Brandon Delvo

8 April 2017

Subject: Address to fellow Democrats, April Reorganization Meeting.

My fellow Democrats, I apologize for not being able to join you today, but in my
absence I ask that each and every one of you take the time to open your ears and your
mind and hear what I have to say.

I have taken the past months since Election Day to really look at some of the
reasons why we have such difficulty in winning back seats in the Legislature and
statewide offices. Some of these lessons were learned from my own run for Legislature
in District 2 this past cycle, some others are observations and conversations that I have
had with legislators, friends, family and rural voters.

Before we can fully turn our attention at hitting back at the Republicans, we need
to take a deep look inside ourselves and remember why we are here. We are here,
regardless of where we stand on the Democratic spectrum, from the same side of the
aisle. We are not satisfied with the Republican supermajority, we are not satisfied with
who is President of the United States, and we are not happy that we are not winning
elections anymore. We need to remember that much of our political principles are the
same, but with that agreement, we need to stop fighting amongst each other over issues
that we already agree on. I am referencing such issues as LGBTQ and refugee
resettlement. People in rural areas dont have a vested interest in much of these issues.
Now, I am not saying that we need to stop talking about these issues, but we need a
strong economic and personable message that hits home with everyday North Dakotans.
We need to share our stories and share how these dangerous Republican policies affect
peoples checkbooks, pensions, marketing their crops, roads, bridges and having reliable
and affordable healthcare. These are things everyday North Dakotans rely on.

We need a message that addresses more of our states biggest commodities:

Agriculture and fossil fuels. We may not always agree on all energy policies, but we have
failed miserably at addressing issues of recognizing responsible energy development in
Western North Dakota. We need an open dialogue with the numerous organizations and
companies in these industries. We need to show that we are open and recognize all of our
commodity industries, their products and their workers. With that, we can still uphold our
principles of ensuring landowners are treated fairly and recognizing and addressing when
spills take place that will affect water, cattle etc.
We need to share our stories in ways that the average voter can understand. One
example is a story I heard about an individual who injured himself with a saw one winter
on the farm. They called up their neighbor, who was also the county snowplow operator;
he plowed his way to the farm and managed to help that person get to the hospital. He
lived, and is now over 80 years old. When the Republicans want to cut DOT shops, we
need to share those personal stories of how this will affect commerce, neighbors and
friends.

I am a Democrat because as a child I spent much of my summers with my

grandfather on the family farm. Those summers taught me the value of hard work, and I
developed an appreciation for what Tom Brokaw called, The Greatest Generation. I
learned to appreciate what my family went through. They knew that when the bottom fell
out during the depression that government policies would help their bottom line. I am
proud to say that we still own the farm to this day. Now, not everyone was as lucky, but
much of what everyday North Dakotans use, such as Soil Conservation, the State Mill,
Bank of North Dakota and our numerous farm programs are all social-liberal policies that
have made our farmers more successful and have given them the tools in order to be
better stewards of the land. We need to share our personal stories and remind people of
the many policies that have kept our grain markets in check and have kept predatory
lenders away from our family farms was done by ND Democrats.

We also need to move much of our policies back towards the center of the
spectrum if we are to bring back moderates and leaning Republicans back into the fold.
Now, some who have supported Bernie Sanders may disagree with me, this argument
ends now. Reiterating my previous statement, we are on the same side of the aisle. We all
lost something between the National Convention and Election Night. As we argue with
each other over this very old argument, the Republicans are making things happen, they
are passing legislation that will affect all of our lives. We need to look ahead to the future
and quit the bickering over who was right or who would have won. This doesnt help us
win elections when we are fractured. No one has any higher moral standing on this over
the other. We all lost something. This argument ends now.

Politics is a war of ideas. And with our ideas we have had our backs to the sea and
we are continuously being pushed back into the rising tide because we simply dont fight
back anymore. We will win some battles and we will lose some battles, that is the price
of politics. The ratio of success over failure, but we need to rise up and start hitting back
on policies that affect the lives of everyday North Dakotans. We need to capitalize more
on such things as social media, podcasts and media through radio in rural areas that has
made the Reps so successful. We have failed to get a strong economic message out to a
voter, that repeatedly tells them how Republican policies are affecting their everyday
lives. Our ideas have failed to hit home with rural voters because we have been sucked
into the spectrum of Identity Politics.

The Dem-NPL has suffered from the copy & paste effect of passing bad policy
and platforms over the election cycles that has led us into the Identity Politics spectrum.
We need to go back into our Policy & Action and really have a good, constructive,
conversation on the issues and totally rehash where we stand in regards to our states
rural, agricultural, energy and semi-urban demographic. We can no longer take the whole
DNC platform and expect to win elections. We need to remember our history. We also
need to incorporate that history into developing that strong platform.
 As the party needs to look at its platform, we need to set in a place a good
Command & Control team. The party has, for too long, tried to make peace with every
person and ideology in the room. The honest truth is, this will not always work. The
current leadership has attempted to do this to no avail and it has allowed certain elements
and individuals to run amuck. We need to treat each other fairly, but know when to tell
someone to knock it off and behave accordingly. We need to discipline and educate
certain people and factions of the results of their actions. Any decision, or action in
politics has a consequence. When we allow people to run amuck it looks as if we are
fractured, we need to look like a strong, united team going into 2018.

FDR once said, The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts
of today. This hits home with me personally, as I have my doubts about the direction our
party is going, and I dont have a totally clear vision of what tomorrow brings. What I do
know is what we are currently doing is not working. As Democrats we cannot get sucked
into this cynical version of insanity where we embrace the status quo but expect different
results. Whoever comes out a winner in this process, we need to help one another and be
on the same page where we stand. 2018 is 9 months away, and we need to reinforce and
arm ourselves for the fight to come.

Regardless of my personal reservations, I do know that our best days are ahead. I
do know that we have it in each and everyone of us to hit back at the Republicans and to
take our stand against this big machine. The NPL got its beginning from taking a stand
and hitting back against the big corporations. We will never always agree, but our
principles are very similar. We have more in common than we know. Lets roll up our
sleeves, have constructive conversations with each other, our friends and neighbors and
share our stories. We have done this before, and the results were successful.

Remember the NPL Motto, Well Stick, Well Win!

Regards

Brandon Delvo