Grass Roots Campaigns Work

Written by: Fran Ryan on Nov 26, 2006 1:00 AM EST

Years ago, our neighborhood precinct wanted to usurp a village board and president, who were corruptly run by an adjacent village, comprised of a majority of Republicans.  A group of neighbors discussed what we could do and one of the members bought a book called, "How to Win an Election." 

We did telephone chains and home meetings to inform our fellow residents, and precinct co-captains walked the precinct to talk to people. In short, on election day that year, we threw the bums out--all of them--and our village was also a majority of Republicans.  Our precinct was first in voting numbers.  Sound like a familiar process?  It was inspiring!

Though I have voted in every election, I was never that angry or involved again until 2000, 2004 and 2006.  Obviously, we lost in the first two elections.  In this last one, I got really involved in lots of small ways.  I contributed what I could afford to DNC, DFA, Common Cause, Truth Out, Barbara Boxer's PAC and a couple of other PACs to see if I could influence what was happening nationally.  

I took a couple of DFA "night school" computer/telephone classes. I loved DFA's "grass roots" approach because I knew it could work.  I walked neighborhoods with and without candidates, distributed Democratic literature, marched with Democrats in Fourth of July and Labor Day parades, mailed out DNC messages, and visited other nearby precincts, who were showing documentary films on the corruption and incompetence in our government.  We also showed one of the films in our own precinct, and had the largest turnout  of any of our precinct meetings.  Our precinct captain and just a few neighbors had been involved.  We were discouraged by what seemed like a lack of interest by many people, and we didn't realize we were actually getting peoples' attention. 

I also did my political homework, reading everything I could find. I bought so many books, I still haven't finished them all--but I will.  You can't influence people if you don't know enough about what you want them to know. 

On election day, I was an election judge in a nearby precinct of 706 registered voters (again a mostly Republican precinct).  What was usually less than 100 voters for a mid-term election,  actually tripled.  It was so gratifying to see that people were paying attention, even before I knew how they voted.  And even though we did have trouble with voting equipment at the end of the day, there was paper backup and once again--we threw the bums out!!  With DFA's help, we can do the same and more for 2008.  I know I will.

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Location: Hanover Park, IL 60133