I do a lot of political volunteering. I enjoy it. I meet and work with lots of great people, most of what we do is fun, and I truly believe we are working towards important, even vital, goals. I rarely have to be pushed to volunteer. When I say No, it’s because an event as it the wrong time — usually, during work — or because I’ve already said Yes to something else. Others do a lot more, but I do far more than my “fair” share.
And then there are the people who say they care and want to make a difference but refuse to do anything. Nothing. They’ll vote and donate a little money, but ask them to spend one evening making phone calls, and suddenly democracy is inconvenient, irritating and something they can’t be bothered with.

No wonder the bads guy took over.

However, despite my frustration and, at times, disgust with people refusing to get involved in any way (disgust being saved for people who’ll become PCPs — precinct committee people, a role that requires actually stepping forward to say, Yes I’ll be a leader in my community — and then never find the time to fulfull that role), I understand the onus to change this is not on those people but political organizations. (Ok, for the PCPs, they gotta get their own act together.)

Politics, of course, has a bad name and an ugly face. We’re asking a lot of people to believe that spending a few hours on a campaign is doing something worthwhile. We’re not only facing the problem of “What can one person do?” but also the stereotype of anything political being sleazy, selfish and totally bad. It does not matter if the cause is a good one, if the candidate is pure or the need transparently clear to the entire society. What counts is that it involves “politics” and for too many people, that’s an area of life that frightens, angers and frustrates them.

The progressive solution, of course, is the only real solution: Ordinary people becoming informed and active and transforming politics with their presence. That’s what we do at the Bus Project, and that’s what’s going on in most county Democratic parties across Oregon. But only the people who have been in touch with such groups and have already participated undertand this. For everyone else, all political groups are cut from the same cloth.
Our task, as political organizers and leaders, is to change that perception. And wish at we might for another way to that change, there is but one: A long, slow, steady slog of person-by-person outreach. That’s why the two fundamental programs of progressive politics are likely to always be the phone bank and the canvass. Personal contact between ordinary citizens is the most effective means of making major societal change. It’s not the quickest way, but, as with a diet, the quick ways usually backfire.

In 2008, a huge number of people are getting involved for the first time, mostly through the Obama campaign. Not only have an unprecedented number given money to his campaign, the number of volunteers is staggering. The job of local Democratic parties and other progressive groups is to find a way to connect the hope and vision that leads people to volunteer for Obama and to the on-going need for those same people to stay politically active in their neighborhood, city, state. Maybe only a handful will join with their local Dems; that’s fine. The need is to get the others to continue to do something — with anyone.

An important part of trying to convince people to remain involved beyond the 2008 campaign is that we are not asking a lot of them. They don’t need to become wonks or political junkies. Stay informed, donate regularly and do something once a month. In Oregon, the Legislature will meet from January through July; dozens of groups will be working to shape legislation, and the volunteer support of citizens is vital. If a person volunteers once or twice a month with a group doing something important they support, and if that one person becomes even a dozen people, that group will suddenly find itself with a level of support it had never known. Even for the Multnomah County Dems, the state’s largest county party, all we are really asking for from our PCPs and other volunteers is a few evenings or weekend afternoons a month. There are tens of thousands of Dems in the county; we don’t need everyone, and we don’t them everyday.

We just need them once a month or so, but more importantly: your community needs you, too. Becoming politically active is not evil, and it shouldn’t be a burden. It’s necessary, it’s vital, and it’s a lot more rewarding than people reailize until they do it. That’s why I do it: it is rewarding and it is fun. If it wasn’t, I’d join the rest of America and let the country slide out of my control.