Organizational change: concepts and implementation strategies

Gubernatorial Elections

This year, the U.S. gubernatorial elections coincided with the mid-term elections of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. After the 2006 gubernatorial elections, the Democrats won 28 governorships, while the Republicans won 22. The Republicans held the majority of governorships for ten years, from 1997 until 2007.

In Massachusetts, the gubernatorial election of 2006 held on November 7, 2006. Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the Democrat Deval Patrick was elected to a four-year term, from January 4, 2007 until January 6, 2011. Deval Patrick is the second African-American governor in the United States history.

In the elections, Patrick defeated the Republican Kerry Healey (one-term Republican governor Mitt Romney's successor, who did not seek re-election) and the former Republican Christy Mihos who left his party to run as an Independent.

The Democrats were the only party with a contested primary election on September 19, 2006 when Deval Patrick won the Democratic primary with 50% of the votes, followed by Gabrieli with 27% and Reilly with 23%.

Deval Patrick's general election campaign officially started around 10 PM on September 19, 2006, the Primary Election Day, when Patrick presented his acceptance speech.

The televised debates were not of much help for Deval Patrick. The first one, held by Fox 25 and the Boston Herald on September 25 was not kept under control, the set of topics was in line with Kerry Healey's major issues and was totally dominated by Christy Miho's attacks. The second debate, broadcasted on WGBH and NECN and held in Springfield, was more subdued and under control.

The 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial election campaign is considered by the former Democratic Governor of Massachusetts, Michael Stanley Dukakis to be "the dirtiest gubernatorial campaign in my memory." The Democratic politician's opinion regarding the campaign is so negative because of the attacks launched by Kerry Healey and her supporters that included infamous attack ads, protests of Healey's supporters at the homes of Deval Patrick and John Walsh, Patrick's campaign manager, anonymous document leaking to media about Patrick's brother-in-law's criminal history.

Although in Massachusetts the Democrats are the largest political party, they slipped from 41.8% of registered voters to 36.6% between 1990 and 2000. However, the good part is that the Republicans did not win what the Democrats lost. The Democrats' loss is found in the increase percentage of independent voters, that increased from 42.1% to 49.6%. Therefore, half the Massachusetts registered voters consider no major party worth identifying with. Elaine C. Kamarck states that "among these independent voters, the Democratic candidates had varying degrees of success in the 1990s. Though gubernatorial nominee John Silber and presidential candidate Bill Clinton got roughly the same share of the independent vote (44 and 43%, in 1990 and 1992, respectively), in 1996 and 2000 the Democratic presidential candidates (Clinton, in re-election, and Al Gore) won solid majorities of the independents, while gubernatorial candidates Mark Roosevelt, in 1994, and Scott Harshbarger, in 1998, won over no more than 37% of the unaffiliated." Kamarck also mentioned that "the presidential hopefuls combined majority shares of independents with a solid Democratic base for comfortable victories in Massachusetts, but the gubernatorial candidates had just one-third of the independent vote to add to the party faithful - not enough for a win." The Democratic candidates' statewide weakness among this part of registered voters seems to be responsible for the failure to capitalize the Democrats' advantage in Massachusetts.

Even if more and more voters become "independent" and do not seem to identify themselves with any major parties, this does not mean that some shift has occurred in their ideology that would disadvantage Democratic candidates for governorship. Even more, "the Massachusetts electorate grew slightly more liberal over the course of the 1990s, with Voter News Service exit polls showing a slight rise in self-declared liberals from 23% in 1990 to 26% in 1996 and '98, and a jump to 35% in 2000. Self-described moderates made up roughly half of the electorate for most of the decade, then dropped somewhat, to 42%, in 2000." However, the ideology identification is not the sole reason for the voting patterns in the 1990s, since the self-declared "New Democrats," the presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Al Gore reached a larger share of liberal votes in Massachusetts than did Roosevelt and Harshbarger, and also reached a larger share of moderate votes. The conclusion in this case is that "ideological label matter less in state elections than they do in national politics."

Considering the demographic facts, Democrats are most preferred by working people. It seems that in the 1990s, the percentage of voters with a high school education or less has dropped from 30% to 20% while the percentage of voters with post-graduate degree has increased from 20% to over 25%. The percentage of college graduate voters has increased from around 50% to 55%. This rise in the education level should bring advantages for the Democrats. During the economic boom in the 1990s, the electorate in Massachusetts has increased. It seems that Democratic candidates are more successful among voters with low incomes. Democratic candidates are doing the least well at the top of the income scale. However, the Democratic candidates for presidential elections in 1996 and 2000 succeeded into reaching two-thirds of the voters with an income up to $75,000 and the majority support in the highest income segments.

According to demographic and income facts, the Democrats have a strong appeal to Massachusetts electorate across social class and education levels. Democratic presidential candidates are successful both among the poorest voters and the middle class. Even so, Democratic candidates for governor are more successful among the poor and lose political traction among the wealthy, and also among the moderately well-off, except for the most highly educated.

Another advantage for the Democratic candidates in Massachusetts is the gender gap, which was helpful for the presidential candidates rather than the gubernatorial ones. In recent presidential elections women's Democratic votes exceeded men's Republican votes, creating important advantages for the Democratic candidates (in 1996 Democratic Bill Clinton beat Republican Bob Dole in Massachusetts by 20 points among men and by 46 points among women. Also, Al Gore's net gender gap advantage in Massachusetts was of .

Another advantage for the Democrats in Massachusetts that helped them win the 2006 gubernatorial election is that a large part of the electorate continues to identify with the Democratic Party and only a small part of the electorate identifies with the Republican Party. However, Democratic presidential candidates hold advantage over the gubernatorial candidates, as presidential ones have managed to win independent voters, moderates' and liberals' votes, they also managed to win more middle class and high income voters, they produced a gender gap to favor them, while de gubernatorial candidates did not do.

In order to be successful in the elections, Kamarck considers that "on the state level as well as the national, when Democrats convincingly present themselves as competent managers of the economy and the government, they win. That's the way to send a powerful message to the heart of the middle class - to the people who supported Bill Clinton and Al Gore overwhelmingly in three consecutive presidential elections but abandoned Democrats in recent gubernatorial races. Many people in the middle of the income distribution and the middle of the educational distribution are on the fringes of the New Economy - which is the future of prosperity in Massachusetts. (...) They want help into getting into the middle of it, and they want security so that they can rise within it." Kamarck thinks that the next Democratic governor in Massachusetts will prove his ability to manage a modern, information-age economy and a modern, information-age government.

The fact that the Democrats are most successful among the low part of the income scale and at the top part of the educational scale is no good news for the Democrats. "That's a problem for Democrats. People with advanced degrees may constitute the fastest-growing portion of the state's population, but it is still the smallest portion. An on the income side, the news for Democrats is even worse: the under $50,000 bracket, where Democrats do best, shrank from 64% of the electorate in 1992 to 37% in 2000." It seems that "Democratic gubernatorial candidates were being abandoned by the broad middle class (households earning $30,000 to $100,000 per year) as well as the most affluent. Meanwhile, the share of voters earning more than $100,000 a year grew from 9% in 1994 to 21% in 2000."

Therefore, in order to achieve success, Democratic candidates should try using a different approach, to send a "New Democrat" message promoting "managerial competence, commitment to economic growth, and independence from interest groups such as unions and even the party apparatus itself," as Kamarck recommends.

Kamarck also observes that the previous electoral failure happened because the growing middle class suburbs were neglected by the Democratic candidates' campaign: the "support for raising the minimum wage, for example, failed to speak to the crucial swing voters who live in a Natick or an Acton."

Another factor that determined the failure in the 2002 elections, is that the Democratic candidates' campaign was not as aggressive as it should have been. The Democrats' opponents used attack campaigns, so the Democratic candidates should have responded "preferably with a plan that turns his attack campaign into a character issue on him."

Other than this, Shawni Littlehale of the free-market Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research estimates that: "the majority of the electorate wants a fiscally conservative governor to push for lower taxes and cuts in our bloated state government, while they want their [state] rep/state senator to bring home perks for their cities ad towns."

The Democrats' success in the 2006 elections was determined by a very strong electoral campaign, the 50-State Strategy. From the beginning, the Democrats were determined to win and geared up in every precinct in the country in an unprecedented 50-state organizing strategy. Governor Howard Dean said: "election by election, state by state, precinct by precinct, door by door, vote by vote...we're going to lift our Party up and take this country back for the people who built it."

In the Democrats' view, the 50-State Strategy represents "a commitment to building a sense of community everywhere and leveraging the power of that community to achieve permanent change." This change will start in the elections for every level of office from city council to U.S. Senate, the Democrats say. The Democrats have also come to the conclusion that politics need long-range strategic planning. It seems that this outlook that Democrats have shown was a success, since they put "everything on the line with our new strategy, and we're already seeing the benefits across the country - in unexpected places from Wyoming to Missouri, races that weren't supposed to be competitive have become within reach thanks to our party-building work together."

The Democrats also changed the way they finance their party: they put up a stable financial plan to sustain the 50-state strategy. Those funds are being raised through the Democracy Bonds people buy.

The Democratic strategy's ultimate goal was: "an active, effective group of Democrats organized in every single precinct in the nation."

The Democrats' strategy had such a successful turnout due to several factors: they hired organizers chosen by the state parties in every state (experienced local activists who know their communities), they brought those organizers together for meeting where they could share each others knowledge and experience in order to win the elections, after the organizers returned to their states they started recruiting and training leaders at the local level, those local leaders recruited other leaders and volunteers until every precinct in the area had a trained, effective organization of Democrates determined to win the elections.

In less than a year, the DNC has hired and trained over 176 field organizers, communication directors and researchers and placed them in state parties in order to form election teams, launch coordinated campaigns, and to spread the Democrats' message. DNC was also in charge of putting up political organizer trainings for 40 state party teams and sponsored in-state trainings around the country for Democratic leaders. This activities helped the state parties to begin early voter ID and voter persuasion, recruit volunteers, and run neighbor-to-neighbor canvasses, phone banks and get-out-of-the-vote efforts.

The Democrats consider that they won the 2006 elections and that they will also undoubtedly win future elections because they "put feet on the street early - an unprecedented move that has made marginal races competitive, drilled the Democratic message down to the grassroots, and built a ground team unmatched in the history of the Democratic Party."

In their electoral campaign, unlike the Republicans, the Democrats took into consideration the fact that the voters will support the candidate they have a strong and reliable connection with. Therefore, beyond televised debates and electoral ads, the Massachusetts candidates "are taking their campaigns back to the basics and are reviving the door to door operation to reach out and touch voters." One of the Democratic campaign managers said: "it was the basis of the candidacy from the beginning. A grass-roots model is the only one which has worked for Democrats in the last 20 years."

Even more, since the grass-roots strategy was such an electoral success, 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial election winner Deval Patrick is determined to carry on this strategy also after the elections: "fresh off his resounding victory, Governor-elect Deval L. Patrick plans to keep active his much-touted campaign field organization, a decision that will give him considerable political muscle when he governs from Beacon Hill and could empower him in Democratic presidential politics."

It has been said that Patrick Campaign manager, John Walsh, has been given the task to transform the grass-root network into a permanent statewide political organization, whose objectives will be providing support for Patrick's agenda at the State House, raising funds, providing political ground support for Patrick, mobilizing around issues that Patrick and his supporters are interested in.

Doug Rubin, the chief strategist of Patrick's campaign, is also in favor of this idea, as "the grass-roots organization could be used to build support for Deval's agenda" and "any governor has the bully pulpit to persuade voters that their agenda is worth supporting. This organization can help build popular support."

John Walsh, who is responsible for Deval Patrick's victory, stated that this organization's shape and role is not yet completely established, but Internet-driven communications will be used in order to help Patrick's supporters engage in political and civic affairs. Walsh believes that "the power of this comes from the activists. If people believe, they should know they can provide their input to the Globe, talk to radio, their state legislators, their city councilor."

In his electoral campaign, Patrick's political organization successfully managed to combine cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned precinct politics in order to provide him with "a campaign infrastructure that was critical for rising popularity and victory." The campaign was able to "communicate directly with a large network, sending messages, videos, tributes - anything that would counteract negative news and promote Patrick."

Harriett L. Stanley, a Democrat of West Newbury, also praises Patrick's idea of keeping the field organization active and keeping lawmakers at a distance: "it's a good move. We are the Beacon Hill culture, and I am comforted to see [that] he is not including a lot of retreads and people who have been around for a long time in his transition."

The main purpose of the organization is, as Walsh and Rubin say, to involve Patrick's supporters in civic life in order to influence local and state affairs. Another purpose of the organization would be to lobby Beacon Hill and act as an antidote to predominantly conservative talk-radio shows.

Deval Patrick could ensure that he will have his supporters votes in the future if he decides not to endorse a Democratic presidential candidacy. This will convince Massachusetts voters that they have a governor that is not trying to use the office for national ambitions.