The Howard Dean folks can’t stop gloating over how grassroots their campaign has been. But the term “grassroots” has proliferated to the point of meaninglessness. At its worst, it’s just a self-satisfying label middle-class activists put on themselves when they want to invoke the people’s interest. So I’ve been thinking what exactly grassroots might mean in this presidential nomination race. A few possibilities come to mind:
Grassroots as a measure of the median size of political donations. The small-donor fundraising of the Dean campaign has been impressive Â- impressive enough that I’m hardly the only one who thinks it says something positive about his viability as a candidate. Whereas large donations certainly can help a candidate along Â- the number of smaller donors suggests more of a support base.
Grassroots as a measure of the motives of political volunteers. Type “grassroots” and any presidential candidate’s name in a search engine and you’ll get scores of results. No matter how consultant-driven and PAC Â-funded he may be. What the links generally lead you to are volunteer organizing committees. All political campaigns rely on unpaid volunteer labor. The measure of popular commitment might lie in the extent to which these volunteers do not expect anything out of the deal Â- no political connections, resume padding, future appointments. This is hard to quantify and is in fact a matter of degree Â- all campaigns will tacitly promise interns something in return. But there are different cultures in each campaign around this: even looking at Massachusetts politics, the Reich campaign had an extraordinary number of passionate but disinterested volunteers, whereas the O’Brien campaign drew on aspiring careerist (and Birmingham’s on union activists with their own material stake in the outcome.)
Grassroots as a measure of the feedback mechanism in political support. We’ll call this the McCain Factor. John McCain provided a lot of self-conscious populist posturing, including the dreadful trend-starting Straight Talk Express (which, today’s Globe reveals, has a new imitator: John Edwards Real Solutions Express). But posturing aside, there was something there: non-activist citizens, excited by increasing support for the underdog, cast their lot with that candidate and then became more excited at the flexing of their collective political muscle.
The Dean insurgence of popularity probably passes on all of these specific measures, at least to an extent. The trouble is that the notion of grassroots isn’t a specific term but is meant to invoke a blurry picture. It’s that blurriness that excites middle-class progressives (eager to feel they’re not different from the rest of the country when they in fact are). But there’s the danger of association: when Socialist Alternative Boston claim they’re part of an international and grassroots movement, an eagerness to rely on words instead of genuine popularity has the danger of making you look, well, out of touch.
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