How a Red State flipped Blue

I wish this was a master discussion of the work I got to help with in Florida during the Obama campaign in 2008, but the state I am talking about is Colorado. I read a good book describing what some might call the "inside baseball." Incidentally this was my first book purchase from an independent bookstore. I tend to get used books from the bookstore, online, or from friends. The trusty library usually helps me as well. This time, Nightbird Books in Fayetteville on Dickson Street special ordered the book for me. I even got a 10% discount for reciting a poem at the counter because it was Poetry Month I guess. Actually I recited two: one in English and one in Spanish. Anyways, onto my book review.

The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care) Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer (@ Amazon.com)

I learned about this book on DailyKos, a very popular progressive political blog. A much better review of the book can be found there, but I wanted to share a bit of what I read and what I thought about it.

Long story short: Colorado was a solid conservative state where Republicans ruled and few thought anything otherwise. In less than a decade a concerted effort flipped both houses of the state legislature, the governorship, and two U.S. Senate seats. Though some demographics where trending towards the Democrats, the real reason for the change was political organizing. How did the Democrats pull it off? Well it wasn't really the Democratic Party of Colorado, but I will get to that in a moment. How did they do it? Money, Discipline, and Unity.

Money
Colorado reformed their campaign finance laws in a way that limited how much individuals could give to candidates. It was intended to decrease the "buying" of candidates and officials by wealthy interests. This law made a national appearance in the form of the McCain-Feingold Act. What these laws did was close the door for donations from the wealthy to candidates, but opened up a new class of political organizations that could act politically, though NOT in direct concert with candidate campaigns. Arkansans got a great taste of these organizations in the recent primary between Senator Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Governor Bill Halter. Anyways, some hugely wealthy folks in Colorado were hugely pissed about the antics of the Republicans in the state government. They decided enough was enough and the way to stop it was to strategically pick off candidates that were most vulnerable and replace them with Democrats.

Discipline
These donors funded multiple organizations with different spheres of influence: a House campaign org, a Senate campaign org, a media watchdog, and others. Each organization was staffed by experienced political organizers (operatives). Though each organization was a separate entity, the donors and even board members had great overlap. With a clear mission, no group had to try to do everything. The ability to have discipline towards mission was granted from the donors: these donors made huge and continued investments and did not meddle in the details. They did NOT micromanage. They hired competent people and let them get to work.

Unity

Though these donors were in general progressive, they had their differences. They also picked the most electable candidates in many of the districts and this lead to differences between the political positions between the Democratic candidates and the progressive donors. They stuck to what they could agree on 90% of the time, and agreed that the mission (turning the state legislature) was worth supporting candidates that did not all have the same beliefs.

So...the campaign finance reforms really killed the "party" as the active machine of getting candidates and agendas into office. What replaced this machine was a loose group of organizations that were more nimble and less likely to be afraid to get dirty. For sure, many of their tactics would be considered "dirty" politics. They did what conservatives (through churches and religious organizations) had done for years. And they did it better than they had ever done. Karl Rove perfected micro-targeting and the Georgia Republicans perfected the 72 turnout machine, but Colorado Republicans never saw it coming. A group of Colorado millionaires decided to put those to work electing a party that would work for the people. And that is what Colorado got.

The Donors: Tim Gill, Jared Polis, and Pat Stryker were the LGBT and Allied ones. Others joined in.