When I was at Netroots Nation on Thursday, I pointed out why a majority in the House of members with D's next to their names isn't as valuable as a majority populated by Better Democrats:
We currently hold a 37-vote-margin in the House. Yet 34 Democrats voted against the health care reform and 19 voted against financial reform. It doesn't take a genius to see that it barely matters what happens in November when that many Democrats are voting with - and voting like - Republicans.
That's why you were there for Donna Edwards when she took on Al Wynn. That's why you were there for Bill Halter when he took on Blanche Lincoln. And that's why you should be with me as I take on Stephen Lynch.
As a reminder, my opponent in the Democratic primary, incumbent Stephen Lynch, voted for the Iraq War and its continued funding, for the Patriot Act and its reauthorization, and against health care reform, and has voted to restrict a woman's right to choose.
The differences between my values and Stephen Lynch's values couldn't be clearer. Ilyse Hogue, Director of Political Advocacy and Communications for MoveOn.org, highlighted as much when she sat down with Amy Goodman for an episode of Democracy Now! taped on location at Netroots Nation:
Amy Goodman (52:33): Ilyse Hogue, what about other primaries that are taking place?
Ilyse Hogue (52:37): Well, I think Bill Halter was the precursor. What we saw was him embodying a very strong feeling that our members have, and we think is sweeping across the country, which is he was taking on Wall Street. But Blanche Lincoln was also showing a friendliness towards the HMO's during the health care fight. And, what we're seeing is the base - our members - saying, 'Enough with Democrats who think that they're more accountable to corporate powers in this country than they are to us.
So we're seeing that same thing play out with Stephen Lynch and Mac D'Alessandro in Massachusetts-09. That primary is September 14th. What's interesting about that is that that is largely believed to be a safe Democratic seat, so the primary is actually the election. And Stephen Lynch, who is the incumbent, voted against the health care bill even though, at the end of the day, most of the Democratic base thought it would provide some relief. He did not do it as a champion for the public option. He was not there for the public option fight.
Mac D'Alessandro has come in and he's said, 'You know what? If we really want this democracy to be owned by the people and work for the people, we've got to do things. We've got to overturn Citizens United. We've got to actually get public financing. We've got to get lobbyists out of D.C.' And, I think that most Americans are looking for action on specific legislation like financial regulations, but they're also looking for people who are going to challenge the system because the system is not working for most Americans.
The kind of grassroots campaign that I'm running is built upon reaching out to voters directly, on the phones and at the doors. With the help of enthusiastic supporters across the 9th district, we have built a grassroots army that has generated strong momentum.
Just today, it was announced that we finished in second place in Democracy for America's Grassroots All-Stars contest, a competition that began with ninety candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives from across the country. I was the top finishing candidate among those still in a primary campaign, and I was the only candidate among the top five finalists not from the state of California.
I am running against an entrenched incumbent who has a million dollar warchest lined with contributions from big corporations and special interests. But, if there's one thing I've heard over and over again from voters as I've gone door to door across the district, it's that the voters want someone who stands up to big corporations, not someone who is funded by them.
That's why I need your support and the support of the netroots. Like Ilyse Hogue said, this is a blue district, so we have an opportunity to focus on electing the best Democrat we can. I urge you to support my campaign so that Massachusetts' 9th can be represented by a Better Democrat.
Fmr. Pres. Bill Clinton speaks at the 2009 Netroots Nation Convention in Pittsburgh, PA | Flickr Photo by kyleshank
Each year, for the past five years, members of what has become known as the "netroots" [a term that almost exclusively means progressives, liberals or Democrats that regularly blog and organize on the Internet] have come together for an annual convention known as Netroots Nation to participate in a forum for progressive activists and candidates to strengthen communities online and grow the progressive movement. It has attempted to inspire action and help those in attendance grow new ideas to affect change.
As the "netroots" prepare to meet in Las Vegas to once again discuss what they could be doing (and have been doing) to "amplify" their "progressive voice" by using "technology to influence the public debate," one wonders if this convention will have any potential long-term value at all to movements in this country desiring more change from the Obama Administration.
David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapersaptly presents the dilemma the "netroots" currently face, "Activists in the liberal blogosphere face a crossroads: They had tremendous success in 2008 helping to turn voter anger into votes for Democrats, but persuading Congress and the White House to adopt their agenda is much harder."
Lightman adds during the convention "members will quiz House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., among others, about why Washington doesn't move more quickly to end the Afghanistan war or give more help to the millions who are out of work" and the "netroots" will likely be told " (a) Washington works in complex, deliberate ways, and one should be happy to achieve 80 percent of one's goals, and (b) since Democrats took control of Washington 18 months ago, they've won the enactment of historic legislation on health care, economic stimulus and financial regulation -- no small achievements."
Lightman's preview of Netroots Nation indicates the convention will be another Democratic exercise in the lowering of progressives' expectations of what is possible in terms of change in this country. There's also indication that the focus will not be on Democrats at all. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), who reassures readers in the McClatchy article that the party is in "no danger of being a captive of the left" believes in unifying "this year's congressional candidates behind an anti-Republican message: that if the GOP were in charge, things would be much worse." The DCCC is a sponsor of Netroots Nation.
Rep. Van Hollen appeared on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. Here's a glimpse at the story the Democratic Party will likely be promoting as it seeks to ensure Americans will vote for them in November:
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, what you're, what you're hearing is--as, as Bob said, look, we know that we have a long way to go on the economy. People are still hurting, that's absolutely clear. But we also know what the American people know, which is the day George Bush lost--left office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. And during the full eight years of the Bush administration we lost private sector jobs. We are now beginning to climb out. And what we are saying is yes, let's focus on the policies, because why in the world would we want to go back to the same economic agenda that created that mess, that, that lost jobs for eight years? And I think the challenge that our colleagues have here, Pete and John, is to say to the American people, how do you expect to do the same thing and get a different result? I mean, that, that's Einstein's definition of insanity, right? [emphasis added]
Such a message hinges upon whether or not the financial reform legislation can be viewed as shifting the country away from the same economic agenda that created this mess. Robert Reich, who was the Secretary of Labor under President Clinton and is a fairly outspoken progressive voice, asserts, "Congress has labored mightily to produce a mountain of legislation that can be called financial reform, but it has produced a molehill relative to the wreckage Wall Street wreaked upon the nation."
Also, should we be so certain that the Republican's are following "Einstein's definition of insanity"? What they are doing may not be working out for certain sections of the American population, but it is most certainly, politically, paying off. As a tactic, crafting a debate on issues that ranges from what the Tea Party is not willing to accept to what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street and other private interests fear will infringe on their precious free enterprise system today has effectively defanged every piece of legislation that has come up for debate in Congress.
Representatives like Rep. Van Hollen ignore the tactic that the Obama Administration has practiced, the courting of Republican votes for legislation the party will continue to oppose no matter what concessions the Administration grants them.
The Administration has decided Republican voices are more important than any liberal or progressive voices in the Senate or House that might be making demands.Instead of seeking to silence the conservative echo chamber that effectively skewers any progressive agenda items that could potentially be put on the table, the Administration has gone out of their way to assure and reassure Republicans that they can move the debate in their direction.
Progressives, on the other hand, have learned that they will incur the wrath of those in the Administration like the brawny and rugged Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other Obama advisers if they dare to oppose the Administration's attempts to sterilize legislation on behalf of the corporations they are attempting to regulate.
Given the record of scorn displayed toward progressives who organize with their own agenda in mind (e.g. Emanuel calling liberals "fucking stupid" as they ran ads against Democrats opposing the public option), it's no surprise that progressive voices would be reluctant to tug the conversation in their direction. Instead of incurring the fire of the Obama Administration, many probably would rather focus on the reactionary Tea Party faction growing within the Republican Party and simply tackle that instead of the failures of the Democratic Party during Obama's first two years in office. Unfortunately, this ignores the reality that Democrats have failed to rebuff the growing rancor of anti-government sentiment in the GOP and offer an alternative message; in fact, that Tea Party message is effectively dragging the Democrats toward supporting a political agenda more conducive to a vastly unregulated free market system that Democrats admit has gotten us into the mess we are in today.
Democrats have gradually become more and more the party of "no" to progressives. Their admission of running on a message that is anti-Republican is an indication that their campaign strategy for these elections will also be a strategy of "no." How is this any different than what Republicans have been doing as they claim Democrats are the party of "no"?
What we have in this country is a political establishment discourse that has devolved into discussions from Democrats on why the population should reject Republicans and a discussion from Republicans on why the population should reject Democrats. It does not allow for real talk on the issues any more than a domestic dispute between a husband and wife allows for real discussion on who was responsible for escalating the situation and why there was yelling and screaming in the first place.
To some extent, both parties are right: neither offer an agenda for a future that will go to the root of the problems this country faces and take on the private and powerful interests that are further entrenching these problems in the fabric of American society.
This failure produces a "trickle-down" effect that has a detrimental impact on the "netroots." Articles and postings like Eric Alterman's recent essay are published and proclaim that America cannot have a progressive presidency right now. They debilitate, demoralize and produce comments demonstrating an acquiescence to this meme.
The "netroots" will meet and focus on primaries and electing better Democrats, using blogs, Twitter and other social networking technologies to turn "red states" "blue", how to improve online organizing, the current state of progressive media, etc. There is no doubt that many will take home some valuable knowledge and insight they did not have before they attended. And most likely they will network with other people who are part of the "netroots" community and gain the opportunity to be more effective at what they do. However, this is an event receiving sponsorship from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which contribute to the maintenance and polishing of the Democratic Party's image.
There would be nothing wrong with these committees supporting this event if wedding this event to those committees did not automatically limit the scope of debate at a time when the dimensions of discussion in politics need to be expanded.
Only in America do political activists (especially ones who call themselves progressives) limit their visions for change to what can be passed legislatively this year or the next. Only in America do those committed to organizing consistently coach themselves to accept terms for organizing that will not alienate the very politicians who have contributed to the situations organizers seek to address.
An event that organizes those who are the most vocal section of society has great potential. But, the dominance of politically-safe sessions (in the aftermath of the Citizens United v. FEC decision, no abolish corporate personhood now workshop), the absence of any sessions on reforming the broken electoral system, and the lack of discussions around the very few differences between Republicans and Democrats and what to do about that reality warrants skepticism.
If the "netroots" leave ready to do more to defend Obama and Democrats from Republicans, this convention will have massively failed. But, if they leave ready to advance small-d democratic policies and items that often appear on proposed progressive agendas, if they leave committed to creating space in the public sphere for real progressive organizing to take place, there is a chance that this event will not have just been an opportunity for Democrats to revitalize support for their increasingly stale politics in this country.
"The two latest polls on the primary battle between Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Joe Sestak for the Democratic senate nomination has them statistically tied, with just two points separating them."
"Blanche Lincoln is finding that the middle of the road can be a dangerous place."
This is truly a testament to grassroots work going on in the states. I know it's not surprising, but when we get out there and talk to voters about what matters to them in their daily lives - like ending Wall Street corruption -- people get excited. Kudos to all the volunteers who are getting out there today. Just this last weekend the coalition of DFA, MoveOn, and PCCCvolunteers made more than 3,000 calls to voters in AR resulting in more than 200 new volunteers.
Voters simply don't care about DC partisan parlour games and it shows in the polls. Voters do care about corporate lobbyists are dominating the real game in Washington. That's why as soon as the polls close tomorrow, DFA is rolling out the game plan to win real victories on the issues that we care about like ending Wall Street corruption, stopping Big Oil domination, and reigning in Insurance Company greed. Join us on our 50 state action plan call tomorrow night, May 18th at 8:00 PM to hear about the plan.
We know it's going to be a nail biter, so Jim Dean and Arshad Hasan will be giving live updates from the ground in PA and AR. Meanwhile, we will be setting up the plan to win progressive change in Congress in 2010 and beyond.
In 2006 and 2008, the 50 State Strategy elected scores of Democrats, and it will elect scores of progressives this fall. Democrats in Washington are still playing defense, but DFA is playing offense. On the conference call, you'll hear from Governor Howard Dean and DFA Field Director Matt Blizek about our strategy to elect progressives and keep growing our community with the 50 State Action Plan. After the call, we'll meet back here -- at OpenLeft -- for live blogging as the results from PA, KY, and AR come in.
Yep, earthworms. Our individual work breaks down the waste around us and churns out more healthful substances. We each cover a few square inches of our earth, and sometimes a great number of earthworms can transform a much larger patch of land. According to Charles Darwin, no living thing has had such a profound impact on history as has the earthworm.
What humans have that earthworms don't: brain power. And what many humans have that one human doesn't: collective brain power, and potential for coordinated action.
That's why we're launching and spreading the spores for Environmental Countdown. It's been in development more than a year, and with 300+ members has reached maturity. ECountdown is like a central nervous system for the environmental activist body. It allows individual activists to literally see what is happening so the right and left hands can work in concert.
A web portal that can coordinate the munching plan for earthworms? If only earthworms could clap! On this site, grassroots activists and environmental organizations alike can:
- Share videos and pictures documenting your work on environmental causes with everyone else who is dedicated to similar work across the planet - Team up with other activists for conversation, idea sharing, planning, and action - Share best practices - Be inspiration, be inspired - Get and give resources - Earthworms that have banded together to form organizations can create their own profiles on the site and ECountdown will host and market your media for you.
In a brilliant example of this portal's power, the US Environmental Protection Agency wants to hear from earthworms like you:
Videos such as this one addressing environmental racism have already responded to the call to action. Are you a teacher? Work in the classroom? There's more where this came from.
Really, it's a platform for collaboration for all the earthdwellers that want to improve the health of this patch of ground that we all share. It's free, reliable, and environment-only. It's pro-munching, pro-digestion and open to all earthworms. So come get your dirt, put your own few inches of dirt onto the map, and be a part of this united, global effort to achieve authentic sustainability from the grassroots up. If you have a great environmental video, put it up. Spread the word. A new day is dawning on fresh dirt for environmental impact.
Yesterday, we attended a Grow the Hope (GTH) house meeting with their Rapid Response team, Organizing for America (OFA 2.0), and the Carrots and Sticks Project. After the meeting everyone decided to stick around and make calls into MA to help elect Martha Coakley in the race for Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat. We took a moment before leaving to talk with Jon Randall, Maryland's 8th district liaison from OFA 2.0, and we put together this video, quickly detailing how to make phone calls online to support Coakley:
This week, we have something new for our Training Tuesday series. We still have plenty of videos left to come from Democracy for America's Campaign Academy, but a couple weekends back, we attended the Organizing 2.0 conference in New York. This conference was a unique opportunity for activists to learn about new media and online organizing from some of the greatest online organizers around.
Last weekend, I attended the Organizing 2.0 conference in New York, put together by Charles Lenchner of the Working Families Party. This conference brought people together to hear from some of the greatest minds in the online organizing world. I came out of it with lots of great footage, and today we are previewing some of it. The majority of the footage, however, will be featured in our Training Tuesday series. So check back Tuesday at 6:00pm for more Organizing 2.0 footage. We are also collecting all our Organizing 2.0 footage onto one page here. But if you are reading this, then you really should find the time to watch these videos.
Coverage originally posted by Will Urquhart at Sum of Change
Last week, we joined pro-choice activists from all across the country on Capitol Hill. They came to support health care reform and the public option, and they came to fight against the Stupak amendment and any bans on women's reproductive health coverage. The program began with rally, after which, the groups headed to scheduled meetings with their legislators. We tagged along with a group from Sister Song in New Orleans and joined them for the visit with Senator Mary Landrieu's office.
We have extensive coverage of the day's events, with plenty of full speeches.
This week, Training Tuesday will focus on another very important constituency: volunteers. As an organizer, building a strong volunteer base is your most important responsibility. The quality and quantity of the effort you get from your volunteers can make or break a campaign. They not only are giving you work for free (but don't tell them this!! See 'seizing an opportunity' below) but they are your direct representative to your most important constituency: voters. So their work is not only necessary, it must be done to a high standard and you must take it upon yourself to insure they are up to the task. From the Democracy for America (DFA) training manual:
You are a leader. Your job is to get your staff and volunteers to follow you. You set the tone. An energetic and enthusiastic leader will beget a focused and motivated volunteer base."
Our videos today will cover some of the basics of recruiting volunteers and building a lasting network. The DFA is truly an authority on this subject, so without further ado...
This week, we have a few clips from another session at Democracy For America (DFA) Campaign Academy's 'Grassroots Campaign Training' held September 26th and 27th at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA. This session, called 'Your Field Plan: Vote Goals, Targeting, and Field Strategy', explains how a campaign can best prepare their own operation for electoral success by creating a specific and detailed field plan.
Matt Blizek, of Democracy for America (DFA), was kind enough to allow Sum of Change to bring a camera to the recent DFA Campaign Academy in Gettysburg, PA. The Campaign Academy was founded in 2004, and serves to "focus, network, and train grassroots activists in the skills and strategies to take back our country," We will be bringing you highlights from different panels for the next several Tuesdays, but for this first Training Tuesday we have something special. This is the only training session that we will be airing in full. We will still bring you highlights from many other trainings, but if you would like to see more of them in full, you will have to attend a DFA Campaign Academy.
21st Century Democrats is focused on building a progressive movement from the grassroots up. Our goal is to promote populist values, activists, and candidates.
Last Saturday, veteran right wing watcher Adele Stan of AlterNet covered the Tax Payers' March on Washington (aka the 912 March or the DC Tea Party). About 70,000 conservative protesters converged on Washington to air their grievances, including opposition to President Obama's health care reform agenda. Protesters carried signs warning of death panels, tax-funded abortions, and healthcare for "illegals."
In this interview, Stan explains that while the event was billed as a grassroots convergence, it was in fact orchestrated by Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and the right wing Americans for Prosperity. The rally also received massive amounts of free publicity from Fox News host Glenn Beck, coordinator of the 9-12 project. Stan describes how all the abortion-, immigration- and death panel-talk binds social conservatives, nativists, and big business interests into a cohesive rightwing coalition.
Stan says that ,while the tea baggers have cropped up recently, the leaders of the movement have been at this game since LBJ trounced Barry Goldwater in 1964.
To learn more, check out Addie's recent writing on the Tea Parties at AlterNet. The Wing Nut Code explains the significance of those creepy yellow snake flags and other right wing symbology; and The Same Old Faces explains how old guard Goldwater partisans are still pulling the strings for the right wing.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care and is free to reprint. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on health care affordability, health care laws, and health care controversy. For the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.
Two interesting dialogues resulted the other day in response to my post on the National Equality March, resource allocation, collective responsibility and moral hazard (both here and over at The Bilerico Project).
While I asked three questions in the post, nearly all of the conversation concerned just two. One concerned whether, given the other fights in Maine, Washington State and elsewhere, folks should direct their time and money towards the March, and encourage others to do so. The other concerned whether LGBT folks had a responsibility to drop what they were doing and help make sure the March was a success.
The third question didn't get as much play, it's been bothering me for several days, so I'd like to put it to you here.
Cleve announced this march idea on June 7th, proposed for October 11th. It received near-universal criticism and even many people privately and publicly asking for it to be called off, primarily for the resource allocation issues, and partly over questions re the cost-effectiveness. This proceeded for several months until conversations were had that amounted to "well, if this thing is going to happen, we might as well make sure we don't get embarrassed in front of a national audience if it's poorly organized/no one shows up." And so 140 "leaders" in LGBT world, along with HRC and NGLTF, after three months of refusing to, endorsed the March publicly. It represented a tipping point.
Now we come across the question of how those people, along with others who outright opposed the March, have to contribute. Some of the best minds in our movement, particularly in the media training world, PR world, fundraising and logistical organizing, have rightly complained they have to drop what they are doing and make sure an idea they opposed from the start is a success. Some have privately told me they're even even being asked to do so without any compensation at all by the March folks (and this is what they do for a living). It seriously angers me because it represents not just a lack of planning and a lack of fundraising to account for this, but because others are being forced to clean up after a poorly organized and pretty dumb idea. There are a lot of dumb ideas put forward in progressive politics, and we don't even realize how many we dismiss/ignore- some even put forward here at OpenLeft. Now imagine having to work to execute the ones you opposed as part of your day job.
So, my question is how to keep this from happening again. The en masse endorsements created a serious moral hazard question for the future. They insulated Cleve and his cohorts from the twin risks of (a) this effort failing and our movement being scoffed at on national TV by talking heads, lawmakers, and the general public (b) looking like fools for trying to throw it together in four months with poor planning and execution.
Let's imagine the next time any major name with a microphone and a following proposes a mass action that requires mass commitment of resources and, regardless of the success or failure, will receive intense media coverage. Let's imagine there is near-universal agreement that the idea is a stupid one. Let's imagine the proposed action affects everyone else in that issue space, be it environment, LGBT, or other, in terms of resource allocation and media perception. So there is a serious incentive for everyone opposed to it in that issue space to make sure it's either a success, or that it's called off.
If you're an organizer opposed to the mass action, how do you get it called off to prevent (a) a moral hazard issue that keeps any and every individual with a microphone and a following from proposing their random stupid ideas, and (b) forcing the best in that issue space to drop what they are doing and help with an idea they opposed in the first place?
I just came to the end of my last extended (11 day) leg of my book (The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, for those of you who haven't been following along) tour. From here on in, I will be doing some quick 2-3 day trips to specific places (next week - Austin, the week after that - Raleigh/Durham), or occasional speeches at conferences.
Some fun photos Adam took of this leg are up at our Flickr page here.
This last big leg was a fascinating, exciting, and exhausting tour that included 12 different book events in 8 different cities, along with 6 media interviews, 4 receptions (where I didn't speak about the book), and 12 meetings with various activists/politicos/bloggers/donors. The 8 cities we spent time in were Boulder, Denver, Sacramento, Sonoma, Palo Alto, San Francisco, San Diego, and LA. Our events included progressive organizations hosting receptions, bookstore talks, county and state Democratic party gatherings, a Drinking Liberally party (at which I saw my esteemed colleague Paul Rosenberg), a lecture at an elite law school, and a fancy downtown luncheon club. 14 different organizations, wildly diverse in nature, co-sponsored the events. I learn an enormous amount from being out on the road like this. Through all the diversity of cities, formats, co-sponsoring groups, and the demography of the participants, certain common things keep coming through over and over again.
STATE BLOGS
