36 Days - PAO's Future

With thirty-six days left to go, it seems appropriate to look ahead to Progressive Accountability's final four weeks and beyond.  Both of you have at times asked me to think through what I might recommend next.   This memo outlines the possible work space for Progressive Accountability (PAO) in two post-November scenarios and details the preparations underway for Progressive Accountability's approaching close-out. 

 A Whole New World –Outside Pressure to Set a Progressive Agenda

With a progressive administration in power, the role of the progressive community is likely to shift to focus on driving a progressive legislative agenda.  The obstacles facing the next administration are incredibly challenging and will require talent and leadership both inside and outside the government.  Rapid response communications and coordinated progressive messaging efforts, like those done by PAO, will be an important part of efforts to fix the economy, end the war in Iraq, create energy independence and reform health care. 

In short, if there is a Democratic administration, there is still the need for the type of rapid response work that PAO does, but it is not critical that these efforts take the form of a stand alone organization like PAO.  Instead, this work could be continued by placing individual staff in key organizations leading issue campaigns, or breaking-off parts of PAO like –"big campaign network."  For example, are any of the organizations setting the progressive agenda on the war, energy , health care and the economy interested in taking over the media monitoring infrastructure that was built.

Doomsday Scenario – Defining McCain, Promoting Transparency

Should Senator McCain be elected president, there will be an immediate need for continued rapid response and framing of conservative values. We will need a research, online and communications campaign to define how McCain won and how he will need to compromise to give Americans the change they want to see in Iraq, on the economy, energy and health care.  PAO's 164 McCain-lobbyists are likely to become leaders in a McCain administration.  A lean operation of communications staff and researchers could be organized to expose McCain's advisors and their radical agenda.  Using existing research, PAO is well-positioned to expose the role of industry leaders and lobbyists in forming a McCain administration.  This team could be a stand alone campaign or could be back-ended into existing progressive operations (Americans United for Change, Campaign Money Watch, Center for American Progress Action Network or Media Matters Action Network or one of the leadership offices on the Hill). 

The mission of this effort would be to frame the first actions of a McCain Administration; focus on transparency in the new government; and prevent some of the worst actors of the McCain world from becoming powerful industry advocates in the next White House. The effort could include a daily special interest watch to prevent Big Oil, banks, and insurance companies from driving the national agenda.  New websites like mccainwhitehousewatch.org, palinsecrecyexposure.org, or mccainpressconferencecount.org could be vehicles for this data.  Other micro sites like www.wherewillcharliego.org could be established to raise the profile of McCain's possible appointees.  Here are some simple ideas of what this effort could do:

• Frame Win (November).  Define McCain's win as the success of Bush operatives/Bush policies/Bush donors.  This could include: creating process videos, working to get longer news magazine stories written. 
• Frame the challenge for McCain.  Work with Democracy Corps and other progressive pollsters on poll calls, poll memos to show the public is ready to end the war, reduce the cost of health care, and chart a course for energy independence.  Research on McCain's campaign policy statements could be turned into a map of McCain's "promises" that he should be held accountable for.
• Appointee Watch Campaign.  Work with Campaign Money Watch or Public Citizen to research and review key junior and senior-level McCain appointments.   Release reports on number of industry representatives joining the government.  Plant early news stories about why Rick Davis, Charlie Black and others should not work in the White House due to their conflicts of interest with certain policy areas. Use this transparency campaign to push for greater legislative reform that progressives can lead on.  A component part of this effort could be to track the number of Bush appointees who are also working for McCain and to work to define conservatism through Bush and McCain.
• Open Media Watch. Given how closed-off McCain and Palin have become from the press, we need to establish an effort to keep pressure on the media to cover McCain and Palin.  This could include keeping press conference counts, tracking interviews, and working with Media Matters and others to force the new administration to be more transparent than Bush in sharing facts with the press.  This project would include an effort to increase transparency at every branch of government.

Closing Down PAO

We already have a tentative close-down schedule in place. The office lease is up at the end of December, there is an effort to get the furniture returned the first week of December.   The original budget has staff paid through November. 

Staff

I will have *updated* staff resumes for all of the staff by October 5^th.  I will also work with both organizations human resource departments to map out a check-list for closing down.  I know that some staff have already had offers for their next positions, but I would like to provide clear guidance to them in their job searches.  I would also like to see that key staff leaders are located in positions that benefit the larger progressive movement.  It would be helpful to have a sense of which *if any* staff CAPAF or Media Matters might be interested in pursuing.  For example, does Media Matters have an interest in assuming the tracking/media monitoring team whole sale?

Continued Coordination among Progressives

Although progressive institution building is very important, the role PAO has most successful in is making some institutions (AFL, Campaign Money Watch, NSN, Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club) organize and coordinate together like a movement or a campaign.  The goal of "defining Senator McCain's policies" provided a joint agenda and a common purpose.  Because PAO has no other agenda of its own and because PAO provided its research and video services to other groups, it was able to garner a highly open level of coordination. This has been one of PAO's key contributions and can possibly be sustained simply through fostering a space for institutional leaders to work on a common agenda.  It will be difficult to maintain this focus without Senator McCain's policies as an anchor, but it is not impossible.  Here are a few recommendations for post-election "movement" coordination:

• Continue "big campaign" email network. Is either of your organizations interested in keeping the "big campaign" network going?  Is there a way to build out a structure to keep the research and communications coordination efforts among groups going?
• Foster meetings/fellowships/retreats to map out a shared agenda among active progressive organizations and the hill.

I will work over the next few weeks to survey partners on their needs and solicit ideas for further coordination and communications planning.

Maintaining, Selling-Gifting PAO Video/Research Assets

Much of the technical infrastructure of PAO is held by PMUSA.   But, much of the intellectual property now resides with PAO.  We have research files on the Republican presidential candidates who never made it: Guiliani, Huckabee, and Romney – these include DVDs of hours of footage and complete research books.  I suggest we work to house these research assets with multiple key progressive institutions.  Although copies of most of the tracking footage is public, there are hard drives which backup more than year's worth of video tracking which are not public.  I would like to make sure that this material is legally transferred to a group/groups that will keep them for future use.   

Email, Document/File Policy

CAPAF and Media Matters have different policies about material retention.  I could use assistance in writing up a specific legal property memo and perhaps IT assistance in getting email files and hard drives taken care of.  I think that PMUSA will like try to sell off the equipment, thus it is particularly important to me that we are consistent with staff about the rules around keeping research materials and old emails.