I have some experience organizing Lower Income Women — some of it dates back to the early 1970’s when I first started working with Paul Wellstone organizing county by county in Rural Minnesota lower income, single and divorced women, women needing county services, and women on welfare. Before that Campaign in 1990 we had about forty such county organizations and part of my job on the campaign was to get them all involved and working for Paul. My other experience is with women in the cities, again mostly single and low income, and either in Public Housing or recently in Public Housing.

OK — the key is to begin where people are — not with voting, but with asking them to talk about what they need, want, and how they feel about politics in general. We need organizers in the party who can do this kind of listening, and then move the messages they hear into the political message. Once you find someone who is articulate — recruit and train them as an organizer. Connect them with things larger than their own circle.

Our Democratic Candidates need to be trained to relate properly with this lower income service group. If a candidate fails to go into the kitchen of a cafe where they have a meeting and shake hands, listen for a time, and actually ask for votes from the Kitchen Help and the Servers — they are failing as a candidate. If the event organizer fails to distribute buttons and information about voting and registeration, again — a failure. The message needs to be laid hard — these service workers are not the lesser invisable help, they are potential voters, and their vote is worth as much as someone who makes a big contribution. Every cafe and auto repair place Wellstone ever went into had new voters — and we got them. And moreover, if the organizer takes their names and sends them something in the mail — they will deliver the whole family plus friends at the polls. They don’t have money to contribute — but if you ask them to do a pot-luck for the campaign, they will shine. They shy away from the upscale, but asked to help for the right reasons and in the right way — it works. But it has to be authentic.

The Issues: You have to be something of an economic populist, which includes expectations about the quality of public services, and their general availabilty. But you have to ask people about their needs, and experiences with public services. For instance, about the local schools, about recreation opportunity, about how the police treat them when they need them, and yes about health care. Jobs and Job training are likely issues — does the local voc tech school have relevant programs? If, for instance, Hillary wants to make the matter of comparing women’s wages with men’s a campaign issue, she needs to make certain her organizers localize it. Most important, we have to be willing to leave party organizers behind to help further organize such women — and make them a factor beyond the immediate election. And that is something the 50 State Project ought to be seeding.

What if we launched a project where we identified towns with two things: a cosmetology school (where most students are likely women) and a 2-year or 4-year college (where at least 55% of students will be women, based on national averages). We raise money to pay the cosmetologist students going-rates, to provide services to female students for reduced rates, provided they register to vote or show their voter registration and take candidate/issue lit.

That might work, been stewing on this since I left earlier…??

brendan (129) — you really need a trip to John F. Kennedy Space Center. You really need to sit through the IMAX movie. Golfing? hardly, only a temporary gag that lasted for minutes for men who risked life and limb to prove to us that we can be far more than we are. I look forward to the day I can see a woman on the surface of the moon, and a woman traveling to Mars.

Mr. Schaller –

somewhat related to p.lukasiak’s comment above (on who’s behind third way)…

i wonder why the Ds are not pandering to their base… witness today’s vote (20 D senators voted to continue Bush’s occupation of iraq).

your analysis is on where the vote come from… what do you think the analysis would look like for dollars (for funding candidates and ideological “think tanks”)?

i confess to a stong bias for your conclusions – i want to politicians to pay attention to my interests!

Yes! I for one definitely do not feel pandered to! Who are they trying to please? Not their ‘base’.

p.lukasiak @ 74

I would tend to agree. Women who affiliate with NARAL/PP are probably already voting… its the ones who don’t get involved that need to be reached out to.

Universal health care will make Democratic voters of any woman, single or married, who has kids. Kids get sick a lot, and fear for their health, and the accompanying fear of bills, is omnipresent in any parent.

Brendan, these ladies are very used to bein lied to. Promises will not win them (aka ‘us’). Show us a trustworthy politician, one who keeps her/his promises, and just see what happens.

“the center” is, of course, a logical fiction. The degree to which a candidate is seen as LEFT RIGHT or center depends on their position on a variety of issues.

Should a congressional candidate in rural Idaho take a position in favor of gun control?

Oh yes! The left/right frame oversimplifies a reality that has three, four, five or more dimensions. Why don’t (single) women vote more? Because no candidate has so far given them any reason to.

Dover Bitch @ 106

Bob Schacht @ 100 summarizes what I think is the root problem.

This may be a serious generalization, but it seems to me that Republicans think the point of an election is to divide people, while liberals see division as the result of an election. The purpose is to attract people to a set of ideas.

I think that’s going to be largely impossible to change.

I disagree with Bob on this – we can attract people to our ideas by showing how they differ – that is what the “wedge” is – And I don’t understand why one should get so over wrought and hung up on causing a riff over standing ones ground to the point of prefering to give up and lose “an election here or there” – I say step aside or get over it. I have no intention giving up the fight in 2008 – it’s women’s reproductive rights that are at risk.

I have no problem with standing one’s ground, and pointing out differences. In fact, that often seems to correlate with “backbone”, something that Democrats sometimes seem to lack.

But I do have a problem with over-simplifying my position in order to draw a starker contrast with political opponents, to the point of distorting my position as well as theirs.

Bob in HI

tom schaller @ 7

Well, Jane, I find it interesting that Dems are always rewarded or legitimated by the conventionally wise and the talking heads when they move right, and the GOP is too when they move….right!.

A-yep. The GOP/Media Complex at work, shoving those Overton Windows further towards fascism.

The MSM has never been liberal. It’s all an O’Falafel conjob on the rubes out there that are stupid enough to believe him.

I have a co-worker who swears “they are all crooks” and doesn’t vote, but I can tell by the way he talks that he watches Bill O’Reilly regularly, has very strong conservative leanings and is definitely a Republican. And we have a very friendly relationship because I avoid antagonizing him, and even find points that I agree with him on. If he feels that strongly about issues so dear to his heart (abortion for one), I know he must be voting.