Posted on 4 December 2005, by Anna
Victory for the grassroots!
How we won the Special ElectionNORTH BAY PROGRESSIVE
By Mervis Reissig
The results of the special election on November 8 were a powerful indicator that We the People are becoming energized to take this country back for the working class and for our children.
Californians should be very proud that they were not deceived by the power brokers who sought to take away our basic rights as citizens. The defeat of all six Right-wing initiatives sends a message that has been heard in Washington DC and that will reverberate in cities all across America and as far away as Iraq, as the voice of the grassroots becomes ever stronger.
From the perspective of 19 of our tireless volunteers, this effort started last January when the Progressive Democrats of America first came on the scene in Sonoma County with their message that permanent precinct organizing is key to revitalizing real democratic people’s politics in the United States.
But PDA realized early in the year, as others did, that this Special Election was about far more than unions or a woman’s right to choose; all are important critical issues but in the global sense, said Sherry Bohlen, National Field Director, “the underlying threat was turning California toward the right, and if that had been successful, the working class would have never won another national election in our lifetime.”
Said John Dalrymple, Area Manager for the campaign, the election “was part of a national campaign by the neoconservatives to fundamentally weaken labor’s ability to effectively engage in determining public policy.”
Our small but growing group made a commitment to beat back the threat. Through our friend Roberta Hollowell and others at the Democratic Central Committee, PDA learned about Alliance for a Better California, the coalition of unions being formed to fight the Special Election.
In July during the California Democratic Party’s quarterly meeting, Progressive Democrats met with Sandra Lowe, Political Consultant to the Alliance, to learn about their effort so we could use their strategy to reach every red county and every Republican with our democratic message.
The Alliance coalition initially brought together firefighters, teachers, police and healthcare workers but along the way the Coalition grew into a community of electricians, plumbers and other trades; the California Teachers Association, working for the first time with the American Federation of Teachers; the SEIU working next to their AFL-CIO brothers; marriage equality activists; the Woolsey campaign office; Progressive Democrats and Democracy for America (Dean’s group); Sonoma State and Santa Rosa JC students and teachers; and countless other community regulars who devoted part of their personal lives to this incredible effort. The GE Free campaign was included in meetings, and the Sonoma County Conservation Action lent its expertise to the mix as well.
The Alliance targeted specific areas of California where they knew potential infrequent voters lived, who were likely to vote against the initiatives if they went to the polls, voters who were registered as Democrats, Greens, Independents and Declined to State. Special Elections tend to hold very low voter interest. There was such a large proportion of Democratic and progressive voters in Sonoma County that they were worth the extra effort of trying to get them to the polls. The Alliance continued to plan and study statistics until Labor Day weekend when they kicked off the actual effort with union breakfasts all over the state. The next week the effort officially began.
It’s difficult enough to get people to precinct walk, even when everyone has the best intentions, but we were immediately hit with a diversion because many of our group wanted to attend the peace march in Wash DC on Sept 24th. Then PDA called to find out whether we would be on a panel in Washington DC to talk about precinct organizing. We couldn’t resist the opportunity to let people know what we were doing so we could spread this knowledge that the Alliance had started to give us.
Since this is an article of hope and victory, it’s important to note that the real number of people at the DC peace march was 300,000. The group ranged from old to young and everything in between, and I can’t think of a faith that was not represented, and the emotion of shaking our fingers at the White House with a growing roar of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” was incredibly cathartic.
The Progressive Democrats’ forum on Sunday was 400 activists strong, and was attended by a range of people from truthout’s William Rivers Pitt to Native American leader Dennis Banks to Representative Barbara Lee. The power of the grassroots was strongest on Monday when almost 1000 people from around the country visited the Senate and House of Representatives to say, “Get out of Iraq now,” and let them hear our growing progressive voice.
With that incredible impetus, we returned to California and really got to work. According to Helen O’Donnell of the California Teachers Association, 60 precincts in Sonoma County were walked and called. Phone banks were active at the Carpenters’ Union and every weekend, as well as many weekdays, groups of us walked and talked to voters all day long.
The three days leading up to the vote were our special get out the vote effort preceded by dinners and training paid for by the Alliance for all he volunteers who had worked so hard and were willing to commit even more time to GOTV.
When Saturday arrived staging areas were active all over Sonoma County with ours in Rohnert Park/Cotati being graciously hosted by the North Light Bookstore. From there we continued to identify those voters for the three targeted initiatives, 74, 75 and 76. The Alliance had assured us that these voters would also vote no on 73, 77, and 78 if we could just get them to the voting booth. During these days we were also given lists of absentee voters who hadn’t already voted so we could call and remind them to get their absentee ballots in at this late date.
On Election Days we did “poll” checks at three critical times throughout the day so we could continue to call our targeted voters all day long and get them to the polls before they closed.
Sure, there were a few who were annoyed at our calls. But most of our citizens realized that this vote was about more than money, and more than politics.
And they responded. According to Peter Tappeiner, organizer with SEIU United Healthcare Workers, “Sonoma County had one of the highest turnouts of the most populous counties in the state.”
People in the county who are depressed about the defeat of Measure M should take heart that the state said NO to corporate interests on other fronts, and we can learn from what went wrong to defeat the corporate interests that would destroy our food supply as well.
But we should all be depressed about the huge amounts of money that were spent on this election, starting with the decision by the Governor to fix our budget weary state by spending $80 million we don’t have on that election. Add the expenditures by lobbies on both sides of the issue, and you have a staggering amount of money thrown away. Clean money activists and election reform teams should take heed and work to create a political environment where this money never has to be spent on politics again, but will be spent on the education and healthcare it purported to fix.
But for the time being let’s all take a deep breath, rejoice, and look at the history of this victory, so we can defeat the Governor again in the November election.
Thank you, California. We are on our way to taking back our country.
Mervis Reissig is the Northern California Co-coordinator for PDA and she is also Co-chair and Treasurer for the local Sonoma county chapter.
~ North Bay Progressive, December 2005
Volume 4, Issue 10
