I'm here at the America's Future Now conference, where an interesting dialogue broke out on the topic of elections and the prospect of Republican Congressional majorities. Markos of DailyKos, who was a speaker at a lunch plenary, made the comment that at DailyKos, it used to be "more Democrats" as the rallying mantra for raising money and other kinds of activism. After we (Democrats) took back the majority, he said, it became "more AND better Democrats".
A number of people stood up to say they wished progressive advocates focused more on the Republicans because before you know it, we would lose the majority. MoveOn's Ilyse Hogue, also doing the plenary, said she had nightmares of Speaker Boehner. I think a lot of people do, frankly.
What I wonder is at what point does the progressive ecosystem return to investing in candidates who aren't necessarily strong progressives, but are acceptable to retain a majority? One call circulating around the blogopshere- that, if I recall correctly, was first started by Markos- is that (when it was stated), it's better to have 59 Democrats and Sen. Durbin as Majority Leader than 60 Democrats and Sen. Reid in that position. In other words, that it would be acceptable to let Reid lose.
The question I have is, at what point does being willing to allow Democrats to be defeated no longer become an option? 59 or 60 Democrats isn't going to exist forever. At what point do progressives return to the "more Democrats" mantra and shelve the "more and better Democrats" vision, for the sake of retaining majority control? Is it at 55 Democratic Senators? 53? 51? On November 3rd, 2010, will folks regret being so cavalier about letting Sen. Reid- still a decent Democrat, if a less-than-effective Majority Leader- perish?
The answer isn't clear to me, but as this election cycle continues on, and more and more forecasts show Democrats in trouble- as of June 3rd, ours at OpenLeft currently shows 53 Senate Democrats- I think that question will come up more and more, and will generate discussions and divisions about where to invest resources.
There are some progressive policy changes that are fairly simple, easy to achieve with electoral success. All it took, for example, to get a minimum wage increase was to elect a Democratic Congress. All it took to start investigating executive branch malfeasance was to give Henry Waxman a gavel. Having the EPA and OSHA issue better regulations requires only a President who will appoint better people to run those agencies. Lots of other things are harder, requiring the combination of both electing a more progressive President and making our progressive movement stronger. To get a dramatically improved trade policy will take not only an Obama Presidency but a powerful movement demanding that Obama do the right thing on trade. But even so, that kind of change, as big and important as it is, is not terribly complicated to actually pull off- it just requires a President willing to do it.
There are, however, some issues that are big, complicated messes to try to make real change in. Really shrinking the power of our military-industrial complex so that there won't be a constant political pressure for more military adventurism fits in that category. So does fundamentally charging our carbon fuel based economy so that we can truly solve the climate crisis. And restructuring 1/6 of our economy, health care, is going to be incredibly tough as well.
I think we are likely going to have to wait to do much regarding the first of these, the military-industrial complex issues, because while Obama will at least start to move us out of Iraq, he probably won't look to make major change in general on national security policy. The other two issues, though, we have a shot at- Obama says he wants to make them a priority.
Given that, I want to go back to discussion that has graced the pages of OpenLeft from time to time, which is about theories of how you can create change, in this case specifically the kind of big change desperately needed regarding health care and climate change. I want to compare the big theories of change that one hears most often, and start a discussion on how the progressive community should focus its energies.
Disclosure: I've been with this campaign since the 2007 CDP convention.
Manuel Perez has a significant, double-digit lead over his Republican opponent and is well-positioned to win back the seat for Democrats in California’s 80th Assembly
That's the latest polling we have (Source: Heidi von Szeliski and Associates), and it looks good all over. This has been a district made for Democrats to win since the last redistricting, and yet we've lost over and over. But now California Democrats are heading into the general of a key battleground for our 2/3 majority fight with four major factors in our favor: numbers, nominee, polling and ground game. Maps, polling, links galore over the flip.
In the last couple days, there have been several posts across the blogosphere citing what various candidates running for Congress have said on FISA and retroactive immunity for the telecoms. But so far, it's been all over the map. I'll try to corral all their statements into this diary, so you can see who the "good guys" are.
First, let's start off with the current House and Senate members who voted against this bill. They do deserve credit, as it's their jobs on the line.
Follow me below the fold to see the dozens of Democratic challengers who are standing up for the Constitution, and are against this FISA bill and retroactive immunity.
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