 Last Sunday night, Wellstone Action (as usual) held a post-election round up; the turnout was great as they packed the Parkway Theatre in South Minneapolis. Rather than a round-up, though, this year it morphed into a series of speeches to rally the faithful. And it felt good; going in the slits on the ol' TwoPutter's wrists were still scabbing over; at the end, the scabs were heaing.
Mark Dayton started the speechtacular off; followed by Al Franken, Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, Jim Hightower (dressed appropriately in Texan garb complete with what had to be at least a 50 gallon hat), down through newly elected State Rep Rena Moran.
All told a progressive/populist story, all told of stories that didn't get told - all talked of how the messaging didn't get out. Because it's a good message; Senator Franken decimated the "government can't creat jobs!" TeaBagger argument. Just killed it. But, if a tree falls in a forest, and nobody hears it, did it make a sound?
Afterwards, I asked a lot of attendees what they were walking away with; virtually all were talking about a re-dedication to "getting the messaging out." When asked how to do just that, they all talked about door-knocking, phone banking, one-on-one conversations, yada yada yada to tell the progressive story. None seemed to see that that's all good and well; (indeed, the story can't be told without it); but that and that alone simply isn't enough.
No one seemed to realize how the GOP has taken technology and social media by storm to propagate the "Obama is a Muslim" and "Obama was born in Kenya" and "Get your gov't hands off my Medicare" and "Norm Coleman was robbed" and "Mark Ritchie rigged the last one for Al and is going to do it again for Mark Dayton " and.... well, Gentle Readers, you should get the point.
Here's my point: in the seven days since the election, everyone seems to be talking about the fact that there is a messaging problem; no one seems to be talking about how to fix the messaging distribution infrastructure so the message gets out.
I'll be very clear: the GOP looks at social media as a tool; on our side, social media is looked at as a social disease.
Hey - everyone knows social media is NOT the end-all; NOT the be-all. Social Media is simply a link in the chain.
It's a link the GOP is exploiting, because from my vantage point, it's the progressive's weakest link.
There's a problem here, Gentle Readers, and it needs to be fixed. |
