Political Change is Hard Work

Not to sound too much like our president, "Bubble-Boy", but political change is hard work. That may be why the number of people who actually work for political change is only a small percentage of the number of people who talk about political change. Yet, while talking about change is important because it helps shape political discussions in our homes, workplaces, schools, etc., in the end political change is only accomplished by people going out and contacting other people.

In the last 40 years or so political campaigns have gone from being labor intensive to capital intensive. Back in the 1960s and even in the 1970s most political campaigns relied more on volunteers than on paid help. If a campaign wanted to do a mailing, for example, it got a bunch of volunteers together at a location and everyone put on address stickers and stuffed envelopes. If a campaign wanted to do phone work, they needed live bodies to actually make the calls.

Now, it is much different. Because of technology it is possible for a mailing house to mail thousands of households at one time. Because of technology, it is possible for a campaign to use "robo-calls" and put their message into thousands of homes and never use a real person to make the calls. The reason why it is tempting to use this technology is because you know the work gets done, there is very little co-ordination involved, and companies for whom this is their business generally do a better job than volunteers, no matter how well intentioned.

All of this technology comes at a price. First of all, it is expensive and that means that more dollars must be raised for political campaigns. This puts Democrats at a disadvantage because Democrats generally don't have as much access to money as Republicans. Second, by removing humans from the process, you have lessening the involvement between the campaign and the people the campaign is supposed to be about serving. Third, by relying so much on technology campaigns are giving the impression that they only people who matter are the ones signing checks. This only increases the cynicism that people have about politics.

The flip side, though, is that is politically inclined people want political campaigns to be about more than fund-raising they have to be willing to do the hard work of politics. They have to be willing to make phone calls, go door to door, work parades, drop literature, and do all the things that are essentail to winning elections, but which are also not fun.

If you are reading these words chances are good that you are interested in bringing about political change. What you have to ask yourselves is whether you are willing to do the hard work that is necessary to bring about that change. We can't answer that for you, only you can give that answer.
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