Am I Blue, Oregon?

Mary Conley

Today is my last day of being self-employed, during which I'm beholden to no one for my messaging, so thought I'd take a moment on my way out the Blue Oregon door to tell you what I've learned in six months of job and client-hunting in this fair state. (Yes, I'm too chicken to chance blogging while working at the new job... but I thank all of you who've been reading and to Kari for the opportunity.)

I've been selling my "communications wares," trying to plug myself into a pretty competitive world of people with my skills around here. I heard a lot of: "We love you, we love your work, we can't wait to work with you, just not right now." Eventually that came to sound like, "I love you, but not that way" or "It's not you, it's me."

I came to theorize that people think they want to communicate about their organization or their candidate or their whatever, but when it comes right down to it, they don't see the need. Or they can't pay for it. It's a kind of ethereal thing, I guess, communications. You can't wrap it up in a bow and deliver it. It's actually best if no one sees your work.

The problem is that, in politics, the other team understands the value of effective communications and the guys who don't like us are here. If we don't start playing our A-game and proving to the rest of the state that Democratic principles and values are worth preserving here, they'll roll right over us like a non-union construction crane operator.

This isn't a plea to employ more communications people, really, but it begins in the first step of any communications plan: defining who you are. The other side is exceptionally good at that. They're the party of "what's good for business is good for America" with a dash of "pro-life til the baby arrives." Everything they believe can be filtered through those two lenses: their beliefs on Social Security, Medicare, taxes, the very role of government. You can take a debate on school textbooks, run it through those two filters and really narrow your focus to a particular product or two. It's kind of simple to be a Republican.

It's trickier to be a Democrat. There are lots of people in the tent we don't totally agree with.  It would take a fly's eye-worth of lenses to narrow our focus down to something we can all agree on. Hey, I just looked for work for six months. I can start to see the pro-business perspective of the Red Side. Dems have to be able to offer their own solutions - and then get results.

I don't have the answers. The closest I've come to a good Dem message is: We're there for your parents. We're there for your children. We're there for you. We're Democrats.

That says it for me. On the "politics" agenda, we've got Val Hoyle's recent post about potential dirty tricks in Lane County and Kari's post about what's going on around the Clem campaign. You can see how this is going to play out. Their A-Team has arrived. They'll do what it takes to win. It's what they do. And they'll take what we love about Oregon and sell it to the highest bidder along the way.

I have this recurring nightmare that it's election night 2008 and Tim Russert's on TV with his little white greaseboard. On it is written "Oregon Oregon Oregon" and Tim's going, "It all comes down to this: Ore-GONE Ore-GONE Ore-GONE." I could be wrong that that could ever be the case, but it's a nightmare I felt like sharing.

The other party is hoping we don't wake up in time.  Having met so many of you in the past six months, I know we can. But the clock is ticking. November is less than 100 days away. It's time to suit up and play our A-game, even for the mid-terms.

Go get 'em.

By Mary Conley Aug. 09, 2006