op-ed
Christian Grantham was a student activist in the late 90s and later was a consultant to domestic policy forums for the Clinton Administration as well as events for HRC and GLAAD.
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November 04, 2004

David Broder points out something very important today about the success of Republicans and the challenge for Democrats.

The Democratic Party and allied groups waged an expensive and largely effective effort to increase the turnout of urban and minority voters, but Republicans trumped them by finding even more support among white voters outside the cities and inner-ring suburbs -- many of them people for whom religion is a central element.

That yielded a quickly emerging consensus yesterday across the Democrats' ideological spectrum that they "have to take the time to understand the concerns of rural families and Christian families," as Clinton White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta put it.
[Need to Connect With Religious, Rural Voters Noted - Washington Post - 11-04-04]

Realizing the issue that mobilized the Republican base in rural America was the supposed threat of "gay marriage," the writing on the wall, largely ignored by national gay and lesbian leadership, is a desperate call for Washington's successful fundraising expertise to share talent and success with local education and outreach efforts.

FLYING OUR KITE IN THE WIND
I'll never forget a debriefing I had in 1998 with the directors of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest gay and lesbian civil rights group. The debriefing followed a successful national fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C. coinciding with a national voter mobilization conference I coordinated for HRC.

In the meeting were HRC's Executive Director Elizabeth Birch, Political Director Winnie Stachelberg, Field Director Donna Red Wing, Communications Director David Smith, Development Director Cathy Nelson, NCOD Director Candice Gingrich, myself and a couple of others.

The weekend was a big success for HRC at the Wardman Park Hotel, especially the fundraising portion of the weekend, the national dinner. Over 700 people attended OutVote '98, which was below what I had hoped. By contrast, over 2,000 attended the fundraising dinner.

In the debriefing, I openly praised Cathy Nelson for how extremely effective she was at fundraising and echoed how clearly important it was. But I added, perhaps naively, that I thought there was such a thing as "too effective." I pointed out that Cathy's use of HRC's national structure through local steering committees was too focused on the fundraising dinner building up to the weekend and didn't equally sell the importance of mobilizing the gay and lesbian vote through the weekend's conference. I expressed that I hoped the national structure can be used just as much to achieve HRC's equally important task of mobilizing the gay and lesbian vote.

That's when Elizabeth Birch chimed in, "There's also such a thing as flying your kite in the wind." That got a couple of light-hearted laughs as Elizabeth explained in her own way how the bills are paid. Elizabeth was right, of course, but she was also articulating an unavoidable reality in Washington that is at the core of a clichéd "Inside the Beltway" blindness to the rest of America.

BEYOND THE BELTWAY
What Elizabeth clearly meant was that HRC's life line, the thing that brought all these talented people to one table in beautiful offices in the heart of Washington D.C. was raising money from cities across America. HRC's national structure exists primarily to this day for fundraising. Make no mistake about it. Sadly, we paid for this reality with congressional loses in 1998, and the cost is even deeper today.

I came to Washington, D.C. in 1996 a student activist who received death threats and who had worked hard to gain the support and respect of religious groups for equal rights. The Baptist Student Union, once a fierce opponent, actually served breakfast to a conference of more than 400 gay students I and my co-chair, Allie Sultan, brought to campus from the Southeast region.

Once in Washington, I was fortunate to work with very talented people in our national civil rights movement and later with the White House on domestic policy forums. It was somewhat disillusioning for me to see leaders I deeply respected clamoring in a political culture steeped in fundraising while ignoring the necessity of funding and organizing work beyond the Beltway.

DIVIDENDS OF TRUST
My hope is our talented national leadership will someday understand that no amount of fundraising matters when you don't have the trust and support of the American voter. No $2,000 PAC contribution matters to a Congressional leader when the people they represent aren't there yet.

It is past time that success in our national vision for equality weighs the value of the American voter against short-term fundraising successes. It is time for our national movement to change course and lay the groundwork for the enduring dividends of trust from the American voter.