Features » September 30, 2009

Building the Left in Harbor Country (cont’d)

Lessons learned

Interviews with our friends in HCP suggest a five-point consensus about what’s been learned and where we are headed:

•Build community. Whether it is the potluck dinners or people introducing themselves and where they live at the start of each meeting, building a sense of community is central to HCP’s success. When people have a personal connection with and understand each other as individuals, they not only work better together, they also listen to each other more carefully and more empathetically.

•Bridge political divides. Providing quality affordable healthcare, donating household necessities for the local migrant population, and supporting local agriculture and clean energy initiatives are issues that appeal to and energize people across the political spectrum. “Instead of wedge issues, we look for community issues that bring people together,” Miller says. “It isn’t just Democrats who want clean energy.”

•Develop a list of leadership and volunteer opportunities. Not everyone likes to canvass or make phone calls, staff the office, ask for donations, attend local meetings, write letters to the editor, make political buttons or enter data–but someone does. The volunteer philosophy of HCP is that people are productive and enthusiastic when they are doing what they want to do. Identify expertise and tap into it.

•Create a visible presence. This includes having a good place to meet and work, an inviting website and and a weekly newsletter, in our case e-mailed to a list of 1,200. Organizing programs and events generate positive media coverage. More than 4,000 postcards for the “It’s Obama Time” art show were distributed throughout the Harbor Country area. The front of the postcard was one of the pieces from our show, a color photo of a Obama sign made out of wooden letters at a rural intersection (the image featured on the cover of this In These Times issue). One of the group’s proudest achievements during the Obama campaign was arranging for two large Obama/Biden billboards–one on Highway 12 and one on Red Arrow Highway.)

•Continue with what works. “People want to volunteer on a political campaign, and they’re thinking driving voters to the polls. And we’re thinking going door to door and phone banking.” says Kasten. One-on-one contact through canvassing and phone banking were the ways HCP helped turn Berrien Country blue for Obama. The same strategies are just as successful on the local level. In a recent Three Oaks Township Trustee election, HCP backed the only candidate against landfill expansion, a candidate who proudly identified as a Democrat in an area where many Democrats running for office don’t draw attention to their party affiliation. Through phone banking, letters to the editor, handing out fliers and canvassing, this Democrat won in a landslide, creating the first Democratic majority on the Three Oaks township board anyone can remember.

9:00 P.M. The meeting is over. Chairs have been collapsed and stored in the back room. Pockets of people are still talking, holding their empty potluck dishes. Obscure as it may be in Union Pier, Harbor Country Progress shows the change that is possible across rural America. Progressives have formed community and achieved political success. Instead of taking off their boots and lying down for a long nap, we are energized and ready to continue the fight of our lifetime. “As Union Pier goes,” says Miller, “so goes the nation.”

The last cars pull out of the HCP parking area and drive away, lighting up the sign “Harbor Country Progress” along Red Arrow Highway. 

GET INVOLVED: