Why Electoral Organizing

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." This quote has always stuck with me in my 25 years of organizing. I have to admit that I was first exposed to it not while reading Ecclesiastes 3:1 in the Bible, but from hearing the Byrds sing it on the classic rock station that was always on in Dad’s GMC pick-up truck. 

I began organizing as a college student against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999. Since then I have done just about every possible type of organizing, with just about every constituency you could imagine, in just about every state in the nation, around several dozens of issues, using a multitude of tactics from lock-outs and street blockages to mass marches and electoral campaigns, as well as of course, traditional community organizing campaigns. 

I find it odd when people identify with A way of taking political action. It always confused me when one set of political actors would dismiss another based on their choice of tactics. For example, those that are very identified with civil disobedience dismissing others that have chosen to engage in elections as “sold-out” or “using the master’s tools,” or those that are very identified with elections dismissing others that have chosen direct action as “radicals” or “extreme.” Does a plumber dismiss an electrician while building a house? The master's tools, when in our hands, cease to be the master’s.  

Electoral organizing is just another tool in the tool belt, or to continue with my metaphor, it’s another highly skilled craft, that when paired with other highly skilled crafts can come together to build a political home. 

I try not to get too over-identified with my craft. In fact, I don’t even really like electoral politics. It’s just WAY better than the alternative. 

“Politics is war without bloodshed, war is politics with bloodshed.” 

-Fred Hampton, Black Panther Party for Self Defense

I want peace and justice for everyone, and it seems to me that electoral politics is ONE of multiple ways to help us get there.