MISHA S5:B2 - Demystifying State Democratic Parties

3:40PM Jul 18, 2023

Speakers:

Lynda Woolard

Stephen Handwerk

Keywords:

party

state

order

candidates

louisiana

voters

election

democratic party

people

democrats

lefty

talk

frequently

dnc

elected

work

resources

chair

conversations

running

Welcome to Louisiana Lefty, a podcast about politics and community in Louisiana, where we make the case that the health of the state requires a strong progressive movement fueled by the critical work of organizing on the ground. Our goal is to democratize information, demystify party politics, and empower you to join the mission, because victory for Louisiana requires you. I'm your host, Lynda Woolard. We're on summer break, but we're turning out this summer series of bonus podcasts with Professor Steven Handwerk about state parties. This week, we're focusing on what a successful state party could and should be doing. David Handwerk Welcome back to Louisiana Lefty.

I am so happy to be here, Lynda. This is some of the most fun I have all month. So thank you for inviting me to that.

Well, we're doing this summer series on the Louisiana Democratic Party and what it should be, what it could be, and how people can engage with it. So that's really what we're focusing on here. I believe I failed in the last episode to mention, specifically, your credentials or your CV sort of credentials. You are a member of the DSCC currently. You were a member of the DSCC, the Democratic State Central Committee, before you worked for the Louisiana Democratic Party. So it's sort of like a sandwich in between those ends. You are the executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party. You also were very heavily involved in LGBTQ advocacy prior to that. Stonewall Dems And currently you are a political consultant and strategist that works with the Association of State Democratic Committees. And you work on behalf of the state parties.

Yes, so I work with all of our 57 state parties that are organized through our charter. So that's the 51 states, which we can include the DC. And then there's also our territories, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and so forth. So yeah, it's my great pleasure to help stand up those organizations and work with the coalition of the willing.

People can go back and look at all the demystifying episodes we've done with you. Because everything you've talked about on the Louisiana Lefty over the five seasons now, it's been about the Democratic Party and the functions of the Democratic Party. So people can go back and look at those over the course of the years if they just look through our archives. But most recently, we did speak about what the DSCC members do for folks who might be interested in running for that. Today, I wanted to talk about what state parties themselves do. I should say, for the Louisiana Democratic Party, Democratic State Central Committee, the governing body of the Louisiana Democratic Party. What are the charges, as written in the bylaws?

Yeah, the organization is responsible for being the local franchise, if you will, the state franchise of the Democratic Party. That means that it works as a subordinate committee, to the DNC, to the Democratic National Committee. And so, therefore, they have certain roles to support that function, mostly putting together a national presidential convention, where we're going to nominate not only a president, but also a vice president, you and I both been involved in that process, and had a lot of fun and also a lot of sleepless nights.

So that's getting the delegates together and getting that committee that goes to wherever the convention is, it's going to be be in Chicago next year, wherever that convention is, the party has to handle their state's delegation that goes there.

That's exactly right. And they also have to comply with all of the DNC bylaws in place to make sure that there are free and fair and honest elections to elect those delegates to go. Louisiana's delegation, by the time you throw everybody into it, it's probably going to be 85 people or so. By the time you add in everybody, including the staff and all the official recognized individuals of the delegation. And so in order to pick those individuals, you have to follow and you have to set up very stringent rules in order to be able to make sure that you're doing that well, and that you're doing it fairly. So that's the process that they're undertaking right now. And so you'll see that. But then when you look at the global picture of what they're also supposed to do as a party, you know, they're also supposed to facilitate, and elect Democrats. They're supposed to be out there and leading the way on electing Democrats. They're also supposed to hold their own Democrats accountable. They're also supposed to prosecute elections and utilize all the tools there.

When you say prosecute elections, what do you mean by that?

That means, you know, all of the day-to-day operations of running an election. That's from, you know, facilitating polling data, coordinating and developing talking points and strategies and methodology of what we're supposed to do. And then the mechanics of it, making sure that we're knocking doors that were ringing phones that were texting individuals that we're informing the citizens of what's at stake, and what needs to be done. And also too some of the more basic things like when the election is. Those are all the responsibilities of that state party. And, as I mentioned, or started to mention on the last episode, one thing that I think is uniquely situated for folks to understand about state parties is they serve a role that no other organization out there can, and that is, they are allowed to fully coordinate between their federal, state and local candidates all at the exact same time. We frequently, in the parlance of the work we do, we frequently call that a coordinated campaign, they're able to coordinate amongst those individuals, in order to be able to, you know, if you want to use the analogy, provide a rising tide to lift all of the boats, to lift all Democrats up. That is the responsibility of that state party is to be able to put that very, sometimes difficult, sometimes unwieldy, we are the Democratic Party, after all... But putting that coalition together in order to be able to actually run that election, and do all of those things and represent all of those candidates that are on the ballot. And so that is a really important piece of this, that only a state party can do. You can't do that through a PAC, you can't do that through a Super PAC, you can't do that through a candidate. You can't do that through the DNC.

So to preview, our next episode is actually going to be on what a coordinated campaign is, which is a little more specific than what you're talking about, because there doesn't have to be a coordinated campaign to do the things you're talking about. I do want to ask you, because this has come up a lot in the last year, most states have partisan primaries, so they have just a candidate... The Democrats will have a candidate that they will inherently back when you get to the election, because of our jungle primaries, and there are very few states that have these. We'd never get a candidate, specifically to the party. Is it against DNC bylaws? Or is it just frowned upon? Or is there nothing governing this at all to work against a sitting Democrat?.. For the party to work against a sitting Democrat or against the Democratic candidate, period?

So that's a very fraught question. Yes, because Louisiana is so different between our jungle primary system or our nonpartisan races, as some places may call them, for their down ballot races. That certainly does set us up and make us different than the rest. And so that makes it difficult. When I was running the party, we had a do-no-harm situation, which constantly gave me heartburn. Because I didn't want to, unless there was a gross situation where laws were broken or something like that, I never spoke ill of any Democrat, I felt that it was my role to actually lift up all Democrats. And so you would never see me picking and choosing one Democrat over another unless there was a situation where there was an endorsement and I had the membership telling me, "That is the candidate. That is the horse we are going to back." And so it is odd to see situations where the party would actually back one Democrat over another. It is especially odd when that sometimes flies in the face of an endorsement situation. Or when it flies in the face of incumbency. Most of the time in a D-versus-D race we just took a hands-off approach and said, and the only thing we did was we would push turnout for that race, we would say, "No matter which great Democrat you're supporting, please get out and vote." And those frequently were there. Now, the one thing that the party can and should do, and we did this frequently, because I know you helped us with this, was the party in races like that can facilitate debates. They can help put together debates in order to help inform the citizens. And that was a huge and useful tool in order to do that, in order to also go in with the credibility of being able to say, "We're not picking, you know, brother against sister. We're not doing. We're not going to pick in that situation. But we are going to provide you a form, a mechanism with which you can talk to your voters." And so that's the type of thing you would see. But it is very strange or odd to actually see a state party getting in the middle of that, again, outside of a situation of malfeasance or, you know, problematic issues. So, yes, that is odd

Okay. It's frowned upon, may raise eyebrows, but there's nothing actually stopping them from doing that.

Currently, I do not know of any rules that get into that sort of a situation. Again, it's because it's so odd that you wouldn't see the DNC weighing in on a lot of that kind of stuff. The DNC, remember, the DNC elects presidents, and they set the groundwork. Yeah.

But the state party could... The DSCC could essentially pass a resolution that says they couldn't do that, right?

Sure. And the party frequently will pass resolutions, though, sadly, those resolutions are not always followed. Yea.

Well, and, you know, what's also problematic here, and to just counter myself, to play devil's advocate, is while what we saw last year happen, was... It was the progressive candidate that the state party was actually working against. What we often see from Democratic rank and file is they'd like to see those candidates, or those folks who are working against us often in the legislature, who don't vote with us on some of our key issues that we would like for them to champion for us. The problem is... If you were to pass a resolution like that, that means you also couldn't support a Democrat running against someone who voted against women's rights, or someone who voted against LGBTQ plus rights, right? So that's a little dodgy. But, I guess, what you'd really just hope is that the party would be smarter and not engage in those races at all. I said that, you know...

Yea, I think it is wise. And certainly a rule of thumb that I always followed while I was running the party, was to not do that. I would make everything equally available to everyone. And I certainly would not put my finger on the scale, just because I didn't think that that was right, and that certainly wasn't my role. Again, though, let's think about what triggers this. You know, we'll always have to look at what the background is, and this is the more long term thing, because of the hyper gerrymandered districts that we have, which now we see some, maybe some light, at least on a congressional level, that we may be able to see some difference there. And we may be able to pick up another congressional district and bust up some of these district packings that we've seen... That's going to continue. You're going to continue to have great Democrats, but because they're all lumped in together into a few districts, they're constantly going to be duking it out, and the party is going to have... If we think last year was difficult, the future is going to become even more difficult.

And just real briefly, Stephen, what are some of the things, because this comes up so much with candidates, what are some of the things the state party can offer to candidates? When you say, "don't put your thumb on the scale, help them all out," what candidates tend to come to the party and want its money? And that's very rarely something that... There's so many Democrats running across the state it's... The party has limited resources to start with, it's not going to just be able to hand out money to Democrats. So what are the other resources that a candidate could expect to get?

I would frequently call this the toolbox. It was my responsibility as the state party executive director to make sure that we had a full toolbox for our Democrats that, when they declare that they're running, that they have tools to utilize. And that if they reach in and they need a saw that that saw a sharp. If they reach into that toolbox and need a hammer that that hammer is heavy. Now, and that that sounds like a great analogy, right? But what does that mean? Well, it means that they've negotiated a bulk purchasing agreement with vendors in order to be able to get the lowest possible price that's legal for our candidates. That they have an easy on-ramp to those goods and services, because it's expensive to prosecute elections. And making sure that a lot of those negotiations happen way before an election even takes place so that they're there and ready to go. Those are mission-critical right now. That's where I spend a lot of my time

Vendors? What do you mean? Like for texting, for?..

For texting. For website development and creation. For messaging development and creation. For mail design to be able to send out mail. For digital design and digital bulk ad purchasing. Those are certainly things right now that we're looking at that are our hot commodities. In order to be able to do it you're going to have to navigate as your own self, as a school board candidate, or as a first time state rep candidate, how to actually go into bulk digital ad purchasing by yourself... You're going to pull all of your hair out, and you're going to spend all of your campaigning on trying to do that versus actually talking to voters. So those are the things that a state party should be doing before the election, way before the election, in order to be able to have that. And they should always be refreshing that and talking to new things that are coming along and providing a space for that. Now, other things that the state party could and should be doing is... They should also be helping to share resources for GOTV(get out the vote) efforts, right? They should be able to help with that, so that slate cards can be carried. And that is basically the ballot that we frequently see getting passed out. Again, that's assuming no shenanigans were in place to make that ballot and making sure that the right candidates are on there and that the Democrats are there front and center. But then secondly, you know, or lastly and really importantly, one of the great resources that party can do is help pay for mail, and being able to use their bulk mail permit in order to be able to talk to voters. And one of the things that happened is that we have an agreement with the U.S. Postal Service that allows, you know, state parties access to the lowest possible postage rate in order to be able to send out communications with its members. And so the great news about that is that's a great resource. Again, you're assuming that it's not going to be used maliciously and only for handpick candidates. That it's actually available to Democrats, with obvious rules in place, in order to do that, and comply with that in order to make sure that it works. So those are just some of the things that candidates could and should be able to expect from a state party that's up and running. And I know right now, you know, looking to next year, you know, most states don't have elections or big elections this year, right? So they're looking at... They're already setting up their mail programs. They're already setting up their digital programs for 2024 right now. And I don't know if that's going to surprise a lot of people, but certainly in Louisiana that's what's happening. That is what other states are doing.

And that bulk mail permit, correct me if I'm wrong, is super attractive to folks who actually produce mail, who design and send mail, which is a reason why they may be very interested in having some kind of control with the party or an in with the party. That is itself something to look at, like, who's actually getting contracts with the party on bulk mail. Is that... Am I correct? Or no?

Yeah, well, and again, it all depends on how the party is going to run their program. We frequently would require that those individual mail firms would have a contract with the state party, so that we knew their rules, they know our roles. That was really important in order to make that process go easily. Because again, you know, right now, if you're talking about 2024 election, it's not that big of a deal. You can talk all in concept. No mail is going out yet for that. But when you actually get in the heat of it, you gotta have some rules. So certainly that. The other thing is though too, other individual candidates can come in at any given time and say, "We want to be able to produce a mail, we don't have a mail vendor." So the state party can actually provide one. Or they already have mail design, they'd like to know if it would actually fit inside the glove, as it were, for them to send out through the state party. And so both sides can work. I prefer to do everything early and have everything set early so that the rules are there. Everybody complies.

Right. My point, though, was that there's an opportunity for some corruption there.

100% Oh yeah. In all of those things. There are certainly...

If there's not some transparency and daylight happening, I guess is where...

Yes, anytime you have to pick winners and losers, there is certainly that situation for corruption.

So going back to the DSCC, that really should be part of their charge to make sure that that corruption is not happening, that there is the transparency, there is the daylight, there is accountability from the party. So that there's a level playing field. The VoteBuilder database also, I feel like, is one of those key things that the party has. Candidates can get ticked off that they have to pay for it, but it's an incredibly expensive thing to keep and maintain. If you're keeping it and maintaining it properly, which, I hear, may or may not be happening right now... But that is something that costs the party to run, to manage, and to update with the frequency that it should be updated. But that is a resource that it offers to candidates that's incredibly valuable.

Incredibly valuable. Because not only are you talking about the data, and, obviously, the access to that data, the data being refreshed as frequently as it needs to be, cell phone numbers being added, geo-targeting information being added to it... All of that richness that gets put in to the file, and also to the backend, which we call Phoenix, that backend of the system where we actually add even more consumer data and even more information... That is vital to campaign. But it's also the tools that come with it. So, you know, your data is there, but in order to have a tool to be able to do a virtual phone bank, in order to have a tool in order to do mass email, in order to have a tool to communicate and organize all of your volunteers. All of those things are actually included inside that package. So that it's basically a campaign in a box, certainly when it comes down to voter contact and volunteer management.

Right. And that's what makes it powerful. Is there anything else in the bylaws that says what the party should be doing that you can think of that you need to mention before we kind of go on?

Just real quick things. Provide headquarters for folks to be able to work out of. Make sure that they're helping registered voters, and in interfacing with all governmental entities in order to make sure that the Democratic Party's views are being well represented.

Can I link to that in the episode?

Yes, you absolutely can. Louisianademocrats.org has not only their bylaws, but also the Charter. The Charter is what, kind of, organizes and then the bylaws are the operations. And there's been a lot of changes to the bylaws as of recently, which is providing some consternation to a lot of individuals.

Well, I wanted to mention... When I looked at the state party after the John Bel Edwards re-election and was trying to figure out what the next iteration of the party would be, and was trying to engage him on participating in that process, I spoke to former executive directors of the party, former chairs, folks who worked in parties in other states. One of the big things they mentioned was the fundraising, and how that is really the key thing a chair should be focusing their time on. When I asked folks, like, how much time should candidates be spending on fundraising, they're like, "Well, they should be doing some call time every day, like at least a couple hours, depending on what kind of race they're running." I would imagine a successful chair would follow that same kind of pattern and be on the phones working the phones, working donors, in state out of state, every day. What I was told, and this seems to go back a pretty long way, is it's $1,000 a day just to keep the lights on at the party. Now, there are some funding mechanisms that are sort of automatic that you've talked to me about privately that will provide some of that. Some of that coming from, whatever, some of the contracts with the DNC or other fundraising spaces. There's a little bit of money that automatically comes in, but it's certainly not enough to run a robust set of programs that will grow the party and help elect Democrats. It's just enough to maybe keep the lights on and have a staff person.

That is probably, first and foremost, one of the things that it says in the bylaws that actually says that the responsibility of the chair, and the team is to provide the resources needed in order to do all of the things that we just talked about successfully. And so yes, that is exactly right. And that's why, you know, I point out, and folks frequently will chastise me about this from time to time, about the amount of time that I spent on national politics and making sure that we have those resources... Because we went from getting nothing from the DNC on a monthly basis to the contract that we have right now, which makes sure that every individual state party is at least getting $12,500 every single month in order to help them with their operations. Now, that wasn't there before. I didn't have that sort of nest egg, and there are plus, plus, pluses that can add it to that. And so that is something that I did spend time on nationally because I realized that there were state parties out there. Florida doesn't need that money. California certainly doesn't need that money. And New York doesn't need that money. Much to the chagrin of my good friends that run those states, they probably don't even see that as a blip on the map, right? Whereas states like us, that is a critical funding mechanism that helps. And so diversifying the revenue streams, making sure that you have a diverse and robust way of being able to bring in those resources is vital to the health of a state party.

Another thing my research brought up, Stephen, that I heard again, and again and again, is that in order for those fundraising efforts to actually be successful for the party, participation from the top ranking Democrat or top ranking Democrats in the state was really important. So having those relationships already, or the ability to develop those relationships was really critical. I just continued to hear that without a good relationship with your highest ranking Democrat in the state, you would never raise enough money, which again, was my reasoning. When I talked to the governor, my thought was, I'm going to support whoever he wants to be chair, because that relationship is critical. So if he were to want me to be chair I would run. He ended up supporting Ted James so I supported Ted James. But not knowing who your top ranking Democrat in the state supports is sort of setting you up from the jump to fail thefundraising game. So I think that was something that was key to me, that I kept telling people as folks were talking to me in 2020, about the state party chair race, I was like, "I gotta support who John Bel supports." Now, there is conversation about, well, when John Bel is gone will there be another Democratic governor who will be that top ranking Democrat? Will we get a Democratic senator?.. That's the other key person in other states that I talked to, some of their senators were their top ranking Democrats that they would be referring to. I mean, we see the potential of Davante Lewis being our top ranking Democrat. In a year or so.

I think that you hit some critical points right there. I mean, in order to take your state party from functioning, to producing and delivering, you have to have that relationship with those elected officials, because of the commanding presence that they are. Having that sort of a relationship, having a way of figuring out how to work together is just vital. So if you take us, for example, back in 2012 and 2013, the reason why we were successful and able to blow all fundraising out of the water was simply because we had a United States senator who was very close to both myself and the chair at the time. We worked incredibly closely with her, we had a great relationship with her. And so she did that work for us, she helped us raise those funds. And so we were able to raise, you know, $2 million in an off year, which was just unheard of with a state party before. And that was... That provided us the opportunities to move. When you look at other state parties and the relationships that they have, first off, it's always complicated. It's never as perfect as one would hope about. But in almost every case, though, when you see a high-functioning state party, you see this sort of symbiotic relationship of being able to work together on key matters. Of being able to have that state party chair and their top executives at the state party working to find out what are the issues of that governor, of that House leader, of that Senate leader, right, of that U.S. senator or member of Congress. What are their main issues, and how do we fold those into the robust work that our state party is going to do? Because if they then care about those things, and we are doing the things that they care about, certainly they should want to devote some of their time in order to be able to produce the resources that are needed to prosecute whatever that issue is. And that's what you're seeing. Wildly successful parties right now. Look at what they did up in Minnesota in this last cycle. They were able to pull off the grand trifecta. They were able to keep the governor's mansion, they were able to take over the House and take over the Senate. And now they are producing. They are delivering that legislation that the voters wanted from them, and therefore they're raising more money than they ever have before. And this is an operation that already, on the regular, raises tens of millions of dollars every single year, okay. But then you add to that all of those members working together, when you see states that aren't successful or don't have that sort of cohesion amongst the party and those electeds, you'll see those Democrats getting peeled off, okay. We see that on the federal level, when we see Joe Manchin take walks on things that we need him for. We saw that when Kyrsten Cinema got kicked off the island. Those are things... Those are very real situations where you lose that sort of cohesion and things fall apart. But, man, when it works... You see things that are going on in Wisconsin right now, Michigan. Michigan is another huge success! Lavora Barnes and the team that she put together, they're at the state party, working with their fierce governor. They are just delivering hand over fist for voters. And those voters are recognizing it and, not only that, they're getting their back, they're turning out on elections. I frequently will mention this, this past midterm, seeing the turnout that we have, my faith in humanity is almost getting restored. Because we saw voters turning out in those areas where you had a party, and you have elected leaders working in concert, to be able to share a mission and communicate that mission to voters. Voters turned out and delivered. So that is what a state party should and could be doing right. No matter what state that is.

Pennsylvania is another one. And our former communications director from the Louisiana Democratic Party is now working for the lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania. You mentioned Wisconsin, you know, I am a huge fan of Ben Wikler. I am a small-dollar monthly donor to the Wisconsin Democratic Party. So I get to see the creative fundraising events they come up with, that is sort of a benefit of participating in that. I get all the invites to all those things. And they are continually coming up with these amazing, like, events, like, they got the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' together to come do a live reading. And I think they did 'Elf' as well, I think they were the ones who did the 'Elf' live reading. They've done some amazing events. But what I see every time they do those things, is there are those moments when they highlight those elected officials, where they have them come on. Their relationship with those elected officials is so tight, that they just never... I know more about the elected officials in Wisconsin that I know here, just because they are so busy pushing them out. And they, as you said, done some amazing things, like getting judges elected, that is going to have a huge impact on the entire country, the folks that they have gotten elected for judicial races. So that's pretty amazing. I think what's interesting here is you mentioned that the relationship with the party and the elected officials, and sort of the balancing act that has to be done with a party, is that our activists tend to be far more progressive than our elected officials. Engagement with those activists requires a party that can walk that line where you're engaging with the elected officials, but also not messaging so conservatively that you're losing those activists and not having them feel like they have a home at the party.

You know what, that is so right. And frequently... The kind of cool thing that we had in our setup was, and you know this just as well because they needed us, right? You myself, many of the others in leadership are the progressives that had credibility on the ground with voters and with our progressive communities, right? So we could go to them and get an audience and actually talk to them about the issues. But what I really will always appreciate... John Bel and I don't always agree on everything. That is clear. And I won't put words in your mouth, but certainly I think that that probably holds true with you as well... But the great thing was he never really, and some of his staff would get salty, but never really did he ever asked us to not message on those issues. He gave us the space of being able to go. I could go and give a major speech at a university or at a rally and be able to say that, "Look, I am 100%, you know, pro-choice and I will fight to my last breath, making sure that we preserve those vital rights for women, okay. The governor feels differently on that." The interesting thing was I was never asked to "Stop that, hold back, you know, don't do that. Message only on our Things." I would always pivot to the things we wanted to talk about as a coalition, but we were able to have those conversations, we were able to have those disagreements and be able to build a coalition.

Our Democratic Party in the state could look at the polling and see that progressive issues actually poll very well. So we very likely could get more progressive Democrats elected in certain areas and in certain parts of the state, if we were doing a more robust job. Let's pivot to what are those state parties that you've talked about, that you've seen being successful, happening right now? What are they doing that we need to mimic here?

Sure. So I mean, I will certainly say that there are some state parties out there that are doing really impressive work, and not always in a situation where they have an easy road of it. I would argue that some of the most difficult areas are sometimes when you have all blue, all Democrats as your elected officers. Trying to make all of them happy is nearly impossible. So I think that that's a hard job, certainly, as well. But you look that... I just did some media for the Arkansas Democratic Party a few days ago. And, I gotta tell you, looking at Alicia Andrews as the chair, looking at Scot Hamilton as their executive director, and the amount of work that they're doing, they're putting themselves out there, and they're communicating, they're being open and honest. There's no smoke-filled rooms anymore in Arkansas, when it comes to the Democratic Party. And that alone, I think, that sunlight, of being able to say, "We're putting ourselves out there, we're being responsive, we're taking questions, we're constantly engaging." That's the kind of stuff that I'm seeing as a commonality amongst states that are really changing the narrative, who are really doing the work and actually getting the responses from their voters. There's also some amazing work being done in states like New Mexico, I think. They've got an amazing team out there, and a chair who actually is a former educator. She was a school teacher and then all of a sudden, ran for this to be a state rep. And then wasn't successful but came, like, this close to winning. And they're like, "We want you to be our next party chair. Because we want to take that sort of classroom mentality of organizing people, and we want to deploy it." She's doing amazing things out there, Jess is, in New Mexico. And I couldn't be more excited about that

Okay, but what are those things? I mean, I want to know what...

Yeah, she's calling the community leaders together in order to be able to have an open dialogue with community leaders, bringing in stakeholders and being able to have honest conversations with them with no walls up. Like, literally having open meetings where anyone can come and we're going to sit down and talk to educators to find out what their issues are, and how we can better represent them. We're going to sit down and have conversations with the LGBTQ community, and be able to find out how is the backlash of all of this national news hurting them, and what can we do as a community to be supportive and uplifting? They're having those conversations. They're not running those conversations. They're facilitating them. They're giving the space in order to have those conversations. And so right now, what's vital is to be able to build coalitions, right? Because if we're going to be able to win next year, we're going to need everyone rowing in the same direction, perhaps not always saying the exact same thing, perhaps not always singing from the same hymn... But at least if they have the right hymnal, we're going to be able to accomplish some massive things next year. And so right now, that's what successful state parties are doing. They're facilitating those conversations, all the while raising money, doing the tools that we talked about earlier, making sure that those tools are in place and ready to go, and they're also working their asses off on candidate recruitment and training up those candidates so that they're ready to go.

I mentioned Ben Wikler in Wisconsin, as someone who's doing this creative fundraising. The creative fundraising is not fundraising for fundraising sake, it goes towards specifically what I see them doing there. You mentioned that registration is something that the DSCC should be doing. But mobilization is key. We hit on that over and over and over again on Louisiana Lefty. We have enough registered Democrats in the state to win elections if we turn them out to the polls. So that to me is the key, is having enough money to run real mobilization efforts. It requires hiring people to knock doors. It requires hiring people to make phone calls. It requires mail. It requires all the things that we use to get voters to the polls. Radio ads, digital ads. If you're not raising money to do all those things in a robust way that turns out voters. We already know that Democrats, I'm gonna go off on targeting for a second, we already know that there are good Democrats that are gonna show up at the polls and vote for our people. But there's a range of folks who with a nudge, with just a little nudge, might turn out, you know, that have, like, some tiny 50% to 80% turnout potential... You talk to them, they're gonna go to the polls, and we know they're gonna vote for us. That's a space to spend money. Once you have a win number, once you know how many people you need to go vote for your candidate, you know how many of those people you need to talk to, to get them to turn out. So those are the kinds of things that smart parties are doing, and raising the money to accomplish so that...

And if I could point out one thing on this, because if you are a Louisiana Lefty loyal listener, oh, that's a lot of alliteration. If you have paid attention to any of the work that Louisiana Lefty has done, over the time, you'll also know that this is not something that can be done with astroturf. This is not something that can be done in the last 30 days, or 60 days of an election. This is something that is gotta take, it has got to be a growing effort that you are doing with engagement for the states that only have, like, these small, down ballot, nonpartisan races that are going on this year. That doesn't mean that they're not already stepping up. There are some state parties right now that already have 40, 50, 60 staff members that are already out there doing that work.

Look, for folks who heard our episode with the Environmental Voter Project, the reason they do the work that they do, is because you have to turn out voters in every election, regardless of partisan or not, because that's how you turn them into chronic voters. And that's how they start to turn up on candidate's phone lists, and knock lists, and mail lists. That's how they turn up on polling lists so their views are taken into consideration when we poll on abortion, when we poll on trans rights. You have to turn people into chronic voters. And that is a year round, every year effort.

100%, I couldn't have said it better myself. It is a constant situation where you're working. But I also think too, that a successful state party is going to also be requiring that or encouraging that amongst their candidates in order to set the groundwork so that candidates are being responsive to that. Oftentimes, you'll have candidates come to you and they have no idea how they're going to fundraise, I can always teach everyone how to fundraise. They don't have any idea how they're gonna pay, and they have great positions. I don't care what your positions are, I really don't at first, I want you to go and listen to your voters, I want you to go and find out how and what are the things that are motivating people in order to be able to get going. And so having those conversations, that's why I think it's utterly ludicrous. To have a situation where you're not beginning campaigns until, like, 60 days before the election. That is not a successful method of getting anyone elected to anything!

So you brought up recruiting at one point in our conversation, I think the other piece of it, that goes along with that recruiting, you're kind of alluding to now, is that we need to be able to train candidates to run better elections. On top of that, we need to be able to train campaign staff on how to support those candidates. And then we need to be able to train advocates on how to do the work of supporting candidates, helping us win elections, and then going and advocating for the issues we care about to those elected officials we've helped elect, right?

I completely agree with... Yeah, I completely agree with all of that. The only one sort of tweak that I will do when it comes to advocates, I think it's imperative for us to be able to partner. And you do this better than anyone I know. I've been able to bring a bunch of different groups with seemingly different missions... But you bring those groups together in order to facilitate a conversation so that they are joined together to share each other's missions to be able to do big things. And it's about bringing those people together and then learning from those advocates. I think that that's another vital role and the importance there of being able to figure out exactly how to build sort of that coalition that is needed so much and learn from the advocates as to how their messaging on issues.

Well and... Right. Yes, so I'm talking... When I talk about training, I'm talking about training new advocates, more so than training people who are already advocates. But, to your point, this is why I really personally advocate for advocates from all these different constituency groups to be more involved with the Louisiana Democratic Party, to claim their seat at the table there so they have input in what the party is doing. What it's spending money on. What the resolutions are, you know, all the things that the party is doing that we're talking about here, they should all have input in that because that's the only way I believe, personally, that we create the symbiosis there that's going to lead to more positive outcomes in the state. So the other thing I'll mention that I haven't said yet, is election protection is something that good state parties do and our state party should obviously be doing. That is a year round effort, which obviously vastly intensifies around election time.

The vital, important work of being able to make sure that we have representatives on the local election boards, making sure that we are training those individuals up to protect those voters, to make sure that when they go and cast a vote that that vote is actually going to get counted, and that they're going to be allowed to do it, making sure that you're aggressively going through all of the roles that are being constantly produced, where you're seeing those voters being kicked off the rolls. The DNC now, with our partnership with some of our vendors, is now giving the state party a list every single month of all of the people that fell off the rolls, there should be an aggressive effort put forward towards pushing that information out, maybe sharing it with our C4 and C3 partners to be able to communicate that list to them. But at the same time, what are the operations that that party is doing? Many of our states are actually doing that chase, of being able to do that and make sure that those voters were not illegally kicked off voting rolls, or at the very least, "Hey, you fell off the roll. If you want to vote, we need you to re-register."

And then there's a boiler room on Election Day. Election Days include early voting, and then the big election day, you've got lawyers engaged who can help in real time as issues are arising across the state. We mentioned, when we talked about what DSCC members do specifically, on the last episode, we mentioned, a handful of things that were done in the previous administration with DSCC members. I'll just mention them again. We've already alluded to fundraising... Alluded to... We've beat a dead horse on fundraising! But also, the state party working well, the DSCC members would be surrogates in their community, which requires a communications team at the state party headquarters to be creating the messaging that those surrogates need, the talking points, the information, the white papers, all of that stuff that they might need to be able to fully understand the issues that they're charged with speaking about at the local level. And then the other thing state parties should be doing is creating that on-ramp for grassroots activists to have a way to plug into the work of the party, the DSCC should be requesting that, requiring that of the party, and helping facilitate that.

That, you know, that's exactly right. And those are two really important things that I'm glad that you didn't let us forget about. Having that media shop that sort of comms shop there and ready to go to be able to help and train up. We frequently were casting really wide nets you will frequently... Well, you used to see them a lot, I don't know if they're being done anymore... But certainly successful state parties are always doing this, "Were you affected by student loan debt forgiveness? Tell us how and fill out this form!" It was constantly that we were bringing those folks in, "Tell your Medicaid story. Tell your Medicare story. Tell us a story about being denied Social Security benefits." We were always trying to find those individuals in order to be able to help us but then also find out who of them might want to be speaking on the record. Some of our biggest successes was finding local small businesses that were able to go out there and speak and be able to talk, you know, really forcefully on what small business owners really care about. And, huge surprise, it wasn't what lobby was advocating for at the legislature. And so you're absolutely right, providing that sort of mechanism in order to be able to not only know who they are, but then also give them a little bit of media training to get them ready to go, and get them out there, and make sure that we can get microphones in front of them. So vitally important work that a state party could and should be doing.

My experience with the party to this point... And we had our successes... We, you know, left some things on the table that, you know, would have been more successful. Again, I believe a lot of that had to do with... Could've used more resources, could've used more people but... That said, it was my experience was it was campaign work. 365. And for an organizer that's almost 24/7, 365. If you're organizing and organizing, well, you're pretty much available around the clock for emergencies, your volunteers, you know, there, you have to be available when they're free, you know, when they're not at work, whatever their work schedule is. So that's sort of what the party has to be is a constant campaign. We operated at that level of function, which, for the three years, I was there anyway, we operated at that level of high-function constantly, and it is exhausting.

It is, it is. Oh, make no mistake about it.

But that's what it should be.

That's what the job is. Yeah. That's what the job is. And, you know, it was interesting to me, one of the biggest aha moments that I had when I first came into the party, and I was kind of learning what all of the roles were and that sort of thing... The biggest complaint that we had in campaigns was, "I signed up to help and no one ever contacted him." And oh my God! And that was one of the things that you and I constantly used as kind of like our guiding our guideposts of being able to find ways to engage with people and put them to work. Quickly find out exactly what they want to do, and try and put them in a place that they would actually be able to be successful and feel a part of the team. I think in the Blue Dat, which I absolutely love, that would have been nothing without Lynda Woolard.

Well, you have to have the resources. They taught on the Obama campaign that if you did not reach back out to someone within 24 to 48 hours after them signing up, you lose them. Because there's a reason they signed up in that moment. So the sooner you can get back to them, the more you can get them started on that ladder of engagement, where you get them involved in some little way and see how much more will they be engaged. And if you don't contact them for a month, their moment of passion may have passed, or they may be moved on to something else. Or they may have found another thing to engage in in the meantime. But if you don't have the resources, if you have one person hired to handle 500 people, that is insufficient, one person will never be able to do that. So my point is that the staff has to operate at that level, the top leadership has to operate at that level, I do not want to scare off people considering running for DSCC, you are not required to operate at that level, but you should be demanding it of leadership and staff.

Yep, couldn't agree more.

Last thing to wrap up, Stephen, unless there's something else you want to add here, is the party-building work is something the party should always be working on. And there are a lot of things you can do for that. Events, Zooms, phone calls, whatever, conference calls. The DPECs would be a great way to engage more at local levels to get them stood up and functioning better. That is not an easy job, I know from experience. But that is a way to reach out and get more local experience in all of the 64 parishes. There is no other organization in Louisiana that is inherently, structurally institutionally set up in every parish in the state. It is something that is underutilized and could be so beneficial to Democrats in the state. But again, if you do not have the resources, you cannot reach out to every parish. But the DPECs are key. Those congressional caucuses could be so much more utilized. The congressional caucuses that the DSCC members are a part of. The Young Democrats, the College Democrats, the High School Democrats are another space where engagement across the state would be so easy to activate and energize. And that is something that has been routinely underutilized. And then again, just the general party-building of going out and finding new people to engage who are eager to engage and do not know where to put their energy.

Yeah, the last thing that I will say on this matter because I believe it so important, and I know you do too. No, don't wait to be asked to do this work. Do it now. This is, you know, we are the ones we've been waiting for. The last bit of advice that I can give you, as you take on that mantle yourself, is help. The best thing that you can do as you're marshalling these individuals to join a cause to get something done is helping always keeping people focused on what that mission is, it's easy to get caught up in doom-scrolling, which, oh boy, am I good! That's taking you completely off your game. Don't allow that to happen to you. You help keep focused on that, your guiding mission.

And the whole reason I've been trying to lay this out, some of it is a little wonky and wiedzy. And, you know, won't be everyone's cup of tea, right? But my whole point is that I want the information out there for those who are interested in a better Democratic Party, and therefore a better state is that it does... Control of that starts with little leadership at the party, and you can engage with that, and that engagement may be running yourself. Or it may be supporting someone that you'd like to see run. Or it may be holding someone accountable who's already there. And I don't just mean the chair. I mean every single DSCC member who is currently elected, is answerable to you. They are representing you, they're representing the party, they elected this chair, the majority of them. If you're not happy, it is your opportunity to be able to go back to those DSCC members and say, "Hey, I want to see something different." And maybe you need to organize a group of people to help you with that so you're not a lone voice. But much more significantly, the opportunity to change who are in those seats at the Democratic State Central Committee, and then therefore change who are in those seats at party leadership, that all starts in December of this year.

100%. Qualifying happens in December. So this is the one opportunity, the one bite at the apple that you get every four years to be able to change it. And so, like Linda just pointed out, if you don't want to be the person that steps up to run, you can certainly be the person that actually helps someone step up and run or hold accountable that people that do.

Stephen, thank you so much always for your expertise and your willingness to engage with me in these wonky, wiedzy conversations.

I love wonky and wiedzy anytime with you Lynda Woolard! So it's an absolute blast to be able to do this. I so thoroughly support everything that you're doing, and all of the work that Louisiana Lefty digs into. So great job!

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