Dana Fisher has an eye-opening article comparing the grassroots strategies of the left and the right:
According to Karen Hicks, who worked as the National Field Director for the Democratic Party in 2004 after running Howard Dean's presidential campaign for the state of New Hampshire: “The trend within the Democratic Party has really been to outsource contact with voters to paid vendors and direct mail firms…[as well as] hiring people just to contact voters because it's a shortcut. It's a more reliable way to do it.”
Although she recognized the efficiency of outsourcing grassroots politics, Hicks also noted that canvassing does not foster long-term dedication and commitment or develop much local infrastructure: “At the end of the campaign, you're left with nothing, basically, because all those canvassers walk out the door. It's not a job that most people do time and time again.” So the organizations get members and money out of canvassers, and most of the canvassers go back to their schools or jobs, or move on to an entirely different campaign when it's over. As a result, this type of outsourced politics leaves the grassroots base on the left disconnected and disorganized.
Indeed, progressive causes and progressive candidates have been losing out to conservative issues and candidates who use a very different model of organization. In contrast to the outsourced politics of the left, political groups on the right work through pre-existing civic associations formed by churches and other locally grounded networks to create lasting connections with its political base. Adopting more and more of the social conservative platform originally developed by the Christian Coalition, Republicans are able to tap into the extensive network of local groups that the Coalition developed since its creation in the late 1980s.
At the end of the day, though, it's infinitely more effective to have a neighbor step out and make a connection than a paid organizer ring a doorbell to make contact. For all their command-and-control tendencies, the right has been genuinely empowering and relying on the grassroots. The left has been paying and counting on professional political operatives. Is it any wonder the right continues winning elections?
