Take Back Your Government! Page 21

  We Was Robbed! Or perhaps you did not win. Maybe there was a bad break at the last moment, or a schism in the Club, or something. Suppose the outcome was: Hopeful-12,785; Upright-12,009.

  It is easy to cry fraud, easy to charge it up to a machine, to dirty campaigning, to stuffed ballot boxes. But you won't be right, not one time in a thousand. No, citizen, depend on it - if you lose it is almost certain that it was because not enough people wanted your man to win and most especially that not enough supporters worked hard enough or intelligently enough.

  At the very least in every election there is a high percentage who just don't vote - in a primary more than 50%. You cannot blame those lost votes on chicanery. Perhaps you did the best you could and the outcome was indeed affected by some dirty tricks, at the polls or elsewhere, but the result still represents die will of the American people, at least by passive consent. Accept it

  Closing Ranks: You won't get anything out of your workers and you won't try to - you will wait till the next regular meeting of the Doorbell Club. In the meantime you are very busy.

  There is the matter of gathering up records of the primary in order not to have to depend on the county clerk's records next time. Some of the precinct area supervisors may be disciplined enough to help you do this, but the let-down may continue until the posted voting record and results have been taken down. A 35-mm. camera furnishes a convenient way to get these records without stopping to copy the data, but it's too big a job to cover die entire district single-handed even widi a camera to help you. Do the best you can and pick up die rest from die official records next winter.

  Your memo pad has a score of such jobs, loose ends to be picked up. You want to get them out of the way promptly so that both you and the nominee can get at least a week's rest, out of town, after the state convention and before starting the final campaign. A shorter holiday is needed before then, too, if you can manage it. But you have got to consolidate your victory by getting the party factions inside the district together before you dare leave town or make any campaign plans.

  The entire slate of county committee candidates from the Doorbell Club have been elected, yourself among them-you now control the district delegation. The nominee is an ex-officio member of the state committee and is a delegate to the state convention. On your advice he has appointed state committeemen, yourself among them. You must plan to attend the state committee meeting at the capital but you may not have time to stay over to observe the convention - there is so much to be done.

  (Your own state may provide for party organization somewhat different from that implied here, although this is typical. You must be familiar with it, whatever it is. Don't be caught with less representation on either the county committee or the state committee than your pro-rate necessary to control your district.) But your first job is to see Jack Hopeful. We have assumed that Mr. Hopeful is a regular member of your party and not a stooge of the other party. You want and need his support in the final election. Get hold of him or his manager and invite them both to your house for dinner. Mr. Upright will be there also. After dinner you will talk over the coming campaign.

  Don't offer him anything. Don't assume that he wants anything. Treat it as a matter of course that he and his manager will support the straight party ticket, including Mr. Upright. Mi-. Upright will ask him to serve as chairman of the district campaign committee

  for the ticket, while explaining to him that the work need not be any more strenuous than he wants to make it. The office will in fact be titular, since you will dominate the executive committee and the committee as a whole. You will remain personal manager for Mr. Upright, and, as chairman of your district's delegation of committeemen, you will be in authority on any official party matters.

  You don't speak of these aspects to Hopeful; you offer him the top stuffed-shirt position in exchange for his nominal support. His manager is offered a vice-chairmanship and a place on the executive committee.

  They may accept, pitch in, and be most valuable. Or they may hem and haw and leave, after asking for time to "think it over." Or they come right out and ask for money or appointments or both. They may have campaign debts to meet, or they may demand outrageous salaries to campaign. Hopeful may want help in landing a major piece of patronage for himself, or he may expect you to pay off his obligation to his manager by letting him have one of the congressional secretaryships if Upright wins. For some curious reason many unsuccessful candidates seem to feel that their successful rivals owe it to the defeated to pay off their campaign debts and commitments.

  It's a form of blackmail; don't give in to it.

  Upright should explain that he can't promise appointments to anyone since he has consistently refused to promise them inside his own committee. Appointments will be settled if and when - after the final election. As for money - there isn't any.

  They may give in with bad grace, if they have no place to go and wish to stay in good standing in the party, or they may leave. If they do, they will be self-righteous as can be about the whole matter. For some reason your refusal to pay the bills they ran up trying to defeat you will seem like a clear case of moral turpitude to them.

  Bring up your heavy artillery. Get some Big Names, preferably from the camp of the party's nominee for governor, to call on Hopeful and explain to him, sweetly but firmly, that if he ever intends to get anywhere inside the party he had better stay regular, lend his name, invite in his supporters, and, as a minimum, preside at one or two pubfic meetings for Upright and die ticket

  The chances are you will get him. But don't buy his "support"; it isn't worth it.

  In the mean time you will have seen to it that personal notes of thanks are prepared (Hooven-typed, perhaps) for every worker, endorser, and contributor in Upright's campaign. Make the ones to precinct workers different from and more emphatic than the odiers and let all of diem be a call to arms for the final ticket in die final campaign. In addition, make the first meeting of die Doorbell Club a jubilation in which each worker is thanked individually and his majority is announced.

  You will want to get everyone possible out to die first meeting of the party-wide breakfast group; here is where your spade work for party harmony will pay off. In addition to gathering in Hopeful there are at least twenty party factions in the district, one for each candidate for each office on the ballot. You will need all of diem and will make personal appeals by telephone to die leaders in die campaigns diat lost, in addition to die usual postal card notice. You have many different fights to straighten out here, dozens of sets of feadiers to smooth, but your job is easier dian it was widi Hopeful, as you appear in the capacity of broker for everybody's interests.

  Out of it all you try to whip together a campaign committee for die whole ticket, as diat is die best way to elect your own man. You turn your thoughts to "face," everybody's face and you help to preserve it by offering them all a chance to do the noble diing in public by

  declaring for the whole ticket. Titular offices in the campaign are passed out to anybody who seems to want one, with great fanfare (the possibilities of the words "vice-chairman," "director," "secretary," "coordinator," and "committee" have never been exhausted).

  From these other groups you get new members of the Doorbell Club, at least on a temporary basis. You may retitle it, if expedient, for the duration. You now need a membership about four times the best you could do in die primary.

  There is money to be considered, all over again. It is easier to raise now, but you need more of it. Better put money raising in the hands of the gubernatorial nominee's local manager, for die campaign as a whole, and handle your own resources as a separate account for the congressional campaign. Don't forget to insist that die national committee kick in for die congressional district and be darn sure some bright boy down town doesn't beat you to it and get his hands on it through a more direct pipeline to die national committee.

  Some county and state committees seem to be under the delusion that the way to raise m
oney is to assess die candidates. This is all wrong; the committee should raise money and support the candidates. If assessed, don't pay it; their help isn't worth much if that is how they work.

  From a proper state or county committee you may expect some money, a lot of active help, and much free or partly free printing. Your printing bills should be small in the second campaign as the stuff you will use will be for the whole ticket.

  You may want a few items in which Upright's name is emphasized over that of the rest of the ticket, by lay out and type face.

  We won't run through the final campaign in any detail. In general it is just like the primary campaign, except that everything is more complicated, the numbers are larger, the emotions are stronger, the amounts of money are larger, and you have the disadvantage, as it is usually figured, of running against an incumbent The Honorable Mr. Swivelchair has more friends and more acquaintances, but he has also accumulated a back log of enemies and mistakes. Still, incumbency is usually figured as an asset and that is the safe way for you to figure. If Swivelchair is the stooge of a tight and well-established machine, you will not only have to work harder but will have to count on some trouble of the dirty sort. The election night count in particular will have to be closer. Figure your trouble spots and make your watchers there your smallest women; they will be safe. Men might have their arms broken.

  There will be more Big Operators in your hair, more blokes with votes-in-their-pockets, more people widi their hands out, more hopeful patronage hounds, more of everything which makes politics complicated without adding to the vote.

  There is just one thing to be remembered in the midst of all this hurly-burly and confusion: Keep your eye on the ball!

  The votes are still in the precincts. Punching doorbells still remains the only way to get out the vote you need, despite anything you may hear from the Important Politicians from down town.

  Maintain your own practice of spending two afternoons each week punching doorbells.

  Schedule Mr. Upright for another 500 hours of canvassing and see to it that he keeps to his schedule.

  Keep your campaign centered around the Doorbell Club and don't use them for anything but canvassing until election day.

  Ignore the opposition as before.

  The only real differences are these:

  (a) You all campaign for the whole ticket and emphasize Mr. Upright only by getting in his name more frequently, principally through quoting him by name in support of the platform and the ticket.

  (b) You canvass from a selected list as before, but this time you ignore, in your canvassing, all the members of your party who voted in the primary. With the exceptions of the ones who had to be carried co the polls (and will have Co be again) these people can all be depended on to get to the polls and to vote the straight party ticket. Instead you canvass all members of your party who failed to vote in the primary ... and all members of minor parties and all unaffiliated voters. The known members of the other party you ignore. You have nearly 40,000 people to reach; you haven't time enough nor people enough to do more. Your effort will be to turn out the largest possible vote of your own party... especially the voce of the "sleepers."

  (c) Therefore you will put more effort than ever into organizing your election day forces. If additional help for election day can be obtained from the county or state committee you will want it, since it does not require local information, other than a prepared list, Co do election day work, and it does not even take that Co be a poll worker or a count watcher.

  And that's all

  Along toward the last of the campaign very heavy pressures will be brought against you co change the campaign, but one will come from an unexpected source. A senior member of the party, resident in your district, a nominal member from the beginning of the Upright committee and a fairly heavy contributor Co it, is likely to call on you. He won't put it quite bluntly but the idea is that you should lie down and let Swivelchair win.

  He will say you have made a good fight but that Upright does not have a chance. Upright isn't quite ready yet; maybe in two years, or four years, but not this year. On the other hand he happens to know that Swivelchair plans to go for Senator next time; on that occasion he could throw a lot of support to Upright if Upright did not cause Swivelchair too much expense this time. Why not be practical, take a long view, and get along?

  You wouldn't even have to drop the rest of the ticket, naturally; just persuade Upright that there was no sense in throwing good money after bad-and get sick for a while.

  As for you - well, what appointment would you like? Maybe it could be arranged.

  There is no particular reason why you should not indulge in the rare luxury of losing your temper, although it won't help any. Send him about his business. Don't make it an issue - now. But don't let him sit in on any party conclave during the campaign, nor ever again, if you can keep him out. He's a Trojan horse.

  Don't let it shake your faith in human nature. Instead, it should build up your faith. They would not try to buy you off if they were not frightened! It is a shiningjustification of your faith in the nature of the average citizen. Your methods and your beliefs are being vindicated in the most practical way possible - and die opposition knows it.

  Some time later you will again find yourself seated behind a table with an election night party going on all around you. The radio will be blasting, the phone will be ringing, you will be trying to eat a sandwich and listen to the radio while thinking with half your mind about how to scrape up the postage for the eight or nine hundred-odd letters of thanks that Upright will have to send out in the next two weeks.

  The early returns aren't going too badly; Upright is even running a little ahead of the ticket in some spots -but it's still touch-and-go. Swivelchair's organization is experienced and well trained; it can't be discounted. You decide to put off worrying about the postage, and so forth, until about Thursday. You'll find the money; you always have. There haven't been any returns on congressional districts for about an hour. You are getting jittery. The announcer is introducing candidates and notables - why don't those stuffed shirts get off the air?

  Here come some figures-9th district, 10th district, 11 th district, 12th district - the announcer stops. What's got into him?

  'Just a minute, folks, some new figures just in... any moment now. Here's one item of news anyway. The new figures clearly show that in the Umpteenth District, in a surprise upset, Jonathan Upright has unseated old-timer Congressman Swivelchair. The incomplete returns show a lead of-" You have elected a congressman. You can't leave on that vacation the next day. In fact you can't leave for a couple of weeks. Besides the thank-you notes there are the post-election meetings of the Doorbell Club, the breakfast dub, and the state and county committees. Upright wants to discuss appointments with you, too, of his secretaries. You don't want to go to Washington with him; you don't even want to be on the payroll as his field secretary and stay in the district, as you don't want to be his employee - your position depends on your being your own boss. This attitude gives you at least a veto in the appointments he does make-and on his later appointments. Your own plans have more to do with tying in the Doorbell Club to Washington through a weekly newsletter from Upright and a regular procedure whereby the Club will be kept informed as to what is going on, what it means, and votes their approval or disapproval for the information of Upright and the two senators.

  It is nearly a year and a half later that you are sitting in your living room, thumbing through the current Congressional Record - the only tangible thing you got out of either campaign - when you notice a roll call vote on a measure you have been following. It's a good measure in your opinion, and important to the whole country. This is the last vote, the one that sends it to the President for signature. You note with approval that Upright voted for it-as you knew he would; you have corresponded about it.

  It just squeaked through, by one vote. You suddenly realize die significance. One vote - Upright's vote, for Sw
ivelchair had a definite record against this sort of measure.

  One vote. Your vote!

  Your own efforts have put a constructive measure into effect for the whole 140,000,000 Americans -you did it, with your bare hands and the unpaid help of people who believed you.

  It's a good feeling!

  CHAPTERXI

  Footnotes on Democracy

  "The target is who and what?"The people, yes-sold and sold again for losses and regrets for gains, for slow advances,for a dignity of deepening wots."- Carl Sandburg

  "When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can perfection be expected? It therefore astonishes me to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does...."

  -Benjamin Franklin to the Constitutional Convention

  The art of politics is as confused and unorganized as a plate of hash and as endless as a string of ciphers. Despite the numerous digressions many things pertinent to the art, as distinguished from the issues, have necessarily been ignored. Some of them are much too involved for available space and quite unnecessary to a basic book, as you will learn about them as you come across diem, with litde loss to you, if your grounding is firm.

  We must pass by such matters as the workings of state and national conventions, the work of state legislatures - "cinch" bills, "must" bills, the effect the Speaker can have on producing a "do pass" committee vote, the rules committee, stopping the clock-and the inner workings of congress - seniority, cloture, the functions of floor leaders and whips, senatorial courtesy. Lobbying and lobbyists, proper and improper sources of campaign funds, blocs, the preferential ballot, the publication of political newspapers, the Hatch Act, the organization of national committees and national campaigns, the political inter-relations of city, state, and county-all of these matters will face you with fresh political problems, but your answers will depend much more on how you look at issues; the techniques will turn out to be familiar to you. Only the names will be changed.