We've Got To Get Better

Now that the furor is dying down, especially on Twitter, on the SC election process in Wisconsin we need to get our act(s) together. While engaging the trolls on Twitter is fun to some people it accomplishes very little, if anything, constructive.

We need to own the #wiunion hashtag. Or create another one to use to be successful in organization and communication efforts.

We need state democratic politicians active on Twitter. All of them. We need informed of their activities and needs to stop Walker and the GOP in the state.

We need democratic recall offices and representatives of those offices active on Twitter. We also need those offices creating blogs to keep their districts (and national supporters, for that matter) updated with current events and what they need to be successful.

The Kapanke and Hopper districts have successfully collected the necessary signatures to trigger recalls. How many people know now what these two districts need in the future without getting better organized and better communication from them? My guess is very few.

The districts struggling to collect the necessary recall signatures is unclear. Without better organization and communication we can't help them.

My one disappointment with the Kapanke recall staff was when asking them how we were doing during the recall effort was not getting an answer. The justification for this was it was a strategic maneuver. Part of me understood it at the time, but I'm pretty sure everyone understood what the strategy was and getting an answer wasn't going to hurt. The republicans know our strategy, hiding it is senseless.

As a matter of fact, the republicans aren't hiding their strategy. It's a full-on assault on the middle class with disinformation and corporate funds backing them up. Their agenda is rather transparent, and should be easy to fight if we get better organized and get our message out clearly, and relentlessly.

We also have democratic senators facing recall efforts as well. We need the local democratic offices in their districts active on Twitter and creating blogs to communicate their needs and activities.

The Prosser campaign outspent the Kloppenburg campaign two to one, with much of that money coming from out of state through corporations backing the Walker administration. They are going to keep pouring money into Wisconsin to fight the recalls of any and all Republican state senators.

We also have a lot of national support on our side and we're going to need it financially as well if we're going to counter the corporate onslaught of money.

We failed in our bid to get Kloppenburg elected, bottom line. I collected many Kapanke recall signatures last month. Many of the signatures were from people I personally know as neighbors, friends, relatives, and work. In talking to some of these very same people who are against what Walker and the GOP is doing in the state the past few days I know there are seven people who didn't even bother to vote on April 2nd. We, or I in this case, failed to get across to them the importance of the April 2nd election. I have a feeling many recall canvassers across the state would, and could, tell the same story.

What we've done hasn't been enough and has to improve if we're going to win. Communication and organization has to increase. This effort is only going to get harder and what we're doing (to date) is quite frankly inadequate. If nothing else the Prosser victory should have made this very clear to us. We've got to get better.