(Community Matters) In an “email conversation” with MoveOn.org’s communications director, Ilyse Hogue, we discussed the importance of motivating first time 2008 voters to the polls in this election. Excerpts from our “conversation.”
E: Ilyse, what’s it [turnout of first time 2008 voters] look like from your seat?
I: I agree very much with Chris VH–this thing is going to be fought out race by race.
At the top level, our members do NOT want to lose the majority. But what motivates them are either heroes–people who took tough votes in tough districts because it was the right thing to do (like Perriello), or grave threats like
Rand Paul, O’ Donnell and other tea party activists who so clearly do not share their values. Even though Bill Owens is no hero, the threat of Doug Hoffman winning the special in NY-23 motivated our members to give over $150,000 in 24 hours in the final week of that race.
The just can’t [get enthused by] Larry Kissell (who–by the way–has gotten more MoveOn support to win his seat over 2 cycles than any other House member only to turn around and vote no on Obama’s entire agenda), because he’s indistinguishable in their minds from his challenger, Harold Johnson. I suspect that would change if Kissell was the only thing standing between them and Speaker Beohner, but we’re a ways from that yet.
And they are deeply concerned about people like Grijalva who is getting hit by not only his challenger and the NRCC, but also 527s and now Gabrielle Giffords, who cut an ad to throw Raul under the bus on his stance on immigration. That kind of cynical political calculation may be something we’re used to in politics but it’s also what drives many normal Americans away from getting involved.
There is definitely a dynamic though that our members share with the Tea Party people, which is that they want elected officials who are responsive to them. So may people feel like they give to these guys and they vote for them and they never hear from them again. And that decisions that affect ordinary Americans lives are made behind closed doors with little accountability.
The critical dynamic that I see evolving is this: the party that recognizes this frustration and rightfully claims the mantle of fighting against the disproportionate influence of corporate special interests and the corrosive impact of lobbyists will hold the key to voters’ trust in the next two decades. This is obviously all ours for the taking, but we haven’t learned to talk about it well, yet.
E: do we think our disgruntled progressive/liberal voters equate in numbers to tea partiers? And, are they enthused? Is the lack of enthusiasm more independents and soft Ds than core base? If not, how better motivate the core base?
I: We have more people than the Tea Party, but the Tea Party is more vocal and is channelling rage, so voters who are frustrated see them as the bearers of the only righteous anger in a time where many Americans face tough economic situations.
Our strategy is to shift that anger to the corporate powers that the Rs embrace so willingly. Boehner’s the guy who handed out tobacco interest checks to other Rs on the House floor claiming he was saving his “lobbyist friends” a trip down to the Hill to pass them out himself. You want to hand the reigns back to that guy? The party thats getting $75 million from the Chamber of Commerce and has gotten another $200 million from the Koch Brothers? You think their going to pursue a middle class agenda when they take power? That fires up our base. The Chamber of Commerce lobbies to make it profitable to outsource jobs, for chrissakes.
Americans need a villain in elections–I honestly don’t think the Rs are enough on their own. People know their local R candidate and may like them and may not. They make them better than their local Dem and they may not. But suffering Americans do not like Wall Street execs who paid themselves lavish bonuses out of the bailout money or the health insurance industries that bankrupt people for daring to get ill–those are the folks behind the Chamber’s partisan agenda and the Koch Brothers think the BP disaster and the San Bruno gas explosion are just the costs of doing business.
I asked one more question, but that for another time
Community Matters 