An imperfect understanding of where wins come from
We’ve talked about the Campaign Industrial Complex; about idealistic volunteers who slowly morph into political frat brothers; about how money drives insiders like passion drives amateurs, about dues “owed” by congressmembers; about the Rolodex test; about how much “old-boyism” there is in party politics; and about how progressives are better at Monday-morning quarterbacking than at positioning themselves to take advantage of opportunities.
A quote from Moneyball (2011) about baseball thinking being medieval came to mind over the weekend. Because it also applies to Democratic politics. I don’t know why it took so long for the connection to resurface. For those who don’t know the film, Den of Geek provided the premise:
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) has a problem. He’s got to replace three star players on the baseball team he runs. Compounding the problem of finding new stars is the fact that teams like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on players, while Oakland has one of the lowest payrolls in its sport. When the playing field is inherently unlevel, the only way to find success is to change the game.
“The problem we’re trying to solve is that there are rich teams, and there are poor teams. Then there’s 50 feet of crap. And then there’s us,” Beane says. “We got to think differently.” The old-boys club advising Beane want none of it.
“Us” is much of the Democratic Party’s infrastructure, or lack of it, in rural places and in red states Democrats have long abandoned as bad bets. There’s no money to invest there even if they wanted to, although groups like Movement Labs are trying. Democratic electeds are under 50 feet of crap in state legislatures, and where Democrats are willing to compete, they have to pad their win margins to compensate for Republican gerrymandering and packed courts.
“Adapt or die,” says Beane.
While the smart guys focus on strategy, on message, on policy, on tech tools, on attractive candidates and “competitive” races — conventional wisdom — I teach county election mechanics and logistics. For The Win is for teaching those undervalued, under-resourced, overlooked party teams in small, red-county markets how to perform for their candidates like the big leagues. On little-league money.
Every presidential election people otherwise uninvolved phone in to volunteer to give voters rides to the polls. I try to steer them into something else. Giving voters rides is a shrinking part of get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations. Their thinking (and much Democratic Party training) dates from a time when elections were a one-day, 14-hour marathon where block captains have a single day to get their people voted. In 44 states with weeks of early, in-person and mail-in voting that hasn’t been the model for decades. Two-thirds or more of the vote is cast before Election Day where I live.
Yet party GOTV training is still built around precincts when the county party should be coordinating get-out-the-vote activities among multiple early voting sites and multiple candidates weeks in advance of that Tuesday in November. Precinct captains are not set up for that. State parties don’t train for it. We’ve got to think differently.
Right now I’m trying to interest multiple state parties in an overlooked voter registration tactic that could give Democrats the edge they need in 2022 in district and local elections in over two dozen states, and cost less. But it’s different. It’s untested. It’s not the way the old-boys have always done things. The republic itself is on the line this year, state executive directors. Do you like winning? > tpostsully at gmail dot com
Innovation is not only suspect because it means stepping outside people’s comfort zone.
At the end of Moneyball, the new Boston Red Sox owner observes that Beane’s team with its puny, $41 million budget won just as many ball games as the New York Yankees did with $120 million. “Any GM that doesn’t tear down their team and rebuild it using your model is gonna be a dinosaur.”
But that $80 million savings is a lot of people’s paychecks, their cars, and their condos. They don’t want to change. Even in state capitols where campaign money is a fraction of that.
John Henry (to Billy): This is threatening not just a way of doing business. In their minds, it’s threatening the game. Really, what it’s threatening is their livelihood, their jobs. It’s threatening the way they do things. And every time that happens, whether it’s the government, a way of doing business, whatever, the people who are holding the reins — they have their hands on the switch — they go batshit crazy.
Right now, batshit crazy might be an improvement over same old same old.
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For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.