Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

To understand what H & H did to take seats in their respective parliaments, it's worth looking at one of their opponents.  Fatah, the political party that was for decades under the control of Yasir Arafat, was once the undisputed authority in the Palestinian territories.  Having a relationship with the PLO (and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade) that was quite like that between Sinn Fein and the IRA, they had a long history of fighting for Palestinian independence through means both legal and extra-legal.  Though we thought of them as "anti-western" at the time, Fatah was a mostly secular, fairly moderate party.  It's election at the start of the Palestinian Authority left them with both "street cred" and power over the government's purse.  Opposing groups, including Hammas, were seen as more radical and unable to help the Palestinians function as a nation among nations.  Hammas was marginalized, with only the more radical Islamists in their corner.

Fatah officials seemed as shocked as the west when after a few short years, Hammas unseated them in the last round of elections, leaving Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to deal with a Hammas majority in parliament.   Despite being Arafat's spiritual heir, despite holding all the strings of the government, Fatah had lost.  How did that happen?  And what is Fatah doing now in an effort to reclaim the majority?  They began involving themselves in more community outreach programs, more food banks, more preschools, more free health clinics.  Why take this tack?  Because that's exactly what Hammas did in their rise to power.

Both Hammas and Hezbollah have become masters at community involvement.  Our first association in thinking of either group may be centered on the phrase "Katyusha rocket," but for many Lebanese or Palestinians, when they think of these groups, they think of the free school that took in their kids when the public school was left without funding or destroyed by conflict.  They think of the people that come around and provide free food for their families.  They think of them as the people who staff that nice new clinic on the corner where they can get treatment for their ailing relative.  

Within hours of the truce in southern Lebanon, people whose homes had been damaged in the fighting found themselves greeted by men offering to helps.  Trucks came around with an architect, engineers, and construction workers.  Supplies arrived.  Hammers started to fall as homes were reconstructed.  It wasn't the government, or the UN, or any international aid organization.  It was Hezbollah.

Right now, other organizations are racing to our-aid Hezbollah and try and break the attachment between the radical group and the surrounding Lebanese.  Given the destruction that Hezbollah helped to bring down on them, this might seem a fairly easy task, but it's always hard to turn your backs on people who have been giving you personal, face-to-face, help.  Other parties that want influence in southern Lebanon recognize that they have to be seen up close, helping out, not just writing checks in Beirut.

So what does any of this have to do with a campaign in the states?  Only this: would we be better off if we spent less of our campaign funds on television and radio ads, and more of those same dollars on community involvement and outreach programs?  It's foolish to assume that in a heavily media-driven culture like the United States, we could get by without investing in electronic media, but should it dominate the campaign budget the way it does today?

Many of us have taken part in community outreach events that occur as part of a campaign.  It's not unusual, especially among progressive candidates, to drum up volunteers for a local roadside cleanup, or a day of meals on wheels, or some construction work at Habitat for Humanity.  But what it that kind of tactic wasn't a "special event?"  

Check out this analysis (warning: .pdf) of the 2002 Senate race in Missouri.  The results of this race were extremely close, with Republican Jim Talent edging Jean Carnahan by 49.8% to 48.7%.  Much of the analysis centers on the strategies of the two candidates (the Democrats spent more on GOTV efforts, but the Republicans did better planning and ran a smoother operation.  Talent spent a lot of time targeting women to overcome a large gender gap.)  Both candidates spent a lot of cash on TV and radio.  Each party organization spent about $3 million.  Carnahan's campaign put in another $5 million.  Talent spent $4 million.  Then "supporting organizations" came in, spending another half a million on each side.  Add it all up, and the electronic media expenditures for Carnahan topped $8.7 million while the Talent campaign spent $7.1 million.

These numbers don't look that huge when compared to some of the major media markets, but for a senate race in Missouri, those are big numbers.  There's little doubt that Carnahan lost the seat because at the time, Bush was enjoying a 67% approval rating in those post-9/11 pre-Iraq days, and he stumped heavily for Talent.  The Republicans did then what the Democrats are doing now, they nationalized the campaign, and made it possible for Talent to spend less money by having the national party run general ads for Republican positions.

All in all, Carnahan's team spent over $12 million dollars on her campaign.  It was a classic campaign, centrally organized, with a robust staff and an effective media organization -- they lost, but it was a close thing in a tough year for Democrats.

But suppose we took a different approach.

Rather than trying to cram a multi-million dollar campaign into the final months of a single year, what if we looked at campaigns as something that go on all the time 24/7, 365.  Governor Dean has already made moves to place more party infrastructure in each state as part of the 50-State plan.  What would it take to build on that, not a framework of election planners, but a framework of community involvement?

What if the Democratic Party directly paid the salary of a secretary at a food bank so they could be open more hours and handle more people?  What if the Democratic Party sponsored all the highway cleanup along some prominent stretches of interstate, and paid the people doing it.  What if the Democratic Party funded free health clinics in poor neighborhoods and formed a partnership with groups like Habitat with Humanity to build thousands of more houses?  Would it work in America, or would we be better off spending those dollars putting money in the pockets of television stations that support the Republicans?

I'm honestly not sure an expanded focus on community involvement would work in the US, because so many of us are already blind to the workings of our communities.  However, I'm certainly willing to give it a try.

Here are some hints from the bad guys, how even Hammas and Hezbollah became heroes to people who would never think of themselves as radicals:

1. Small local actions count -- and they can count even more than big dollars coming from anonymous government sources.  Washington may be writing a check for a billion bucks to fund food programs, but if you're the one delivering hot meals to the door, you're the one who will be remembered.
   
2. Local involvement builds reputations for caring and honesty.  Hezbollah, who we see as a lying group of terrorists, is seen as "incorruptible' in their communities when compared to the clearly corrupt government.  They treat these small obligations seriously, and follow through quickly.
   
3. Don't be afraid to put your name on it.  It's okay for  an individual donor to make a quiet gift, but for a political party to use this technique, they can't be shy.  For years, Hammas stuck their flag on everything where they're the least bit involved, even medical centers actually run by the government.  People started to remember these places as "Hammas clinics."