Democrats Grass Roots Shift The Power

washingtonpost.com: Democrats' Grass Roots Shift the Power

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washingtonpost.com
Democrats' Grass Roots Shift the Power
Activists Energized Fundraising, but Some Worry They Could Push Party to
Left

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 20, 2005; Page A04

The bloggers have been busy on the Democratic National Committee Web site
since Howard Dean was elected party chairman a week ago.

"Paul in OC" and "Steviemo in MN" wrote that they had made their first-ever
contributions to the national committee. Someone identified as "J" pleaded
with
Dean to come to Florida, "home of Baby Bush," to "heal the irritating red
and help us become a cool blue state again." "Donna in Evanston" wrote,
"It's
sad, but it is up to the grassroots to set the example for our
representatives in Washington. Howard gets it. Maybe some day the beltway
bunch will get
it too."

Those sentiments square neatly with Dean's call for "bottom-up reform" of
the Democratic Party and the further empowerment of grass-roots activists
who
flexed their political muscle in his unsuccessful presidential campaign.
They later became the backbone of organizing and fundraising efforts by John
F.
Kerry's campaign and the DNC's election-year efforts.

But the rising of this grass-roots force also signals a shift in the balance
of power within the party, one that raises questions about its ultimate
impact
on a Democratic Party searching for direction and identity after losses in
2002 and 2004.

At a minimum, say party strategists, the shift will mean a more
confrontational Democratic Party in battles with President Bush and the
Republicans. But
some strategists worry that the influence of grass-roots activists could
push the party even further to the left, particularly on national security,
reinforcing
a weakness that Bush exploited in his reelection campaign.

It was Dean during the presidential primaries who argued that it was time
for the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" to reassert itself, an
implicit
criticism of strategies that guided President Bill Clinton in his battles
with Republicans in the 1990s. Clinton recently warned Democrats not to
assume
that the policies he pursued are incompatible with a vibrant, progressive
wing of the party.

As Dean takes the helm as party chairman, Democrats now face a competition
between what might be called the Dean model and the Clinton model, between
confrontation
and triangulation. This amounts to a contest between a bold reassertion of
the party's traditional philosophy that fits the polarized environment of
the
Bush presidency vs. a less provocative effort to balance core values with
centrist ideas that proved successful in the 1990s but has since produced a
backlash
within the party.

Dean recognizes the difficult job ahead as he tries to welcome a cadre of
political outsiders, many of them turned off by the party's recent
leadership,
into the institutional party he now heads. His first steps have sought to
bridge the ideological divisions with a call for a party that is fiscally
responsible
and socially progressive.

Tom Ochs, a top Dean adviser, said the challenge is less about ideology than
the political culture of the audiences to whom Dean is speaking. "It's
clearly
an insider-outsider thing that I think crosses ideological terrain, where
there are people who haven't been involved who want to be involved and see
in
Governor Dean someone who wasn't part of an existing enterprise," he said.
"I'm very optimistic about our ability to do what a lot of people think will
be hard to do, which is to get a lot of people involved, regardless of their
ideology, to get Democrats elected."

But other Democrats, a number of whom declined to be quoted by name because
they wanted to be more candid about the problems they see, said there are
ideological
overtones to the growing significance of the grass roots. They said the
belief by some of those activists that Democrats can solve their problems by
playing
more directly to their core constituents ignores several realities,
particularly the question of whether voters see Democrats as strong enough
to win the
war on terrorism. One strategist called that the "one scab" where
differences may be difficult to resolve.

Another Democrat, firmly in the party's centrist camp, said, "It's striking
to me how reluctant the party is to come to terms with the fact that we have
a painfully obvious national security threshold that we're going to have to
cross if we're going to rule this country again."

It is no surprise that Democratic leaders are paying much closer attention
to grass-roots activists. In 2003 and 2004, those activists became
prodigious
contributors to the Democratic Party, to Kerry and to Dean, who first tapped
into their potential through the Internet during his campaign for the
Democratic
nomination.

Figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show that in 2003 and
2004, the DNC raised $171 million in contributions of less than $250. That
represented 42 percent of the $404.5 million raised from all sources by the
committee. Four years ago, before large soft-money contributions were banned
by the new campaign finance reform law, the DNC raised a total of $260
million from all sources. Kerry's campaign raised an additional $84 million
in contributions
under $250.

In the 1980s, Democrats courted corporate interests for political
contributions, and that marriage helped influence party policy on economic
and tax issues.
But it also produced complaints by liberal Democrats that the party was
selling out its principles for campaign cash. Gauging the ideological
complexion
of the small donors who opened their wallets in 2004 is much harder, but
their participation in the process has diminished the power of business
interests
within the party and likely will produce some shift in the party's ideology
as well.

"If the choice is between the grass roots and the big soft contributors of
the prior period, I prefer the grass roots," said Stan Greenberg, a
Democratic
pollster who did considerable polling for MoveOn.org before shifting to the
Kerry campaign last year. "What McCain-Feingold [campaign finance
legislation]
did was produce a shift away from soft money to grass-roots support. The
great fear was it wouldn't happen, that Democrats would be left without
resources.
But starting with Dean and extending to outside groups like MoveOn, but also
John Kerry and the DNC, there was a surge of giving and engagement that I
can't believe isn't healthy."

Eli Pariser, who runs the MoveOn political action committee, said the rising
power of the grass roots will make establishment Democrats uncomfortable and
has helped reinvigorate the progressive wing of the party. But he said more
than that, it has brought about a rethinking of how Democrats should
organize
themselves against Republicans.

"I think it's pretty clear that the era of triangulation is over," he said.
"The reason for that is that if you step halfway between Republicans and
Democrats,
you get your head cut off by Republicans. There's no compromise and no
mercy, so I think it's pretty clear that Democrats need to be an opposition
that
can explain why we believe the current administration is corrupt and
misleading the country. It's not something you can do easily by putting
yourself somewhere
between the poles."

Many Democrats see the choice between nurturing the base and reaching out to
expand the party's coalition as a false choice. "I find the 'base versus
swing
' conversation not only to be a false choice but to be a deadly choice,"
said Mark Mellman, a pollster and adviser to Kerry's campaign. "If somebody
is
forcing that choice on us, they are forcing us to lose elections."

Clinton recently told Democrats not to succumb to the idea that they must
choose between a vibrant progressive wing and the strategies he followed as
president.
Mark Penn, Clinton's pollster in 1996 and an adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton (D-N.Y.), said he sees a greater desire on the part of Democrats to
reach a consensus around that model. But he said Democrats have to view the
grass roots more expansively.

"I think [Clinton's] remarks represented the view that there is a synthesis
here for Democrats that is not left or right, but the right kind of
grass-roots
movement will take that into account," he said. "I think the Republicans
organized a wide diversity of people [in 2004]. It wasn't just religious
people
but a wide diversity of people they coaxed to the polls."

Simon Rosenberg, founder of the centrist New Democrat Network and a
challenger to Dean in the race for DNC chairmanship, said he did not know
the ideological
implications of an energized grass roots but urged centrists not to fear
such a development. "Who can be scared at having millions of people giving
money
and fighting?" he said. "But it's not enough for us to win."

The spike in activity on the DNC Web site in the past week shows that Dean's
election has excited grass-roots activists, but keeping them happy may not
be as easy as he thinks.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Miriam V Feb. 20