build leadership or do they approach their electoral work with more short term, transactional strategies?
As a lifelong organizer, Hicks passionately believes in the potential for campaigns to change people’s lives. Campaigns can do so by including many more people in meaningful ways, motivate and inspire them to act, build skills, and offer them the opportunity to develop as public leaders. Too many campaigns spend massive amounts of resources on short-sighted tactics that are not rooted in a cohesive strategy to build organization. Many of these one-way communication channels actually increase cynicism and decrease participation. We will explore the range of choices that strategists face and discuss the longer term consequences of those choices on building stable organizations capable of winning elections.
September 26: An Overview of Modern Electoral Organizing with Karen Hicks
Hicks will provide study group participants with an overview of the goals, strategy and tactics of the modern ground campaign. Beginning with a look at who makes up the current electorate, Hicks will review how strategists:
- calculate turnout projections & vote goals
- develop programs for building organization & mobilizing volunteers
- assess which voters to target & tools for microtargeting
- techniques for getting out the vote
The initial session is designed to provide participants with a solid framework for understanding the language, strategy and tactical choices faced by campaign strategists and the implications of their choices.
October 3: Winning the Nomination – a look at what it takes to build a winning organization in the early primary and caucus states with Michael Whouley
Whouley will give study group participants insight into his 25 years of organizing at the local, state, and national levels with an emphasis on what it takes to win in the early presidential primary and caucus states. Whouley was credited with helping Al Gore come from behind in New Hampshire in 2000 to win the primary against Bill Bradley and helping rescue John Kerry’s campaign in Iowa.
Fondly known by aspiring presidential candidates as the “Magical Michael Whouley,” Whouley served as the National Field Director for the Clinton/Gore '92 presidential campaign, and later as National Campaign Manager for Vice President Gore during the 1996 reelection. Immediately following the Clinton/Gore victory, he was appointed director of the Office of Priority Placement in the White House Office of Personnel. During the 2000 election, Whouley served first as an advisor to the Gore campaign, and later as Chief Political Strategist at the Democratic National Committee. In 2004, Whouley acted as a senior advisor to the John Kerry campaign. He later returned to the DNC as General Election Director, overseeing the largest election operation in party history.
According to The New Republic, Whouley is “revered as one of the party's fiercest and most talented ground-level organizers, Whouley is widely credited with saving Al Gore's foundering campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire in the 2000 primaries against Bill Bradley.”
October 10: Building a National Field Campaign with Teresa Vilmain
Teresa Vilmain will share her experiences as an organizer and strategist on presidential campaigns and discuss the nuts and bolts of building a national field campaign. Democratic uber-strategist Teresa Vilmain has worked on 5 presidential campaigns as well as dozens of state and local campaigns. Vilmain has trained generations of political organizers and mentors hundreds of young organizers as they make their way in the maze of democratic politics. In addition to her work on campaigns, Vilmain has also served as the Political Director at EMILY’s List, a group dedicated to electing pro-choice, democratic women to office, and Political Director for the Human Rights Campaign. In 2004, she served as the Democratic National Committee’s General Election Strategist. Currently, Teresa is advising Governor Tom Vilsack in his presidential campaign.
October 17: A 50 State Strategy to Build the Democratic Party with Governor Howard Dean
Dean will discuss his strategy to rebuild the party and focus in particular on the role of grassroots organizing to build leadership at the state and local level.
Governor Howard Dean blazed an electoral trail with his innovative campaign for president in 2003. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Dean raised more money in his primary bid and organized more volunteers than all of the other candidates combined. Dean complemented traditional organizing strategies with groundbreaking use of the internet that allowed people to find the campaign and get involved.
After losing the Democratic nomination, Howard Dean became Chair of the Democratic Party. He ran on a platform of rebuilding the party from the ground up in every state in the country. His bold and controversial plan has been welcomed by activists and state party chairs and drawn the ire of many DC based strategists.
October 24: Making a Difference in Elections from Outside the Party with Harold Ickes
Harold Ickes has worked for progressive change both inside and outside the Democratic Party for more than fifty years. In 2004, as President of America Coming Together (ACT), Ickes led the largest ever voter mobilization effort outside the Democratic Party. As President of Catalist (formerly known as Data Warehouse), Ickes is currently leading an effort to build a massive voter data base to help progressive organizations and labor unions better target and mobilize groups of voters. Harold will talk about the differences between organizing inside versus outside the party to mobilize voters and share the rich lessons from his decades of experience.
Ickes served as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Political Affairs and Policy to President Clinton, managing a number of the President's key policy initiatives. He was also an architect of the President's 1996 re-election campaign (the first successful re-election campaign of a Democratic president since FDR), the 1996 Democratic National Convention, and the 1997 Presidential Inaugural.
October 31: Mobilizing Workers in America with Andy Stern
A trailblazer in national and international labor movement Andy Stern will join the study group to discuss organizing workers in the US. Stern has been the most aggressive labor leader in organizing workers to unionize, mobilize, and increase their participation in the political process.
Andy Stern is intent on "forging new organizing models and public policies to reward work fairly," says Fortune. Dubbing him "a different kind of labor chief," The New York Times Magazine described Stern as a man who "intends to create a new, more dynamic" labor movement.
In the past decade under Stern’s leadership, nearly 1 million members have united their strength in Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the largest and fastestgrowing union in North America. He is the author of the forthcoming book, A Country That Works (Free Press), which offers a diagnosis of our ailing systems -- and a compelling prescription for the vital political and economic reform America needs to get back on track.
November 7 Election Day: Getting out the Vote in the Midterm Elections
This study group will focus on GOTV efforts underway in the 06 elections. We will discuss what an effective election day operation entails and examine the early returns and exit polls from races across the country.
November 14: Pulling It All Together with Karen Hicks
In the final study group meeting, participants will review the components of an effective field organization in a modern campaign. We will discuss what opportunities there are for institutionalizing better practices in campaigns and organizations. We will focus on organizing practices that include more people in meaningful ways, offer opportunities for leadership development, and build better, more responsive institutions through better participation and accountability.