My wife and I recently paid our overdue membership to the local Democrat party and spent an hour in the monthly meeting. We were struck by how many competent, strong people were active in the local party chapter but also by how many active, informed, and strong local people were not there. Perhaps they were not there for the same reason our dues had gone unpaid for so long. For us, it has been frustrating to come to meetings where the main discussions were not the issues about which we felt passion but instead were intra-party memoranda.

Yet, I will admit, this is an unfair criticism. A political party must address the housekeeping matters relevant to being an honest electoral voice for the interests of the people. The problem is that on the Blue side of the political spectrum in Barron County, there are virtually no organized interest groups.

The local Republicans, on the other hand, have an entire posse of formally organized fundamentalists, big business interests, gun advocates, anti-taxes groups, etc.

Anyone who has taken a course in political science knows that a political party is only as effective as the organized voting blocs it can represent. The fact that most Americans oppose the Iraq occupation, or favor a single-payer health-insurance plan, or that most residents of a city want a stop-light on a certain street, is largely irrelevant until enough of them are organized into reliable groups that can threaten the political status quo. An organized group, as opposed to an unconscious conglomeration of citizens with similar opinions, not only has the ability to vote as a group, but more importantly, to transmit their feelings directly to others which may motivate them to make voting decisions that give priority to the issue advocated by the organized group.

Remember, in our ‘first-past-the -post’ system, voter’s opinions are not represented by issue-centered parliamentary parties (for example, the former Labour Party in Britain represented wage-earners) which then make political deals to elect governing officials. In our system, the political opinions of voters are represented by factions within the two main parties and the parties then vie with each other to govern. So to express your opinions politically in this country you first have to empower a faction within a party.

Look around Barron County and you can clearly see that a significant fraction of Red America belongs to clubs, prayer-groups, and other associations while liberals seem to have pursued more individualistic paths. For example, only two churches, the Unitarian-Universalists in Rice Lake, and Augustana Lutheran in Cumberland routinely support groups interested in peace but dozens of churches in this area have active groups supporting the military status quo under the mantle of ‘support the troops’. In fact, you can easily count the liberal-leaning organizations in Barron County on one hand while you would need an entire classroom of fingers and toes to count the conservative-leaning groups such as gun clubs, C.A.R.T., the various chambers of commerce, etc.

So we paid our dues, and will come to meetings. But our strongest interest is in helping to build local advocacy groups, like the group led by Dr. Bannister, which will engage the passions of our county’s more thoughtful, capable citizens. We think the best thing Barron Democrats can do for their future is to do the same.

J. Willie WIlliams
Barron, WI