Thank goodness, because the MDP possesses a long, and dramatic history of sucking.
MICHIGANDEMS.COM
Allow me to share with you a brief history of why the MDP has sucked for so long.
DETROIT
Detroit and its municiple gems possess the largest concentration of a voting age population, yet, when it comes to state leadership, it has traditionally thrown its nose up in the air to the 13th and 14th Democratic Congressional Districts.
When Mark Brewer and Lon Johnson were both running for the seat of State Chair, neither of them wasted their time to even engage these Detroit districts when it came to the convention vote. I was present to listen to the, well, let's just say "spirited discussions" on why these candidates would not come to stomp for their own vote in Detroit.
Ron Scott, of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality attempted to run against Mark Brewer a few years ago. Scott raised an interesting issue regarding the mandatory $1,000 filing fee to become a candidate for MDP State Chair. He called it a "poll tax".
Now, why would he call a filing fee to run for office a "poll tax"?
Well, it seems that if you are poor, there is a strong likelihood that you will not be able to afford a run for office, so the $1,000 filing fee, imposed by the MDP, should be considered to be more like a "poll toll" because, in order to play, you must pay, and everyone knows the poverty rates in Detroit, the largest voting base of Michigan.
Considering the fact that Detroit and most of its surrounding communities wake up everyday to the smiling face of poverty, the poll toll functions as a filter for the MDP elite.
I call them the elite because all the contracts, and jobs, go to the same Lansing clique.
YOUTH
Youth, as I know it from federal codes, is typically until the age of 18, with exceptions in child welfare allowing the "youth" age ceiling to be raised to the age of 25.
The only thing The Michigan Democratic Party Youth Caucus is doing for youth is recruiting youth for more campaigning for their hand picked candidates.
Of course, Detroit youth and their struggles are never on the agenda.
JOBS
So far, from what I know and what I see, there are no jobs initiatives but there are lots of fundraising in Lansing.
SOCIAL NETWORKING
I believe it was some time during the 2008 election cycle that I was able to have a seat at the table with MDP leadership. I was literally stunned with the lack of technological sophistication.
The MDP website was using a free Wordpress code which came with an astronomical price tag. Why? It was free, yet it really, really sucks. There are so many web developers and SEO experts working, like myself, tirelessly on showing off their skills to win the opportunity to bid on contracts.
Now they use Drupal coding.
But of course, keeping to the MDP structure, there are no public bid announcements.
Advanced networking of the website does not exist. Here is an example. No where do you see an hyperlink to the District Parties, or any other participating group, websites. This is pretty sad.
What is even sadder is the fact that the bloggers and other individual sites are excluded from being supported by the MDP.
The MDP should not strictly focus on sending out sensationally obnoxious emails to people they already know are too broke to hand over spare dollars and will not read them for lack of source links and citations, but extend their cyber arms to embrace others who are sincerely trying to give a voice to people who cannot afford to run for office.
Running for office is not always about getting elected, it is also about elevating an issuse to the public agenda and preserving the record of history. Every tweet or facebook post is recorded in the Library of Congress.
Extranet public relations do not exist for the MDP. There is no one to standfast to research and develop an internet presence with backlinks or keywords.
The site has no search option nor does it have archives.
God forbid I speak upon the cost of the development of its mobile apps, which were also free, of course.
Someone made goo goobs of money and it was not the people. I wonder who the shyster is?
I would say more on how badly its SEO sucks, but I want the MDP social networking contract.
RECRUITING CANDIDATES AND NEW MEMBERS
If the MDP wants its leadership to reflect its base, it should come down from the ivory tower every once in a while and rub shoulders with the people. All the funtions typically have an entry cost, as they are fundraisers, and, with extremely poor social networking, no one really knows what is going on.
I get a real hoot watching state candidates run for office. You typically, immediately spot who will win the seat because the MDP will only support who they want, not what the people want.
Running for office is not always about getting elected. It is also about giving a voice to issues which are too contraversial for prime time politics, like child welfare.
With the advancements of technology, SEO has created the ability to reach many groups, instantly and progressively, from the palm of your hand. I should know. I am doing it with this post.
DIVERSITY
Little known fact, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently had to create a diversity recruitment division. Seriously.
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| MCP former Chair Lon Johnson addressing Detroit area party leadership |
He left me utterly speechless.
Johnson came to promote the initiative to "make African-Americans vote in Detroit so the MDP could put in its gubernatorial candidate, whom no one could ever pronounce, spell his name or pick him out of a police line up.
First off, the MDP practice of labeling, and even assigning forced labels upon people, based on a really skewed and archaic concept of forcing an individual to "pick one racial identity" is what has turned off Detroit voters.
I tried to speak upon the cultural amalgamation of a vote base which is historically ignored, but I guess it did not fit in with current party rhetoric.
There are so many individuals, who may not have English as their first language, who are illiterate, and who know nothing about civic participation, government structure and administration, the role of an elected official or even know about campaign finance.
I guess the MDP does not believe its base is important enough to be educated on voting rights and candidate rights.
With all said, well, not really, I am intentionally holding back specifics, one may be now in a position to understand why the Democrats lost the 2014 elections; it alienated its base.
I am posting this to encourage everyone to participate in this survey and to skew stats on the video and survey responses.
Again, #BrandonDillion is a wonderful person I have had the pleasure of working with him on child welfare issues.
Show him some love and share this post, alot.
And make sure you let the #MDP know when you fill out the survey that I should get the social networking contract.
http://www.michigandems.com/survey/
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©
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