One question we get a lot here at Wellstone Action is - how do we know that running a grassroots, people-powered campaign is an effective method of winning? How can a candidate with less money, and who isn't the heir apparent in the political establishment, possibly win in the face of a powerful opponent?
Well, for one thing, we know this is true because we've seen it in action and the research to back it up.
But reading Malcom Gladwell's recent article in The New Yorker, How David Beats Goliath, really made me think about the tactics of winning issue and electoral campaigns against what seem like long odds. In the article, Gladwell draws on the classic tale of David and Goliath - as well as Junior High Girls' Basketball - to make the point that there is a method to beating powerful, more traditionally well-equipped opponents.
Gladwell's comparison to the David and Goliath story is the full-court press in basketball. As the game is typically played, the defending team usually cedes half the court and runs to defend their basket from being scored on. A weaker shooting team can't compete. But if the weaker team defends the entire court, and can stop their opponents from advancing the ball, they can often win. It takes a different kind of strength -- endurance, for one thing. And skill at running that type of defense.
The same holds true in politics. What traditionally might be considered weaknesses -- lack of large coffers and deep pockets, and a deficit of connections to traditional power brokers -- can be neutralized if you change the playing field. Make it a ground game, with a robust field effort to talk directly to voters, and you change the rules.
The popularized notion of a "David and Goliath situation" mostly conjures images of a classic "little guy" winning with spunk, determination, and a little bit of luck. Whatever it was, it was likely not a repeatable scenario -- an outlier. Gladwell points out the David actually won by employing a strategy of changing the rules to his advantage - something that can work for all underdogs and "little guys":
In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. "I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it," he said (in Robert Alter's translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, [Political Scientist Ivan] Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy?... When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath's rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, "even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn't."That last line struck a deep chord in me. Elections aren't to be won for their own sake - but to develop leaders in communities, builds power, and run campaigns that will empower underrepresented constituencies to challenge the dominant worldview of what leadership is. At Wellstone Action we train folks using strategies that many would (and do) consider improbable paths to success. If the candidates and organizers we train followed the established rules for running for office and winning policy victories, they wouldn't be able to compete. We have no typical participant in our training programs, but though they come from all kinds of backgrounds and experiences, most, if not all, are facing a power differential in achieving the change they seek.
Marshall Ganz does it better than gladwell
Check out Marshall Ganz's book drawing upon his experience helping Ceasar Chavez organize the United Farm Workers . . .
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/05/marshall_ganzs_counsel_to_david_regarding_goliath/
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