DEM PARTY MUST GET ITS ACT TOGETHER.

Byline: Cynthia Anderson-Barker

THIS weekend, more than 2,000 of the Democratic faithful are gathering in Los Angeles for the party's annual state convention. Unless something highly unusual occurs, virtually no one outside the L.A. Convention Center will even notice.

And that's exactly the problem. While it's well-known that the Democrats are in disarray elsewhere around the country, few realize that the California Democratic Party is also on the ropes. The party's true state of affairs is easy to overlook. Some of the indicators seem strong: Democrats have solid majorities in both houses of the state Legislature and California has 7.1 million registered Democratic voters.

But 37 California counties are Republican. Only 21 are Democratic. If you look at the electoral map of California, it looks very much like the nation. The blue counties hug the coast. The red are the vast inland and represent the 20 fastest-growing counties in the state, where George W. Bush pulled double-digit vote margins and where population will grow by 1 million more than the rest of the state by 2008. Last November, Bush lost California by only 1.3 million votes, just 9 percent, the best a Republican presidential contender has done here since 1988.

Nor are Democrats helped by the fact that ``decline to state/other'' is the fastest-growing voter bloc among newly registered California voters. Last year, this category totaled more than 22 percent of all new voters.

Yet California has been good to the Democratic Party. Last year, this state served as the ATM for national politics, exporting some $181 million for Democratic candidates. Ironically, California has not benefited at all from Democratic contributions to party coffers. Most of the money leaves the state. This exportation may come back to haunt the party.

If California goes ``red'' in 2008, it will be virtually impossible for Democrats to win back the White House.

The other night, I asked a group of highly involved, motivated Californians to raise their hands if they were registered Democrats. Roughly 80 percent did. Then I asked, ``How many of you are members of the Democratic Party?'' They all looked around, sheepishly, not knowing what to say. They vote as Democrats, but they do not feel a part of a Democratic community.

There lies the heart of the problem. Only by turning the party into a movement do Democrats have a chance to make politics and parties relevant again to state voters. The Democratic Party must invest in grass-roots organizing, going door-to-door, re-engaging voters, one voter at a time, and doing it year-round, not just when elections are near.

This kind of party-as-movement politics can be powerful. We saw that power last year with Howard Dean's campaign and MoveOn.org's tremendous ability to mobilize a wide range of voters. Deaniacs and MoveOn supporters, young and old, committed unprecedented amounts of time and money. Although the campaigns were national, they drew their strength from local wells, local groups of highly energized people who saw a chance to have an impact.

Likewise in California, movement party politics need to be built locally in communities and neighborhoods up and down the state. Last fall in Ohio and Florida, it was clear: Outside organizers can be bested by well-trained local troops. The Democratic Party needs crackerjack organizers in every community in California to tap into the enormous reservoir of talent and desire to work for change that Californians possess.

Democrats can also learn from grass-roots electoral models that already exist in cities like Los Angeles and Boston that are engaging voters through up-close and ongoing contact through house parties and meet-ups.

All of this will take major investment by the California Democratic Party, an investment not just in candidates, but in infrastructure, ideas and organizing. The parties of old that held sway over people because they provided community and clear definition will either re-emerge in modern clothing or will be swept away by their failure to adapt.

Today, the party faces a double threat: waning registration and turnout, and a governor who takes entire chapters from Karl Rove's playbook and whose special-interest fundraising makes Gray Davis look like he was running a lemonade stand. The red tide can be turned, but to do it, the California Democratic Party needs to embrace its own base and grow outward - and it needs to do it now.