Name: Greg Rodriguez
Email: greg@gregrodriguez.com
Web Site: www.gregrodriguez.com
Current Position in the Party: Former King County Chair, Treasurer and Executive Director / State Committeeman for the 45th District /PCO
Employer: Self
1. The goal of the Party is to elect Democrats. Describe your campaign experience. What about the experience qualifies you for the position of State Chair?
For 21 years I have volunteered on campaigns from door belling to phone calling and other vital tasks for a campaign. During my education at Gonzaga University I ran 5 successful campaigns for our non-profit student government. When I moved to Seattle I got involved in District politics and worked on Senator Murray’s first campaign, Maria Cantwell’s U.S. House race and many others. I have also done a number of things for issue advocacy and initiative campaigns.
From 1996 to 2000 I took time away from politics to raise one of my special needs sons. I reentered politics with the 2000 King County Democrats Reorganization. I was elected Treasurer and then became Executive director one year later. I successfully ran for Chair in 2002 where I served until my successor was elected this past December.
Over the past two and a half years I have not only been exposed to primary and general election campaigns at intimate levels, but was one of the original founders of the Dean campaign in this state. I assisted in setting up data lists, hosting Meetups, attending forums to speak about Governor Dean, and raising money. As staff was hired I continued to serve on the steering and finance committees for Dean. As Chair of the King County Democratic Party I gave my support to Senator Kerry and worked in many of the same capacities as I did with Governor Dean. In addition, I promoted and attended many functions for candidates up and down the ticket in both the primary and general election campaign seasons.
I believe my over 20 years of doing some sort of political and campaign work, especially these past four years, make me the most qualified candidate to take this Party to new heights and to develop an organization that elects more Democrats throughout this state. I want to utilize my relationships that I have built with campaign staff and volunteers, Party leaders, elected officials, campaign consultants, fundraising consultants and major donors to enhance our capabilities to claim more Democratic victories and strengthen the ones we already have.
2. What experience and/or training do you have in running a large non-profit or business operation with strict reporting requirements and deadlines?
My exposure to running a non-profit organization began when I attended Gonzaga University. I was elected to serve my entire 5 years on the Gonzaga Student Body Association. This was a unique student government association in that it was its own separate non-profit student government operation. Three years as a Senator and an Executive officer for two, I played key roles in managing operational functions of the organization and the financial ones as well. This included financial reporting and strict deadlines on events, speakers, club organizations and issues affecting the students we represented.
In the early 1990s I was deeply involved in the management and operation of the Sheraton Hotel’s food and beverage programs in Seattle. I also have dealt with the openings of restaurants and my own small business that have exposed me to the varying requirements of budgeting, raising capital, reporting requirements for personnel and tax purposes. I speak on my website about the value I see in this particular work because we not only were dealing with operational and financial matters, but were delivering a product and high customer service as well. I think this is a professional and proper model to apply to the operations of Political Parties.
For the past four years I have been on the operational and financial sides of the largest County Democratic Party in the State. When I entered as Treasurer the County organization required allot of financial support from the State Party, did not have any effective database systems, and had virtually no web or communications presence. Over the next four years I worked with others to get the Party organization back on its feet financially and operationally. We held some of the best events ever seen with the likes of Governor Dean and Representative Kucinich as key-note speakers. We actually developed training materials on and off line for the caucus and convention cycle, PCO recruitment, and promotion of candidate and Party events. For the past two years we have been able to maintain our own office operations independently. We have created an active County organization while remaining financially solvent for the past four years running.
3. What is your fundraising experience? In your current Party position, what was your fundraising goal and did you meet it? What is your plan for State Party fundraising?
Due to my involvement in political campaigns I have been exposed to various fundraising techniques. Over the past five years I have been much more active myself in political and non-profit fundraising. I worked for the Fairness Lobby a 501-C4 advocacy and lobbying organization, where I assisted in fundraising, board development, and tracking and maintaining the database of all levels of donors.
My four years as an elected officer of the King County Democrats further enhanced my fundraising capabilities. I worked with others to develop a fundraising and donor database system, coordinate and implement successful fundraising events, establish ongoing financial contributions and deliver a service that made people want to give. More importantly we were able to decrease the inefficient operating costs to further allow us to utilize our money wiser.
I also used my position as Chair to not only send people to their District organizations to get involved with campaign work, but with financial donations as well. I had many calls to King County headquarters asking where people could give money. Instead of taking it for our County organization I suggested giving to campaigns up and down the ticket, the Democratic National Committee, Local District organizations and the Washington State Party.
Two years ago I finished a course on non-profit fundraising at Seattle University and learned then that fundraising is all about relationships. I know this to be true and will be able to utilize the fundraising relationships that I have built up as a member of the Finance Committee for Dean, A co-host and sponsor of numerous other candidate fundraising events, and a real willingness to expand our opportunities for funding the State Democratic Party. I have also developed relationships with major fund-raisers in this Party and feel we can utilize their expertise to help us reach new levels of giving.
I address this method of fundraising on my website, and know that I am a qualified candidate to meet the fundraising demands of the State Party organization. I have spoken to many former donors who would be willing to give again if they can see a new direction in operations and Party organization throughout the State. I believe that my passion and visions for where this Party can go will easily translate to those wanting to give to a place that will truly make a difference state-wide.
4. What programs does the State Party currently use to raise money? What changes do you anticipate, if elected Chair, and why?
The State Party uses a variety of methods from direct asks, mail programs, on-line solicitations, events, and telemarketing to name a few. Effective fundraising is a combination of all of these, but also a willingness to take a look at which ones are or are not working at any given or particular time. I mention the pool of expertise we have within this state when it comes to professional fundraisers for political causes and campaigns. I believe the State Party can easily reach out to a wide array of these professionals to assist us in developing the current means of fundraising and adding new sources of revenue while at the same time getting more out of our money and delivering more to our organization.
Due to the very nature of campaign finance there may always be a need to rethink and retool what funding mechanisms we use. I have met with the FEC (Federal Election Commission) and have done FEC research and know this happens more frequently than not. I would make sure that we are in constant communication with any campaign finance agency to assure that we are not only meeting any new requirements, but at the same time able to capitalize on any funding sources we may have missed.
5. In your current and past Party positions, how have you strengthened the ability of the Party to elect Democrats?
I believe that I have been able to create a County Party organization that has disseminated vast amounts of information not only to our candidates and PCOs, but to the general public as well. We have been able to increase our elected and appointed PCOs who in turn work for our candidates. Under my leadership we did extensive training in the caucus cycle to increase participation not only for the Presidential nomination, but many of these people remained involved when it came to the other state and national campaigns. I also personally took an active role through Meetups, speaking engagements and fundraisers to feed people into their local organizations and PCO slots to increase the pool of active Democrats in neighborhoods and campaigns. It heartens me to see many of these people taking on leadership roles within the Party especially after the November 2nd results.
Our website and e-mail alerts went a long way in promoting candidate events from fundraising events to rallies. We assisted in selling sponsorships and hosts slots to events and held our County Party events to expose Democratic candidates and issues to a wider array of people. I have really made it an effort to get people involved in the campaign of their choice at whatever level they felt they could operate in. I myself did fundraising work for numerous candidates and knocked on doors and made calls for Howard Dean, John Kerry, Sentor Murray, Christine Gregoire, Don Barbieri and Dave Ross.
6. What is your plan as State Chair for strengthening county/district organizations and for keeping new Democratic activists involved with the Party? What resources will the State Party, under your leadership, provide to accomplish this?
In order to keep the new activists involved we must work to further strengthen our local County and Legislative District organizations. One of my greatest goals is to develop the strength and influence of the local organizations working in conjunction with the State Party to achieve a solid organization and Party operation that will elect Democrats at all levels of government across this state.
I am the first to admit we will not be able to do this over night, but we have ignored the local Party organizations outside (and sometimes inside) of the I-5 corridor for too long. There are a number of ways to support the growth of the local organizations and just having a State Chair that realizes that is of prime importance. I have been across this State the past two years for campaigns and many more times the last two months in my quest for this office. The number one thing local organizations want is assistance with communication and message. I emphasize throughout my answers to questions the need for increases in technology for this Party. This is a top priority for reaching out and assisting the growth of local organizations.
Our technology infrastructure needs to be enhanced to provide greater on-line and off-line training materials, list management capabilities, message crafting and deliverance. We must develop and implement these systems on a year-round basis. We must also provide resources for training sessions and speakers on issues as well as for fundraising events. These need to be disbursed throughout the state and again on an ongoing basis.
I know strengthening the local organizations will help to make the new activists feel like they are working within a system that makes a difference. At the bare minimum we must make sure that our walking lists are kept up to date with real time access and the ability to positively manipulate the data to make our GOTV and persuasion campaigns work better.
We must also utilize the grass roots organization like Moveon, ACT, and Democracy for America/Washington, as well as out current yet sometimes forgotten friends in labor, environmental groups, and our Latino and African American Caucuses. We must build the relationships of our caucuses within this Party to create a broader community message that will reach across the spectrums of our Party. In addition, we must promote the development and support of other caucuses such as the progressive and disabilities issues caucuses. This will only help aid in the task of making new people feel like they are making a difference as well as allowing those that have been involved in the Party to offer their wisdom and see there past dreams and hopes become a reality together with this new activism.
7. As a leader in the Party, what has been the most controversial decision you have had to make? How did you deal with it?
The most controversial thing I have had to deal with was not really a decision, but a plan of action that I could have handled better. The need to address procedures and rules was more evident than ever this past year, especially when it came to platform and resolution development and adoption during the conventions. We had a platform dispute arise that to this day has been mischaracterized, but I will admit not communicated well from my side.
This was only the second political issue where I have actually received death threats over. I had many challenges to decisions made by me or those who worked on the platform with me from all sides. While I know we followed the procedures as they should have been, I did not communicate early or often enough to make those processes known.
No leader will please everyone with all of their decisions. I still know that people think I underhandedly did something which I know I didn’t do. All I can say is that I learned from this event and have made every effort to use this as a learning and relationship building experience. I have made it a top priority to call an election reform summit to address the policies and concerns of Party activities in addition to electoral reform that will hopefully make everyone feel a part of the solution. One of my faults is being self conscious, but I have really tried to use that self consciousness throughout my life to learn how to not only do things better, but to utilize the positive or negative feedback that people give me to make me a better person and I hope a better leader.
8. What is the Chair’s role in the selection and support of candidates during the primary? If the Chair becomes involved during the primary, what vetting process would be used?
The Chair plays a vital role in working with the local organizations, the House and Senate Democratic campaign committees, the candidates and our Democratic allies to recruit, train and retain viable Democratic candidates. I would argue that we could do a better job by developing long-term plans for candidate recruitment at all levels of government in all areas of the state. I also think we should utilize training and resources to assist candidates in their development not only during the current election cycle, but in future elections as well.
I believe that in the primary season the Chair and Party should try and remain as neutral as possible. As King County Chair I supported Howard Dean, but operated my office in a fair and even-handed manner to all of the campaigns. This was also true for many races down the ticket. We don’t anoint our candidates and should provide all our primary competitors with equal treatment and the resources available at equitable levels. I do think that if we developed longer-termed plans we would be able to have methods for preventing the recruitment of new candidates over others especially 6 months before a general election.
9. What were the top three challenges for the State Party in the past four years? How were those challenges met?
The top challenges were the primary legislation, the PDC inquiries, and the Governor’s race recount. I am the first to say that I believe the State Party has done some things right. I commend the leadership for many of the way ways in which they handled these instances. As one who was involved to some degree with the recount I commend the tactics used in that effort. The caucus and convention cycle was overwhelming to all of us. I probably would have expanded the training and data management systems a bit and assisted the County and local organizations a bit more with planning and costs. The Primary was not what we really wanted, but at least better than what we were going to get. This is a difficult issue and the legal team and leadership did as good of a job as could be expected except for maybe a better PR movement before, during and after the legislative battle.
10. What are the top three challenges for the State Party in the next two years? What is your plan to address them? What single goal would you seek to accomplish during your first 6 months?
The first is the re-election of Senator Maria Cantwell. We must start immediately in developing an ongoing statewide field operation to assure that the operational and technological systems are in place to run a good persuasion and GOTV operation. We must develop communication tools and technological systems that will assist our grass roots in communicating Senator Cantwell’s and the Democratic Party’s message and build our base to levels it has never seen.
The second is election reform. We must ensure that we take the successes and failures we experienced from all levels of this past year including caucuses, conventions, primaries, general elections and recounts to make sure that we advocate for better election laws and Party caucus operations. We not only need to ensure that all of our votes are cast and counted, but that the rights of the Political Parties to function and exist are protected at all costs. I have called on us as a Party to have an election reform summit as soon as I am elected.
The third item would be operational efficiency. We must ensure that our Party goes to new heights in technology, staff management, fundraising and event management to make sure that we are not only successful in the next two years, but for many years to come. The way we do business is changing. I know I can be the kind of leader to use what works well know, but have the vision to utilize new ways to extend our outreach and political success for years to come.
In the first six months I mentioned I would call the election reform summit. I also would like to have the beginning stages set for a state-wide field or coordinated campaign operation in place. This will not only be used for candidate success, but more importantly for the development of the Party at the local District and County levels. I would immediately have our site translated into Spanish and have printed materials available in Spanish as well.
11. List five elected officials and five County or District Chairs who support your candidacy.
I have many elected official, candidates and Party activists publicly endorsing my campaign. I also have a number who are very supportive behind the scenes as well. The complete list is located on my website. I am happy to have the endorsements of Ron Sims, Carolyn Edmonds, Ed Murray, Dave Upthegrove, Sharon Tomiko-Santos, and Phil Talmadge to name a few.
I also have the endorsements of Legislative Districts, the Current Chairs of the 5th District, 6th District, 11th District, 17th District, and 37th District as well as numerous current and former Chairs, Vice Chairs, State Committee People and PCOs.
12. Finally, why would you make the best State Chair? (3 bullet points, maximum of 20 words in each bullet)
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