The DeMarco Factor

Michael Pertschuk

Description

Vinny DeMarco might be a latter-day Don Quixote except that he tilts his lance at real obstacles to social justice: lobby-locked state legislatures and Congress, stonewalling the public will. And he makes impossible dreams come true. In twenty years of organizing campaigns in Maryland, he has led successful efforts to pass gun control laws (against National Rifle Association opposition), to hike cigarette taxes to prevent youth smoking, and to extend health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income workers. He has also built a unique alliance of mainstream and conservative faith groups, which helped secure rare bipartisan votes in Congress for the enactment in July 2009 of landmark FDA regulation of tobacco manufacture and marketing.

DeMarco's unique strategic template, developed over two decades of serial campaigning, includes momentum-building stages over a multiyear campaign; unrelenting, skillful access to the media for engaging public support; coalitions of hundreds, even thousands, of faith, community, labor, public health, and business groups; and a hard press on candidates to support legislation before elections, rather than after they are comfortably in office. As an organizer/leader, Demarco also succeeds in his campaigns through force of personality: his unquenchable exuberance and idiosyncrasies delight and madden his opponents--sometimes his allies, too.

Michael Pertschuk, himself a veteran advocate, here chronicles three of DeMarco's campaigns, each facing a different obstacle course. His deep analysis draws out strategic and leadership lessons that engaged citizens and advocates for popular causes stonewalled by powerful lobbies can put to immediate and practical use.

Sujets

• Political Advocacy
• Political Process
• Public Health
• Political Science
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 25 juin 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780826517043
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE DeMARCO FACTOR

THE DeMARCO  FACTOR

Transforming Public Will into Political Power

Michael Pertschuk

Vanderbilt University Press Nashville

© 2010 by Michael Pertschuk Published by Vanderbilt University Press Nashville, Tennessee 37235 All rights reserved First printing 2010 Second printing 2010

His book is printed on acid-free paper made from 30% post-consumer recycled content. Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pertschuk, Michael, 1933– He DeMarco factor : transforming public will into political power / Michael Pertschuk. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-8265-1702-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8265-1703-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Lobbying—United States—Case studies. 2. Public interest—United States— Case studies. 3. DeMarco, Vincent. 4. Lobbyists—Maryland. 5. Antismoking movement—Maryland. 6. Tobacco industry—Government policy—Maryland. 7. Antismoking movement—United States. 8. Tobacco industry—Government policy—United States. I. Title. JK1118.P46 2010 328.73ʹ078—dc22 2009026820

Without the concentrating effort of a . . . campaign, [political passion] dissipated into an attitude rather than any concrete program, a collection of grievances and not an organized force, images and sounds that crowd the airways and conversation but without any corporeal existence.

—Barack Obama,Dreams from My FatHer

For Anna

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Contents

Introduction  1

Part I. The Maryland Children’s Initiative

Rescuing a Lost Cause  9

The DeMarco Campaign Template  29

Media Advocacy: “A Giant Telephone”  46

The 1998 State Elections: Bridgehead for Action  54

Politics without Partisanship  66

Victory and Accountability  80

Part II. Health Care for More: The Chameleon Campaign

An Impossible Dream?  91

Follow the Leaders, Lead the Leaders  112

Coming to Terms with a Governing Troika  129