by David Safier
A group emerged recently,
Building a Stronger ADP, which deserves to be taken seriously. The group put together "A New Way Forward," a seven page pdf document which
describes the changes these folks think the Arizona Democratic Party should make. Whether all the ideas should be implemented is secondary. This document should be a starting point for discussions all over the state, especially at the Executive Board level.
The people who put this together have decided to remain anonymous, and I will respect their decision even though I disagree. I think they should say who they are. Most people, and I include myself, are wary of supporting people who won't reveal themselves. I will say, however, any guesses you might make about who wrote this will probably be wrong. They're not the usual group of people you might describe as members of left or reform wings of the party. And that's what I find so interesting and promising.
Here is the summary of the group's recommendations at the top of the document:
I. An open and transparent hiring system for all state party employees, including Executive Director.
II. A renewed organizational focus, aimed at developing a system of priorities and guidelines that will help shape the future of the state party.
III. The formation of Project 2010, an all‐encompassing statewide voter outreach campaign that is focused on targeted voter registration, PEVL sign‐up and new PC recruitment.
IV. A strong and unified message campaign for 2010 that challenges the Republicans and in simple terms tells Arizonans what Democrats would do differently.
Nothing especially radical or surprising here. But all important. I recommend you take a look. Those of you who are attending the March 7 state meeting, take a look before you go.
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By the way, I’m not one of the Stronger ADP group so you can cross me off the list.
Francine, There is a contact page for you to comment or give criticism. Why don’t you start there.
As far as being anonymous, I can understand not wanting to have critics attack the plan because of who these people might be. If critics are attacking or unduly praising the authors because of who they are, they’re not giving a serious critique of the plan.
Ever hear of the anonymously penned Federalist Papers? I don’t think public scrutiny will be in short supply.
Someone plants plants.
Some has two first names.
Someone uses a ‘s’ instead of a ‘z’.
Someone goes by ‘EOP’.
Revision history wasnt hidden…
All we can know about the group is that they created this document on 2/27 on an Apple computer running 10.5.5 (hey, 10.5.6 is out! update…) and they have webspace through Go Daddy and hid the information through Domainsbyproxy.com. The person who created the website didnt sign it or place any clues in the code. They also took some steps to remove the metadata from the pdf document.
Who has an Apple computer and microsoft word? Crud…
How about, who is geeky enough to know how to remove meta data?
On the other hand, if the writer(s) were known, we could engage them in dialogue – dialogue is a bad thing? I guess that I think someone thinks anonymity is cute and that is what really bugs me, especially when attached to something I see as so important as a smoothly, sanely functioning Democratic State Party in Arizona. Let’s work together to get this party on a better course.
I like the anonymity of this. It’s completely objective and that’s how it should be judged. You know that many would gladly have subjective biases based on personality judgments. Just think how you would base your opinion if someone like Terry Goddard wrote it or conversely, like Mike Bryan wrote it.
Judge it for what it is, not because you want to judge the author.
Sorry, Francine, the post stays. If that means you stop paying me my salary, so be it.
You can’t fire me, I . . . wait a minute, you never hired me. Never mind.
As I said in the post, I agree with your concern about anonymity. But read the statement anyway and see if you agree. It doesn’t mean you’re endorsing the writers.
I can tell you right now, I have no interest in ideas put forth by people who don’t want me to know who they are. For my money, you can remove the post!