PrintMay 11, 2010
Deep Cover at Organizing for America
Democrats are already gearing up. They can't wait for the November elections to arrive.
One of the Chicago blogs I check into, Marathon Pundit, ran an interesting post this weekend. I don't want to mention the writer's name and risk blowing his cover, but due to a DNC computer glitch, he received an invitation to attend an Organizing for America "training session" in Evanston, Illinois. Well, what have we here?
After checking the box marked "Yes! You can count on me!" said blogger returned his RSVP. Then, wearing what he described as a "subtle disguise," he arrived at the session, signed the guest list, and positioned himself in the audience to take copious notes.
The Covert Blogger is to be commended. He got in and got out undetected and filed an informative and enjoyable report. You can read it here.
In the report are some interesting details and quotes, a few of which may benefit from a little further analysis.
For instance, in a brief description of the political landscape in Evanston, we are told that in the 2008 election, Evanston -- which is home to Northwestern University -- voted 87% for Obama-Biden.
That is an astounding percentage of voters even for an affluent liberal college town. But it is even more astounding when we turn that number around and consider the fact that this left only 13% to vote for the Green Party, Communist Party, or the Socialist Worker's Party.
According to the report, one of the hosts of the training session was the secretary of the Democratic Party of Evanston, Brian Miller. Miller told attendees that the DP of E has "a history of exporting our influence." This was the purpose of the meeting. Under the name "Organizing for America," it is their stated objective to further export Democratic influence. Miller went on to describe the hundreds of Obama volunteers the group sent into Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa -- busloads of them. Evanston, the blogger shows, is a major distribution hub of Leftist politics. Reading this part of the report, I recalled the scene where the doctor looks out his window on the town square in the black-and-white version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and witnesses his fellow citizens loading pods onto trucks and into the trunks of their cars.
"We got it locked down" in Evanston, Miller told attendees.
Then, Organizing for America regional field director, Brian Gorman asked attendees to consider the question, "How can I use the tools to take ownership of the community?"
One such "tool," apparently, will be the continued use of the sexual slur "teabagger." Democrats seem to take a giggly delight in saying it. It's like a dirty word in the mouth of a child. President Obama has been quoted using it. I still don't know exactly what it means, but get the idea that unless you're into whips and chains, it isn't good.
To drill attendees in proper usage, they used the term to refer to Republican Illinois gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady, never mentioning him by name. He was just the "The Republican 'Teabagger' running for governor."
Concerning the Left's dismissal of Bill Brady, so far the main thing the public knows about him is that he is asking where our tax money has been going for all these years. He's calling for an independent audit of the State of Illinois's financial books. Given the $12-17-billion hole in the state's annual budget and the estimated $77.8 billion in unfunded state worker pensions, this seems reasonable.
Yet the only thing Organizing for America had to say about Bill Brady is that he's a "Teabagger" and "a really bad guy." There was nothing in the report that indicated concerns over the current Illinois governor, Pat Quinn, a Democrat, who was Rod "Blago" Blagojevich's running mate just four years ago, back when Blago was cutting deals and shaking down charity hospitals. No worries there.
Notice, too, the use of the phrase "take ownership of the community."
Evanston borders Chicago on the north, and they speak the same political language. In Democrat-ese, "owning the community" means that if you got a problem with trash pickup, talk to the Democratic precinct captain. If you have a kid who needs a job, talk to the Democratic precinct captain. If you have trouble with delivery trucks getting ticketed for double-parking in front of your shop, talk to the Democratic precinct captain. If you need a block party permit, a one-day liquor license, or a building code violation overlooked, talk to the Democratic precinct captain. Democrats own the community. They don't own the potholes or the crumbling infrastructure or the failing schools or the crime in the streets -- that part of the community taxpayers own. Democrats own just the parts with the "juice." Additionally, in Evanston they own the part that gets to decide how everyone else has to live and how much VAT they'll have to pay and whether mass illegal immigration is a good thing or a bad thing. They own the policy part.
As our clandestine blogger reports, Democratic strategy for the 2010 midterm elections boils down to this: They are going to quote-unquote "zero in" on those first-time voters who in 2008 went overwhelmingly for Obama. That's their plan. That's it. That, and the phrase "teabagger."
At this point, let me caution against over-confidence. The midterm election is by no means a sure thing for Conservatives, Libertarians, and right-thinking Republicans. We are all going to have to work with a will. But if this is the central strategy of the Democrats' plan to hold on to power, then they are in deep water. Obama won in '08 with 53% of the vote, which, outside of places like Evanston, does not give the administration much room to play with.
What this tells us is that the official Leftist Democratic agenda has peaked. It has gone as far as it can go at the ballot box and is now contracting. The reality of economic and world events has made it difficult if not impossible for Democrats to expand their voter base. Now they are forced to put their efforts into holding on to their old voters, especially those who were "new" voters two years ago. Most of those new voters in 2008 were inexperienced. And if they were young voters, then they were inexperienced, period.
Having this knowledge of the Democrats' strategy presents us an opportunity. When Conservatives, Libertarians, and Republicans volunteer to campaign door-to-door, we, too, will take the opportunity to "zero in" on those young voters. Many of them are not so inexperienced now. Many have awakened from the fog that was the Obama-Biden campaign of '08. Many now realize that our nation and the world face problems that can't be overcome with feel-good speeches of Hope and Change.
Take it as a guarantee. When you come to the door of those "new" voters of the '08 campaign, you will find that many are now open to discussion.
Let us offer thanks to the Covert Blogger for this valuable reconnaissance.
Jed Skillman photographed hundreds of political television commercials, first for one party, and then for the other, over a twenty-year span. He blogs at plumwoodroad.blogspot.com.
