America First Policies (AFP), a nonprofit organization, is running a 30 second ad on Dayton TV stations that declare that “Obamacare is a disaster” and that urges voters to thank Congressman Mike Turner “for his courage and for standing with President Trump to repeal Obamacare now.” Here is the text of the ad:

Obamacare is a disaster: premiums up, care down. Americans forced into plans we don’t want and can’t afford. It’s going to get worse. That’s why Congressman Mike Turner is taking on Nancy Pelosi, standing firm opposing Obamacare. Congressman Turner is taking on special interests and keeping his promise to the voters to repeal Obamacare.  Call Congressman Turner. Thank him for his courage and for standing with President Trump to repeal Obamacare now.

AFP is a 501C(4) tax exempt organization and as such is not required to reveal its donors. It was started by six of Donald Trump’s top campaign aides and its purpose is to back the White House agenda.

According to a comment on the You-tube page, Congressman Turner released this statement concerning the ad:

“Thank you for contacting me to express your views on Obamacare. The ad you saw on television is not mine; it was put out by America First Policies, a nonprofit created to generate support for the President’s policy initiatives. “While I support the repeal of Obamacare, and its replacement with a plan that ensures affordable health coverage for all Americans, I opposed the American Healthcare Act, the replacement bill sponsored by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and the Trump administration. After numerous discussions with the White House and the Speaker’s office, in an attempt to improve this legislation, I could not support the bill as written. It not only fails to reduce insurance premiums and control costs, it would leave our most vulnerable citizens, including persons with serious health conditions and those who are victims of the opioid crisis that continues to plague the Dayton region, without the health coverage they currently receive. The opposition to this bill from me, and several of my like-minded colleagues, forced the Speaker to pull the legislation from the House Floor. I cannot support any plan to replace Obamacare that would put at risk the health benefits of residents in Ohio’s Tenth Congressional District. “My guiding principles with respect to healthcare reform are to lower costs, and provide to affordable access to insurance coverage for all Americans. The House bill failed to meet this standard. Therefore, I could not support it. I will continue to work with my colleagues in a bipartisan effort to enact healthcare reforms that ensure that patients receive the care they need, at an affordable cost.”

Fred Strahorn, representative for OHD-39. (This pic was taken from Fred’s Facebook page.)

I had an opportunity to have a short conversation recently with Fred Strahorn who represents Ohio House District 39 — most all of Dayton. I first met Fred a number of years ago when he spoke at the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial and gave special mention to my childhood friend, Guy LaPointe, who lost his life in Viet Nam and won the Congressional Medal of Honor. I was impressed by Fred’s words and spirit at that time, and Fred evidently has had a positive impact on a lot of Ohio Democrats. Fred is the leader of the 33 Democrats in the Ohio House. (There are 66 Republicans.) This is the email that I sent to Fred.

Fred — Enjoyed our conversation and the purpose of this email is to expand on the theme I started to develop.

I agree with you that we need to think in terms of systems. (My interview with W. Edwards Deming is here and here.) Our republic is a system as outlined in our constitution. The mission of this system is to produce a government of, by and for the people. As it is, our republican system is in dysfunction and is far from realizing its mission.

Extreme partisanship and sharp divisions encumber the system. The system is being controlled by what separates us, not what unites us. Increased partisanship will not help. Quite the opposite. A long-term answer to fixing our system will require a big increase in nonpartisanship, cooperation and unity within the system — more peace, love, and understanding.

Groups that have found a way to excel often are good models of nonpartisanship and cooperation. Such groups owe their success to the fact that they are organized as communities where members know and have affection for each other, where everyone has a voice and where everyone is seeking to advance a common purpose. Families, churches, clubs, schools and businesses where members are empowered in such a community demonstrate cooperation, unity, harmony — and success.

My observation is that there is a big lack of civic communities — groups of citizens who are focused on giving service to their local towns and cities — and that establishing such groups would be one strategy for increasing cooperation and unity in the system. The idea is that these communities would have a civic purpose that would unite its members regardless of views or politics that would divide them. Politics is all about building relationships and within a relationship political views that are seemingly unreconcilable have less power.

My thought is that the current energy of charged politics should be channeled into building civic communities. My POV comes from education and my thought is that the mission that could unite individuals of diverse views and backgrounds is the mission to increase theirs and the public’s understanding of civics. “Understanding” is a very big concept and a huge goal. The idea is to create groups of citizens who are committed to working together as a community advancing a common purpose. Part of that purpose would be to understand each other’s points of view. The idea is that such groups — seeking to act as civic communities — would have such a positive purpose and impact that they would be encouraged and supported by churches.

Anyway, this is a little more explanation of topics in our conversation. My conclusion is that To Fix Our Republic, We Need To Build An Infrastructure Of NonPartisan Civic Communities. I’m thinking through a specific proposal that I will share with you soon and then we’ll have more to talk about.

As part of a fund raising campaign, the new leader of the Democratic Party, Tom Perez, sent this email message to Democrats, “Over the last couple of months, I’ve talked with party leaders, local officials, and supporters like you all across the country. And like many of you, when it comes to how we build a Democratic Party for the future, I have as many questions as I have answers. That’s why I want to hear from you today, Mike: what do you think our priorities should be? What are the most urgent challenges we need to meet?“

Mr. Perez:

Building a strong Democratic Party requires systems’ thinking. The success of every system depends on these two factors:

• a well defined mission and
• an organizational structure thoughtfully designed to best accomplish that mission.

Please reconsider your words about mission. You are quoted in The Blaze as saying, “The DNC’s mission has to be to elect people up and down the ballot — from the school board to the senate.” You would not consider it adequate for a GM spokesperson to say, “The GM mission is to make a lot of money for our stockholders.” The leaders of GM advertise is that the mission of GM is to produce high quality automobiles at a competitive price. The outcome of successfully advancing that mission is selling cars and making money.  Electing Democrats up and down the ballot should be the outcome of a successful mission — not the mission itself.

If “electing Democrats” is not an adequate mission, then what is? In the same Blaze article you state,  “The message of economic opportunity — jobs, good jobs, retirement security — that’s a message that resonates in every zip code.”  Yes, but Republican candidates have the same message — evidently delivered more effectively.

Here is a daring thought: Suppose the Democratic Party becomes dedicated to actually being the party of the people. Right now, the notion that we are the party of the people is contradicted by the fact that the Democratic Party is still organized like the Republican Party — as a “political boss,” oligarchic system. In Ohio, our party chairmen, David Pepper, was elected by a committee of 148 insiders — only 66 members of the group were directly elected in a Democratic Primary — regardless that 1.3 million Ohio Democrats regularly vote in Primaries. It’s pretty laughable that the Ohio Democratic Party wants to send every Ohio Democrat who donates money to the ODP a “membership card.” The funny part is that a membership in the Democratic Party is meaningless — the holder of a membership card has no standing in the party organization.

Rather than saying, “The DNC’s mission has to be to elect people up and down the ballot,” I’d like the leader of the party to emphasize that the DNC’s mission is to strengthen the structure of our democratic republic. I’d like to hear our leader say that political parties have a big role to play in empowering citizens so that their government is truly of the people, for the people and that the Democratic Party is changing its organization structure so that ordinary Democrats are in charge of the party — not the insiders, not the big-money people.

Oligarchy was once defended as the only practical method of making decisions because difficult transportation and slow methods of communication hindered the effective use of large groups. But now, Ohio could have a Democratic Party of thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals all connected through the internet and this party could function as an on-line deliberative democracy.

The party’s 2016 platform included these words, “Cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls. It’s a simple but powerful idea: We are stronger together.” Yes, but these are just words, words, words without an organizational structure that gives meaning to those words. Right now, the Democratic Party is an oligarchy, much like the Republican Party.  It should be the party controlled by the people. The organizational structure of the Democratic Party that could accomplish that mission would be one that would empower many more people, one focused on the local level and focused on engaging and informing the public.  My suggestion is that as chairman of the party that you find county organizations that are exemplary in empowering and engaging Democrats as voters and participants in the local organization and that you publicly praise such groups and encourage other county groups to emulate these exemplary counties.

The Democratic Party should be inspired by the vision and should rise to the challenge that its transcendental mission is to promote and empower democracy. If the Party could actually fulfill such a mission — by abandoning it oligarchic structure and by educating the public, and by facilitating opportunities for political participation — then, of course, Democrats would win elections in droves.