Grassroots Power

Last night on V, the aliens were concerned about "public opinion" because of its power to influence a larger group of people. Pollsters often look for movement in public opinion because the groundswell of changing moods can affect majority opinion. Why not the aliens?

I just looked up the term grassroots on Wikipedia, supposedly coined by a former Republican turned Progressive Party candidate Albert Beveridge. 

There was a story this morning linking Palin to the Tea Party. (Looking up some news reports apparently she attended one in Santa Barbara.) The Tea Party has vexed liberals by providing a media-hyped stage for Conservative agendas.

Grassroots campaigns seem more real to us. Jimmy Carter used it to his advantage as a Washington Outsider. Palin definitely is pushing it as a "rogue" Alaskan who claims everyone is out to get her including the Republican Party elite. This will be successful to a point, but as soon as Americans see her as a media manipulator, her success will fade. (After all, she left office to avoid prosecution and to make more money through speaking engagements and book deals.)

Grassroots movements eventually fail because they don't have insiders to cut deals - or they end up selling out in order to cut deals. They are the most successful when they can stay as outsiders, influencing those on the inside to change their agendas.

President Barack Obama has certainly made concessions to his populist agenda, and in doing so has been less effective overall. 

The key is to continually interact with grassroots movements even though there is no seeming political advantage in doing so. How many times has Obama visited the troops in Iraq or Afghanistan? How many times has he met with farmers or rural healthcare workers? Politically he doesn't need these people, but he does need these people to maintain popular opinion.

To use Beveridge's words, popular opinion grows "from the soil of people's hard necessities."