Two weeks ago, in a campaign called From Blue To Bluer, BlogPac solicited your input in order to find state and local progressives running in blue district primaries either against incumbents or for open seats. As per usual, I figured I could have a faster turnaround time on a new campaign than real life actually allows. However, I wanted to let everyone know that the campaign is still moving forward, and I wanted to provide an update.
We received over two-dozen excellent suggestions, and we are still in the process of going through them. The announcement of the selection of first group candidates for the program will take place on April 21st, the day before the Pennsylvania primary. We will have a wide-ranging, diverse selection of candidates who will help continue to build the progressive bench and movement nationwide. In order to have more and better Democrats, we have to start organizing at the local level where political careers begin, and where local machines still dominate.
The first candidate for the program, DFA-endorsed Anne Dicker, will have her primary (originally a challenge against a corrupt local incumbent, now an open seat primary against conservative, machine backed candidates) the day after we announce the first slate of candidates. As such, even though she was my local inspiration for the program, she will not receive a huge amount of direct benefit from Blue to Bluer. However, final ad buys for her campaign are being made now, and you can contribute to Anne here to help start the program off with a bang. If you live in the area, you can volunteer for the campaign here.
A fifty-state strategy means blue districts, too. Act locally, think blue.
Two quick updates to report on BlogPac's latest campaign, From Blue To Bluer. First, the submission deadline for candidates is tomorrow at 10 p.m. eastern. If you know a progressive, grassroots, non-federal, blue district candidate who is running a primary challenge against a Democratic incmbent, or who is running ina competitive open seat primary, please fill out the form below and email it to natasha[dot]the[at]gmail.com:
Finally, the more resources BlogPac has, then the more local grassroots candidates we can support on Blue to Bluer. Along with several other excellent candidates, BlogPac is on the Blue Majoirty page, and the first quarter fundraising deadline is today. Right now, Blue Majority stands at 6,854 donors, so let's hit 7,000 before the end of the day.
Every two years, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) releases it's "red to blue" list of top challengers for Republican-held U.S. House seats.
Five years ago, starting with his Presidential campaign and continuing with his tenure as DNC chair, Howard Dean introduced the idea of a "fifty state strategy" to the Democratic Party. The basic premise of the fifty-state strategy is that in order to truly revitalize the party Democrats needed to organize everywhere in the country, no matter how red or how blue a district may be, and not just in a select few "swing district" districts.
More recently, progressives have utilized Democratic primaries as a means to successfully change Democratic behavior. So far this year, this strategy has worked in districts such as the Illinois 3rd where Dan Lipinski changed his vote on Iraq because of his primary challenger, the Iowa 3rd where Blue Dog Leonard Boswell has suddenly become a progressive on a range of issues now that Ed Fallon is running against him, and the Maryland 4th where Donna Edwards handily defeated the more conservative Al Wynn. It is in the spirit of all three of these projects that BlogPac is announcing a similar program to reform safe, blue seats at the local and statewide level: From Blue to Bluer.
From Blue to Bluer seeks to first identify, and then help elect, progressive, grassroots candidates who are running in competitive Democratic primaries in blue districts around the country. The primaries can either be for open seats or against incumbents who are either too conservative for their districts, or who are simply corrupt, or both. The goal is to find a handful of proudly progressive primary candidates for local and state legislative races, and then provide them with the national support they need to help put them over the top. Through this program, we can show Democrats across the country that that a fifty-state strategy means blue districts too, and that all Democrats, no matter how local, can be held accountable for not representing their districts or for selling out progressive ideals.
The city where I live, Philadelphia, is a perfect example of why we need From Blue To Bluer. With the city regularly voting for Democrats in general elections by more than 80%, Philadelphia is about as deep blue of an area one can find anywhere in the country. However, while there are very few elected Republicans in the city, that does not mean most of our elected officials are progressives.
In fact, the reality is quite the opposite. Many of our local Democrats are beholden to an often-corrupt, non-transparent political machine that governs to dole out appropriations and city jobs to friends, family and local party officials. Dozens of local officials, including members of city council and state Senators, have been indicated and / or are currently in jail. There is even a public, specific price that someone can pay the local machine in order to become an elected judge ($35,000, the last time I checked). Philadelphia politics are definitely Democratic, but we still have a long way to go until we can be accurately called progressive.
In deep blue areas like Philadelphia, Democratic primaries for open seats and primary challenges against Democratic incumbents are just about the only way local progressive reformers can make a difference on the electoral level.
Here in Philly, we've already had some success, electing Michael Nutter mayor and defeating a machine backed incumbent for city council in 2007. One year earlier, local progressives defeated two-machine backed candidates in open primaries for state assembly seats. This year, Anne Dicker (website, get involved, contribute), who in 2006 finished ahead of a machine backed candidate in an open primary for state assembly, is running for State Senate. Her campaign has already had real success, as Vincent Fumo, the repeatedly indicted incumbent in the district, dropped out of the campaign two weeks ago. Here is a video introducing both Anne and the Blue to Bluer campaign:
At BlogPac, we want to identify, and help elect, the best progressive primary candidates in blue districts around the country. Let's find more Anne Dickers! The first step in this campaign is finding the right candidates to support, and that's where you come in. If you have a suggestion for a local or state-level candidate for us to support, please fill out the form below and email it to natasha[dot]the[at]gmail.com:
Please send your emails as word documents with the subject line "From Blue To Bluer."
Just because a seat is blue does not mean it can't become even bluer. Let's build a truly national movement, and make a more progressive, reformed Democratic Party nationwide. Send in your suggestions today. The candidates we help support will only be as good as the ones you suggest.
Wow. This is really happening. Possibly the most important, and certainly the most epic and dramatic, presidential primary contest of all time will take place in my backyard. The circumstances that led to Pennsylvania becoming decisive were just as unlikely and seemingly random as the circumstances that led to my becoming a long-term resident of Pennsylvania.
On at least three occasions, Clinton had a chance to finish Obama off: Iowa, South Carolina and Super Tuesday. Every time, the voters decided otherwise. On two occasions, Obama had a chance to finish Clinton off: New Hampshire and March 4th. Once again, the voters said "not yet." On every occasion, the frontrunner failed to finish the job, and the nomination campaign lurched forward. By the same token, I only ended up in Pennsylvania when, in January of 1997, a poem I wrote on the back of receipts at the bank where I worked earned me a fellowship at Temple University five weeks later. As an Upstate New Yorker, I had always planned on going to SUNY for graduate school, but the offer from Temple was just so good that I turned down both Stony Brook and my dream school, the University of Buffalo (don't snicker--if you know anything about avant-garde poetry, you know why UB would be the dream school for an avant-garde poetry obsessed, Upstate New Yorker). And for one reason or another, as time went on, I just stayed in Philadelphia.
I point this all out not to be egocentric (although that is probably a charge of which I am frequently guilty), but rather as an example of how this primary has accidentally resulted in a wide range of Americans unexpectedly finding themselves at the center of an epic political maelstrom. For example, the Pennsylvania for Obama campaign was started early last year by Josh Richards, a grassroots progressive from Upper Darby who has been central to many of our local progressive organizing efforts. A few months ago, Josh literally handed over the volunteer campaign he started to the national Obama campaign, and it still serves as the core infrastructure for Obama's efforts in Pennsylvania. As such, it isn't a surprise that Philly for Change, the local chapter of Democracy for America where Josh sits on the steering committee, tonight voted to endorse Barack Obama for President with 74% of the vote.
Philly for Change (once known as Philly for Dean) is an impressive local organization. Back in August of 2003, two weeks before Howard Dean's Sleepless Summer tour, it organized a 4,000-person rally for Howard Dean on Independence Mall. While that may not seem impressive by today's numbers, at the time it was groundbreaking in its enormity--the largest rally for a Democratic candidate in a primary in about three decades. Attending that rally was a turning point in my life, as it convinced me that the new, local, grassroots organizing efforts for Democrats I had read about online were absolutely for real (and so, I have spent the last four and a half years working in politics as a result). The rally was organized by many of my local progressive friends, the same early adopters who have since become leaders--even elected officials--in the local Philadelphia progressive scene. These were the people who helped translate the early energy of the progressive movement to a wider audience, and it is people like them around the country who made the current wave of progressive activism possible. They were the catalyzing energy behind a Malcolm Gladwell type tipping point for progressivism in America.
In the extended entry, I provide two interesting anecdotes that nicely dovetail in a story of corruption and the future of media without net neutrality...
I spent this morning in South Philly conducting a long interview with Anne Dicker that I will post sometime next week (it needs to be heavily edited down from one hour and twelve minutes). Anne is one of the key organizers of the Democrat (capital D) reform movement in Philadelphia, running against indicted State Senator Vince Fumo in the first Senatorial district of Pennsylvania. While I was talking to Anne, I was reminded how only five years ago, when our little movement began by supporting Howard Dean for President, the idea of serving on the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee would never have crossed my mind. However, one of the main pillars of the grassroots reform movement in the party that started with Dean's campaign was, in fact, to run for party office. If progressives really want to reform the Democratic Party, then we need to take over positions of power within the Democratic Party, instead of only applying outside pressure. No matter who we supported, this is why we were all involved in the DNC Chair's campaign three years ago, for example. When it comes to the strategy, message, infrastructure, ideology, nominations, and expenditures of the Democratic Party, it goes without saying that it really matters who controls official party positions. If we want a smarter, more effective, more progressive, and more transparent Democratic Party, then we need to run for elected positions within the Democratic Party.
Let me emphasize one word in that last sentence: elected. Every Democratic Super Delegate was elected to his or her position in some way. Of the 796 Super Delegates, nearly 300 of them are either in Congress, or are Democratic Governors, and all of them won both Democratic primaries and general elections. How are these people not elected officials? Further, almost all of the remaining Super Delegates are DNC members, and all of them were elected to those positions. In fact, now that I am on the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee, to which I was elected, I vote for national DNC members from Pennsylvania. I guess that makes me about 0.3% of a Super Delegate. I am also circulating petitions for a couple of friends who are trying to become Obama delegates to the DNC (all of my local friends who are running for national delegate are Obama supporters, and Obama probably has about 70-80% of Democratic support in my congressional district).
My point is this: every Super Delegate was elected to his or her position by other Democrats, just as every pledged delegate was also elected by other Democrats. So, why, exactly, are the Super Delegates less democratic than the Pledged Delegates? I guess an argument could be made that some of the Super Delegates were elected by State Democratic Committees rather than in Democratic primaries open to all registered Democrats, and that when people elected the Super Delegates to public office, they didn't know who those Super Delegates supported for President. However, rather than ditching the idea of Super Delegates altogether, don't those arguments lead to procedural fixes, like the direct election of DNC members in Democratic primaries (one per congressional district every four years), and performing due diligence to know how someone leans for President during a Democratic primary?
At MyDD, Oreo has a post on Jenny Greenleaf entitled Super Delegates are People, Too. I would add to that by saying that Super Delegates are elected, too. Really, Super Delegates are just as, if not more, democratic as pledged delegates elected from caucuses, or those elected from states that come late in the primary season calendar. Further, a partisan nomination process is not the same as a public general election, and different standards of democracy should apply. Democrats should decide who the Democratic nominee is, not the public at large. And Democrats will decide, via a wide variety of internal elections, who the next Democratic nominee for President will be. I know that some will disagree, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure about this myself. However, I wanted to throw this idea out there, because I'm not sure that Super Delegates are as undemocratic as some people online, including myself, have made them out to be.
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