Voters in America often lament the lack of substance found in the rhetoric and spin emanating from the various presidential campaigns. They want the presidential candidates to take well defined positions on the issues they care about. A number of issue based advocacy groups in New Hampshire have found a way to do just that.
During the presidential primary season presidential candidates make regular public appearances in New Hampshire. They eat breakfast with locals at small town greasy spoon diners and they hold public events where the public can grill them with questions. Advocacy groups in New Hampshire using this atmosphere of accessibility to organize a small army of volunteers who attend candidate events and ask them questions related to specific political issues. The process is called “bird dogging” and this article will provide an overview of just a few of the groups using this technique to make the presidential candidates take firm positions on the issues at the forefront of the 2008 election season.
Anyone attending a presidential campaign event in New Hampshire is likely to hear the candidate in question asked to discuss his or her position on the issue of global warming. More than likely question is being asked by a volunteer for the Carbon Coalition. “The Carbon Coalition is a non-partisan coalition of citizens, scientists, businesses, students, communities and organizations who've come together to advocate for a national energy policy that protects our communities and environment from the ravages of global warming caused by carbon pollution,” according to the group's website. Volunteers report candidate responses back to the group’s headquarters in Portsmouth, NH. The result is a handy on-line guide to the candidates’ public statements on the issue of global warming.
Priorities New Hampshire is another advocacy group using volunteer bird doggers to hound the presidential candidate’s. The goal of Priorities NH, as expressed on the group’s website is, “To change US budget priorities to reflect a national commitment to education, healthcare, energy independence, job training and deficit reduction -- all at no additional taxpayers expense - by shifting spending from obsolete Cold War and nuclear weapons.” Volunteers work to get candidates on the record and then publish their responses through a blog posted to the group’s website. Like the Carbon Coalition, Priorities NH does not endorse presidential candidates.
There are a number of other groups engaged in bird dogging efforts in New Hampshire. Each one uses grassroots style volunteer action to collect information about the candidate's positions on important issues. By getting the candidates on the record these groups peform two duties that are worthy of praise. First, they provide voters with valuable information they can use to judge the merits of the competing candidates. Second, by recording candidate's statements on the issues, they provide the means for using their own words to hold them accountable once they are elected.
You can see volunteers for many of these groups holding signs and collecting signatures for petitions outside of most campaign events. The abundance of volunteers willing to dedicate their time to such efforts should be a sign to candidate to take these groups seriously. Their message is clear: Americans want straight answers.
What do you think of these advocacy groups and their grassroots style approach?
The author, David Anderson, is covering the New Hampshire Primary as a member of Gather's People's Press Corps. You can find all of his articles on the primary in Gathers Election 2008 group.
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Comments: 29
Good article and informative! One thing that should be kept in mind is that just because someone wants a yes or no answer it doesn't mean that one can be made by a reasonable candidate. Many things cannot be nailed down to a black or white or a yes or no, it does depend on many factors.
If we demand a yes or no answer on everything we are asking for candidates without the ability to think and are denying, on ideological basis, service by truly qualified individuals!
That said, it is disappointing to hear candidates equivocate when you are certain in you own mind that they do have a solid position and are simply trying to straddle both sides of a fence. I sure do not have an answer for anyone else, but I try to listen to various candidates enough and look at their records to know where they likely stand on various issues and if their predominate positions parallel what I feel is needed for the office they seek. I'm not too often disappointed.
Thanks for the information. Good article. 10
I love this grass roots politics. Back in the 80's I worked for Iowa Citizen action network and we canvassed....door to door to effect changes.
In Iowa we have one group....Iowans for sensible priorities. In fact my icon is the car they made and drive around in....it was in the parking lot of our supermarket and I stopped and took some pics with my cell phone.
Thanks for posting the links to more, David.
Lori - I believe that the Iowa and NH Priorities group were founded by the same organizers - one of whom is Ben Cohen of "Ben and Jerry's" ice cream fame.
Kevin L. - I know the Carbon Coalition itself operates only in NH. Both groups discussed in the article do have have connections to larger national groups and movements, but they mostly operate locally. But I think it is a great idea to do something similiar in other states! It does not take a lot of money to send out volunteers and record candidate responses to a website - mostly it takes motivation.
I also want to second James C.'s comment about yes and no answers with the following exception. I often find ideologues and their followers have a tendency to give or expect simple yes and no answers because the they think what they see as the truth should be so obvious to everyone that no explanation is needed.
They always blame their failures on on something or someone else.
Who is to say they all do not cooperate to make their tiniest action
pay off to the max, like anyone else would do, because that is the
way all the rest of us are. Do any of you do anything for free for
other people? Does anyone do the right thing unless someone is
looking over your shoulder? I have not seen much evidence of that
in our society or businesses lately.
We do not know what they do when they are out of our site. They
say lots of things, but the end result of what they do is what we have
right now, a corrupt mess that still does not seem to be getting any
better or being cleaned up.
It is human nature that is to blame here. The people who wrote the
Constitution have a good understanding of the parameters in which
people operate and they engineered the system to have checks and
balances. The same checks and balances that over time get worn
down by compromise and corruption.
The advocacy groups are sometimes just as bad, they ask for a mile
when they only need an inch or the make compromises of an inch
when a mile is needed.
And all of us as individuals have to live in one world or the other, how
are any of us any different?
Now we have to deal with the corruption and normality of what is
normal in the world instead of what is right here at home. The biggest
mistake the US has made has been to compromise with China. We
have let them into our game and given the 1 billion dollars of our
ownership while we have nothing of theirs, not even any influence to
make them play fairly. And whoever did this I'm sure got more than
trinkets in return.
We all have to be willing to start again and play by the rules, new and
fresh and with a clean slate or we will just become and ancient corrupt
unable to change society like China.
Thanks for the up date on what is happening on the ground in New Hampshire. "Bird dogging" has some effect if the public is even permitted to attend a candidates "public" events. That never happened in either of GW Bushies "campaigns" or any of his public appearances for that matter. They were so tightly controlled, packed only with supporters, no one who tried to ask an honest question was allowed in. He was the boy in the bubble and we are now suffering the consequences of that.
One thing to remember is that the primary process itself is a mess. Candidates can spare little time to any individual crowd, even in the early primary states where they focus most of their efforts.
I wonder what would happen if presidential candidates were chosen only by what they answered in text on gather, and you had no idea of their sex or looks or way of talking?
From my own experience the bulk of the groups involved in bird dogging address serious issues like healthcare, the environment, and national defense. Personally, I enjoy it when people ask questions that are clearly going against the grain of what the candidate stands for. Such questions allow us a glimpse into how a candidate will deal with their opposition. They also provide the candidate with a chance to deal with common criticisms of their positions on the issue.
For example, I recently witnessed a woman ask John Edwards why Americans should trust the government to provide universal healthcare. Edwards used the opportunity to tell the voters attending the event that his own plan for healthcare would give Americans a choice. They could keep their private health insurance or opt into a government run plan. He also said that he supports placing a cap on the profit margins of private insurance companies, thereby reducing the amount Americans pay for private insurance coverage. Although the person asking the question appeared primarily concerned with discrediting the idea of "universal healthcare" Edwards used the opportunity to show why his plan should not worry voters with similar worries.
> trust the government to provide universal healthcare.
Well he could have just pointed to Medicare as a program
that works. To me that fails to count as any kind of successful
attempt to dig deeper into the issue, it was some woman's
attempt again to demonize national health care, and Edward's
attempt to vaguely promise something to Americans he cannot
yet explain well.
Look at his in-depth health care proposal at his website:
http://johnedwards.com/issues/health-care/
The main points are vague and hand-waving promises
with no real details:
> Families without insurance will get coverage at an affordable price.
> Families with insurance will pay less and get more security and choices.
> Businesses and other employers will find it cheaper and easier to insure their workers.
> The Edwards Plan achieves universal coverage by:
> Requiring businesses and other employers to either cover their employees or help finance their health insurance.
> Making insurance affordable by creating new tax credits, expanding Medicaid and SCHIP, reforming insurance laws, and taking innovative steps to contain health care costs.
> Creating regional "Health Care Markets" to let every American share the bargaining power to purchase an affordable, high-quality health plan, increase choices among insurance plans, and cut costs for businesses offering insurance.
Once these steps have been taken, requiring all American residents to get insurance.
This is about the same employer based system we have now, and maintains insurance companies. For someone who says he will tirelessly fight for working people's rights, employer bases systems seem like a bad idea for both employers and people.
Comparing this to Joe Biden's plan (my favorite candidate, you can see what a detailed health care plan would look like ... agree or disagree)
http://www.joebiden.com/issues?id=0003
It is too detailed in fact to post the details here, but they are specific and well thought out at least, and public. That is called leadership, the American people have so few examples of it anymore they do not know what it looks like.
Ten unsolicited points from the world's worst connection. Merry whatever you celebrate!