This morning, First Read argues that there are clear benefits for Democrats who are able to generate public, left-wing outrage against their actions:
When liberals attack: Axelrod and Gibbs have to be smiling this morning with the news that gay-rights groups are angry that Obama has announced that conservative evangelical Rick Warren will give the invocation at Obama's inauguration. Why are they smiling? Because it never hurts -- at least when it comes to governing or running for re-election -- when you sometimes disappoint/anger your party's interest groups (in this case, People for the American Way and the Human Rights Campaign).
This is a widely held view, and is openly shared by Democrats as high ranking as Rahm Emanuel. As long as the generation of public, left-wing outrage toward their actions is understood to be politically beneficial to Democrats, then many Democrats will continue to undertake actions that have the direct or indirect goal of generating public, left-wing outrage at their actions. This is pretty straightforward. As long as the cost of annoying progressives is not only zero, but actually a net positive, then Democrats will continue to annoy progressives ad infinitum.
So, in order to prevent things like the heinous FISA re-write, Robert Gates staying on as Secretary of Defense, or Rick Warren being legitimized as the top minister in America, the solution is equally straightforward. Progressives must make the political cost of such actions unacceptable to the Democrats who are willing to undertake such actions for political benefit.
At the congressional level, I accept kos's premise that the only means of holding Democrats accountable for angering progressives are primary challenges (sitting on your hands or supporting third-party candidates just doesn't work). Or, to be a bit more accurate, the only way for outsiders like us to engage in progressive accountability for Democrats in Congress is to spend actual resources attacking a member of Congress in his or her district. For example, running ads against Bush Dogs on S-Chip flipped some votes back in October. Further, any such expenditure must be backed up with a credible threat that the expenditures will continue to increase in size and potential damage as long as the behavior is not corrected. Finally, the end point of these expenditures must be a serious primary challenge that has a real chance of unseating the troublesome member of Congress. See, for example, that Leonard Boswell and Dan Lipinski were the only two members of Congress to first vote for a blank check on Iraq, and then flip a few months later. The reason was that they faced primary challenges. These primary challenges must be real, they must be credible, and they must extend to red-district Democrats too, since most of the anti-progressive behavior occurs in those districts.
This road map is clear. On Sunday, in D.C., I attended a meeting of several netroots and other innovative progressive organizations to discuss this and other ideas for progressive accountability work (the meeting itself was off the record, but that the meeting took place was not). However, as I discuss in the extended entry, the roadmap for progressive accountability for a sitting President is far less obvious or established.
Many of the established mechanisms for holding Democrats accountable to progressives do not seem as effective in the context of a sitting Democratic President. First, there are good reasons to be dubious about the efficacy of a primary challenge on this scale. Not only would it be an incredibly large undertaking with virtually no chance of success, it wouldn't even begin for another two and a half years. As such, it passes neither the "credible threat" test (although I am willing to hear counter-arguments), nor does it deal with more immediate concerns. Second, internal organizing through actions such as Senator Obama--Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity--Get FISA Right, seem to have shown the ability to make President-elect Obama comment on the actions, but have also resulted in a stock answer of the sort we saw today on Rick Warren:
What I've also said is that it is important for America to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues. (...)
[T]hat dialogue, I think, is a part of what my campaign's been all about, that we're never going to agree on every single issue.
We have demonstrated an ability to get Obama to comment on these actions, but the comment have turned into an off the shelf answer that still, in the minds of many, function as a political benefit to Obama. While I don't mean to discourage these actions at all, and while I have funded them in the past, this is not a proven means of changing behabior.
As such, a different option needs to be considered in the case of Rick Warren: a traditional, mass, direct action. The inauguration is, after all, a gigantic rally designed to accrue political capitol for the incoming President. With this in mind, perhaps the best option is to find some way to cause political trouble for Obama at the inauguration itself. One option I have heard discussed is getting tens of thousands of people to boo Rick Warren when he is speaking to the crowd. The goal of such an action, as I understand it, would be to anger Rick Warren's followers during the inauguration, thus denying Obama a chance to accrue political capital with that group (which is part of what he seeks through this move). Here are some thoughts on this proposed action:
Would there be enough participants? The action would be a flop if there are only a few sscattered boos. If that were to occur, it would discredit the people who tried to organize the action, as it would make them look politically ineffectual. So, it would be a bad idea to undertake the action unless we were confident it would turn into a mass action.
Would it backfire? It is possible that the news reports and image of such an action would simply be another case where Democrats actually gain from angering progressives. In this case, the progressives who booed would be looked down upon, but Obama himself would gain by standing above them and reaching out. So, maybe it is not worth doing because it wouldn't work at all.
Would it be noticed? A lot will be taking place during the week of the inauguration. As such, it is entirely possible that this action, even if large, wouldn't be noticed are discussed in the national news media at all.
If it was a large action with huge numbers of participants that would generate news coverage and cause many of Rick Warren's supporters to be publicly angry at Obama, then maybe it is worth doing. If even one of these three criteria are missing, then it is probably a bad idea to try and organize something like this. So, appropriate considerations must be made before engaging.
Leaving this idea aside entirely, I am open to other ideas on how to engage in successful progressive accountability toward Obama during his administration. We have a road map for members of Congress, but we really don't have one for a sitting Democratic President. Consider this an open thread to brainstorm on such ideas.
