Zack Exley

Letter to the next DNC Chair Part 2: What to do with your email list 7 February, 2005

(This is Part 2 of a two-part letter written during the open Chair contest of 2005. See Part 1 here.)

Your first day on the job, this is the only thing you should do: throw everyone out of your new big office, take the phone off the hook, sit yourself down, and write a letter from your heart to the millions of supporters who desperately want to see you succeed.

When you’ve finished, walk down to the basement where the tech team sits, and have them email your letter to the one-point-something-million DNC online supporters who are waiting impatiently by their inboxes to hear from you. Ask John Kerry and MoveOn.org to pass it along to their memberships and you could reach another six million people whose hopes are, for the moment, all pinned on you. If the AFL-CIO does the same, you’ll be speaking to another 3.2 million supportive and enthusiastic union members. In one breath, you’re talking to more than ten million Americans who want to help you rebuild the party .

This first day at work will essentially be your only chance to establish a connection with this massive base. After that, their attention will fade; they’ll sense you’re not going to do or say anything spectacularly different after all; they’ll forget about you and wait for the next decade.

If you delegate the task of writing this letter to some committee of staffers, aides or friends, then you’ve blown it. Of course you should bounce drafts off of them — but why not write this letter yourself? You just became opposition leader of the world’s only superpower, and you don’t know what you want to say to ten million of your ardent supporters? I know that’s not true. So write the letter yourself!

I don’t have any suggestions about what you should say specifically. That must come from you. But I’ll say this: the people on your email list are talented and sophisticated political operatives — whether they’re governors, Town Committee people, or precinct-level volunteers. Do not underestimate what they are capable of making possible if you provide the right leadership. If you’re struggling to find the words to speak, then think what you’d say about your hopes and fears to your closest aides, closest confidante or even your wife in private. And then why not just say that to these 10 million amazing people who are yearning for an honest connection with you?

Maybe you’re a politician who’s known for “telling it straight.” But CNN and FOX only serve your straight talk in five-second slices, don’t they? And they choose which five-seconds. It’s impossible to establish real leadership through that media filter. I know you don’t need me to tell you that. But now you have the ability to write directly to perhaps 10 million activists and supporters. My bet is that this first email of yours will be the most closely-read mass communication in history. This is your way to circumvent that media filter.

But I can’t stress this enough: you only get one shot. Those 10 million people will pay close attention to what you’re saying only during that very brief moment when you’ve just begun the job and you are the top headline in the news.

I know the thought of writing to 10 million supporters (who are actually paying attention!) is daunting. So, if this is not speaking out of place, then let me say too: on a certain level, I think you should forget most of your career. This isn’t anything to do with you personally — any politician in your shoes should do the same. Forget policy. There’s no hope of good policy in the current intellectual environment — and anyway that’s not your job anymore. Forget ever running for anything again. Forget lobbyists and donors and all the rest of the special interests. You’ve got millions of politically passionate people out there who desperately want to end the utter corruption of American politics. They’ll donate more money together than all lobbyists combined; that was proven in 2004. But they’ll do much more than that. With four years to build and organize, they will actually succeed to “take back America ” in 2008. These people aren’t only Democrats, but millions of Independents and Republicans too. All of America , reasonable and moderate, is your constituency. Unite us. Lead us. It’s almost impossible to comprehend the magnitude of the historical possibilities that you face in your new position.

However, accomplishing all that’s possible will require you to step outside the bounds of what even our most offbeat politicians consider acceptable. There’s no way around it: you’ll have to take great risks. But what makes success possible are these 10 million amazing people whom you can call upon for help.

With 10 million supporters a click of the “send” button away, why not take the big risks? What really is there to lose anyway? Let’s say it all goes awry, and you wind up going out in an embarrassing blaze of screaming glory? We already know that’s not the end of the world, don’t we? Maybe in politician terms you’d be putting a lot on the line — but just think of the chances regular Americans are taking every day just to survive in their dangerous jobs, dangerous neighborhoods, dangerous schools, dangerous wars. Surely what you’re risking is nothing compared to that.

After you’ve sounded your call to arms and established your connection with this massive base, then you’ve got to keep the conversation going by supporting existing local organizing as well as providing the tools and structure for grassroots organizing on a massively increased scale (see Part 1 of this letter!).

In the same way that Roosevelt had all of America’s attention through his radio “Fireside Chats” in that time of crisis, you will have the same level of attention from millions of grassroots leaders who understand the crisis facing America today.

But think about this: the people who listened to Roosevelt could not respond to the speaker, and they could not reach out through the new medium of radio to connect with other local leaders. Yours will be able to do both through the new mediums of email and the web. In the email you send to those 10 million forward-looking Americans, you’ll give people a place to go begin organizing. Your ask could be “Volunteer now for 2006 & 2008″, “Endow a grassroots organizing program for the 21st Century” — it could even be “What the heck should I do now that I’m here?” The people receiving your email will click to sign up, contribute a few bucks for organizing, or give you a well-thought-out suggestion.

Those clicks are the beginnings of what will be a beautiful, two-way friendship between you, the Democratic party and these millions of grassroots leaders.

The important thing to grasp is that you’ve got the ability to engage these best-ten-million- people-in-America in a very, very concrete and productive way that did not even exist a few years ago. In an instant, millions opt in to the movement. It’s actually hard to fathom the power that could be unleashed by this one, first email you send. It might go practically unnoticed by the media, but this email will be the beginning of a whole new Democratic Party. (Though your press team should do their best to make it a big story!)

All the ingredients for a mass movement to clean up American politics are present for you — you’ve just got to pick them up and use them. So I’ll say it one more time. Your first day in office: shut the door to your office, take the phone off the hook, and just have them tell the reporters that you’re writing a letter to 10 million supporters. Many of us envy you for having that day all to yourself.