Tuesday, February 20, 2007

DSCC's Grassroots Communications

Got an interesting email from the Dem Senate Campaign Committee about the weekend's nondebate on the nonbinding resolution. Interesting mostly for what it doesn't say. And note, that this wasn't sent to my blogger account, this was sent to the me that contributes to political candidates and organizations. Here it is in its entirety:

    Dear [Pho],

    For the last few weeks, the DSCC has been asking for your help to stand in opposition to President's Bush escalation in Iraq.

    We did this because we know that every petition signature and every dollar used to run advertisements, adds momentum to the growing chorus of Americans who are demanding that their representatives stop supporting George Bush's stay the course path in Iraq.

    This weekend, your pressure had an impact. The Senate voted 56-34 to go on the record opposing George Bush's troop surge, with five Republicans changing their earlier votes to join the Democratic majority. Combined with the 246-182 House vote against the surge, we now have strong majorities in both houses of Congress that have sent an unmistakable message to President Bush that his four years of unilateral action in this war are over.

    Although Republicans ultimately blocked debate on the bill, every single Democrat supported this resolution. Democrats are united as never before and will be absolutely relentless in pushing for the change called for by the Iraq Study Group, retired generals and the American public.

    Here at the DSCC, this weekend brought into stark focus why it is so important to expand our narrow one-seat Senate Democratic majority in 2008. Republicans continue to obstruct the change that Americans demand and the only solution is to defeat more of them at the ballot box.

    Until then, Democrats will keep the pressure on.

    Thank you so much for your support.

    Sincerely,

    J.B. Poersch
    Executive Director, DSCC


See what's missing? Aside from an oblique reference to "dollars" in paragraph 2, the email makes no attempt to raise money. In fact, there is not click-through link to a fundraising page anywhere on the email. It's all mutual congratulations and back-patting.

A conversation started at RootsCamp and continued through multiple posts on both AOG and BSB, about what the ODP could do to be more grassroots-friendly. This sort of post-game follow-up is typical of what's needed to maintain grassroots energy and too often is missing from the Dems strategy book. So credit where it's due.

0 comments: