Massachusetts politics was pretty clear cut, and I suspect it is pretty much the national paradigm. You had 3 kind of factions

• joey the drunk & the the townies who knew since 2nd grade that mom or dad would get 'em a good job with the city / state doing nothing & all friends and family all voted Dem & lived off the trough,
  
• the high flyer Kennedy School types who are always thinking six jobs ahead cuz they wanna be the next walter cronkite / galbraith / kissenger / kenny o'donnell / josh / toby / leo
  
• all the rest ... LOTS of good hard working do gooders who get used like kleenex and charmin by the first 2 groups.

regardless of which townie or which ivy faction of consultants and insiders is running the campaign, "grassroots" has really been about cleaning up databases to better pimp for money so those running the campaign can stay running more campaigns.(1.)Life is good jetting around to aspen and san fran and boston and manhattan and and and telling all the good folks how evil the thugs are and how money makes the world, and campaigns, go round.

(1.) there is LOTS of grassroots roots work that happens and that is probably useful, and IMHO just getting to know people in your communitty is invaluable.
In a close election, maybe all the poll watching etc etc got another 10 or 20 per precinct to remember to vote, and that adds up.
BUT, at the end of the day, the campaigns concentrate most of their grassroots effort into precincts and areas with income and activism, relatively little is done in new areas, AND a lot of the work ends up cleaning up databases to pimp fo rmoney from areas where people are active and have good incomes.

In all 3 groups are people who work really hard - some clearly work really hard at getting in charge and staying in charge.
given the lose lose lose of the last 25+ years, too little of that hard work is effective.

People get pissed when I say that, and they get defensive.

I am NOT saying you were lazy. The work wasn't effective, cuz we keep losing.  

It is hard work carrying 50 pounds of onions around the outside of the kitchen for 3 weeks - however, that hard work does NOT get the onions peeled, cut, and made into salads, chowder, stock or soup.

politics is a lot like religion - the more someone tells you that they care about the little guy over anything, the more likely they are to use your hard work for their self promotion.

rmm.  

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

I've come to similar views as you based on experience. The degree of betrayal and dismissiveness, combined with lack of attention and self-promotion, have created a badly machine that I fear still has a long way to go in it's process of deterioration before things might change in a way that make resurrection possible.

I of course won't hold my breath, but in the meantime, I wrote this diary to see if there were any realistic ideas floating around out there where we might be able to make some use od this party apparatus if we could just tweak a whole bunch of stuff in it and throw out most of the bums controlling the cash drawer.

Lack of response seems to portend an answer. (even I didn't even check this morning to see if anyone had come by and said anything, which is why I missed your post until now.

In any case, thanks for offering your perspective.

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.