Republican Victory Centers

An interesting piece to the whole recall process has been growing “grassroots” activism generated by both sides in Wisconsin.

A grassroots movement (often referenced in the context of a political movement) is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures. Grassroots movements are often at the local level, as many volunteers in the community give their time to support the local party.

On March 25^th the Wisconsin State Journal printed an article ('Ground game' will be crucial in recall election) that covered “grassroots” as a key factor being utilized in the recall efforts by both parties.  In that article reference was made to Republican campaign field offices, called “Victory Centers.”

Campaign field offices are nothing new to either political party or to any individual attempting to be in political office.  I certainly am not against this approach to organized campaigning, but I do raise issue with my party promoting their use of “Victory Centers” with an implied suggestion that the centers are a truly grassroots generated expression of all voluntary support for their side.  

Do not get me wrong, I believe that a lot of good people are in fact genuinely donating their time to help out with campaigning from the Victory Centers. But that is not the part that concerns me. Volunteers I can appreciate.

State Republican Party spokesman Ben Sparks and others have been using the term “volunteer” and “Victory Center” almost synonymously over the past few months to describe the level of involvement supporting the Republican recall campaigns. Again, I am not at all against campaign field offices, the more than twenty Republican Victory offices in Wisconsin, or the approximate one million calls that they supposedly made to potential voters. I am simply challenging the WI GOP’s claims about the level of volunteerism being conducted in the Victory Centers.

Maybe this is not a big deal to some, but to me it is another example of integrity and transparency in question by my own party. I have a hard time accepting spokesman Ben Sparks’ public comments about the Victory Centers being based on “grassroots” energy and overwhelming “volunteerism” when I have a contact who was actually a paid employee for one of the Victory Centers when they first opened up. That person’s employment responsibilities in one of the Victory Centers was to call people in a particular area of the state and survey them with a scripted message that appeared to be asking general political questions. If certain questions were answered in certain ways, the person being surveyed was then asked an additional set of questions designed to solicit them as volunteers to help recruit other volunteers to campaign for the GOP recall efforts.  In particular, my contact specifically recruited volunteers believing that they would be helping out with the GOP’s signature verification process on Governor Walker’s behalf.  When Governor Walker and Lt. Governor Kleefisch chose not to contest the signatures against them, many of the volunteers were not needed or had their responsibilities shifted to other areas of the campaign.  Apparently some of the recruited volunteered expressed a feeling of being duped by the GOP with their true intentions for utilizing the volunteers time and energy.

My contact was a fulltime employee specifically paid by the GOP to recruit volunteers who were to recruit other volunteers, all under the management of paid field supervisors brought in from out of state.  Everything that the employee did for the Victory Center was professionally organized and strategically scripted out like a highly planned and non-deviated military mission. Ironically, the group who hired my contact expressed concerns in doing so because of the person’s military commitments to the state and potential unavailability during one weekend per month for making their quota of required “survey” calls. To me, that does not sound like grassroots in action or volunteerism as I know it.

A more accurate example of true political grassroots in action was displayed in Senate District 13 where I live, when small business owner Lori Compas of Fort Atkinson energized a small base of volunteers that gathered over 20,000 signatures initiating the recall of Senator Scott Fitzgerald. Near the end, she apparently had some organized help from other groups in collecting the needed signatures. But it is my understanding that the spontaneous activism of Lori Compas to initiate and carry greater majority of the movement was the single contributing factor in collecting the required signatures against Senator Fitzgerald. Now Lori is running against the senator and it appears as though she is garnering a growing base of supporters in the race against incumbent Scott Fitzgerald. She simply has to get through the Democrat primary by beating out “fake” Democrat candidate Gary Ellerman, the Republican who founded the “Walkers for Walker” group in Lake Mills.

Faking a grassroots movement is known as astroturfing. Astroturfing, as the name suggests, is named after AstroTurf, a brand of artificial grass. Astroturfing means pretending to be a grassroots movement, when in reality the agenda and strategy is controlled by a hidden, non-grassroots organization. In this manner, a faux show is presented, consisting of individuals pretending to be voicing their own opinions.

So you tell me, is it a big deal to be sold on the idea of this being about grassroots movement and volunteerism when clearly it is not. I have little doubt that both sides are drawing upon paid professional support from out of state help, but I can only control so much. What is in my control is my ability to hold my own party accountable to the values of integrity and transparency that I want to be associated with.  Astroturfing is not one of those values.

I believe that there is a better way forward for our state and I would love to hear from others who share a similar position, especially Republicans who want to travel on a higher road by putting people before politics and bring respect back to the party. 

Sincerely,

Gary