In the wake of President Barack Obama's premature capitulation to the Republicans in the tax wars, a party who I might remind you controls neither congressional chamber at this moment (they will take over the House in January), once muted criticism of the Commander-in-Chief on the Left has suddenly erupted into a full scale flurry of condemnation.
There have been calls for other Democrats to primary him in 2012, jeremiads that Progressives should have been treating him as an adversary, and a feeling on the Left, put into words by a Congressman (Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York), that Democrats "can't trust him."
So you could say it's been a somewhat bad month for the president - although that might be akin to saying the guys attending South Carolina's "Secession Ball" will only be missing some of their teeth. The president has not only caved on eliminating budget-busting tax cuts for people who have toilet plungers more expensive than your house, but has backed off long-delayed (but promised) environmental regulations to govern smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers.
He also negotiated a new Korea Free Trade Agreement that isn't free from deleterious affects on American workers, enacted a freeze in pay for federal employees for reasons nobody can figure out, and was ready to listen to recommendations to cut Social Security from a committee of rich, irrelevant Beltway primates so old they look like they should be starring in Weekend at Bernie's 3.
I have a lot of radical friends who don't think voting makes a difference, that it only legitimizes a corrupt system, and that on principle they shouldn't do it. (Perhaps you're one of them.) I used to agree with this, and, unlike many of my not-so-radical friends, I respect the arguments people are making. I have no trouble seeing why people would write off the whole enterprise as pointless.
I take a more complicated view though. I've been meaning to write a comprehensive piece before the elections about how and why real progressives and leftist radicals - these labels really do trip us up - should engage our flawed electoral system and the Democratic Party. Unfortunately I didn't have time to write that piece... yet.
But here are a few main points for anyone on the fence today. I want you to be on the voting side of the fence.
Here's a main argument against voting:
"If voting made any difference, they'd make it illegal."
The fact is, "they" have made it illegal all throughout history and continue to try to today. Black people and women couldn't vote for more than half our country's history, and they had to fight incredibly hard to win that right - and there are still major skirmishes about systematic voter disenfranchisement in elections today.
But the "they" in "they'd make it illegal" betrays some assumptions that I think are embedded in most anti-voting arguments.
In my recent diary, "Pathologizing conservatism: The demonization of Park51 as template for a case study", I discussed a set of three theories considered in the 2003 meta-analysis, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition" (PCMSC). These three theories fall into the category of "Epistemic and Existential Need Theories" which "place particular emphasis on the mutually constitutive role of cognitive and motivational processes in determining conservative response tendencies." Put simply, certain motivations lead to certain thought processes, which in turn lead lead to certain motivations.
In that diary, I focused primarily on Lay Epistemic Theory, whose most salient concern was "the need for cognitive closure, which refers to the expedient desire for any firm belief on a given topic, as opposed to confusion and uncertainty." But the weekend rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear highlights another theory that I also touched on briefly, Regulatory Focus Theory. PCMSC explains it thus:
This theory distinguishes between two categories of desired goals, namely those related to advancement, growth, and aspirations (ideals) and those related to safety, security, and responsibilities (oughts). Distinct regulatory systems are presumed to address these two classes of
goals. The promotion system reflects individuals' self-regulation in relation to their hopes and aspirations (ideals), and it gratifies nurturance needs. The goal of the promotion system is accomplishment. By contrast, the prevention system reflects self-regulation in relation to one's duties and obligations (oughts), and the goal of this system is safety. According to this theory, a parenting history of protection focusing on the avoidance of negative outcomes combined with the exercise of punishment as a disciplinary tool produces a strong prevention focus as a stable individual orientation. A parenting style of encouraging accomplishments by focusing on achieving positive outcomes and withdrawing love as a form of discipline produces a strong promotion focus as a stable individual orientation.
It is also plausible that an emphasis on prevention (vs. promotion) induces a heightened need for cognitive closure as one consequence of the craving for a secure and comprehensible reality.
These two different orientations have multiple connections that spring readily to mind. There is a clear relationship to Lakoff's "Strict Father"/"Nurturant Parent" model for political conservatism and liberalism, obviously. There's also a clear relationship to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the broad categories of safety needs vs. growth needs, as well as to his work in the psychology of science, distinguishing between safety science and growth science, which hearkens back to William James' identification of two distinct epistemic imperatives in science: "seek truth" vs. "shun error." And there's a connection to Douglas McGregor's Theory X vs. Theory Y in management theory, just to cite a few obvious examples.
This was a reply to a comment in a GOTV diary called Suppose Your Actions Swung the Election. I compare what I saw happening (and not happening), to what could have happened, that would have made a big difference.
(Okay, I don't know squat about this race. But I do know that the Ted Kennedy's seat was won by a Republican because the state Dems seem to have been asleep for God knows how long, and Green voice to shake things up is a damn sight better than a GOP voice. There mere fact that she's running on single payer is worth a look see, and all they're really asking for now is $$$ to get her across the public financing fininsh line, so why not take a closer look? - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Dr. Jill Stein is running an insurgent Green campaign for Governor of Massachusetts against 3 business-as-usual political insiders. Her platform reads like a progressive Christmas list.
Now she has the chance to break this race open and show that clean, green, people-powered politics can succeed. If Jill Stein’s campaign can raise $125,000 in amounts of $250 or less by Friday 9/24 at 5 PM, it will qualify for 1-1 public matching funds.
The thermometer on Jill Stein’s website is rising rapidly. At 10:40 EST on Friday it shows $110,918, meaning Stein needs just over $14,000 to make it over the top. Supporters of her campaign have created a "Clean Money Tidal Wave for Jill Stein" facebook event, which is doing brisk business with over 10,000 people invited so far.
Here’s why this is so important: progressives often talk about supporting independent progressive candidates, if a viable one comes along. Jill Stein is that viable independent progressive. She hasn’t taken a dime of corporate or lobbyist money. She was a leading activist for the MA Clean Elections public campaign financing law that the state’s Democratic establishment threw out after the people voted for it 2-1.
Jill Stein is the only candidate talking about replacing Romneycare with a vastly more efficient single-payer health care system. She is the only candidate calling for local green job creation, instead of the big corporate tax breaks and casino schemes that her opponents all agree on. On issue after issue, Jill Stein is unwaveringly progressive while her opponents pledge allegiance to the failed corporatist policies of the status quo.
If Jill Stein qualifies for matching funds, she’ll have a guaranteed place in the debates and a real war chest to spread her message of a secure, healthy green future. It will show that clean money campaigns can work – and that independent progressives are ready to support candidates who support them.
So the word is that given a chance to really put the GOP on the spot - the chance to force a vote on extending only the middle-class tax cuts, forcing Republicans to vote no in order to save their beloved tax cuts for the rich - Democrats will ... punt.
Although the exact micro-mechanics are not clear to me--it looks like Senators who aren't on the line this year (Ben Nelson, perhaps?--he suggested paying for rich folks tax cuts with not-yet-spent stimulus funds) may well have been the key players in all this, the overall long-term dynamics are well-nigh impossible to ignore, and Congressional Blue Dogs could easily have pulled out of the nosedive well in advance if they'd had the least bit of inclination to do so.
They didn't. And, of course, they are likely to be the most vulnerable to defeat, on average, as the result of overall Democratic ineffectiveness, which they have largely contributed to, as well as this last-minute failure to take a defining stand.
No doubt there are myriad "good reasons" for this--their donor bases, their friends, their money-making career ambitions after leaving Congress, etc. But when push comes to shove it all basically comes down to this: they were less interested in winning as Democrats--their primary public identification--than they were in other things.
This is hardly news, of course. They've been doing this sort of thing since before they were even called "Blue Dogs". And what it simply means is that they are more defined by hatred for other Democrats than they are by anything that should bind them together.
But what struck me at this particular time was the parallel between their thinking on the right and the thinking on the left we've seen expressed here lately by some folks who seemingly would rather see the Democrats defeated this election, to punish them, regardless of what happens to the nation as a response.
Now, I don't want to put myself in the position of making any specific accusations--particularly since (A) I generally find these sorts of "both sides do it" arguments to be both lazy and sloppy as well as pernicious and (B) I'd rather be proven wrong. So I'd like to hear from people who are not inclined to support Democrats right now (not just folks like me who are highly critical of them, as I am) and I'd like to hear them explain to me how they are not like mirror images of the Blue Dogs.
I'd really like to know how they see things differently than that. How is your hatred of Blue Dogs (and other Dems as well, from what I've heard) and willingness to see Dems defeated this year not a mirror image of the Blue Dogs, and how is this not a contest to see who's hatred is stronger?
Meet Katrina Swett. That’s her on the right. Why are we talking about her?
Well, the Democratic primary for New Hampshire’s open congressional seat is just 4 days away, and it’s neck-and-neck.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has endorsed bold progressive candidate Ann McLane Kuster, who is running against Joe Lieberman’s presidential co-chair Katrina Swett. Kuster and Swett met in a big debate Wednesday night, and Swett attacked Kuster for being the "very progressive candidate," saying, "The country is moving away from the more left, progressive point of view."
Seriously? Attacking a Democrat for being progressive in a Democratic primary? Swett’s attack is all you need to know about the type of Blue Dog she’ll be in Congress.
After the best Netroots Nation conference yet, my wife and I hit the road out west, going to 4 national parks - Sequoia, King's Canyon, Yosemite, and the John Muir woods - and ending the trip in San Francisco, my favorite city to visit. Spending time in the majesty of the trees, mountains, canyons, and valleys of Western America fills up your soul with goodness like nothing else I know of. But being with the good folks of Netroots Nation does pretty well at that too.
The progressive netroots is a fascinating movement. Having been around progressive politics for 30 plus years now gives one perspective, and the netroots movement has a lot of the same characteristics as some of the other social movements and constituencies I have seen, but is also very different in some ways. Whether you think of it as starting from MoveOn's dramatic beginning in 1998, or from the time Jerome Armstrong and Markos began blogging around 2002, the netroots is still a very young movement, and they have a lot of the characteristics of young movements: the excitement of previously ignored people getting a taste of political power for the first time; the passion of people organizing for the first time; the creativity of people not constricted by old ways of thinking about politics; the impatience and anger at how messed up and slow to change things are; the aggressiveness of a movement seeing the potential of power but not yet part of the power structure.
A lot of times what happens in politics is that movements become strong enough to get a seat at the table, but once they have that seat, their leadership becomes satisfied, complacent, and stale. Once you have your seat, you don't want to lose it by pushing too hard, and you start to accept the conventional wisdom of everyone else already seated there alongside you.
The question for the netroots is what happens now. A seat at the Democratic Party table is a good thing in many ways, and it is within range. This is a movement, though, that will die faster then most if it becomes stale, complacent, or captive to conventional wisdom. What makes this movement a movement is the early-adapter edge, the creativity, the ability to say what is not being said by the establishment. If that is lost, people will get bored and communities build on websites will erode.
On the other hand, without the knowledge of what works on the inside or the capacity to build longer term institutions, without the kinds of relationships with insiders that can turn activism into legislative accomplishments, all the good work being done by this movement will run into a brick wall and people will get frustrated and start drifting away. Striking the balance right is challenging for any young movement, especially one as diverse, bottom-up, and (small d) democratic as the netroots.
While some establishment pundits and think tanks don't think populism is a good idea, check out what some candidates out in the field are doing:
1. This Andrew Romanoff ad kicks ass. People tell me he wasn't exactly a raving populist as a legislator, but he sure is a candidate.
2. Senate candidates like Roxanne Conlin and Robin Carnahan are banging away at their corporate backed opponents on the TARP issue.
3. Alexi Giannoulias just came out with this great campaign document which echoes the Moveon campaign's themes and message.
4. Look at what Tom Perriello is doing in a conservative district in Virginia.
5. More and more candidates are signing up for Moveon's anti-Washington corruption campaign, including Chris Murphy, Donna Edwards, Romanoff, Conlin, Perriello, Gian..., Mac D'allesandro, Raul Grijalva, and many more.
I could actually go on and on, but you get the idea. Progressive populism is spreading like wild fire because candidates are figuring out that it is the only message that can save them.
Republican "free market" economic policies are explicitly designed to concentrate the nation's wealth in as few hands as possible. As collateral damage, the middle class will necessarily be ground into dust. Hence, in a democratic system of government, the only way the GOP will be able to hold on to power is by attempting to exploit divisive social issues.
This is because, in economic terms, Republicans have nothing to offer their struggling foot soldiers except slogans. And -- to paraphrase Hillary Clinton -- you can't eat a slogan.
Filling the void, slick right-wing operators like Andrew Breitbart stand ready to serve up double portions of cultural red meat -- but on their own timetable.
Shirley Sherrod scenarios will arise, in myriad forms, for years to come. Sometimes they will seem to benefit Republicans, sometimes they won't. In either case, GOP politicians will be powerless to control them. They'll simply have to ride the tiger and try to spin things to their political advantage.
"Flashpoint" racial politics will be a major part of the conservative playbook going forward. Progressives need to be ready to combat it.
The polling business is far more of an art than a science, is easily manipulated, and is open to as many interpretations as there are people looking at the polls. I have never known a pollster who didn't walk in the door with a set of assumptions and biases in how to interpret the data. And everyone in the business knows that the way you phrase the questions, the way you sequence the questions, the way you draw the sample of who you are asking, and a bunch of other little tricks those of us in the political biz know can dramatically impact outcomes.
The other huge factor in the polling business is who the client is, and what the purpose of the poll is. If the poll is designed for internal analysis, you get one kind of results (and generally more honest data). If the poll is designed to be released to the public to prove a point (our candidate is winning, our issue is popular, our spin is best being the usual things clients use these kinds of polls for), you want to be really careful about accepting the analysis on its face, because that is where the little (and big) things that can be done to manipulate the findings really come into play.
I say this by way of introduction to my central discussion: the internal debate within the Democratic party for what the central narrative of our party ought to be. Over the short term, that fight centers on how to save us from getting crushed in the 2010 elections, but it is of course a very long term fight that has been going on in our party since the New Deal coalition came unraveled in the late 1960s.
As I said, everyone comes to this debate with certain biases, and I will admit mine upfront. Just in case you haven't read my stuff much, I am - by history, sentiment, ideology, and instinct - naturally drawn to progressive populism: fighting for the "little guy", standing up to wealthy corporate interests. My political role models in history are people like FDR, Truman, and Bobby Kennedy, people who figured out how to appeal to a multi-racial coalition and the idealism of the young while still winning over working class white folks. In the modern era, my favorite political leaders are people like Paul Wellstone, Sherrod Brown, Dave Obey, Tom Perriello, and Brian Schweitzer, candidates who have won in purple or even red states/districts not by becoming more like Republicans but by raising the populist progressive flag unapologetically.
Now, having admitting my biases, I will also say that progressive populism (like every other messaging frame) has some limits as a political strategy. There are some districts it doesn't work in. There have been elections where it hasn't been as salient, or runs into a moment where it is overwhelmed by a certain mood in the electorate or a particular candidate's magic touch (Reagan's Morning in America theme in 1984, combined with Reagan's charm and a surging economy, was a classic example, although Mondale's kind of populism wasn't exactly stirring). Certain candidates can't pull populism off credibly, and probably shouldn't try (John Kerry comes to mind).
I also firmly believe that an angry populism all by itself isn't convincing to a majority of voters, that you have to combine the justifiable anger at the abuses of corporate power with compelling positive policy ideas on how you will deliver jobs and other benefits to voters. I don't think a purely anti-business populism usually works, for example: I think candidates need to show how they support small business and manufacturers and companies that are really contributing jobs and useful products to our country and communities. Finally, I would say this: I would never recommend a purely pro-government kind of populism to candidates. Voters, for very good reasons, are deeply cynical that government is really on their side, and will really deliver for them. Progressives have to make clear that part of our mission is to clean up the corporate corruption of government, and that we understand that government in recent years (outside of old stand-bys like Social Security and Medicare and Head Start and the minimum wage) has not always done a good job in making most people's lives better. We also have to be clear that we do want to cut wasteful government spending, and that most of that wastefulness comes from corporate subsidies and sweetheart deals: contracting practices that overwhelmingly favor the contractors rather than the taxpayers, agribusiness subsidies that have no merit, sweetheart deals in health care reform that don't allow for negotiations with drug manufacturers or public sector competition with insurance companies, tax loopholes that have no rational basis for existing besides a really good lobbying operation.
On the other side of the populist argument are Democrats who argue that it is bad political strategy to be too aggressive in taking on corporate America. Since we're all admitting our biases here, I would urge the pollsters and groups who generally make this argument to admit their own: almost all of them get most of their client or contributor list from the ranks of corporate America. The leading pollster who has been making this argument for the last couple of decades is Mark Penn, who heads a firm that does far, far more work in corporate PR and lobbying than it does for candidates. The leading politicians making this argument have been the Blue Dog and New Democrat caucuses, whose members receive far more corporate money than the rest of the Democratic party. And the leading groups making these arguments are the DLC and Third Way, both of which have as a (probably the, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt) leading source of contributions big corporations and their executives.
The latest example is a poll recently released by Third Way. Before I get to criticizing it, let me stop for a minute and say that I thought it had some useful insights for Democrats. The idea of tying Republican policies in congress closer to Bush, for example, is certainly a solid idea (although I fear that it is harder said than done.) The idea that Democrats should speak to the future and be aspirational in their language is something that makes sense to me. I even like the fiscal discipline thing, though I would redirect it to where the real waste in the budget is (corporate sweetheart deals, see above).
Having said that, though, it was really clear that this poll's questions, and the interpretation in the memo they wrote about the poll, were designed to try and talk Democrats out of using populist rhetoric. Let me take you through a couple of examples:
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.
Perhaps the most important lesson I learned in my years in the Clinton White House was that when problems arise, it is up to the White House to solve them. When you are the top dog, you have more levers and tools of power than anyone else, and more glory and reward when things go well. But when there is a problem, no matter whose fault it is, no matter how bad luck it is, the White House either solves the problem or the failure to do so is theirs. The buck stops there, if you can't stand the heat, etc, etc.
It has always been this way, and always will be. James Buchanan didn't cause the problems that led the nation to disintegrate on his watch, but by not solving them he goes down as one of the nation's most failed Presidents. Herbert Hoover didn't cause the Great Depression, but failing to make progress on it similarly casts him as one of history's biggest failures. LBJ's failure to end the Vietnam War destroyed him, in spite of his own amazing record of legislative achievement earlier in his presidency. Conversely, the Presidents like Lincoln and FDR that dealt successfully with major crises are considered our greatest Presidents, even though they made their share of mistakes along the way.
The combination of problems inherited from George W Bush is the biggest protracted crisis this country has faced since those days of FDR. This economy is damaged beyond what many of the conventional economists or commentators are aware, with a sustained situation that looks bleak for at least several years in the future. The war that Bush started and then ignored in Afghanistan is a quagmire that shows no sign of getting better anytime soon. The other long term problems the Bush administration (and other politicians for decades before, for that matter) ignored - our rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, the health care system's dysfunction, college affordability, our long term trade and budget deficits - certainly don't help the country's sense of well being, or our ability to compete in the world economy of the 21st century.
Even problems less monumental are also tests of Presidential leadership. Jimmy Carter's inability to solve the hostage crisis contributed greatly to his failure as President, and Harry Truman's failure to win or end the Korean War made it impossible for him to run for re-election in spite of all his other accomplishments. LBJ, Ford, Carter, and George HW Bush all failed to get along with their party's respective base, and that alone would have doomed their Presidency. (No President with a strong primary challenge from their base has ever won re-election.)
Again, it doesn't matter whether these problems are some one else's fault, or just bad luck: it is up to the President to deal successfully with whatever they are faced with. Period, end of story. [More in the extended entry]
Hi--I'm Forrest Brown, senior organizing fellow at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Along with other groups like DFA and MoveOn, we're pouring our energy into getting Bill Halter elected - but I wanted to take a minute and pass along Bill Halter's thanks to all of you.
Progressives nationwide have been instrumental in putting Bill Halter in position to win. Here at OpenLeft and across the netroots, you've helped donate more than $3.5 million for Bill, and helped us make calls to over 200,000 voters in Arkansas. At the PCCC, we've raised over $250,000 for Halter's field operation -- putting staffers on the ground and talking to thousands of voters on the phone.
Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D) is continuing to pull in significant amounts of campaign cash from national progressive groups. He sent an e-mail to supporters of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee on Monday to thank them for helping him raise $250,000 ahead of Tuesday's vote.
"Thousands of PCCC members gave $250,000 in small-dollar donations, which went to fund our grassroots field operation and TV ads," Halter wrote in the e-mail. "You also helped make over 200,000 phone calls to voters in the final days, allowing us take the lead in the polls."
Halter is up against Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) in the runoff for the Democratic Senate nod.
A spokesman for PCCC said the group "has had senior staffers on the ground for the past couple months, leading Halter's field operation."
The photo below captures the moment Halter wrote the note onboard his campaign bus, according to the PCCC spokesman.
We're less than 36 hours away from polls closing in Arkansas, and this is the critical period to get Halter supporters to the polls. We need your help one more time.
I have been arguing for a long time that progressives need to be aggressively engaged in the deficit cutting debate. I think it is a mistake for us, both policy wise and especially politically, to say that deficits don't matter, or to have an entirely defensive message about the cuts we don't want Congress to make. Voters believe deficits matter, and they want solutions - and while it is currently unpopular to cut Social Security and some other programs (thank goodness), if no alternative to that is presented, too many folks might be convinced to go along.
The progressive message on the deficit has to be very clear: first, don't do anything that will endanger our economic recovery, because the best way to solve the deficit is to improve our economic health (see: the 1990s). Secondly, when you ask for sacrifices, they shouldn't be all or mostly from the middle class and poor. This is a pretty key point, since many of the deficit hawks seem to be zeroing in on cuts in Social Security and a Value Added Tax, both of which overwhelmingly impact the poor and middle class far more than they do the wealthy.
What these proposals are is an attempt to make middle and lower income people pay for the sins of the wealthy who have benefited from the deficit. Middle class incomes have been stagnant over the last decade, while the costs of their groceries, gas, utilities, and college education for their kids has skyrocketed. Middle class housing prices have plummeted the last three years, with foreclosures and bankruptcies increasing exponentially. Middle class folks haven't gotten the big tax cuts the wealthy have over the last 10 years, and when taxes are raised at the local level, its almost always regressive taxes like the sales tax that impact poor and middle class people the most. Meanwhile, public school teachers, social services for the poor, parks, libraries, community colleges, programs to help handicapped kids - all of those programs that matter to working families are the things that get cut.
So now we have this gaping federal deficit. (More in extended entry)
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