140. Canvassing

I met yesterday with Dan (whose last name I didn't get, but it is short and might be Maur), who is heading up the local Working for America office, which is the "public side" of the AFL-CIO. We talked about the political landscape specifically in Jefferson County [yes Jerry, there is a Jefferson County] and generally in Kentucky. His group is canvassing neighborhoods here along the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606 trying to locate citizens who might agree with their agenda, which is jobs and healthcare. How can you not agree that we need more and better of both?

In our discussion, I briefed him on the work the Yarmuth campaign undertook in 2006, working its way around the county in a counter-clockwise manner, allowing the public to become more comfortable with the candidate while at the same time becoming less comfortable with the then-incumbent congresswoman and her leader, the Commander-In-Chief. Eventually the two levels of comfort (positive and negative) met, somewhere in the 40220/40299 areas of town and the outcome was a 6,000 vote margin for the lefty LEO editor over the president's local handmaiden. That 6,000 vote margin was actually 5,921 out of 241,965 votes cast, or 50.6% of the total - there were two interesting but minor candidates also on the ballot. Another argument has been made - by the congressman himself - that the win really came from the overwhelming support of his base of liberal voters in the Highlands, Germantown, and Old Louisville, voters who have sometimes stayed home in the past when the Democratic candidate wasn't quite liberal enough, something they needn't fear with our current congressman, who was widely dismissed early on because he was too liberal. But, in truth, he isn't too liberal for the times in which we are living, and I have digressed from the subject at hand, the Working for America folks.

I know they are out there doing their canvassing for two reasons - 1) I've sent a friend of mine over to their office to apply, and 2) they knocked on my mother's door out along South Park Road in deep southern Jefferson County. She told me about it a few days ago. She assured them that she was a registered voter, a Democrat, and sympathetic to their cause and beliefs. She threw in exactly how she feels about the current president and his war, which is exactly how I feel as well. Good for her. She is the daughter of long-time member and several-term officer in a local local union previously affiliated with the AFL-CIO. My mother is a moderate Democrat, a member of a Southern Baptist congregation, and a retired state employee. She has never missed an election in her life, although she isn't really politically active. She really isn't the target audience for what Working for America is doing, if I understood Dan correctly.

Their targets are the swing-voters and those who haven't been participating at all. It is a large target audience which needs to be tapped. We spoke of other audiences in need of tapping, particularly Louisville's burgeoning immigrant population, many of whom are or are becoming American citizens. Neither political party has taken an active role with these communities and I think we should. As a member of both the local and state Democratic Party committees, I am partly to blame here, as this is one of those acts of omission that Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote about in the 13th century. In Catholic theology, acts of omission are somewhat less grevious than acts of commission, but they are still acts - or sin.

Again, I digress. Getting into a discussion about sin is probably not something I want to do.

Dan is an organizer. He has done this sort of thing in city after city, and there is a method to it all, one of which parts can be replicated from one area to the next. But one thing he said about Louisville caught my attention. He pointed out that we aren't overly canvassed in the way that a number of cities and towns are. Generally speaking, no one really bothers to energize the voting community. For him as a canvassing boss, Louisville is like virgin territory. We had a general discussion about the "laid-back" attitude many folks of all political bents have here in our lazy river town - some would call this apathy and they would garner no argument from me in doing so. Despite the efforts of the mayor, the "once-great" newspaper, GLI (our corporate body incarnated into an entity), and others to cosmopolitanize Louisville, we remain a very large town where everyone seems to know everyone else, and no one is really to aggressive about anything - and we seem to like oursleves that way.

Nonetheless, groups like Working for America are out there and cities like Louisville are beginning to pop up on their political radars. There is another group, an anti-war caucus making a presence here, one designed to enlighten folks about McConnell's votes on the war and his unyielding loyalty to a president many voters no longer seem to support and respect. Hopefully, the local and state Democratic Parties will also engage the public as we head into the fall's election season when voters will decide if Ernie Fletcher is worth keeping on the payroll - he isn't, but like anyone he will work hard to keep his job.

I like to encourage everyone to be involved at their own level of comfort. That might be, like my mother, showing up to vote every time the polls are opened and little else. Or it might be in some big way. This fall can be a good practice run as Kentucky heads into next year's presidential election and our own senatorial election - hence the Ditch Mitch signs popping up here and there. Next year is also the year both political parties rebuild from the bottom up. For the Democrats, that means caucusses at the precinct level sometime in April, caucusses at the congressional district level a few weeks later, then the State Party convention in June, and finally, for the chosen ones, a trip to the national convention in Denver in August. It is not too early to start thinking about all of these opportunities of participation.

One final thought while I am on the subject. I've been asked three times this week, which is three more times than I've been asked all year, if I intend to seek re-election to the State Party Executive Committee at next summer's State Party convention, which will be held in Frankfort. I haven't made that decision yet. I'm just curious why all-of-a-sudden people are asking.