Brian Melendez to the DFL Central Committee: the glass is both half empty and half full

  Editor's note: The following email appeared on the DFL State Central Committee elist. I found Melendez's insights worth reposting for the public, and received his permission to publish the email on Bluestem.

A discussion of party meeting schedules and a few other items have have been omitted--and that editing is indicated by the use of ellipses (. . .).

My thanks to Chairman Melendez for allowing me to repost the text here.

by Brian Melendez, Chair,
Minnesota DFL Party

I have been taking the time since Election Day as an opportunity for listening and learning. Although some people seemed to feel that they had everything figured out by the next morning, I didn’t (and I still don’t). But now that some time has passed, and we have all gained some perspective on the results, and some context that may not have been immediately evident, I’m writing in order to share my first-draft thoughts about those results and how we interpret and respond to them.

Besides the conversations on this email list, there have been several good commentaries that have offered illuminating insight, some from a national perspective and some from a Minnesota perspective. Democratic candidates and state parties in every state around the country felt the tidal wave that President Obama referred to as a “shellacking,” so our experience here in Minnesota must be interpreted within that national context. William Saletan of Slate argued eloquently, in his article “Democrats didn’t lose the battle of 2010. They won it,” that health-care reform and the other solid legislative accomplishments of the 111th Congress were worth the price that we paid at the polls:

The big picture isn’t about winning or keeping power. It’s about using it.... A party that loses a House seat can win it back two years later, as Republicans just proved. But a party that loses a legislative fight against a middle-class health care entitlement never restores the old order.

And E.J. Dionne wrote for The Washington Post that “Democrats should hold their ground” and not be stampeded by an electoral setback into suddenly steering a different course.             

Here in Minnesota, Javier Morillo-Alicea wrote an article on the Bluestem Prairie blog titled “Filling the glass: an organizer’s take on Tuesday in Minnesota,” which pushes back on the “defeatism” with which many DFLers viewed the election results. And while others were focused on Wednesday-morning quarterbacking and the blame game, Nathan Hunstad turned the discussion in a factual direction and gave us the first comprehensive analysis of “Local elections and turnout.”

As Bob Spaulding pointed out on this list, a shift of just 1,590 votes would have left the Minnesota Senate in DFL hands. And a similar shift would have left the Minnesota House under DFL leadership. We are just six seats away from retaking the House, and four seats from retaking the Senate -- and a shift of merely four thousand votes in key districts would have made all the difference.

When a newspaper article early in the Kennedy administration referred to the President’s aide Arthur Schlesinger as “coruscatingly brilliant,” Kennedy reminded him that “a hundred thousand votes the other way and they’d all be coruscatingly stupid.”

So which is it? Is the glass half empty, or is it half full?

It’s both, of course. Any analysis that looks at our gubernatorial win for the first time in 24 years (and our decisive wins in every other statewide office), but overlooks our legislative and congressional losses, is woefully incomplete. But any analysis that looks only at our losses without also acknowledging our successes is equally useless. We need the big picture. We need context.

One way of measuring the Party’s electoral strength in historical context is the chart that appeared in my annual report to the Central Committee in January 2009, following the 2008 general election. I am attaching an updated version that includes the 2010 results. This chart graphs the DFL Party’s electoral success over time. It uses a formula that assigns a score where the Legislature is worth 200 points, divided equally between the House and the Senate; the state Executive branch is worth 200 points, divided equally between the Governorship and the other constitutional offices; and Minnesota’s congressional delegation is worth 200 points, divided equally between the House and the Senate. There are 600 possible points (not all of which are in play in any particular election, since some officers are elected for four-year or six-year terms).

The chart reflects the Party’s political strength when the officers elected in a given election take office in the new year. Here are some interesting statistics about the 2010 election, which help put the 2010 cycle in perspective:

       •       The 2010 election has taken the Party to its most successful point in 34 years. We have reached our third highest point of all time, topped only by the elections immediately after Watergate and President Nixon’s resignation.

       •       We have moved steadily upward in the past six years from a 24-year low point to a 34-year high point. We went from a score of 235 after the 2004 cycle, to 342 after 2006, to 391 after 2008, to 441 points after 2010 -- only the fourth time ever, and the only time ever outside the Watergate era, that the score has topped the 400 mark.

So looked at in this context, this cycle was the third best in the Party’s history. We won the governorship for the first time in 24 years. We swept every other statewide constitutional office and, with Senators Klobuchar and Franken in office, we now hold every statewide office. And we are on the cusp of regaining legislative control, just ten seats away from retaking the Legislature in the 2012 cycle -- an attainable goal, since we have gained more than ten seats in two of the last four cycles.

So if we won, or at least we didn’t lose, why does it hurt?

I can think of several reasons.

First, losing the Legislature was a shock. We were surprised and stunned. The polls didn’t predict it; the pundits didn’t predict it; even the Republican trash talk was focused on the constitutional officers and Congress, not on the Legislature. An MPR–HHH poll taken just a week before Election Day showed a generic DFL legislative candidate with a 10-point lead over a generic Republican candidate.  A prominent state representative, one of the more astute observers at the Capitol, predicted that the House DFL Caucus would emerge with 78 seats after the election -- a number that seemed eminently reasonable.

Second, we lost some good friends -- and to a seemingly senseless tragedy. Personally, I have never admired or respected any politician more than I have admired, respected, and loved Jim Oberstar, and I can hardly imagine a world where his constituents would let him go. But we’re living in that world. As Representative Al Juhnke wrote, “there was a pretty stiff political breeze blowing across the prairie on Tuesday. It was nothing I did or didn’t do, I was just caught up in it.”

Third, we came so close, so close, to hitting the trifecta in a redistricting cycle for the first time ever.

Fourth, after two decades without a DFL Governor, we have become conditioned to thinking of electoral success in terms of legislative elections, since the Legislature is the only arena in state government where we have succeeded in the past generation. We aren’t accustomed to appreciating the power of a gubernatorial administration: the power of staffing and directing every cabinet office and state department, the power of filling judicial vacancies, the power of the veto pen. We’ll get used to it -- and when the most powerful figure in state politics is on our side for a change, it will be a powerful antidote. But right now that power seems remote and unfamiliar, while the loss of our legislative majorities seems all too real.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the joy of winning the governorship is tempered by the uncertainty of a possible recount and looming litigation. We won and, intellectually, we are all confident that Mark Dayton will be our next governor. But it’s too early to pop the champagne corks. Our joy must be deferred for a little while longer. Meanwhile, our sorrow at losing our congressional and legislative friends is certain, untempered, and immediate.

But here is the real question that we should be asking ourselves: Would we trade places with the Republicans, losing the governorship in exchange for thin legislative majorities that can be easily swept away in the next cycle? Would they trade places with us?

I don’t think so.

So what now?

We have heard a lot of suggestions. Change the leadership. Change the message. Change something. Just: change.

But change for change’s sake isn’t a strategy. There is a saying that half of the money spent in advertising is wasted; the problem is, nobody knows which half. And indulging our knee-jerk reactions and pet peeves, without waiting for the facts, without gaining some perspective, may easily head us down the wrong path -- even though it will make us feel like we are in control. We definitely did many things right in 2006 and 2008 -- so was it a mistake when we did them again in 2010? Maybe it was. But let’s examine carefully before we jump to that conclusion. Maybe Al Juhnke’s point was valid in a broader sense, and the political wind was bound to take its toll no matter what we did. (I do have a hard time believing that we could have withstood a tidal wave that toppled a titan like Jim Oberstar if we had just found a better bumper-sticker slogan, or had used social media differently.) . . .

First . . . we need facts before we can draw meaningful conclusions. We’re getting smarter every day: Election Day was on Tuesday the 2nd. By Thursday the 4th, Bob Spaulding had shared Representative Carlos Mariani’s statistical analysis of the Minnesota Senate turnover, and Nathan Hunstad’s analysis of margins and turnout appeared. It wasn’t until Thursday the 11th that the StarTribune published Steve Elkins’s commentary exposing how pro-business groups quietly pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into a dozen legislative races at the eleventh hour, which may easily have affected several outcomes. We should weigh such information before we draw conclusions.

Second, . . .any discussion about the Party’s direction and future should be led by a chair with a fresh mandate from the Business Conference (regardless of whether that chair is a reelected incumbent or a new chair).

       And third, our conversations around the Party’s direction and future should be driven from the grassroots up. . . .
     
 [O]ur tasks heading into the 2012 cycle are clear: hold the Presidency and Senator Klobuchar’s seat; reelect the DFL congressional delegation and retake the Eighth; and win at least six more seats in the Minnesota House and four more in the Minnesota Senate, so that Mark Dayton will have the legislative allies that he needs to keep building a better Minnesota. We have done it before -- repeatedly. We can do it again. And when we do, we’ll all be coruscatingly brilliant again.

Comments

[Jeff Rosenberg]

Thanks for posting this. Mr. Melendez makes some good points, some of which are similar to Javier Morillo-Alicea's. And if our communication problems were limited to just this year, I might even agree with him.

But we've had serious communication problems for a long time, and they've been particularly noticeable during the legislative session. Like I wrote in response to Javier, this isn't just about the party chair. It's a party-wide problem, and it's got to stop.

I'm sorry, but I think that when Melendez writes "we’re getting smarter every day," he means "we're finding more excuses every day." I'm not interested in excuses, I'm interested in how we'll do better next time.

So we were close. That's good to know. What could we have done to push us over the edge? How can we communicate effectively in 2012 so this doesn't happen again? What can we do in January to win the budget debate against the Republican legislature?

[TwoPuttTommy]

***
And third, our conversations around the Party’s direction and future should be driven from the grassroots up. . . .
***

Agreed. Which is the point of this post, here.

There's not much time between now and the State DFL Central Committee Meeting on December 11th; the local Elected DFL Leadership needs activist input before then.

[TwoPuttTommy]

For some reason, the link didn't work; let's try it again:

http://mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/7810/tone-deaf-and-other-comments-from-the-field

[Javier Morillo]

Maybe I'm just dense, but I don't get all of this "messaging is the problem" talk. It is such a catch-all term, "messaging," at least in the way in which many Minnesota social media folks use it, that I have difficulty ascertaining what they're claiming "the problem" is.

A humble suggestion - perhaps we should focus a little more on using the tools of the internet to ORGANIZE, not just opine.

[Phoenix Woman]

I wonder if the effect of social conservative groups spending and organizing in rural and exurban districts, combined with the rotten economy, is the culprit here.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: If in early 2009 Obama and the DC Dems had pushed through a $2T stimulus like every economist worth the name had begged them to do since the fall of 2008 -- and they could have done it via reconciliation, as they did for HCR and as Bush did for many of his bills -- we wouldn't be having this conversation because we'd be looking at big wins, if anything. But instead, as the US House Democratic Caucus Chair John Larsen said recently, "We had a Roosevelt moment and responded like Hoover." (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/129365-dem-leader-party-responded-like-hoover-to-unemployment-crisis)

[TwoPuttTommy]

Editor's note to the comment --for those coming in via MNPublius' 11/18 post--

A note about commenting on Bluestem:

Tommy Johnson's barb below aimed at Javier Morillo-Alicea is as close as one can come to an attack to the person--and a factual distortion--as I will allow on Bluestem. At issue here is Mr. Johnson's suggestion that Mr. Morillo-Alicea has not used the tools of social media to organize.

This jab is false. As president of SEIU Local 26, Mr. Morillo-Alicea has led an organization which deploys social media to organize workers and to affect change. Mt. Johnson would do well to review the local's efforts --in conjunction with environmental groups--last spring on the Green Jobs campaign for a new contract for janitors cleaning buildings in downtown Minneapolis. In a recessionary times, the workers--with the help of allies--won an innovative and strong contract. Social media was a part of this victory.

Moreover, Mr. Morillo-Alicea has been a leader in the fight for CIR and to fight SB1070, both in Arizona and copy-cat bills here in Minnesota.

He spearheaded and organized the outcry last spring against Steve Drazkowski's HF 3830, using tools provided by Blue State Digital, Facebook, Youtube and so forth to unite dozens of leaders in the immigrant rights, labor, social justice and faith communities.

At the national level, he headed SEIU's immigration committee--overseeing efforts to persuade and organize via social media that drew thousands into the fight to fix the broken system. Those who are more familiar with Mr. Morillo-Alicea's work know of other examples.

Mr. Johnson's shot thus is ill-taken.

In the future, I will not publish remarks that attack individuals commenting here. Stick to the substance of the arguments and respect what others have done in the real world. In the past, I have not published comments in which the poster states information that I know to be false, and I will not allow personal attacks that contradict facts, either.

Two Putt Tommy's original comment:

***
A humble suggestion - perhaps we should focus a little more on using the tools of the internet to ORGANIZE, not just opine.
***

Agreed.

When do you plan on starting, Javier?

Better late than never, I always say.

[Dale Howey]

Thank you Chair Melendez! Maybe I can get a little more sleep at night. Thank you for your insight. Regroup, stand up, keep fighting for grace and all that is good in this world so our children can have something to be proud of. We are hear only a moment in time. Love and generosity is the way. I feel like I'm watching someone with bi-polar disorder. The mean and the greedy vs. the giving and the needy. Peace to all this holiday season.

[Jbohn]

Brian needs to step aside so the party leaders can have a serious discussion about moving forward.

There is one person in my mind that has the professional campaign experience and fundraising capability to lead our party back to the majority in 2012. Ken Martin is my choice, and the choice of many others I speak to at local DFL meetings.

Hopefully, for the sake of the party, Ken will decide to run after he leads The Dayton team through the recount.

[Rose Marie]

Funny how the complaining I'm hearing about the DFL leadership right now was nonexistent back when MAK and Entenza were riding high earlier this year.

[Jim]

Can we pick up 6 state house seats in 2012?
There were at least 6 very close state house races we lost: 1B, 25A, 25B, 40A, 41B, and 42A

Can we pick up 4 state senate seats in 2012?
There were at least 4 very close state senate races we lost: 12, 15, 31, 38, 40, 47, and 56

Yes we can.

[Sally Jo Sorensen, Editor, Bluestem Prairie]

A note about commenting on Bluestem:

Tommy Johnson's barb aimed at Javier Morillo-Alicea is as close as one can come to an attack to the person--and a factual distortion--as I will allow on Bluestem. At issue here is Mr. Johnson's suggestion that Mr. Morillo-Alicea has not used the tools of social media to organize.

This jab is false. As president of SEIU Local 26, Mr. Morillo-Alicea has led an organization which deploys social media to organize workers and to affect change. Mt. Johnson would do well to review the local's efforts --in conjunction with environmental groups--last spring on the Green Jobs campaign for a new contract for janitors cleaning buildings in downtown Minneapolis. In a recessionary times, the workers--with the help of allies--won an innovative and strong contract. Social media was a part of this victory.

Moreover, Mr. Morillo-Alicea has been a leader in the fight for CIR and to fight SB1070, both in Arizona and copy-cat bills here in Minnesota.

He spearheaded and organized the outcry last spring against Steve Drazkowski's HF 3830, using tools provided by Blue State Digital, Facebook, Youtube and so forth to unite dozens of leaders in the immigrant rights, labor, social justice and faith communities.

At the national level, he headed SEIU's immigration committee--overseeing efforts to persuade and organize via social media that drew thousands into the fight to fix the broken system. Those who are more familiar with Mr. Morillo-Alicea's work know of other examples.

Mr. Johnson's shot thus is ill-taken.

In the future, I will not publish remarks that attack individuals commenting here. Stick to the substance of the arguments and respect what others have done in the real world. In the past, I have not published comments in which the poster states information that I know to be false, and I will not allow personal attacks that contradict facts, either.

Moreover--and Mr. Johnson has the integrity to post without using these sorts of games and should be respected for that--Bluestem does not publish comments by those not providing names (pseudonyms are fine) and working email addresses; a bizarre string of a bogus yahoo account is not a pseudonym. No exceptions.

[TwoPuttTommy]

Note to readers: Mr. Johnson contacted me about the comments he left on Mr. Morillo-Alicea's post, as he noted that they had not been released from moderation. I was away from my computer at the time he left them.

I went typepad's editor and didn't see the comments, nor did I receive an email alert that Mr. Johnson's comments on the JMA post were waiting.

I assumed then--and still believe this to be the case--that a software glitch caused the comments to be swallowed, and asked Mr. Johnson to post them again, and that I would release them from moderation.

To my knowledge, he has not yet done so. As I have told him in multiple email exchanges, the offer still stands--and I have today offered to post them myself in the comment section, using the same author information he uses.

The offer still stands: when I receive Mr. Johnson's comments in the section--or in an email for me to post- they will be posted on Mr. Morillo-Alicea's post.

Update: I have found the comments (in an email) that Mr. Johnson did not wish to repost, and posted them over my own name, at the Morillo-Alicea post. You may read them here:

http://www.bluestemprairie.com/bluestemprairie/2010/11/morilloaliceaguestpost.html?cid=6a00d834516a0869e2013489277ad3970c#comment-6a00d834516a0869e2013489277ad3970c

Here's the comment Mr. Johnson left here--on this post-- addressing his perceptions of the situation:

Just to be clear -- you allowed Javier to post a couple of days ago where he started out by calling Eric Pusey, Jeff Rosenberg and I - by name - "defeatists" and that's ok.

But what I wrote isn't.

You're a real stand-up kind of a lady, SJS.

[Nikki]

From what I saw from indy expenditures, the Republicans were saying, "The Dems voted to raise your taxes and they want to do it again!"
The Dems were saying "The Republicans want to cut such-and-such programs!"

I think the Dem's "messaging" helped to elect Republicans.

That said, I DID NOT see this coming. I was in Nevada doing gotv there. I just don't mean to say messaging is more important than organizing. You can't have one without the other.

[Josh]

Not sure I agree with a formula that assigns equal weight to the governorship as to 1 house in the legislature. We've seen over the past 8 years that the governor is the heaviest hitter.

I don't disagree with many of Chairman Melendez's points here, but I'm not wild about the tone. maybe I'm overly sensitive, but there's a number of flourishes in this letter that look like direct slaps back to anyone who is criticizing DFL Party leadership.

I also don't agree that discussion of our party's direction & future should be postponed until after the business conference and a new chair is elected, as seems to be inferred here. Part of the decision in selecting a new chair has to be in context of the successes and failures of the last election as well as the last few cycles.

[Sarah Barton]

Editor's note: Sarah Barton repeated a comment left on an earlier post by Javier Morillo-Alicea in this space.

Repeating earlier comments without substantive changes is a form of spamming; spam is not released from moderation on Bluestem.

Those who want to read the discussion on the Morillo-Alicea post can follow it here:

http://www.bluestemprairie.com/bluestemprairie/2010/11/morilloaliceaguestpost.html#comments