>Also depressing is the new post-Iowa conventional wisdom that
>grass-roots organization, and a capacity to mobilize and politicize
>people don't actually matter in an election.
That's not depressing -- it has and will always be true, regardless of how the Dean campaign, which has been the creature of the mass media and fund raising rather than of grass-roots organization, will fare from now on. (Dean signed up a lot of white volunteers mainly because the mass media, from early on, set him up as _the_ anti-war candidate. The coverage of Dean began to turn against him after the deadly month of November and the capture of Saddam Hussein in early December 2003, which allayed the liberal establishment's anxiety about how Bush is "handling" the occupation of Iraq.)
The reason why grassroots organizing's capacity to mobilize and politicize people is central to social-movement building _but matters little in an election_ is that elections (especially money-and-media-driven elections like American ones) give disproportionate weight and power to moderate fence-sitters who are "undecided" until the very last minute, whereas social movements are powered by those who have strong opinions (be they on the left or the right), make up their minds quickly, and actually spend time and energy contributing to movement-building.
Cf. Dean did well among caucus-goers who "made up their minds more than a month ago" but did very badly among "the first-time attendees who decided more recently":
***** The polls were conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National Election Pool of television networks and The Associated Press. They questioned 1,666 people as they arrived Monday night for the caucuses in 50 precincts throughout Iowa. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Dr. Dean drew 32 percent of first-time caucusgoers who made up their minds more than a month ago, while Mr. Kerry attracted 28 percent.
Of the first-time attendees who decided more recently, 39 percent supported Mr. Kerry, while 29 percent backed Mr. Edwards. Only 18 percent backed Dr. Dean.
(Katharine Q. Seelye and Marjorie Connelly, "Dean's New-Voter Strategy Seemed to Work, for Others," January 21, 2004, <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/21/politics/campaigns/21VOTE.html>) *****
In the case of social-movement building, we'll see an even bigger difference than the electoral difference analyzed above. Social movements won't get off the ground at all by trying to tailor their messages to appeal to fence-sitters. Folks who can't make up their minds until the last minute will not join any social movement, however movement organizers and activists tinker with the style and content of their message. -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>