A progressive organization doesn't get to 50 states without a lot of friends along the way - and we want to take a minute to thank Open Left for being one of our most crucial friends when we were aiming for what seemed to be impossible.
As of today, North Dakota is the only state without a Living Liberally chapter. Loyal readers will know that we've spent the last month trying to spread our network of progressive groups into all 50 states, with only four standing in the way: the aforementioned North Dakota, and Hawaii, Oklahoma and West Virginia. We reached out to the Open Left community for help in plugging the holes, and largely thanks to your help, we now have chapters in 49 states - in Martinsburg and Charleston, West Virginia, in Norman, Oklahoma, and in Kahului, Hawaii.
But as much as we appreciate the OL readership's role in helping Living Liberally expand, we'd like to make a special shout-out to Chris, Matt and Mike. In the past year, we've had some amazing experiences and incredible milestones alongside this terrific trio - producing film and book reviews tailored for leftie readers, tracking the growth of the social side of the progressive movement, and, of course, completing our 50-bar strategy.
That's why we're asking two things of you this Tuesday afternoon:
1. If you know anyone in North Dakota, yourself included, who would like the honor of spreading Living Liberally to our 50th state, then contact us at info (at) livingliberally (dot) org.
2. If you haven't yet had the chance to participate in OL's fundraising drive, we humbly ask you to help out some of the progressive movement's best friends:
Here are six annoying scenarios. Most of them play off of an Obama victory, which we define as anything less than a 20 delegate gain for Clinton. A Clinton blowout would be self-evidently annoying in all sorts of ways.
Throw your annoying scenarios in the comments.
The Winner Praises McCain's Service
Bin Laden Video Released After Obama Victory
Obama Repudiates Partisanship
Obama Distances Himself from Bloggers After Winning, Goes on O'Reilly
There's been a tremendous discussion going on here with regards to potential VP choices for Barack Obama. While many of the more conventional names have been thrown out there, including Kathleen Sebelius, Janet Napolitano, Wesley Clark, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Jim Webb, Sherrod Brown, there has been less discussion of other individuals less prominent in national Democratic politics but might be a better fit for an Obama campaign, and (hopefully) an Obama presidency. After all, is there any better way to demonstrating a commitment to change than reaching beyond other Senators and Governors, and into the back bench of the House and out into the military, academia and other backgrounds?
I've been looking forward to reading Matt Bai's book, The Argument, for months now. In the circles I run- which include Democracy Alliance donors, netroots activists, and Clinton administration folks, all of which are central characters in the book- everybody was buzzing about it, and more than a few people were more than a little nervous about what he would have to say.
I have to say, from a pure reading pleasure point of view, it was worth the wait. I feared that it would be one of those books that, since I already knew most of the stories told in it, that it would be pretty boring- one of those books that I had to read to know what nasty thing he said about whom, but not something I would enjoy slogging through. I turned out to be wrong, because Bai is an engaging writer who can be very funny in his writing a lot of the time.
We started OpenLeft on July 9, with the goal of focusing on building a progressive governing majority. Politics is not about parties so much as it is about coalitions, identity, and elites, and that's what we've tried to write about. I've written about how Eliot Spitzer is paying the price for refusing to work with allies, Chris has discussed identity in MA-05 and the Democratic primary, and Mike Lux has discussed the failure of Democratic elites in the 1970s.
There is a new America waiting on the other side of the transition away from an oil-dominated state, but the transition is going to be ugly. We won't get a universal internet, a sustainable energy system, a democratic media, impeachment, or an end to the national security state without strong coalitions.
We're not just writing about coalitions, we're trying to help build them. That's what Legislation 2.0 with Senator Dick Durbin was about. Writing legislation online, and working with the Communications Workers of America, the Open Internet coalition, One Economy, Hands off the Internet, DaveyD, Free Press, Moveon, and many others is a model for building a coalition behind universal broadband. The significance of this experiment isn't clear, but it's gotten a lot of notice. Grant Gross at IDG News Service (the AP of the tech world) wrote about it, and it was picked up in PC World and InfoWorld. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a paper that covers Durbin, also wrote about it, as did National Journal's Aliya Sternstein (subscription only). This effort got into political insider press, local press, and tech press.
Now, there were problems. The most common complaint was that the project was hard to follow and/or intimidating. Do you agree? Do you have suggestions for improvement? Chris and I have been discussing doing something similar for residual troops in Iraq, so we're open to suggestions.
On a larger note, how is the site? I still feel like I'm finding my voice, like the transition from electoral focus to governing focus is rocky and difficult. The progressive blogosphere is no longer in a growth period, institutionalizing into YearlyKos, Dailykos, the Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Americablog and of course, Talkingpointsmemo. The torch of innovation has passed to youtube stars like EmergencyCheese and Obama Girl. This is a more nonpartisan and less ideological group, comfortable with empowered citizens. And on the governance side, anti-Bush energy has turned into coalitions around energy, Iraq, media, economic justice and political legitimacy, as well as simple pieces like bringing Web 2.0 to government. I'm honestly a bit confused about what's going on in politics.
Anyway, we've been trying to figure out how to make the transition from sheer partisanship to a larger and more movement-oriented perspective. So how are we doing?
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