The Nation Of Change has the article How to Build a Grassroots Power Base.

For people fed up with bait-and-switch pitches from Democrats who talk progressive to get elected but then govern otherwise, the Occupy movement has been a compelling and energizing counterforce. Its often-implicit message: protesting is hip and astute, while electioneering is uncool and clueless. Yet protesters’ demands, routinely focused on government action and inaction, underscore how much state power really matters.

To escape this self-defeating trap, progressives must build a grassroots power base that can do more than illuminate the nonstop horror shows of the status quo. To posit a choice between developing strong social movements and strong electoral capacity is akin to choosing between arms and legs. [ssg: emphasis added] If we want to move the country in a progressive direction, the politics of denunciation must work in sync with the politics of organizing—which must include solid electoral work.
.
.
.
Politicians like to envision social movements as tributaries flowing into their election campaigns. But a healthy ecology of progressive politics would mean the flow goes mostly in the other direction. Election campaigns should be subsets of social movements, not the other way around. Vital initiatives to break the cycles of capitulation and lack of accountability will come from the grassroots.

The article goes on to discuss several campaigns and lessons learned from them.

I just returned from a luncheon in Brimfield arranged by campaign activists MariaT and DickH where we struggled with ideas for how we are going to keep the activism alive in this part of Massachusetts.  I hope we can learn from other people’s experiences and come up with something that makes a difference.