Democracy Alliance commitment to building infrastructure

Quotes from A New Alliance of Democrats Spreads Funding (Washington Post):

"Everything we invest in should have not just short-term impact but long-term impact and sustainability,"

The goal was to invest in groups that could be influential in building what activists call "political infrastructure" -- institutions that can support Democratic causes not simply in the next election but for years to come.

"It is not possible in the 21st century to promote a coherent belief system and maintain political influence without a robust, enduring local, state and national institutional infrastructure."

Quotes from Rich Liberals Vow to Fund Think Tanks (Washington Post):

Alliance chairman Steven Gluckstern, a retired investment banker, said that President Bush's victory over Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) last year after millions of dollars had been poured into pro-Democratic "527" groups caused many contributors to think that a dramatically new approach is needed.

"It wasn't only the failure to win, it was the question 'What does it take to win?' " Gluckstern said. "Among the lessons learned was that to bring back the progressive majority in this country is not just a periodic election investment strategy."

Survey results quoted in The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics.

In his August 2007 book, New York Times Magazine feature writer Matt Bai provides information from a survey taken at the first meeting (in April 2005) of the Democracy Alliance donors.

According to the survey, 86% said the main goal of the Democracy Alliance should be to "support long-term objectives".

Quotes from a review of Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, by Don Hazen at Alternet:

"In these 527 operations, funded to the tune of $200 million in 2004, the power control model exercised by the big three failed to motivate voters as was necessary to overcome the superior organizing effort by the Republicans. The Media Fund efforts contributed tens of millions to the big media corporations by taking out a vast number of ads, and other efforts transferred millions of dollars to the Sulzbergers via endless New York Times ad buys. In the case of ACT, thousands of outsiders -- often college kids parachuted into unfamiliar neighborhoods with their handheld PDAs -- failed to connect with ordinary Americans.

The end result was that after spending that $200 million, they had virtually nothing left in place to show for it. Little infrastructure was built, and there was no real public accounting of what that money was spent on.:

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