City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2017 Dinosaurs for the Digital Age: Democratic Party Organization in the Twenty-First Century Aaron B. Shapiro The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2257 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] DINOSAURS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE: DEMOCRATIC PARTY ORGANIZATION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY by AARON SHAPIRO A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Political Science in partial fulfillment for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York. i ©2017 AARON SHAPIRO All Rights Reserved ii Dinosaurs for the Digital Age: Democratic Party Organization in the Twenty-First Century by Aaron Shapiro This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Political Science in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date [Frances Fox Piven] Chair of Examining Committee Date [Alyson Cole] Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: John Mollenkopf James Jasper THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Dinosaurs for the Digital Age: Democratic Party Organization in the Twenty-First Century by Aaron Shapiro Advisor: Frances Fox Piven Abstract: This dissertation traces Democratic Party organization roughly over the Obama era. It conceptualizes the party at the national, state, and local level, with a particular focus on Ohio. This project seeks to reconcile changes in the political environment that incentivize strengthening party structures, with American electoral institutions that complicate party organizational development. I suggest that while demographic change, polarization, and big data are powerful incentives to focus Democratic electoral strategy on an Obama-like organizational model and campaign strategy, institutionalization remains hampered by significant structural impediments. These are institutional as well as coalitional. While party integration has been uneven, I find an evolving and shifting relationship between national, state, and local party organization. Variation in competition and resource levels create disparate intra-party logics. “Battleground” states are marked by ephemeral high resource presidential organization that deeply penetrates the local level in service of turning out a coherent party electorate. Yet such organization tends to be unrooted and unintegrated in local party structures. This is explained by the absence of organizational mechanisms that bridge the diverse and path-dependent campaign practices of these organizations. Struggles to institutionalize such an apparatus beyond the presidential year, contribute to the broader problem of Democratic off-year turnout iv Dinosaurs for the Digital Age: Democratic Party Organization in the Twenty-First Century Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: The National Party 46 Chapter Three: Ohio: So Goes the Nation 103 Chapter Four: Local Party Organization in Ohio 155 Chapter Five: Conclusion 197 Bibliography 220 v Illustrations Figures Figure 1.1: Temporal Model of Resource Construction 27 Figure 1.2: Strong Party Criteria 32 Figure 2.1: Axis of Fragmentation 50 Figure 2.2: Democratic Intra-Party Cleavages 51 Figure 4.1: Party Organizational Templates 161 Figure 4.2: Party Organizational Flow 166 Tables Table 2.1: 2004-2014 Federal election results 48 Table 2.2: Turnout and vote share of overall turnout 55 Table 2.3: Democratic share of the vote 56 Table 2.4: Increase in youth (17-29) share of Democratic Primary/Caucus Turnout in early states 72 Table 2.5: 2008 Democratic Primary Early State Youth Vote (17-29) preferences 73 Table 2.6: 2008 and 2012 Turnout Disparity 93 Table 2.7: 2012 OFA voter contact 94 Table 3.1: Ohio Democratic Party Fundraising 2008-2014 104 Table 4.1: Mean fundraising total per Ohio Congressional Democratic candidate 188 Table 4.2: Competitive races in 99 member Ohio State Assembly 189 vi Acronyms ACA (Patient Protection and) Affordable Care Act ACORN Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now ACT America Coming Together DFA Democracy for America DGA Democratic Governors Association DCCC Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee DFD Deputy Field Director DLC Democratic Leadership Council DLCC Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee DNC Democratic National Committee DSCC Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee FEC Federal Election Commission FO Field Organizer ED Executive Director EDM Emerging Democratic Majority GOP Grand Ole Party (Republican Party) GOTV Get Out the Vote IAF Industrial Areas Foundation IE Independent Expenditure NAE New American Electorate NT Neighborhood Team NTL Neighborhood Team Leader ODP Ohio Democratic Party OFA Obama for America OFA 2.0 Organizing for America OFA 4.0 Organizing for Action ODCCA Ohio Democratic County Chair Association PAC Political Action Committee RFD Regional Field Director vii RPG Responsible Party Government Super PAC Super Political Action Committee VAN Voter Activation Network (NGP-VAN) viii Chapter 1 Introduction “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” -Will Rogers Eight years is a long time in American politics. Barack Obama’s 2008 election was hailed as the dawn of a new progressive era, one in which a long-coming electoral majority was finally mobilized with the help of a charismatic standard-bearer and cutting edge campaign. Democrats had unified control of the federal government for the first time in nearly two decades. They would finally be able to govern without the help of a conservative southern wing that was the party’s historical linchpin. The future, cosmopolitan and liberal, was here. Or not. Obama presided over two tumultuous terms characterized by landmark legislative victories, yet also nearly unparalleled partisanship and gridlock, exacerbated once his congressional majorities evaporated in 2010. While obstructionism and polarization was on the rise for decades, the single minded-fervor through which Republicans resisted Obama’s policies seemed unparalleled in modern history. Despite such difficulties, it seemed a safe bet the Democratic coalition as a presidential majority would hold. On Election Day 2016, Obama’s approval rating was virtually parallel to his 2008 popular vote percentage. After eight years of stoking their base with reactionary fervor, the Republican Party had been unable to prevent an erratic 1 reality TV star from wresting the nomination from a bevy of candidates with far superior establishment credentials and assumed general election prospects. Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former rival and now would-be successor, was a perhaps uninspiring, however solid and safe choice, to hold the Democratic coalition against such a vulgar enemy. Yet Donald Trump’s shocking victory overturned virtually all assumptions about contemporary American politics. The progressive future had given way to right-wing populism, oriented in restoring American greatness on behalf of a group often forgotten in the new Democratic coalition-- the white working class. True, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, yet the vaunted Democratic turnout apparatus fell short across highly resourced battleground states, where Clinton’s vote totals declined relative to Obama. What happened? This dissertation attempts to offer a partial answer to this, at least concerning the Democratic Party’s troubles in maintaining the Obama organizational apparatus. To be clear, many factors well beyond the party’s turnout machine influenced Clinton’s loss. Significant defections among white rust belt voters could not have been stopped with a better Get Out the Vote operation. An inability to mobilize the Democratic base is not just due to a lack of door knocks. However, struggles to mobilize the Obama coalition, not just in 2016, but also in 2010 and 2014, were in part attributable to the challenges of building turnout infrastructure over this period. Central to this difficulty, is how mechanisms of fragmentation, both old and new, distort the internal dynamics of party organization. Campaigning has changed vastly over the last decade. Digitalization and polarization have altered the way elections are fought. Still constant however, is the American system remains harsh terrain for the would-be mass party organization. 2 Many, in the twenty-first century, view parties wearily, an outdated anachronism of Tammany Hall and the feudal south. Politics have changed since the heyday of the party machine. The public may well cheer the decline of the boss, yet not all recent developments are necessarily for the better. The last several decades have seen an explosion of money in politics: often filtered through new sorts of political institutions designed to outmaneuver America’s modest regime of electoral regulation--PACs, Super PACs, 527s, 501(c)4’s, and more. New strategies for evading electoral competition have taken hold. These include erecting new (and not so new) barriers to voting, as well as the development of increasingly sophisticated efforts to gerrymander districts, insulating politicians from competitive elections. ‘Big data’ has revolutionized the communicative structures and strategies of electoral politics, leading to