(Cross-Posted to DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)

One of the critical parts of being a successful party leader, I think, is the ability to recognize that there are ideas out there that you haven’t seen or thought of that just might work.  (Conversely, some of the party leaders that I think have the most problems are those who are unwelcoming to any kind of change.)  Pat and I get to attend a number of meetings and trainings, but easily the most helpful to us have been these ASDC meetings like the one we just concluded here in San Diego.

This morning, we spent several hours discussing many issues — and a key topic was how things will change now that we have control of the White House.

We began with several pieces of standard business — approving minutes, adopting a treasurer’s report, etc.  But we soon moved into a much bigger discussion of the national voter file and how we can work to make the voter file work better for us in 2010 and 2012.  We heard from DNC Technology Director Ben Self, DNC Voter File Director Katie Allen, Obama For America Technology Director Michael Slaby, and Keith Goodwin, who developed the “neighbor to neighbor” tool used by the DNC and OFA this year. 

In the end, there was a universal sentiment that while the voter file worked better than ever in 2008, there are still significant areas identified where changes can, and should, be made. 

We then heard from a couple of more veteran state party leaders about what the transition to a new DNC will look like.  As many of you know, when we have the White House, the President essentially gets to select the DNC Chair (Governor Howard Dean has indicated he does not intend to seek a second term).  But on the flip side, the DNC is responsible for all of the political costs of the White House, including all political travel costs, which are pretty large. 

These folks — New Hampshire Chair Ray Buckley (who apparently occasionally reads DemNotes) and South Carolina Executive Director (and former Oklahoma Chair, and former college classmate of mine) Jay Parmley — talked about exactly how that transition will work, and the complications of dealing with a White House political office where we have normally been used to dealing with the DNC political office only.  It was an incredibly informative and interesting discussion, and probably the most lively discussion of the day.  They were later joined by David Strauss, who was the Deputy Chief of Staff for Vice President Al Gore.  Strauss also talked about some tips to make life easier for the state parties in dealing with the White House.

After some discussion of new fundraising techniques that should help us raise a bit more money for 2010, we had a very interesting — and Colorado-based — presentation from the co-founder of Democrats Work, Thomas Bates.  His presentation did quite a bit to prove to the chairs and vice chairs that establishing a community service component to our field plan is actually a good move, politically.  His proof included a detailed case study of work that the group did this year in Arapahoe County, and was very compelling.  I didn’t know the extent of Democrats Work’s efforts in Colorado, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m incredibly convinced that we can win more elections in Colorado if we put together a community service component in place properly. 

The family and I are headed back to Colorado tomorrow afternoon.  But I feel like I’m a lot more informed about what we can do in Colorado — as I am after every ASDC meeting — than when I arrived here in San Diego.

See you soon!

(Cross-Posted to DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)

This afternoon was chock full of information — and was a very long and crowded meeting.

Here in San Diego, the DNC’s Executive Committee met in a joint session with the ASDC. The day begain with an address from Governor (and DNC Chair) Howard Dean. He talked about the progress we’ve made over the past four years. In particular, one focus of many speakers was the new-found success among younger voters. For the first time in a long time, more people under the age of 35 voted than people over the age of 65 — a pretty stunning statistic. He also talked about how the DNC has been able to erase the technological advantage the Republicans once had.

But Governor Dean was not all positives. “With this extraordinary victory comes extraordinary responsibility. We have a lot of promises that were made and we have to keep those promises.” He spoke of the challenges to keep young people involved, and how we need to keep showing up and asking people in all reaches of the country for their support.

And Governor Dean made a bold statement: Texas is next.

That’s right, the buzz here is about our next big hurdle: winning in Texas. If we can win there, the back of the Republican Party nationally is truly broken.

After Gov. Dean spoke, we heard from several state party leaders about the success of the 50-state strategy and the importance of continuing to build on this historic program. Ray Buckley of New Hampshire talked about the amazing turn-around in New Hampshire and nationally, and presented Gov. Dean with a resolution from the ASDC. The numbers are pretty amazing — we’ve gained 6 Governorships, 14 seats in the Senate, 55 seats in the House, 6 state senate chambers, and 9 state house chambers under Gov. Dean’s chairmanship. We’ve gone from a 3% registration advantage for Democrats in 2005 to a 9% advantage today. Buckley was followed by Sam Lieberman, the Nevada chair, Larry Gates, the Kansas chair, and Caroline Valand, the North Carolina Executive Director. All had similar stories of successes due to the investments made by the DNC in our state parties.

Finally, the ASDC “presented” Gov. Dean with a token of our appreciation: a chair. A chair for the chair from the chairs. A Massachusetts chair-maker is hand-making a chair for Gov. Dean engraved and embossed with his name and title. He seemed genuinely surprised.

After a few more reports, we went into an informal “closed” session to hear some polling data and to have a conversation with representatives from the Obama transition. Steve Hildebrand, the deputy national campaign director for the Obama campaign, spoke about some of the things we learned from the campaign. He noted that Sen. Obama ended up with the largest popular vote margin in American history for any non-incumbent, and the 6th-largest popular vote margin overall.

He also noted the success of our voter registration efforts, singling out the importance of those efforts in Colorado. In Colorado, we were able to register 202,000 new voters; we won by 192,000 votes. We saw similar importance of the efforts in states like Florida, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Another key statistic from Colorado: voters age 18-29 made up a larger share of the electorate than those age 60+ — a pretty stunning statistic! We were able to win Colorado’s hispanic population by 61-38. And our success among younger voters showed not only in the electorate, but also among the registration rolls — there are now more registered voters in Colorado age 18-29 than voters age 60+.

Finally, we heard a wonderfully detailed discussion from the DNC pollster, Cornell Belcher. Since this was a closed session, I don’t want to reveal too much of his data, but one very key point: in 2004, the vast majority of Kerry voters polled said they were voting AGAINST George W. Bush rather than voting FOR John Kerry. As one Democratic strategist said, “We will never win an election like that!”

However, the tables turned in 2008. In 2008, 76% of Obama voters said they were voting FOR Obama, while only 4% said they were motivated to vote AGAINST McCain, and only 17% said they were voting AGAINST Bush policies. It was a very positive voting population for us!

One last encouraging point from Sam Lieberman, the Nevada Chair: apparently, in Nevada, the Republican Party office has had to close down, and the only employee is the state’s Executive Director, who is — get this — working out of his parents’ basement. Literally.

Nice.

Tomorrow morning will be solely for ASDC meetings. I’ll try to write more tomorrow afternoon.

(Cross-Posted to DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)

I’m on a lunch break here in San Diego, where I just returned from an “informal session” with the other state party chairs and vice chairs. We had a nice discussion of both the successes in 2008 as well as a long discussion of the importance of keeping the State Partnership Program (a/k/a the “50-state strategy”) in place. Here are some brief reports from the other states:

– In Idaho — yes, Idaho — Vice Chair Jeanne Buell was proud to report that they’ve finally elected a Democrat to represent the state’s First Congressional District in Congress. But they’ve also heard they’re the number one target for the GOP in 2010.
– The Chair of Democrats Abroad, Christine Schon-Marques, reported that the 2008 campaign resulted in an amazing new ability of people being able to do phone banking from abroad, especially using Skype. Indeed, the campaign even had field staffers in some countries assigned to generate turnout among American citizens living abroad.
– Our chair, Pat Waak, talked about the good communication work among the organizations (Campaign For Change, Coordinated Campaign (Forward Colorado) and the Party), and the 51 CFC and 15 FC offices in the state. She was asked about the effect of holding the Convention in Denver, and reported that it certainly helped generate more excitement and volunteers.
– In New Hampshire, Chair Ray Buckley talked about the concerns about melding the new volunteers that were brought in by Obama and the long-time Party volunteers — and also reported that they melded perfectly. He mentioned that there would normally be some jealousy and infighting, but the volunteers for Shaheen (their Senate candidate) were happy to support Obama, and vice versa — and they all were happy to support all of the down-ticket races. In 2004, they had a record 2,000 people on election day working on GOTV. In 2008, 12,000 people worked on election day GOTV in New Hampshire.
– Karen Thurman, Chair in Florida, reported on the massive mobilization there. They had 57 field offices and 600 paid staff, just to pull all of the volunteers together.
– In Maryland, Chair Mike Cryer reported how they dealt with the challenges of being a solidly blue state. Nearly one-fourth of the volunteer calls into battleground Virginia originated in Maryland. Maryland Democrats were able to identify and mobilize 230,000 volunteers, an immense number. He reported being able to ably define a role that Maryland could play in this election that contributed to the overall success of Democrats.
– Missouri Vice Chair Yolanda Wheat followed up on that. She had great words of thanks for the volunteers that poured into Missouri from places like Kansas, Oklahoma and Illinois, but wondered how those states handled the “brain drain” of volunteers working on races outside of their blue and red states.
– In Washington, they had a very tough, but successful, race for re-election of their governor, according to Chair Dwight Pelz. He said the Obama campaign helped by “semi-targeting” the state.

At this point, Governor Dean walked in the room and talked to the crowd. He certainly got the mood right when he began by saying, “Doesn’t it feel much better than it felt four years ago?” He took a number of questions, and lots of kudos for a successful term as DNC Chair from everybody. Even one-time cynics, such as the Chair from Delaware, gave him credit for a successful 50-state strategy and true partnership with the state parties. Many noted that his role in the 2008 wins has not been fully appreciated by the press or the pundits. He did take several questions, and was very frank — and, at times, funny — in his responses.

Once Governor Dean left, the topic remained on the 50-state (or, as the territories like to remind us, the 56-state) strategy. I think it is a universal sentiment among all of the state party chairs and vice chairs here this weekend that keeping that program in place for the next DNC chair is going to be critical.

DNC Secretary Alice Germond came into the meeting toward the middle of the meeting, and briefly thanked all of the state parties for their work in making the National Convention in Denver “the best convention I’ve ever seen” — and she’s been around since the mid-70s!

In addition to the 50-state strategy, the other major concern seems to be a desire to avoid a repeat of 1993 and 1994, where a Democratic victory in a Presidential year led to a huge backlash just two years later, and major legislative failures. I spent some time talking about that last night, and the New Hampshire Chair, Ray Buckley, also echoed the same thoughts today. We’re still trying to figure out how we do it, but one thing is clear: we have got to give President Obama as much support in his efforts to change America as we possibly can, and we have to do that in all 50 states.

Well, I’m headed off to the joint meeting of the DNC Executive Committee and the ASDC, which will take up all afternoon. There are a couple of receptions after that. So, if I don’t get to write about this afternoon later today, I’ll be sure to do it before I head out in the morning.

(Cross-Posted to DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)

Change is good.

Not only is change good, it is what we spent the past year clawing and scratching our way to get. So, now we’ve got it. The problem with getting change, though, is that there is a lot of uncertainty attached to change.

This afternoon, here in San Diego, the Association of State Democratic Chairs Executive Committee met to discuss — for the most part — all of this uncertainty. There were about a dozen people here for the Executive Committee meeting — of the 15 or so members of the ASDC Executive Committee, only Colorado has both its Chair (Pat Waak) and its Vice Chair (myself) serving on the committee. Not California, not Illinois, not New Hampshire. Just Colorado. I know it is a point of pride for both Pat and me.

Because it was a closed meeting, I don’t want to reveal too many details. But I think it is safe to say that we have a lot of questions about what the DNC will look like in the near future, and what the partnership between the DNC and the state parties will look like. We’ll get those answers in the next month or two, but for now, that uncertainty has led to a lot of discussion among the state parties here in San Diego, and it is likely to dominate the conversation in the coming couple of days of meetings.

We were joined at the beginning of our meeting by a very relaxed-looking Governor Howard Dean, the Chair of the DNC. Gov. Dean’s first comment to the group was a reference to the increasing importance of the West in the national scene: “We knew the road to the White House led through the West, but who knew it also led through Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia as well?!” The Governor walked into the small meeting room here before the meeting began and folks were just chatting. As he strolled through the door rather nonchalantly, he seemed happily surprised by the standing ovation by the chairs and vice chairs in the room as he arrived.

After the Governor had briefly said a few words and taken a couple of questions, he headed out (he joined us again later for dinner). Tom McMahon, the Executive Director of the DNC, remained and we had a good conversation with Tom about the DNC and its relationship with each of the state parties. The conversation included topics like the 50-state strategy, the voter file, and the organization of the DNC under President Obama. It was a very productive meeting.

Tomorrow, we begin the day with a meeting among state chairs and vice chairs. Then, in the afternoon, we hold a joint meeting with the DNC Executive Committee. We’ll hear about plans for the transition and inauguration, as well as hearing some polling data in a closed session. I’ll write more tomorrow night, when I get a chance.

(Cross-Posted at DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)

We arrived yesterday in San Diego, where the Association of State Democratic Chairs is meeting. We begin our work this afternoon, with a meeting of the ASDC Executive Committee, on which both Pat and I sit (I represent the vice chairs in the Western Region of the United States; Pat is the Western Region ASDC representative to the DNC Executive Committee.

I’ll try to write often to keep everybody back home updated on what we learn — this is our chance to talk about both the future and the past. We are going to talk about the future of the Democratic Party and how we turn our successes into governing policies that help all Americans. And we are going to talk about the past in that we will study what happened in the 2008 elections, and figure out what worked, what didn’t work, and what we can do better.

Obviously, I won’t be able to let everybody in on all that we hear in some of these closed-door meetings; however, I will continue to pull back the curtain as much as I can to be sure that Colorado Democrats feel like a part of the discussion.

The meetings are here at the historic — and stunningly beautiful — Hotel del Coronado on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The weather is beautiful, of course — hard to believe there was snow on the ground when we left Denver yesterday morning. (By the way, if you’re looking for a good time to visit Sea World in San Diego, you couldn’t apparently do any better than a mid-week visit in mid-December — the weather is beautiful and there are literally no lines whatsoever for any of the rides, attractions, or shows.)

Anyway, I will report back later with more on what is going on here at the ASDC meetings and the DNC Executive Committee meetings here in California!