This has been a great year for Democrats and hopefully for the GLBT community. But it’s only the beginning. I have long been a vocal critic of many of our national organizations and particularly the Human Rights Campaign. I have felt that they have spent years squandering our money and fighting battles that were in many ways extraneous to the real issues that affect our day-to-day lives.

We need only to look at the fight for ENDA, hate crimes legislation and gays in the military to see how little they have accomplished over the past decade. We also need to look at how much we as a community donated to these failed efforts, more than $200 million dollars, to realize that something had to change.

I never blamed HRC for all the problems of the world or for the general populace electing the likes of Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania or George Allen in Virginia. We know there are bigots out there and we will be fighting them for years. But what I did question HRC on was how they could spend all our money on a new pretty building, a staff of 150, fancy dinners and extensive and expensive travel for many of their leaders and still get nothing done.

When Joe Solmonese took over the helm of HRC I wrote asking that we give him some time to prove that he can move this organization in a new direction. He came from Emily’s list which was an organization dedicated to helping women move up the political ladder. They focused not only on issues but on building a base of future leaders in the states. They have long understood that if we don’t move much of the focus to building the next generation of leaders in every state of the union we will never truly move forward. And they also understood that you can’t do that by sitting in your fancy office in Washington, DC making pronouncements and issuing press releases.

Well I think in this election we have seen HRC take a giant step forward in understanding where they need to focus their energies and efforts. Joe Solmonese has begun to lead HRC in the right direction. He and some of his new hires, including Brad Luna, the Director of Media Relations, have a real understanding of the political landscape and know if you spend your money and send your staff out into the field you will begin to get results.

HRC, this year, targeted candidates for help. These included among others Sharrod Brown (OH), Bob Casey (PA), Jim Webb (VA), Gabrielle Giffords (AZ), Ron Klein (FL), Ed Perlmutter (CO), and Tammy Duckworth (IL). They sent people to the field for these candidates and organized locally. They helped these candidates go door to door with members of the local GLBT community and understood that this is where it’s at if we are to move forward on the issues we care about. They may not have won every race but they were on the ground building a base for the future in every district they were in.

It also appears that HRC finally understood that by focusing money and generating action from people within a state and community we will also help our supporters win state and local elections. Joe Solmonese proved in this election cycle that he understands that getting GLBT people involved on the local level is where success for our future lies. These men and women are the future national leaders and they will be on our side if we help them as they climb the ladder.

HRC is also beginning to show that they understand how to make alliances with other organizations. Examples are their work with the Montana League of Rural Voters and the Montana Conservation Voters and the joint efforts with Michigan Citizen Action, NOW and Planned Parenthood of Michigan.

I am pleased to be able to finally write something nice about HRC but they still have a long way to go. I would still like to see them reduce their national headquarters staff to about 50 and rent out the rest of that costly building. Get the rest of their staff permanently out in the field and work in coalitions with these other groups on the ground on a regular basis. They should be spending a large part of their big budget in the states building long term relationships and a large grassroots movement for the GLBT community.