Burnt Orange Report

Campus politics

Guest post by Nate Nance

Last week the faculty senate of Baylor University held their third "no confidence" vote on Robert Sloan Jr.'s presidency. I'm not telling you this because I want to bore you with campus politics here in Waco where this has become the routine drama. The vote doesn't do anything anyway, since it is the Board of Regents who decide whether Sloan is fired or not.

No, I'm telling you this because of the numbers involved in the vote and how I view this as a microcosm of our country.

It turns out that 85% voted to oust Sloan, but only 59% showed up at the polling place over the three days and actually cast a ballot. Now, if we gets 60% of the electorate to vote in a presidential election, we call that a record turnout, as we did this year, but listen to this rationale:

Several faculty members had earlier vowed to boycott the referendum, calling for discussions, not votes, on campus differences. Many of those same faculty members put their names on an open letter Tuesday, saying the referendum fell short of reflecting the views of the entire faculty.

"In short, the much-touted referendum did not deliver what the senate hoped," read the letter, sent out by Douglas Henry, director of the Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning. "Despite months of planning, extraordinary publicity, and easy access to balloting, nearly 400 of Baylor's faculty elected not to participate."

The letter continued, "It appears that plenty of folks are content enough with the university's ambitious vision under Dr. Sloan's presidency."

That wouldn't work in a national election, of course, but it does put me in mind of something. As I said, 40% of the electorate stayed home or went to work on Nov. 2 without bothering to register or go to a polling place. Does that mean that the all would have voted for Bush had they gone? No, I doubt it. I think, after such a polarized heated campaign, we would have higher turnout. But the numbers, as impressive as they are, aren't much higher than they were the last time around.

Somewhere in that 40% we can find the votes we need to win elections. We just have to figure out what it will take to get them to the polls. Once we know why they're not going, we can focus on a two-part election strategy.

One, rally the base. This means spending the time getting people who are registered Democrats to give money and spend time trying to get our candidate elected. They have to want this person in the Oval Office and the only way to do that is to make sure it is a likeable, smart, articulate person with a loyal following.

Two, get out the vote. No more trying to get Republicans to switch to our side. If people in Kansas are really stupid for voting against their best interest, then let them be stupid. We can't change that. Direct emailing people who are not registered to vote for either party but share economic or social backgrounds with people who tend to be Democratic will help us trowel the 40% I keep talking about. Spending millions on organized GOTV efforts is the key, as well. MoveOn did a great job of getting young people like me involved in politics, but they don't get many votes. The largest organized GOTV effort in Ohio for the Democrats was from unions. Union's organizing ower in Ameica these days is fading so we need something to take up the slack. It can't be college kids knocking on doors, it needs to be people who are specifically there to talk about candidates not single issues like the environment or gay rights.

And I'm now totally committed to the idea that the DNC needs to focus on Congressional races and building party infrastructure. I'm a politically knowledgeable person, but I have no idea who the chairman of the McLennan County Democratic Party is. I don't know where their offices are located. I know M.A. Taylor is chairman of the McLennan Republican Party and I know where his offices are and I know what he thinks and I know he's an idiot and an asshole. The DNC needs to change that 9not the part about Taylor being an asshole). I know eveery Democrat thinks they could have done Mary Beth-Cahill's job better, but we need to start thinking less about what we do better and more about what we can do to help the Mary Beth's do their jobs better. Refocusing the DNC away from the presidency and on down-ballot races is a start.

That's a lot from a short article on Bayor's dramas, but it's a lot we've got to get done. The next presidential election is less than four years away.

This is a guest post from Nate Nance. Nate is a sports/news clerk at the Waco Tribune-Herald and writer/editor of Common Sense a Texas-based Democratic Web log. He can be reached at nate_nance@yahoo.com.