memo and follow-up (confidential)

podesta-emails 1,005 words email

P17 V11 D6 V16 P19

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John, I read the memo. Good analysis. Here is my confidential--for your eyes only--review of the memo. It is negative on some things. So, please keep this as eyes only. Overall, as I'm sure you are thinking I'd push more on building a campaign strategy. For example, should we continue to invest in big GOTV efforts in Pennsylvania? Or Oregon? Winning or losing will ride on that sort of analysis more than good tactical execution. This is going to sound like I'm dwelling on the negative side but I just want to give you my straight due diligence. Here it is. There are a couple of small factual errors and assumptions about different groups that worry me. For example, I think we're over-selling the capacity of some of the America Votes groups. This is, in some ways, the big challenge we face. Where is the real capacity in expertise for the voter contact work? Figuring this out and getting it done in 2008 is our biggest challenge as a movement right now. One overstatement worries me--USAction. They don't have a voter contact program, a political director, a voter file manager or the ability to run a program. I was really surprised to see them listed as a voter contact delivery vehicle. They certainly could, but they don't have that expertise right now. I've directed hundreds of thousands of dollars to them for advocacy work in the field. They are a good partner for advocacy. I also think that Working America was significantly undersold and that the Labor movement's political issues are getting in the way. Having Working America funded at their capacity is probably the single most important voter contact investment that can be made in my view. This might explain the USAction issues. Anna is a long-time supporter of USAction. She might be trying to build their own thing through USAction as a rival to Working America. I think that would be a huge mistake. I was at the AFL-CIO for the birth and growing pains of Working America. It wasn't always pretty but after 8-9 months it was a thing of beauty. This is not something we should ask another group to figure out in the middle of the 2008 election. But let me be clear, if they can do it they should be funded. I just think there are other projects to fund first--like Working America. I also think the memo was very uneven in how it treated the AFL-CIO. The work they did in 2006 was critical. SEIU also over-states their 2006 program. They barely showed up and when they did it was very late. I don't want to deride anybody's work. I'm just surfacing for you the labor politics I'm seeing develop here. This worries me if it diverts resources from important efforts. However if everybody has the resources they need, I know that the staff-level folks across all these organizations will work well together. But if we short-change the best people in the business, that would be a mistake. Another small error, I appreciate the enthusiasm of First Tuesday Media but they didn't do any big work for VoteVets last year. I know because I supervised the production and ad buys for VoteVets last year. Their ads were shot by the MoveOn ad firm. First Tuesday fixed an edit for VoteVets on one ad. In full disclosure, I screwed up a business deal with First Tuesday earlier in the year when the second round of financing from Soros didn't come through. That is a relationship I need to fix. I handled that badly. I want to figure out a way to work with them. Maybe we can just bring all of these efforts together. I was enthusiastic to work with them until I didn't get another check from George. On the good side of the memo. I think that Catalist and Atlas are well-run projects doing good work. Catalist is, finally, an important part of the progressive political architecture. There are some folks grumbling about it because of the costs. For example, ACORN is a little annoyed about costs. Donors need to start adding an "overhead charge" to help these groups use catalist. Atlas is exciting because we'll have better vote goals and plans for how to pull them off than in the past. But, again, I worry about who will do the voter contact work. We badly need to find somebody to lead the Latino voter piece ASAP. That is so critical for 2008 and the long-term. I'm also glad that you are driving the argument that we need the messaging capacity. If we can put the GOP candidate on defensive right out of the gate and then again mid-Summer it is a huge advantage. So, that's my feedback on the memo. Considering it was 16 pages these are minor quibbles. But I wanted to call out the red flags. Because I am intimately familiar with all of these groups I can help do due diligence as needed. I've seen all their work up close and personal. Next I will turn to the start-up plan and strategic memo for the messaging campaign. I will try to merge all of the projects mentioned together. My impression is that Rob McKay will work with whomever. He was in discussions with Wes and I. The key is that the entrepreneurs--you, me, Susan--need to make the jump. Talk to you soon. -Tom