Lately, I have been focused on a concept I have termed the "Progressive Window." (Read here and here for more on this concept.) The Progressive Window refers to the six, brief, roughly once-in-a-generation opportunities when progressives have held enough power in government to pass real, strong, legislation. No window has been without its conservative moments, and some windows have been more successful than others in terms of the amount of legislation that passed. Still, collectively these six windows cover the time periods when virtually all extant, progressive, federal legislation passed into law. In order, these windows are, roughly, Reconstruction, the early twentieth century, FDR's presidency, the JFK / LBJ sixties, the Carter administration, and the first two years of the Clinton administration.
Right now, the remarkable Senate Forecast indicates that we are headed toward a possible seventh Progressive Window that, if we hold the Presidency and succeed in governing, should last from 2009-2014. This new, seventh window is possible because one very realistic electoral outcome for 2008 is a Barack Obama presidency, a Nancy Pelosi-led U.S. House with 260 Democrats, and a U.S. Senate that breaks 60-38-2, with Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders as the "2." However, given the general failure of the previous two progressive windows, which Matthew Yglesias lamented last week, and the perceived ineffectiveness of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in 2007-2008, as expressed in the comments last night by Dr. Anonymous, some have expressed legitimate doubts about the value and efficacy of another Progressive Window. In what ways will this seventh window be different than our previous failures, which stretch from the Democratic-instigated Vietnam War until the present?
The key way it could be different is that there has not been a non-southern, non-conservative, Democratic working majority since 1938. The previous three Democratic Presidents, LBJ, Carter and Clinton, were all southerners with clear conservative leanings. LBJ escalated in Vietnam, Carter fought with a Democratic Congress over expanding the Great Society, and Clinton was one of the founders of the DLC. Further, with the brief exception of the 1935-1938 period, every Democratic majority in Congress has been dependant upon conservative, southern Democrats. In 1993-1994, for example, Democrats held 57 seats in the Senate, but 12 of those seats came from the 11 states that once formed the Confederacy. In other words, Democrats held 45 non-southern seats. Much the same can also be said of the composition of the Senate during the Carter and JFK / LBJ windows. While Democrats held wide majorities in the Senate during those twelve years, and in fact held over 60 seats in all but two of those years, never once did they hold a majority that was independent of the votes of conservative, southern Democrats. Every time, Democrats held about 44-46 seats outside of the eleven Confederacy states.
That could all change during the seventh window. Not only would we have an African-American, creative class, academic as President, and not only would we have a San Francisco, Progressive Caucus, woman as Speaker of the House with an 80 vote majority, but for the first time since the 1930's we would also have a non-southern, Democratic, outright majority in the Senate. If we win all of the eleven most favorable seats in the current Senate Forecast, Republicans would still have a 13-9 majority in the 11 states that once formed the Confederacy, but Democrats would hold a 51-25-2 advantage in the other 39 states. That is an outright, non-southern, non-Lieberman Democratic Senate majority, which has only previously been accomplished during FDR's first two terms and Reconstruction. And even the nine southern Dems that we would have, while conservative, would be far to the left of the old southern Dems. Senators like Kay Hagen, Rick Noriega, Bill Nelson, and Mark Warner will all certainly be moderates, but they ain't Dixiecrats.
When we look for historical analogues, we tend to turn back to events that have occurred during our lifetimes. As such, the failures of the previous three Progressive Windows--LBJ, Carter and the first two years of Clinton--are the analogues that immediately come to mind. However, if we do as well as we should in the 2008 elections, the closer analogue for the potential of the seventh window is actually the progressive reforms of the New Deal era. The analogy is still not perfect, but it works because the 2009-2014 window should be closer to 1930's levels of progressive electoral power than to the early 1960's, the mid-1970's, or the early 1990's.
We are used to ineffective Democratic representation in D.C. which seems easily stymied, or all too willing to go along with, conservatives. However, the 2008 elections present us with an opportunity to move away from that paradigm very quickly. These elections can give progressives power in D.C. that we haven't had since the 1930's. If that isn't something to get excited about, and to work our asses off to achieve, I don't know what is. Of course we should always remain wary, and of course we will still have huge fights ahead of us even if we pull off these electoral victories, but this is still a once in a generation opportunity. We can't afford to squander it.
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