Nov 9, 2011
Last night and where we go from here
Memorandum
Nov. 9, 2011
To: Interested parties
From: Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Andrei Cherny
Re: Last night and where we go from here
Last night, we saw where Arizona is going.
For the first time in 20 years, we will have Democratic mayors of Tucson and Phoenix. And for the first time in American history, a state legislative leader – the most powerful politician in Arizona – was recalled from office. These are victories for all Arizonans – ones that six months ago would have seemed all but impossible.
What Arizonans showed last night is that they will choose mainstream solutions over extreme right-wing talking points. In 2012, voters will demand both parties compete on the strength of our vision and the quality of our candidates. Pushing divisive wedge issues to distract voters from a disastrous record of governing doesn’t work in Arizona anymore – just ask Russell Pearce.
Arizona is changing, the ranks of independents are growing, and we as Democrats fully embrace this. We have vowed to make sure Arizonans know that it is Democrats who are the party of the mainstream and that we are a big tent party that welcomes the ranks of independents and fed up Republicans. Over and over again, Arizona Republican leaders have given the back of the hand to independents – emphasizing partisanship over progress, the extreme over the mainstream. This culminated in their unconstitutional, corrupt removal of the independent head of the redistricting commission – a move undertaken to disenfranchise independents from a voice in the political process. The electorate will remember this. We will make sure of it.
The prospect of this new political environment is exciting, but it is also challenging.
Since January, we have made reforming the way the Arizona Democratic Party works a top priority. We understand that in order to change Arizona, we have to change our Democratic Party. Our bottom-up approach is a new way of doing business. It requires more of all of us – activists, donors, party leaders. But it is necessary – and it is working.
Already, we’ve made great strides in putting that strategy in place that played a key role in last night’s performance. Credit should go to the citizens who recalled Russell Pearce. And I can’t say enough about the ability and skill of our Maricopa County and Pima County Democratic Parties. They both built truly impressive political organizations capable of executing a top level get out the vote operation. In Maricopa County alone, the Democratic Party made 325,000 phone calls and knocked on 145,000 doors.
And of course, having excellent candidates like Greg Stanton and Jonathan Rothschild not only makes winning a whole lot easier, it also makes victory that much sweeter. Our two mayors in Phoenix and Tucson are a personal point of pride for me and our party, as well as shining examples of leadership for our state.
A year from now, when we are looking back on Election Day 2012, we will point to last night as where things turned around for our party and state.
How we got here
Over the last year, we have focused on building a bottom-up party.
• More Democrats than ever are involved in the operation of the party via the network of Party Affairs Liaisons created in the last year, fostering better communication between party headquarters and Democrats throughout the state.
• New responsibilities granted to our executive board have also helped increase communication and involvement among our party leaders.
• Our big tent strategy of reaching out beyond our traditional ranks has been highlighted by our new Arizona Democratic Business Council.
• New donors have flooded to the party and now account for 30 percent of all of our contributors. Additionally, many donors are earmarking their contributions for get out the vote and voter registration efforts.
• The New Leaders Young Professionals Group has successfully courted new donors to our cause by reaching out beyond our typical donor groups.
• We have more than doubled our e-mail list in just the past half year.
• We created the new Dem-AZ small-dollar donor program to allow more Arizonans to invest in our party and build up our grassroots fundraising base.
• We have been innovative in delivering our message and in empowering our messengers. For the first time, the Arizona Democratic Party has a Rapid Response Director charged with rebutting Republican attacks and keeping our candidates on the offensive.
• Instead of just talking to the press, our bottom-up party is reaching out directly to Arizonans through our grassroots. We’ve created an e-PC program of activist empowered to let people across the state know what’s at stake through both traditional and new media.
Where we are going
We are prepared to win in Arizona.
The Obama campaign believes we can deliver Arizona’s electoral votes to the president’s reelection. We have the possibility of electing more strong Democrats in Congress and gaining seats in the state legislature. And our upcoming Senate election will potentially provide the key seat Democrats need to hold the Senate.
The Arizona Democratic Party is ready to deliver on that promise.
Republicans have overreached and given us an excellent opportunity to make gains in Arizona. We saw last night how fast Republican power can erode. Only a few months ago, Russell Pearce was riding high – the most powerful politician in the state coming off another legislative session focused on advancing his extreme ideology over the interests of voters. Now, Pearce is gone, unceremoniously dispatched by his own party after going too far.
But Republicans haven’t learned the Russell Pearce lesson. Last week, we saw Jan Brewer illegally remove the chair of the Independent Redistricting Commission with a party line vote. When we turned a glaring national spotlight on Brewer and bombarded her with negative press, she couldn’t even take time from her book tour to come back to Arizona to explain her action.
While Republicans are remaining shockingly tone deaf, Democrats are working to be ready to seize the opportunity. We have a vision for this state that the Russell Pearce Republicans can’t match. We believe in creating more jobs, better schools and safer streets. Russell Pearce, and the Republicans who follow him, have no answer to the glaring problems facing our state.
We will build on our successes in creating a winning organization. Already we’ve seen enormous improvement for Democrats in Arizona. And as more Arizonans join our bottom-up movement we will continue to build momentum toward next year.
Make no mistake: Our strategy is working. We will have a better organization and better messaging than Republicans because we have a stronger party and are on the right side of history. By better mobilizing and communicating with our grassroots, we have activated an extremely powerful group of Arizonans fed up with what they have seen from the Russell Pearce and Tea Party Republicans. Our bottom-up approach will be the key to our success.
Like Russell Pearce today, a year from now Republicans will wake up wondering what happened.
