A Quote by Keith Ellison
To strengthen the grassroots at the party - at the party unit, at the county level, at the precinct level, and then to help motivate and facilitate the local grassroots to get out there and turn out the vote and boost turn out. And then to help govern in places where we do hold city councils and state legislatures.
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I'd say the most important criteria is vision. What is your vision for the party? Do you have a vision to strengthen the grassroots and help them turn out people in their local communities? That's the real thing. The real question is not about one person. It's not about an individual. It's about millions of people working all over this country to reach out in their local communities. And the DNC chair has to help them do that and have a vision for that and have the energy for that.
I'll start with the reality. If we're having problems nationally, we're having problems on the state level and then on the local level, what message is that sending to Black people who are not supposed to be intelligent but the grassroots understand? What that means in this time, as in the time of Moses, it means buckle on your boots and shoes and let's get the hell out of here. As the boys said in the movie; it's time to get out.
We have to have a shared prosperity. We have to make that our job number one. People want a better economic playing field for working Americans. And they're voting for it. Our job is to make sure that people know that the Democratic party is the party that is going to deliver that for them. And that means strengthening the grassroots. That means strengthening the local precinct county level and making sure that we're all channeled on massive turnout for that program.
The only thing we took out was the Constitution of the State of Mississippi and the interpretation of the Constitution. We had 63,000 people registered on the Freedom Registration form. And we tried from every level to go into the regular Democratic Party medium. We tried from the precinct level. The 16th of June when they were holding precinct meetings all across the state, I was there and there was eight of us there to attend the meeting, and they had the door locked at 10 o'clock in the morning. This is what's happening in the State of Mississippi.
Alabama - they were the masters of that. They could come out with 'Mountain Music' or 'Tennessee River' and then turn around and come out with 'Feels So Right.' Go out and have fun and be those guys that like to party, then turn around and make every woman in America want Randy Owen.
I'm more of a hands-on person. I like working with young people from the standpoint of providing support for the grassroots programs. State, national and Olympic champions begin at a grassroots level.
The Tea Party is almost solely grassroots-based; business interests have almost no grassroots organization. The Republican Party has for too long been run on behalf of business interests who favor candidates the grassroots hate; the minute that those candidates begin to flag, only loyal Tea Partiers stand behind them.
At the federal level, as a member of Congress, you have one vote out of 435, and in the Senate, it's one out of 100. So, the ability to get some stuff done exists as a much larger opportunity at a local level than in the federal government.
We need to invest at the local party unit and focus our energy on turn out. That's how we come back, and we can come back.
I'm not a grassroots organizer; that is clear. I believe in a division of labor. I'm not trained to organize the grassroots, and grassroots has to come from the grassroots.
I do this thing at every party: I go to a party, I stand around for, like, 45 minutes, and then I turn to my wife and say, 'I think we should go home.' And then we leave, and then I wake up the next morning and say to my wife, 'We don't go out anymore.' It's a great trick.
I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning.
How do we make hockey more affordable? How do we get it into more households? How do we keep it part of the conversation? Those are things that will help us not only increase registration numbers from a grassroots level but also deepen the player pool from the senior national team and the elite level.
I think really I've always had the same focus, to go out there and I like to facilitate and help my teammates in any way I can, go out there and work hard and I think things will turn out right.
If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in - then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it.
Twenty-five years ago, I created the Taxpayer Protection Pledge at the federal level. Then I brought it to the state and local level. About 97 percent of the Republicans in the House and 85 percent in the Senate have signed on, and the number of candidates who have taken the pledge is even higher. It's become a party position.
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