A few late night musings: Al Giordano, the Fund for Authentic Journalism, and moving forward

Before I go to sleep, I wanted to spend a few moments reflecting on a Zoom call I was on this evening sponsored by the Fund for Authentic Journalism, which Al Giordano and crew founded a number of years back. Most of these folks on the call were personal friends and colleagues of his, his mother, and then a few of us who didn't know the man personally, but had made a point of subscribing to his newsletter and who first learned of his work via Narco News back during the early years of the Iraq War. He also did some blogging at Daily Kos for a while, so I would have encountered his work in that venue as well. What impressed me was how well Giordano could read through the crosstabs from polling data and see what most journalists would miss. In the process, he was a voice of calm and reason at times when folks would be panicked or when they were getting their hopes up just a bit too much. He was one of the few folks who would remind his audience that polls are not predictive, and I knew he tended to be pretty sour on the Nate Silver approach to reading polls. His approach was to cut through the crap, and focus on the facts on the ground. That makes a lot of since given his background in community organizing. He was politically progressive and pragmatic, and I think he would be pretty impressed with Kamala Harris' coalition building as she makes her historic run for the Presidency.

One of the lessons one would learn reading anything Giordano wrote was the importance of building a winning coalition. There are no participation trophies in politics. You win or you lose. You win only by building coalitions that can get you to that 50% plus 1 mark. That means that coalitions are going to be diverse and sometimes quite divergent. He was quite confident that Biden had a winning coalition in 2020. He was also one of several contrarian voices regarding the so-called Red Wave that was being hyped by the New York Times and other media outlets in 2022, suggesting instead that the GOP did not have the coalition needed to gain more than a narrow majority in the House. He wasn't terribly worried about Democrats' chances in the Senate that year. He was basically right. As I was reminded this evening, he didn't always get it right in his analysis of US electoral politics, but he had a pretty good record. I wouldn't have wanted to bet against him. When he died last year, we lost one of those folks who had a sort of expertise that is very difficult to replace. I would have loved to have known his thoughts about this year's electoral cycle. I'm sure he'd have some words for certain New York Times columnists who were playing the age card on Joe Biden but not on Donald Trump, and who were really relentlessly advocating for a brokered DNC convention this August. Thankfully the latter did not happen, but the former did. Like the folks I was with this evening, I can imagine him being outraged at the treatment Biden was getting, and he would have likely had a good solid empirical case to make for Biden still winning re-election. That said, he would have been impressed with the way Biden ultimately handled the situation post-debate and with the way Harris has run her campaign since Biden passed the torch to her. And really I think he would have taken the news of the likes of Dick Cheney endorsing Harris as a positive, even if (like me) he was not a fan of Dick Cheney. In politics, it's about having a coalition that can win, and in this election cycle it comes down to a "grand coalition" approach to keeping an actual fascist as far away from the Oval Office as possible. Turns out a lot of differences can be set aside under those circumstances. His advice would be not to panic, organize like there's no tomorrow, and get to work.

Although my interactions with Al Giordano were likely limited to a few tweets here or there on Twitter while he was still on that platform, it was nice to be included this evening and to get to know the people he had mentored and befriended along the way. I tend to measure the character of individuals based on the company they keep. These folks are as kind and as down-to-earth as you can get. I get the impression I would have been a friend or at least a friendly acquaintance had we ever crossed paths in person. Heck, I sort of figured that out when I was reading through all of the detail he would put into his newsletters during those last years. The Fund for Authentic Journalism is alive and well, and is still in the process of digitally archiving the body of work Al Giordano created during a decades-long career. The folks who are keeping the lights on have some exciting ideas for keeping his legacy alive in a number of other ways in the months and years to come. 

We all are here for only a finite amount of time. Eventually we pass on and what is left is a legacy. We may not have Al around anymore to provide insight and analysis, but he certainly taught plenty of folks how to approach polling data and media coverage, and they are going to train the next generation. That's a big deal. As a blogger who certainly read enough of Al's work over the years, I may not be able to analyze polling data like he could, but I can be one admittedly isolated voice of calm during a turbulent time. I'll give you one data point that is far from definitive, but which keeps me optimistic. In the aftermath of Trump's 2016 electoral college victory, my county's Democratic Party organization saw a bit of a pickup in activity and meeting attendance. That seemed to stay fairly constant during the pre-pandemic years and even virtually during the worst of the pandemic. This year, when I do have a chance to make it to a party meeting, I am seeing attendance that would have been unthinkable just a year or so earlier. We are seeing some good new voter registration numbers in a red county in a red state. If we're getting energy on the ground like we are in my county now, imagine what is happening contemporaneously in the battleground states. I am also not seeing nearly as many Trump signs or flags in my region as in 2020 or 2016. Don't get me wrong. Trump will get the majority of the vote in my county. He doesn't generate enthusiasm like he used to though. I'll go out on a limb and suggest that our state's Democratic Party's candidates will finally break the GOP supermajority in the state legislature - a prospect that had become unthinkable over the last several election cycles. That will be a modest victory, but it's a start. Nationally, I think there is plenty of cause for optimism. Kamala Harris has been rebuilding the Obama coalition and has added to it by appealing to conservatives who cannot in good conscience vote for Trump. The energy of her campaign is amazing. I would not be surprised if the Democratic Party at least ekes out a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. I am not quite ready to write off the prospects of clinging on to a bare-bones majority in the US Senate. The Democratic Party simply has a better ground game and is emphasizing good old-fashioned tactics such as knocking on doors and finding ways to meet potential voters where they are. There are no guarantees in life, but if we keep the faith and keep at it, we've got a damned good shot. If I learned anything from Al, aside from knowing a few things about what to make of polls, it's to keep the faith. 

This was a good experience. I hope I keep in touch with the folks I met tonight. I think they will do some good things in the years to come.