And many happy returns. I have been privileged to work and blog with Mike for only 3 and a half years, but with all the stuff I've learned, it feels like 30.
An e-toast to one of the better thinkers, strategists, and selfless people in the progressive movement.
Following Obama's speech, Mike wrote a diary praising it (Hitting The Jackpot), while David wrote a diary underscoring its deficits ("Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech"). I immediately thought that both had a point. Obama had given progressives reason to hope-but only because progressives had finally gotten aggressive and drawn a line in the sand. And David had pointed what Mike was overlooking, and just how little reason there was to let up. That's what I thought Wednesday night.
By now, it's clearly back to business-as-usual, squeezing the progressive to get back into line. But in the process, an inconvenient truth was let out of the bag: Obama's speech placating the liberals was a big hit with the public. Sure, some of it was because he smacked down some big rightwing lies. But if liberalism was really so terribly unpopular, what with us being a "center-right nation" and all, then the gains Obama made by debunking rightwing lies should have been undercut by his liberal moves-not just supporting the public option, but also praising Ted Kennedy.
In short, once again, Obama has inadvertently exposed the profound disconnect between conservative Versailles and progressive America. Unfortunately Obama is on the wrong side of that divide, despite sporadic rhetorical forays to the contrary.
A closer look at the speech and Mike and David's take on it on the flip.
Big and bold. That's Mike Lux's recipe for sweeping transformative change. That's the way for progressives to achieve a Big Change Moment, as Lux calls it in his new book, "The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be." Lux likens progressive ideals to American ideals, and calls for progressives to pressure cautious Democrats hesitant to spend political capital.
I'm not talking about President Obama specifically. As Lux wrote here yesterday, Obama has taken tremendous strides to get past the hurdles of centrist cabinet picks and stay on the progressive track. You could hear calls for a Big Change Moment in Obama's congressional address last week, and you can see audacious ambition in his economic recovery bill and budget. While Lux is right when he says we shouldn't hesitate to disagree with the President on everything from the banking crisis to the war in Afghanistan--particularly when Obama respects plurality of opinion--this ought to go double (or I guess increase exponentially depending on your math skills) for every Democrat in Washington right now.
Those of you who have been following OpenLeft for awhile know that I started writing the book about a year ago. It's been a fun and exciting thing to do, made especially so because I am so fascinated by the topic: the history of how progressives and conservatives have been battling each other since 1776, and how progressives have broken through in what I call "Big Change Moments" that have fundamentally remade our country for the better. I relate all of this to the political battles I have been fighting my whole career, and to the present moment of opportunity for progressivism to once again break through in a major way. The book develops a coherent, compelling narrative about the historic battle between progressive and conservative thinking, and makes the case that when our side has won the day, the big changes that happened moved America forward and built a country we can be proud of: the Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, the national park system, women's suffrage, the New Deal, the civil rights movement, the New Deal, the civil rights movement- all part of a progressive heritage that is the best of America.
I have always been a big believer in building progressive infrastructure, in promoting the groups and media voices and bloggers and books that are part of our broader progressive movement in any way I can. I am heartened now to see the favor returned by so many people at different blogs who are helping me push this out through donated ad space. The folks at FDL are having me on their book salon. Friends like Arianna Huffington, Tom Daschle, Paul Begala, Donna Brazile, Wes Boyd, David Brock and David Sirota have done blurbs for me. Others like Drew Westen, Victoria Hopper, Digby, Max Bernstein, Waymon Hudson, James Boyce, Mike Connery, and Sara Robinson have agreed to do reviews for me. Netroots Nation, USAction, Media Matters, Campaign for Community Change, ACORN, and others are helping me in a wide variety of ways. It's heartening to get all their support.
I hope I will get yours, too. As I've written time after time over the years in the support of other progressive authors, books need to get off to a fast start to have a chance of making an impact. If they do, it gives the author an even better chance of getting their message out through the extra media attention a successful book brings.
My entire point in writing this book is to build the movement, to give progressives the narrative and the facts about history to carry the day in their debates. Please buy a copy, and spread the word, through your Facebook page, your listservs, and through whatever political groups you are a part of. Every dollar I make on the book will go back into supporting politics in one way or another, so I need your help.
In my last post, Grouping and Giving, I noted the tendency of activists wanting to act together. The first comment, though, was from aiko, and said 'Open Left needs to deal with this, it isn't going away', and pointed to this recommended diary on Dailykos about Women's Voices Women's Vote. Josh Marshall in particular has been flogging this story without context, implying some sort of nefarious subplot here despite WVWV's long track record of registering unmarried women and statements from both Obama and Clinton supporters validating their work. WVWV has worked with the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, and is a highly respected organization that does real data-driven voter registration oriented towards registering the 20 million unmarried women that were not even registered in 2004.
Did Women's Voices lie to the Virginia State Police when they promised to stop making anonymous robo-calls? Or were the illegal, anonymous calls in North Carolina just another "accidental omission?"
I believe this is the lowest point I have ever seen the blogosphere sink. There is no reason whatsoever for this mob mentality to go after one of the most important voter registration efforts out there designed to empower women. I don't meant that WVWV shouldn't be questioned and held accountable for its incompetence, but there is a difference between arguing that the group made mistakes and making the case that it is a voter suppression effort.
There is simply no motive here for voter suppression. If WVWV was trying to suppress votes in North Carolina for Clinton or Obama, why would they also be doing this work in 24 states at the same time? If they are such an evil anti-progressive group, why would they award 'female blogger of the year to Digby' and run ads encouraging women to vote?
The most likely reason WVWV is engaging in weird voter registration efforts is because they didn't expect the primary to go on this long and their strategy was organized around registering voters for the general election. There's a lot of hype around WVWV sending people information after the voter registration deadline had already passed, as if WVWV was trying to suppress primary votes. But it's quite clear that WVWV is trying to register people for the general election, and that deadline hasn't passed.
Reminding people to vote after a primary registration deadline is an effective way to generate registrations. 'oh, I missed it, I won't miss it next time' is a powerful motivator. This tactic has the downside of confusing and upsetting people who are registered, but if the lists aren't clean, I can see an organization deciding to annoy a bunch of registered voters in order to register others, especially if your metric for success is the number of voters you register and not the number of registered voters you annoy. During a hotly contested primary, this is a big blunder, but in 2004 and 2006, WVWV probably did this and it worked to register a lot of voters without the intense focus on the irritation of registered voters.
Much of politics, including campaigns, is annoying people until they do stuff. This isn't an excuse, but it does offer an explanation as to why WVWV isn't an evil group but probably used some irritating tactics to register voters.
There are some unanswered questions here, and WVWV has engaged in an utterly atrocious PR strategy. They didn't put out the fires quickly, they weren't forthcoming with information, and they allowed a PR disaster to happen. But, and this is a very big but, we screwed ourselves here by blowing this up into a story the Repubicans will use to damage all our voter registration efforts. We do not need these obstacles, considering the Supreme Court's recent decision disenfranchising voters.
Accusing a group of doing secretive robocalls, and then doing very little follow-up to contextualize any of it, is like irradiating an area. This will not go away, even if WVWV is exonerated or it is found that the group made some innocent mistakes. And the mob mentality online is just unbelievable and mean-spirited.
Women's Voices Women's Vote does one the most important and underhyped jobs in progressive politics, registering unmarried and disempowered women to vote using intense research methods. They are also embarking on new models of voter registration for people of color. They group is dedicated to empowering people. Congratulations, aiko, for demanding I 'deal' with them.
At times like this I feel like there is no movement at play in the primary at this point. It's just a group of childish, whiny, spoiled cheerleaders of imperial gladiatorial combat.
Ridiculous.
Update: Adam Bonin has a thoughtful take on the issue, which, while I disagree on many points, is carefully written and includes a nice set of responses from WVWv.
1. Knowing that the new President will be more center than left, and that the Democratic leadership will likely be the same in the next Congress as it is now, it is likely that progressives will be asked to live with the same kind of co-existence deal with DLC types that we had in the 1990s. How do we respond to such a deal?
2. What would the nature of such a deal look like? What would we oppose no matter what, demand that we get no matter what, agree to negotiate on?
3. Given the dispersed and democratic nature of the online movement, where it is up to everybody to decide for themselves what they will and won't support, is this kind of traditional "deal"- the kind of deal that traditional groups and power brokers might agree to- even possible? Or desirable? Or is it better to think in terms of each blogger, each online activist, making their own decisions on what to support or oppose on each issues, and not even getting into the insider-y world of negotiations and deal-making.
4. What would "a deal" look like prior to the 2008 election? Once a nominee is picked, what role do online activists want to play in helping that nominee win? How important is it that online activists work to hold the Democratic nominee accountable, and push them to move the right way on issues, during the general election campaign?
5. Given the fundamentally different nature of the netroots vs. more traditional styled organizations, do you have ideas about how to make sure online activists' views are really heard?
We started OpenLeft on July 9, with the goal of focusing on building a progressive governing majority. Politics is not about parties so much as it is about coalitions, identity, and elites, and that's what we've tried to write about. I've written about how Eliot Spitzer is paying the price for refusing to work with allies, Chris has discussed identity in MA-05 and the Democratic primary, and Mike Lux has discussed the failure of Democratic elites in the 1970s.
There is a new America waiting on the other side of the transition away from an oil-dominated state, but the transition is going to be ugly. We won't get a universal internet, a sustainable energy system, a democratic media, impeachment, or an end to the national security state without strong coalitions.
We're not just writing about coalitions, we're trying to help build them. That's what Legislation 2.0 with Senator Dick Durbin was about. Writing legislation online, and working with the Communications Workers of America, the Open Internet coalition, One Economy, Hands off the Internet, DaveyD, Free Press, Moveon, and many others is a model for building a coalition behind universal broadband. The significance of this experiment isn't clear, but it's gotten a lot of notice. Grant Gross at IDG News Service (the AP of the tech world) wrote about it, and it was picked up in PC World and InfoWorld. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a paper that covers Durbin, also wrote about it, as did National Journal's Aliya Sternstein (subscription only). This effort got into political insider press, local press, and tech press.
Now, there were problems. The most common complaint was that the project was hard to follow and/or intimidating. Do you agree? Do you have suggestions for improvement? Chris and I have been discussing doing something similar for residual troops in Iraq, so we're open to suggestions.
On a larger note, how is the site? I still feel like I'm finding my voice, like the transition from electoral focus to governing focus is rocky and difficult. The progressive blogosphere is no longer in a growth period, institutionalizing into YearlyKos, Dailykos, the Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Americablog and of course, Talkingpointsmemo. The torch of innovation has passed to youtube stars like EmergencyCheese and Obama Girl. This is a more nonpartisan and less ideological group, comfortable with empowered citizens. And on the governance side, anti-Bush energy has turned into coalitions around energy, Iraq, media, economic justice and political legitimacy, as well as simple pieces like bringing Web 2.0 to government. I'm honestly a bit confused about what's going on in politics.
Anyway, we've been trying to figure out how to make the transition from sheer partisanship to a larger and more movement-oriented perspective. So how are we doing?
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