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Epilogue: What Would Vinny Do?
- Vanderbilt University Press
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219 Epilogue What Would Vinny Do? In the flush of excitement and optimism that followed the election of Barack Obama in November 2008, I cited the DeMarco factor as a model in a piece I wrote for the December 15 issue of The Nation (“Election’s Over—Time to Begin”).There,I speculated that the thousands of trained,highly motivated organizers and the millions of volunteers and contributors who made Obama’s victory possible could now be mobilized to make certain that his legislative agenda was enacted. Some of that has indeed happened. But it now seems clear that the organizing energy of the electoral campaign has been difficult to recharge even through vigorous online action alerts and petitions, potluck suppers with cell-phone trees, lobbying, letters, and rallies. Much of what Obama has sought—and voters have supported—has been blocked. The Bush regime is gone,but the corrupt power of the moneyed lobbies is not. When I asked Rosanna Miles what she and others would do when DeMarco was no longer leading them, she replied: “We’d carry on. We’d be sad, but when we were faced with a problem, we’d always ask ourselves,‘What would Vinny do?’” Now, having looked at how DeMarco approaches various political challenges, we can do the same.What might a progressive president’s political advisors and advocacy leaders borrow from DeMarco’s campaign template to reverse the imbalance of political power between voters and lobbyists in the coming years? They might learn that transforming unfocused public yearning for systemic change that challenges entrenched power takes long-range planning, exhaustive relationship building, and patience uncharacteristic for Americans —that is, fundamentally, that successful legislative organizing cannot be built during the few months of a legislative or election campaign, but must be built over years. DeMarco’s campaigns demonstrate that organizing the leadership of groups, not just individual voters, is the most effective way of building sustained support for legislation. But turning to existing coalitions of custom- 220 The DeMarco Factor ary allies who represent small fractions of the electorate is never sufficient. DeMarco has repeatedly succeeded in assembling groups into fresh alliances, bringing together, for example, the diverse forces of public health advocates and faith groups in faith and health coalitions. We have seen that such mobilization can be promoted systematically by strategies such as coalition-organizing resolutions, legislative trial runs to ferret out legislative supporters and opponents, primary and general election concrete pledge campaigns—all accompanied by relentless media advocacy and sustained lobbying. What DeMarco and his allies have taught us is that legislative success over economically and politically potent opposition is possible only when elected policymakers understand that the will of the voters for the passage of legislation is broad and deep. That can happen only when there is demonstrable evidence in the form of elections that vindicate support for such legislation and punish those who oppose it.Get concrete,redeemable pledges from candidates before they are elected, and defeat even a handful of candidates who refuse to pledge, and you have erected a bulwark against the otherwise seductive pleading,lubricated by campaign contributions,of insider lobbyists. In legislative and election campaigns to come, the near paralysis in our current political environment manifestly calls for unorthodox strategies. In searching for effective change, public health and social justice strategists might also well begin by asking first,“What would Vinny do?” ...