Campaign Symbiosis
National organizations and remote supporters can make a difference by supporting local infrastructures in issue advocacy and electoral campaigns.
Pre-Game: Dear readers, it has been a minute since my last Substack, but I’ve been busy writing when I can during this busiest time of the legislative calendar.
Last month I published a piece in The Hill reframing the national conversation around criminal justice. Despite the false narratives in the media about rising crime, in 2023 many states had their most productive criminal justice reform sessions in years.
More recently, I published Why I Went to CPAC, an op-ed that hopefully stretches the imagination of who we can collaborate with and how.
For New Yorkers, please consider joining me on Tuesday night at Day of Empathy, an event our organization hosts in about 20 states across the country each year, being held in NYC for the first time since COVID.
And now, Symbiosis…
I distinctly remember the warm feeling I got the first time I learned about symbiosis. It was during an elementary school science class, and it had to do with two creatures mutually coexisting in an environment for each other’s benefit, something that seemed special then and remains a profound concept all these years later.
I think about symbiosis now, both in the context of how we run criminal justice (and other issue) campaigns, and now how we are going to approach the 2024 elections. In both situations, there is an inherent tension between national organizations, who bring resources and operational experience, and local organizations, who bring local expertise and commitment to their communities. We need a gameplan for how national and local orgs can work together effectively for two reasons. First, successful symbiosis is the most effective way to win issue campaigns and change policy at the state level, where most of the action is happening these days. Second, successful symbiosis might be the only path to defeating Trump in 2024.
Here’s a gameplan for symbiosis between local and national groups.
In the advocacy world, when a large, well-resourced, national org announces its arrival in a state where scrappy, grassroots organizing has already been going on, it’s known as “bigfooting”. No one wants to be bigfooted, and no one (well, most advocates) don’t want to bigfoot the grassroots. But the tension is there, the two sides tentatively circling each other. In these scenarios, big orgs sometimes plunge ahead, ignoring the local orgs. After all, the work needs to get done. Sometimes the local orgs block the big orgs from setting up shop because “they got this” and want to handle the work on their own. Neither outcome is optimal. Building trust to work together depends on the specific actions of people on both sides, but it can also come from a recognition that each type of entity has strengths and weaknesses.
Local orgs have strengths and weaknesses.
Let’s start with what local groups often bring to the table.
Knowledge of who the relevant political players are, and sometimes relationships with them.
Community credibility.
A long-term commitment - this is their homes.
But local orgs aren’t without their blind spots and limitations.
Local activists sometimes have strange, unproductive feuds with other local activists or politicians.
Some local groups don’t have the experience of building and running sustained campaigns that can win.
Most local groups (outside of major coastal cities) are working with limited resources.
Likewise, big national orgs have strengths and weaknesses.
There’s often a reason national orgs have gotten to the size they have.
They have a track record in the space, with a history of wins and experienced staff.
They have the name recognition to influence politicians, press, and other stakeholders.
They have the money to ramp up a strong campaign quickly, and sustain it for a few years.
But national groups have shortcomings.
They often don’t understand local dynamics, or waste time accumulating that knowledge.
They’re almost always going to leave eventually, which means even if they win, they aren’t around for implementation, and don’t necessarily empower the local ecosystem.
While name recognition and cache can serve as a plus, it can cut the other way too, because some legislators don’t like the idea of outsiders coming in with policy ideas.
The Dream.Org Approach
By the time I got to Dream.Org three years ago, I’d seen enough from both sides, and wanted to try something different. Likewise, my Justice team came from working state and local campaigns, so they also believed that national groups should let locals lead, even as they took national leadership roles. When we started our state legislative campaigns, we were very sensitive to “big-footing”, to the point that we went too far in that direction. Yes, we trusted and empowered local leaders, but the reality was that some of those leaders hadn’t run state legislative campaigns before, and actually needed more guidance. And once we had built trust with them, they were ready to receive it.
Starting in 2022, we had all of our prospective state campaign leads go through a rigorous summer advocacy training program with us. That meant that when we did start collaborating on state bills, we were all on the same page when it came to theory of change and how to execute tactics. In 2023, we ran criminal justice campaigns in nine states, with a local directly impacted leader at the front of each campaign, and experienced national staff in support. We passed bills in six states, secured an executive order and a big defensive win in the seventh, and got a defensive win in the eighth. We’re running the same playbook this year, adding some new states to the mix.
Importantly, when we decide we’re going to work somewhere, it’s not only in partnership with local leaders, it’s where our help is most needed. We haven’t worked in New York much because there are already dozens of groups here, whereas there isn’t a single one focused on criminal justice in say, Arkansas.
I bring up our approach not to specifically brag on Dream.Org–though honestly this team makes me happy to do that every day–but because I’ve spent my whole career navigating this local/national divide, and while our system isn’t perfect, it brings out the best in most people who use it. Mixing the best of what local and national groups is the secret sauce, it’s the way forward to building sustainable power. For local groups: stop worrying that every national org is going to swoop in and take over your work. For national groups: what’s the point of running campaigns if we don’t leave the local advocacy structure stronger than when we showed up? Our social justice movement has been fragmented in all too many ways far too long. This is one step towards moving us closer together, on a path to power.
This model works for issue campaigns, and I believe it can be the key to a successful 2024 electoral campaign as well.
The Best Campaign Ever, and what came next…
One of my favorite advocacy training exercises is to have everyone go around the room and list their favorite campaign of all time, and explain why. My answer is Senator Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Yes, the candidate was a magnetic break from the past, but the campaign was immaculate: the field operation, the logo and slogan, even fundraisers exuded an ebullient vibe. One of Obama ‘08’s innovations was giving broad latitude to local campaign shops, which gave every campaign office its own unique start-up personality, while remaining part of a larger collective. Meanwhile, the national staff, backed by gobs of money, orchestrated a highly sophisticated primary/caucus strategy that tapped into the energy of two million active volunteers actively organizing through Obama’s social media platform. Obama pulled off a huge upset to beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, and then racked up 365 electoral votes in defeating John McCain, winning Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and even Indiana in the process.
After the election, however, advisors successfully lobbied to disband the vaunted Obama For America grassroots army rather than have it live on to fight for Obama’s policies, a decision that some say accelerated the 2010s collapse of Democrats between the coasts. The timing of this activist neutering, paired with early corporate Cabinet picks and the selection of Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff, augured poorly for the game changing president so many of his supporters had believed in. It ushered in a presidency that could never live up to its own hype, the campaigning in poetry crashing on the rocky shores of governing in prose.
Needless to say, President Biden will not have a volunteer army anything like Obama ‘08. He has struggled with young voters throughout his presidency, and much of his base is irate over Gaza, so barring major policy wins or policy shifts, the grassroots energy will need to be generated from somewhere else. In fact, there are plenty of people on the left so despondent with Biden that they are even questioning voting for him, a conversation to fully unpack at another time. The Biden campaign will need to be an outlet to channel the energy of liberals terrified of Trump 2.0 as we get closer to November.
A symbiotic approach to the 2024 elections.
Enter Billy Wimsatt, a mad scientist when it comes to progressive organizing strategies. I had the pleasure of working with Billy in 2014 (an abysmal cycle for Dems), and have been following the evolution of his Movement Voter Project over the past few years. The basic premise is that by investing in progressive local groups in swing states like Ohio and North Carolina, we can strengthen groups that are organizing all the time, not just for a few months before the election every four years. Those same orgs can also help win other important local races across multiple cycles, and also fight for important issues like choice, criminal justice, voting rights, and LGBTQ rights. Many of these groups don’t have access to the national fundraising spigot, something that MVP is trying to change. Billy likes a good manifesto, and anyone who wants to go deep on 2024 can check out his latest post. So if you want to get involved in the 2024 election cycle, my endorsement is to support a local org in a battleground state, both with your fundraising dollars, and when the time comes, a road trip to knock doors, whether through MVP or someone else.
Lest anyone get confused, I am a progressive Democrat who believes in bridge-building and common ground. Elections are how we choose who is in power, common ground is the commitment to working with whoever is in power to advance shared goals that improve peoples’ lives. I see no contradiction between pushing for a Democratic sweep in 2024 and acknowledging that in many parts of the country, a “Democrats only” approach will not get us the change we need. There’s also nothing incongruous about working to defeat Republicans in an election, but then turn around and be willing to engage with them after, just as there’s nothing wrong with a feisty Democratic primary followed by a unified general election.
I’ve written in the past about the need to invest in new leaders. Investing in historically under-resourced local orgs, whether to win our issues or to win electoral campaigns, is the key to building movement strength that will last beyond the legislative calendar or electoral cycle.
Post-game - miscellaneous reflections on CDMX: C and I recently spent a week in Mexico City, and absolutely loved it. For Americans who care about public policy, CDMX has a lot to teach us. The city has created lots of public space and designed it in a way people actually want to use it. Vibrant public plazas are full of music, food, and vendors. Broad pedestrian-only streets let your gaze wander without worrying about cars. And the parks! Mexico City’s has delightful bite-sized parks that wend and weave, full of thoughtful touches like romantic benches to take in the scenery and free WiFi. We enjoyed a delightful bike ride with thousands of people down one of CDMX’s major thoroughfares, closed to cars on Sundays. I was also struck by the economic diversity of the city; you could ride the subway or get a street taco for pocket change, but also window gaze at beautiful art or clothing well out of your price range. Something for everyone. With numerous unique neighborhoods to explore, we’ll definitely be going back.