In terms of progressive activists, it is clear that they have been completely rolled in this process and were given absolutely nothing. The good parts of the bill (Medicaid expansion, theoretically, the better regulations, though I have no confidence in the enforcement mechanisms) were not controversial and should not be seen as concessions to progressives. Indeed, I expect they would be passed separately if the Senate bill fails. In short, progressives got nothing in the political bargaining.
Now, pardon my exasperation, and please don't anyone talk anything I am about to write personally, because it is a generalized rant. But...
Bullshit. This is just wrong. Its bullshit like all the other bullshit out there in the blogosphere about how progressive activists who want to pass the health reform bill got nothing and have been forced into their "veal pens" or some other offensive formulation. That entire line of "argument" is just demonstrably false, and either intellectually dishonest or blinded by egregious cynicism
Here are two huge public option concessions that ended up in the Senate bill as concessions to progressive activists and members of Congress (more in the extended entry):
Citing Blanche Lincoln's failure to live up to campaign promises, EMILY's List declares they will do nothing to support Lincoln's re-election efforts. From Ellen Malcolm, EMILY's List chair
As I travel around the country, I've been asked repeatedly about Senator Lincoln's political troubles and what, if anything, EMILY's List will be doing to help her win a third term in 2010.
My answer? Nothing.
In 1998, EMILY's List helped elect Lincoln to the U.S. Senate. We believed her when she told us that that, if and when the Senate took up right-wing Senator Rick Santorum's bill to ban what he called "partial birth" abortion, she would insist on a health exception that protects women.
Our members gave generously to her campaign, believing that she would steadfastly stand by the pledge she made to us to protect women's reproductive freedom.
She took our members' hard-earned money to get elected. Unfortunately, when the Santorum bill came up for a vote, Lincoln voted for it even though it provided no exception to protect women's health.
EMILY's List members are deeply committed to electing pro-choice Democratic women whom we trust to stand up for our rights, treat us honestly, and make us proud. Our candidates fight for us every day. Blanche Lincoln failed to hold up her end of the bargain.
Since she wasn't there for us, we won't be there for her.
Health care reform must build upon what works and improve inefficiencies. Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals of a public plan.
As such, it isn't a surprise that netroots organizations that have focused on the public option over the past year are now working to defeat Blanche Lincoln.
I'm in Dallas this weekend for NGLTF's Creating Change conference, a gathering of LGBT activists- online and offline that's one of the largest around. I've never been to Texas, and given that my flight back home is on Super Bowl Sunday, my biggest fear is that this card-carrying Bills fan will encounter a flight delay and be forced to watch the Super Bowl in- gulp- a Dallas airport bar. Ew. I would love some restaurant recs with good vegetarian options, though.
Anyway, if you're around, I'm speaking at 4:45 PM on Friday the 8th on a panel titled "Reaching Out to the Blogosphere" with Mike Rogers of the film Outrage and PageOneQ, Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project (where I sometimes cross-post), and Miriam Perez of Feministing. I'll be talking about some best and worst cases of internet outreach, and ideas on strengthening bonds between traditional LGBT organizations and online activists. Hope to see you there. More info about the conference and registration here.
A Matt Stoller Golden Oldie
Tue Dec 25, 2007. Original HERE.
Here's Ezra Klein expressing a fairly common sentiment among both Democratic base voters and Democratic elites.
As a result of my post defending Obama this morning, I'm getting a bunch of links along the lines of "Ezra Klein, no fan of Obama..."
This is, to be sure, my failure as a writer, so just to be clear: I'm impressed with all three of the major Democrats, and, for that matters, most of the other Democrats not named "Bill Richardson."
Ezra is happy with the Democratic candidates; most Democratic voters share Ezra's views. I don't (and neither do a few others). The issues we are dealing with today - health care, jobs, even a war in Iraq - are literally the same issues we dealt with in 1992. How can that possibly be considered progress? A real progressive candidate would take an apolitical problem and turn it into a mainstream political subject. None of our candidates have done that. Here are five easily mainstreamable problems ripe for the picking. There are more of these, I'm just picking at five that touch on the national security state, secrecy, economic injustice, and attacks on our civil liberties.
Subject: End the War on Drugs
Factoid: There are 1 million people put in jail for doing what Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George Bush have done.
Marijuana is America's largest cash crop, and it is responsible for around 225,000 arrests a year. Overall, the war on drugs incarcerates around 1 million people a year. Direct spending on the war on drugs this year is $50 billion dollars, about $600 a second. Around half of high school seniors have consumed marijuana (pdf). Simply put, why do some people go to jail for marijuana and cocaine, and others run for President?
Subject: End corporate media ownership:
Factoid: General Electric, a major defense contractor and conglomerate, owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
Our media is owned and controlled by a few major companies. One of them, GE, has major defense contracts, and strong incentives for war. It also has huge interests in the financial industry. Why is this company controlling our news content again, while we are in two wars? And why did the FCC just relax ownership requirements in local areas, again?
Subject: End American empire
Factoid: As of 1998, America had troops stationed in 144 countries around the world.
There are any number of ways to talk about this issue, from disparities of foreign aid to complaints about the IMF to the war in Iraq to the CIA and blowback. The bottom line is that America has troops everywhere in the world, it's expensive, the way it is done now is a bad idea, and we need to bring them home and return to being a republic. That or we need to figure out how to be a responsible international power again and get rid of the Blackwater-style military we are building and the gunrunning vigilante CIA-style Cold War and post-Cold War nonsense.
Subject: End the war economy:
Factoid: Money for Iraq keeps passing in 'emergency' legislation to avoid being subject to budget rules.
For some reason, Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans argue that they are fiscally responsible while ignoring their votes to spend 700-800B a year on war. Libertarian charlatans like energy expert Amory Lovins think that the corporate sector and the military sector are legitimate parts of the state, but that other spending is wasteful. The whole notion of the military not being a part of the overall government is crazy, and reflective of a huge, corrupt, and Soviet-style misallocation of capital through secret budgets and fear.
Subject: End the cradle-to-prison superhighway
Factoid: 2 million people are in prison in America, by far the highest total of any other country in the world.
Think slavery has ended? Think torture is 'new'? Think again. With two million people in prison, and tens of thousands of sexual assaults every year, prison is a huge industry and a horrendous abridgment of the idea that is America.
Touching on any of these massive injustices in our economic infrastructure is something no candidate has systematically done. Only John Edwards has remotely addressed the concept of the war on terror, in a somewhat half-hearted way, and he has made 'poverty' a somewhat commonly repeated theme, though not in any meaningful sense. Clinton and Obama are disgracefully absent on these topics. Ironically, Bill Richardson, aside from his great work on residual forces, has also said that the 'war on drugs is not working', which reflects perhaps a more executive oriented and confident worldview. Chris Dodd has also advocated for marijuana decriminalization, which is a less aggressive but still laudable sentiment, especially in light of his work on core constitutional issues.
So anyway, while the insider wonk community is happy that their issues seem to be taken care of, and Democratic base voters like the different candidates we have, I find that actual progressive reframing of our political system is appearing only at the margins of our secondary candidates like Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd, and among crazy white supremacist types like Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Each of the five hinges I've discussed starts with the verb 'end', and that was not planned when I started this post. I think it means that we must end a chapter in American history, and begin a new one.
Restoring healthy communities, healthy citizens, a healthy global order, healthy local media, and a healthy sustainable economy are the key drivers of where need to go as a country. The cancerous symptoms are all around us, and leading Democratic Presidential candidates are too corrupt and morally crippled to even begin talking about them. But we'll get there.
Bystander breaks the news in Quick Hits- Air America announced this morning that I won their blogger contest, so I am going on the cruise. Thanks to all of you who helped, it honors me that so many folks voted for me. While I intend to have fun, I will spend most of the trip strategizing my ass off with Rachel, Howard, and the gang, so hopefully I will do you proud.
Now for those of you who voted for Digby, maybe if we can raise her some big money over the next few days, I can talk her into going along.
I am very, very partial to Chris, David, Natasha, Adam, Paul, and all the other great folks who write for Openleft. And there are many, many wonderful writers in the blogosphere. But now that the Air America contest has closed its voting, I can admit this to you: Digby is my all-time favorite blogger. (You didn't think an old political hack like me wasn't going to campaign for a free cruise ticket on a trip with Rachel Maddow, did you? Have you heard the old joke about the scorpion and the frog? I can't help it, it's what I do.)
She wrote yesterday that she needs some folks to pitch in. I'm sending money. I hope that all of you who have been so generous in giving to Openleft when we pitch you will be kind enough to give to Digby. She is one of the best writers there is writing on the issues and strategies we all care about, full of clarity and courage and wisdom and humor, and is just one of the most decent people I know. Our movement desperately needs her to keep writing fulltime. You can give by heading here.
Not that raising tens of millions of dollars and engaging in all kinds of other activism to elect Democrats like Alan Grayson, Donna Edwards and Sen. Merkley counts for anything.
I am seeing potential for a video remix at a Netroots Nation party next year, akin to:
Dr. Jillian Weiss, who has been writing frequently about the progress of ENDA in Congress, has a piece up over the postponement of the markup in the House. In it, she blames marriage equality activists such as myself for paying too much attention to, um, marriage equality:
It is 5 minutes to midnight on ENDA, with still a possibility of getting a vote this year if everyone pulls together, and what happens? Do we have LGBT and progressive media exploding with articles of protest and telling people how to lobby Congress effectively to get this moving?
Nope. Instead, a NY marriage vote that was known to be doomed sucks all the oxygen out of the room. The D.C. city council preliminary vote on marriage and a possible marriage vote in NJ are also in the news. But unlike most mornings when I crank up my Google machine, there are no news articles this morning on ENDA, anywhere.
A couple of things:
1. Let me say first that I immensely respect Jill's work on this issue, which has been tremendous. Let me also ask that you call Chairman Miller's office at (202) 224-3121 and ask that he take up ENDA as an urgent priority.
2. I reject blame placed upon people who choose to focus on an issue and pound on it. In the first place is prioritization. By my own estimate, probably 80% of my posts and online organizing in the past three months have related to marriage equality. I focused on marriage in the Corzine race, Maine, New York State, DC, California, and New Jersey. I did this in part because of prioritization. At least 4/6 of those fights, in my view, were a more urgent priority than ENDA. Maine and Corzine happened on Nov 3rd and there is no way to change that. A deal was cut to have a vote in NYS before the end of the year. NJ needs to happen lest we get screwed the next several years by Christie. That's not mine or anyone else's fault, that's the nature of the beast and the timeline of elections, and that is part of the reason I chose to focus on them over ENDA.
3. I chose ME as my priority just as Jill is entitled to choose ENDA as hers. Yet it's my fault, in part, that a markup got postponed because I asked people to focus on equally- perhaps more important and urgent- fights? By Jill's logic, I suppose I'm entitled to write a post blaming Jill for helping lose NYS because she "sucked all the oxygen out of the room" at The Bilerico Project around ENDA. I suppose it's also my fault we don't have the votes on DOMA, DADT hasn't advanced and children are still starving in Africa because I've been asking folks to help with other issues.
ENDA is not the only important fight in the world. I would also direct attention to Chris' piece last night on how to build your own netroots organization. If you are upset by the perpetual suckitude of marriage activists like me for, you know, working on marriage too much, go build your own effort, and I am more than happy to help where I can.
4. I raised money to go to Maine in part because I didn't see enough attention being paid to the race- most of the energy was around health care- just as Jill said she started working on ENDA because no one was working on it, so I respect that. But I would never write a post blaming bloggers like Chris or Mike or anyone else for helping lose Maine because they think health care is important, and it captured people's attention. They have a right to care about what they want, as do readers like you. It's not like they or I were sitting on our asses when we could have helped. And you have to actually reach out and ask for help, sometimes.
5. On her organizing in general, we've gotten pretty good at whip counts here at OpenLeft recently. For Jill to list 45 Senators as "unconfirmed" over ENDA is odd. Who in the world expects bigots like McConnell and Sessions and Cornyn, who have opposed ENDA and every other piece of LGBT rights legislation for years, to suddenly come around? Not only does this amount to a waste of people's resources, when a Texas activist thinks it's suddenly important to spend time lobbying Cornyn, but it makes things seem not as up to date as they should be. Fixing this would help.
So I find this kind of circular firing blame game unhelpful. I have limited time to write and mobilize, and a right to prioritize issues. We all do. ENDA is far from over, and blaming activists like me for a House committee markup postponement is misdirected. Better would be to channel the losses over marriage into "hey folks, we just got screwed on marriage in multiple places and we're about to get screwed on ENDA- let's make sure we don't" activism. And to build your own efforts through methods like Chris' recommendations, reach out, and stop saying your priorities are more important than others'.
At Netroots Nation, those of us interested and active in NYS politics had a great caucus, and this was one of the ideas that came out of it. A number of very smart online folks from some national and lots of NYS-based orgs and blogs will be there. $10 registration, can't beat that. Myself and a colleague will be doing a session on LGBT organizing, too.
If you're interested in New York State politics, you should come. Hope to see you there.
Update: We broke through $50,000. Amazing. THANK YOU! Can you help get to $70K?
So I'm back on the ground in Maine helping the online team. Things are a little intense, so a few quick bullet points:
The latest polling from Public Policy Polling came out at midnight, showing us down 51-47%. Their methodology has a few problems with it, but they've consistently shown our opponents trending upward.
The field team is firing on all cylinders. Biggest concern is youth turnout in off-year. In 2005, an anti-discrimination ballot initiative went our way and we had one campus field organizer for the whole state. This year we have nine. But the numbers are tight as hell, and if turnout is like a normal election year, we'll lose. Everyone is saying we have to execute a flawless program.
A fun chunk of the progressive and LGBT blogosphere has come to Maine for the final push. John and Joe from AMERICABlog are both here, Julia Rosen from Courage/Calitics/C&L, Jeremy Hooper from Good As You, a number of others. We're all spread out in field, online, video.
Our opponents just pushed out a $25,000 fundraising push yesterday and used it to buy this radio ad that just came out:
They also jumped their online ad buy (it's really fun being here in Maine and now ads are geo-targeted to me, so I see them a lot more).
The campaign needs to increase its own buy to respond, but we need to raise to do it- we've put a lot of money into field. We put up a red alert this morning. $15,000 has come in the last hour. The campaign is calling it a "red alert" because we literally could be swamped on radio, online, and TV today and tomorrow- and as I wrote here, their last two ads are the most effective of the cycle. $25,000 buys a LOT of time in Maine.
If you could give just one more time for the campaign, it would go a very, very long way. Tomorrow is the big day. Thanks for this one last bit of help.
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.
Last night I wrote about the Yes On 1 Campaign's stupid ad trying to push the debunked line that a change in Maine law would force children to learn about marriage equality (the horror).
The ad says to voters "go ahead. We've got nothing to hide. Decide for yourself whether the book teaches Maine values", which is straightforward and honest. Excellent idea.
You just broke through $1,000 in contributions for the No On 1 campaign on our OpenLeft/Better Dems page. Now, we've got a larger goal to help keep ads like these on the air. I'll be heading up to Maine Oct. 14th, and early in-person voting starts the 15th. This thing is winding down to the finish line. The last poll showed us up 51-40. Let's put the nail in the coffin. We're close to $1 million for the campaign all across the netroots. If we can hit $1 million by the day voters start going to the polls on Oct. 15th, that'll help give the campaign the resources to finish the job.
And remember, as Maine goes, so goes the nation. This'll impact marriage contests all across our country. Please chip in below, and thanks for helping out.
I'm very pleased to let you know that Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak, candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, will join us at Senate Guru tomorrow, Thursday September 10, at 5pm Eastern Time for a live blog session. I'm sure he will update us on how his campaign is going, discuss a variety of issues, offer his thoughts in response to tonight's Presidential address on health care reform, and, of course, field your questions.
I hope you will be able to join us for the first candidate liveblog session of the 2010 cycle at Senate Guru. Bring your questions for Congressman Sestak and invite your political junkie friends to join us. (And, if you're really excited for the conversation, support Congressman Sestak with a contribution via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page.)
Right now, 14,000 people are losing their health care coverage every day because our costs are skyrocketing. Meanwhile, too many politicians in Washington, who seem to be ignoring the lessons from Wall Street, would rather leave our health insurance reform up to the insurance companies. No matter what the final bill looks like, we deserve to know how our Representatives and Senators will vote on a public option - up or down!
Now that Democrats have retaken Congress and the White House, one of the problems I have struggled with the most over the past five months is "how can the grassroots make a difference in passing good legislation?" It is a difficult question to answer.
Over the past several years, we have developed a lot of good ways to make a difference in winning elections. We have donated money, made phone calls, registered voters, and knocked on doors. We have pushed favorable media narratives, and worked against unfavorable ones. We have even run our own ads, conducted our own search engine optimization campaigns, and urged Democrats in safe districts to send more of their money to swing districts. However, when it comes to influencing legislation, it feels like we have comparatively few tools at our disposal.
Sure, we can make phone calls, sign petitions and send emails to our members of congress either in support of good legislation or in opposition to bad legislation. But how much of a difference do these "contact your member of Congress" campaigns really make? Maybe a little, but the truth is, not much. The same goes for protests, too.
Sure, we can run ads against, and support primary challenges to, wayward Democrats. This strategy has proven effective in flipping votes, but it is cost intensive and can't be used in every instance. (For example, will we really be able to run primary challenges against Democrats who are strong on virtually every issue, except one or two? Probably not.) Also, it usually only has a long-term payoff (namely, after the 2010 elections). This is a good strategy, and one that I support. However, in the short term it doesn't really open any doors to the sausage making factory.
At least for the ongoing health care fight, I think I have an idea that might just change this dynamic and allow us to have more influence. What if, through repeated emails from constituents, we were to ask Senators to respond to a short survey asking them to outline what sort of public option they would, and would not, support?
Such information would be invaluable as it would let us know the range of possibilities on what sort of public option can be passed, and also let us know where "contact your member of Congress" efforts would be most needed. Further, while a few dozen constituent emails probably won't convince a Senator to support a more robust public option, it probably would be enough to convince a Senator's office to complete a short survey outlining what type of public option the Senator supports.
Yesterday I argued that the netroots were funneling millions to the Blue Dogs every cycle, and needed to completely turn off the spigot. Today, I spent some time trying to figure out just how much money the netroots were donating to the Blue Dogs every cycle. As it turns out, the totals are not very high.
First, 9.15% of all donations to the 35 House Democrats who were first elected in 2008, and who are still in Congress, came from Act Blue. For eighteen of those House newbies, Act Blue was the top donor overall. For another eight, Act Blue was the second largest donor. Overall, the totals are $5,820,075 was raised for these 35 Democratic Representatives on Act Blue, out of a total $63,583,306 in donations from a source other than self-financing.
Among the six Blue Dogs first elected in 2008 and still in Congress (Bright, Childers, Griffith, Kratovil, Minnick, Nye), $188,374 of the $9,422,494 they raised from a source other than self-financing came from Act Blue. Overall, this represents only 2.0% of their total fundraising.
Among the seven Progressives first elected in 2008 and still in Congress (Carson, Edwards, Fudge, Grayson, Lujan, Pingree, Richardson), $1,348,659 of the $8,800,177 they raised from a source other than self-financing came from Act Blue. Overall, this represents 15.33% of their overall fundraising. This is a far higher percentage than Blue Dog Act Blue fundraising, even if it is heavily concentrated in Pingree and Edwards.
There are at least 15 freshmen members of the New Democrat coalition. However, the only name I can confirm at this time is Andre Carson, who is also a member of the Progressive caucus. Removing both the Blue Dogs and the Progressives from the overall list, but keeping Carson, the remaining Democrats raised $4,374,144 of their $47,012,948 non-self financing from Act Blue. It is likely that this 9.30% is close to the overall percentage of New Democrat freshmen money raised on Act Blue, given that more than half of the 23 freshmen included in these totals are now in the New Democratic caucus.
So, this analysis suggests that the netroots aren't really funding the Blue Dogs much at all, but are instead pumping millions of dollars into New Democrat coffers (they use the term New Democrat, not New Democratic). While the netroots are a higher percentage of Progressive fundraising, overall we give more money to New Democrats.
This situation is not ideal, but it is better than funneling millions into Blue Dog coffers. Although I don't have updated numbers, previous analysis has suggested that the New Democrats are almost precisely equidistant from the Blue Dogs and Progressives in terms of voting patterns, and very slightly to the right of the Democratic caucus overall. Given the disproportionate Act Blue donations to Progressive frosh compared to Blue Dogs frosh, overall this probably means that netroots money is being spent on keeping the ideological balance of the caucus roughly at the status quo. As such, it is not the disastrous situation I made it out to be yesterday, but it is still something that must be improved upon in 2010. Our money needs to be going to push the caucus to the left, not keep it where it currently is.
(Notes: Numbers taken from Open Secrets. Freshman fundraising totals can be seen here. ActBlue contribution totals can be seen here. Candidate self-financing not included in overall contribution totals. Current server troubles have prevented me from uploading the chart I made with all these numbers.)
We--participants in blog and email list small donor fundraising efforts--have to completely stop raising money for Blue Dogs. We should not give a single cent to any current member of the Blue Dog coalition. We should not give any money at all to any candidate who refuses to rule out joining the Blue Dogs once in Congress. If we hope to improve Democratic behavior in Congress, this break has to be as public and as thorough as possible.
In politics, money speaks a lot louder than either voting or public criticism. We can criticize Blue Dog behavior all we want, but as long as we keep funneling their members millions of dollars every two years in small, online donations, then we will actually be ratifying, not criticizing their behavior. We will be supporting their efforts to push the party to the right, not working to push the party to the left. We will be sending a clear signal of support for their votes, not working to hold them accountable for those votes.
Let's take a quick review of the Blue Dog behavior we are ratifying. The Blue Dog coalition has made it clear that they believe they have veto power over the entire agenda of the Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership. After a meeting with President Obama three weeks before the election, the Blue Dogs declared:
"He also recognized that we had the numbers to block or clear" legislation coming from the White House if he is elected.
If they are coasting that they can block or clear whatever legislation they want, the Blue Dogs consider themselves to be in charge of D.C., not Speaker Pelosi or President Obama. Some highlight of their past behavior include being the driving force in the Democratic Party behind the 2005 bankruptcy bill (they voted 32-4 in favor), the 2006 ending of habeus corpus, the 2007 Iraq War blank check, and the 2008 FISA re-write (see here for both). So far in 2009, they only allowed the stimulus package to go through after extracting a pay-go promise from the Obama administration. Last month, they joined with the New Democrats to block foreclosure relief legislation, which Evan Bayh's Blue Dogs in the Senate seem to have killed. And most of them will vote against the budget, too.
The Blue Dogs are an overt obstacle to progressive governance. For crying out loud, their entire name comes from feeling "choked blue by the left-wing of the party." In the recent past, they have refused to send money to the DCCC because another member of Congress criticized them on Iraq. They are overtly anti-progressive and anti-left wing. They don't even work to help other members of the party. So, why are we working to help them?
We simply must stop funneling money to the Blue Dog coalition. Given how much we complain about Blue Dogs, this may seem self-evident, but it is not. In the past, I, personally, have helped raise a decent amount of money for Blue Dogs. Two of the fundraising pages that I helped build, Netroots Candidates and Blue Majority, took in about $150,000 for Patrick Murphy, Larry Kissell and Bill Foster, three members of Congress who are either Blue Dogs already, or who will be likely announced as such when the new Blue Dog membership list is made public. So, I am as implicated in sending Blue Dogs money in the past as anyone.
If we keep sending the Blue Dogs millions of dollars in small, online donations every year, then there is no incentive for Blue Dogs to ever change their behavior, or for Democratic candidates to not seek out membership in the Blue Dog coalition. Currently, being a member, or prospective member, of the Blue Dog coalition provides you access to a network of Hill staff, corproate lobbyists and their PACs, large donor fundraisers, and press releases back home to talk about how you aren't like those other, dirty liberal Democrats. If we want to change Democratic behavior in Congress, we have stop adding even more incentives for Democrats to become Blue Dogs. Instead, we must offer strong disincentives for them to become Blue Dogs, such as a significantly reduced access to online, small donor fundraising.
Unfortunately, in Scott Murphy's case, small online donors raised over $300,000 for him even after Murphy had stated he was applying to join the Blue Dogs. That has to stop. Before we raise money for other congressional candidates in 2009-2010, we have to extract promises from those candidates that they won't join either the Blue Dogs (for House candidates) or Evan Bayh's groups (for Senate candidates).
No more money for the Blue Dogs. We can't continue to ratify their efforts to push the Democratic Party to the right. There are plenty of candidates and organizations working to push the party in the opposite direction to whom we small online donors should give our money.
As David already discussed earlier today, President Obama has not yet met with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, even though he has met with every other group in Congress (Blue Dogs, New Dems, House Republicans, etc). Some Progressive (capitalized because it signifies a member of the caucus, rather than just anyone who calls him or herself a progressive) are feeling slighted by this. I am going to chime in and agree with the general sentiment in the comments to David's post: rather than feeling slighted, Progressives need to start throwing more weight around so that such a meeting is required, rather than an act of politeness.
There are lots of ways that Progressives could be throwing their weight around, but are not. The most obvious current misuse of Progressive strength is the inability to maximize their, and our, strength among small donors. Progressives have enormous potential fundraising ability that can match the large donor and corporate PAC money other ideological caucuses and networks can provide to their members. This fundraising is a major reason why candidates join these groups, and progressives can do the same thing. Unfortunately, we don't use our networks as well as we should.
The blogosphere gets pretty angry at Blue Dogs and New Democrats on a regular basis. This isn't surprising since, according to the best information I have seen (some of which is not public) about 80% of the people who read progressive blogs and / or who are members of progressive email list organizations self-identify as either "liberal" or "progressive." However, from 2004-2008, and even in the excitement over the NY-20 special election next Tuesday where the Democrat has already declared himself to be a Blue Dog, I'd wager that a similar proportion of netroots congressional donations have gone to electing Blue Dogs and New Democrats (specific numbers are not available right now because the current caucus membership lists are not available). It is kind of a perverse cycle: we give huge amounts of money to Blue Dog and New Democratic candidates, and then we spend a huge amount of our time complaining about Blue Dog and New Democratic members of the House. We are funding our own complaints.
President Obama held a reception for the leaders of large progressive organizations, plus the Chamber of Commerce, last night. This is both exciting, and a relief, given all the face time that Republicans and Blue Dogs were getting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
One of the main messages from the meeting appears to be using progressive organizations as a "echo chamber" or megaphone to help drive the Democratic message around the country:
At a private White House cocktail reception last night for leaders of major progressive groups, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle appealed to these leaders and signaled that their groups would play a key role in driving the big progressive changes at the heart of the White House's legislative agenda, an attendee tells me.
The message was that these groups would be valuable as a kind of progressive outside "echo chamber," as the attendee puts it.
If you are in the Philadelphia area, you should attend two great netroots focused events, which take place tonight and tomorrow.
Mike Lux in Philly!: First, tonight at the Center City chapter of Drinking Liberally, Mike Lux will be around to discuss his new book, The Progressive Revolution. The event is at 6 p.m., Triumph Brewing Company, 117 Chestnut Street, upstairs bar.
Blogger ethics panel! Second, tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m., the American Constitution Society's Philadelphia Lawyers and UPenn Law School chapters will be cosponsoring a panel discussion at The University of Pennsylvania Law School on the role of bloggers as watchdogs / advocates under the Obama administration. Panelists will be John Aravosis, Christy Hardin Smith, Baratunde Thurston and Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, with Adam Bonin moderating. The law school is at 3400 Chestnut Street.
I will be attending both events. Hope to see you there, too!
So I'm back on the ground in Maine helping the online team. Things are a little intense, so a few quick bullet points:
