Originally posted on MyDD. There is a growing trend online among some bloggers and commenters to threaten that they will not support Democratic candidates in 2006. It remains a small minority of the online world, but as some of you may have noticed from my posts yesterday, it has really put a bee under by bonnet and I feel compelled to write about it again.
I am, or like to think I am, a progressive. When it comes to policy positions, I believe in the total withdrawal from Iraq in less than one year. I believe in free, universal, government provided health care. I support the decriminalization of personal drug use. I support full marriage equality for all Americans. I believe that public primary and secondary education should be funded equally, and not significantly by property taxes that create massive inequity in education funding. I oppose the death penalty in all cases, and support a women’s right to choose in all cases. I support the mandatory use of hybrid or alternative energy engines in all automobiles within the next ten years. I oppose NAFTA and the WTO. I support national, private sector card check for workers to form unions. I support election reform that allows for verifiable paper trials for recounts. And I believe in a lot of other stuff too, some of which is a lot more radical. However if I listed it all here, the post would take me a lot longer to write, and those beliefs would overshadow what I really want to say in this post.
But, to tell you the truth, I don’t think that believing any of those things actually makes me a progressive. In fact, I don’t think that “beliefs” or “ideals” really make a person what s/he is anyway. I believe, instead, that progressive is as progressive does. I believe that progressive actions are the only real progressive beliefs. I believe that you can best understand what progressive stand for by looking at the fruits that progressives bear. I believe that progressive actions speak louder than words. It is this belief that has led me to be a union organizer, to become a vegetarian, to join a grocery co-op, to be a writing teacher, and now to become a full-time political activist. I believe that those are some of the ways that people can tell I am a progressive, not because of the policy positions I listed above.
This belief also stretches over to other activities in my life. Here are just some examples:
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive to participate n the founding of Neighborhood Networks. Neighborhood Networks is an organization dedicated to building progressive change in Philadelphia by building a volunteer infrastructure organization at the division (precinct), ward and neighborhood level to work for electoral, legislative, and non-governmental change.
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive it is progressive to register as a Democrat, so you can vote in Democratic primaries. That way, every year you have two opportunities, rather than just one, to vote for progressive candidates.
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive it is progressive to work for progressive candidates in primaries, which I do every chance I get.
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive to work with Philadelphians against Santorum, which seeks not only to defeat Santorum, but to do so in a way that will build progressive infra structure for Philadelphia in the future.
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive it is progressive to become a committeeperson, and to take up Howard Dean’s call to reform unreformed Democratic parties from the ground up.
- In Philadelphia, I believe that when you become a committeeperson, it is progressive to recall your ward leader if he is not being effective in representing his community.
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive to oppose attempts by the local party to close primaries.
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive to start a blog with a on local politics that works to coordinate the many young progressives working in all of these areas.
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive to work with local Democracy for America and gather together local bloggers, candidates, and activists, as DFA seeks to continue the activist, reformer work it began with Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign.
- In Philadelphia, I believe it is progressive to raise money for local progressive candidates, because small donations can and have propelled many long-shot candidates into serious challenger status.
I believe that being a progressive means living as a progressive and dedicating my time and energy to organizations that are working for progressive change. I do not believe that someone is a progressive simply because they nod in agreement to progressive policy positions. Simply saying that you agree or disagree with something, or that you believe or do not believe something, is politically meaningless. What matters in politics is not what you say you believe, but rather what you actually do in order to have those beliefs realized.
Given this, I believe that if you are registered to vote in Pennsylvania, and you do not vote for Bob Casey over Rick Santorum in the general election in November, then you support the privatization of Social Security (which Santorum favors and Casey opposes). I believe that if you don’t vote for Bob Casey instead of Rick Santorum, then you support the K-Street Project, which Rick Santorum helps run. I believe that if you don’t vote for Bob Casey instead of Rick Santorum, then you think that the minimum wage should only be increased as long as several million workers lose all of their protections nationwide. If you don’t’ vote for Bob Casey instead of Rick Santorum, then you support CAFTA, which Casey opposes and Santorum supports. If you don’t vote for Bob Casey instead of Rick Santorum, then you don’t think there is a difference between a vote for Harry Reid as majority leader, and Trent Lott as majority leader. Or a difference between Arlen Specter as the head of the judiciary committee and Patrick Leahy as the head of the judiciary committee. Or a difference between Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold running a Senate committee and Tom Coburn or Sam Brownback running a committee. Or a difference between any Democrat running any committee with subpoena power over any Republican running any committee with subpoena power.
And why do I think that people who are registered in Pennsylvania but who won’t vote for Bob Casey in the general election believe these things? Because not voting for the Democratic Senatorial nominee in Pennsylvania is the only way to defeat Rick Santorum with your vote. If you do not take that action, then you are indicating that you do not believe that the difference between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey I listed above matter. And you told the world that you didn’t think they mattered because you did not take your opportunity to cast your vote on those issues.
You may claim that voting for Bob Casey would cause you to violate your progressive ideals. I claim that by not acting and working for progressive change in the many ways I listed above violates your progressive principles. Worse, not acting and not working in the ways I demonstrated above probably demonstrates that you do not actually have progressive ideals, but that you instead inaction is your true ideal. Who cares what you think you believe–I want to know what you do
I suppose this can be turned around the other way as well. I suppose that by voting for Bob Casey, people can argue that I support his position on Iraq, Alito, choice, or whatever. But I want someone to explain to me how not voting for Bob Casey in the general election will actually further the real-world manifestation of the progressive positions on these issues even one iota. For example, tell me how will not voting for Senate in November lead to troop withdrawal in Iraq, or how voting for a candidate other than Bob Casey will accomplish this same goal.
If you don’t work for progressive changes, you are not a progressive. I think I am a progressive because I am working with organizations that will help to defeat Santorum and build influential progressive infrastructure that, in the future, will prevent undesirable Democratic candidates from winning Democratic nominations. If even one person can explain to me how not voting and not engaging in progressive activism will somehow further progressive goals, I’d like to hear it. If someone can explain to me how someone can be a progressive simply by believing progressive things and not taking any action, then I will relent. However, until that time, I say that those of you out there who sit out of the political process because you feel supporting either candidate in a given election would violate your beliefs, then I say you are actually violating your beliefs by a far greater degree by sitting out of that election. Not only are you ignoring the important differences that exist between candidates like Bob Casey and Rick Santorum, you are not helping to build the mechanisms through which we will make progressive change in the future. And I want you to tell me how on earth that is the progressive thing to do.
We tried this experiment in Colorado with disastarous results. While a strong Mike Miles supporter in the primary, I held my tongue and worked way beyond my comfort level for Salazar. I chased down K-Mart checkers to register them to vote. I went door to door for the first time in my life- all summer. I pestered people to register, pestered them to vote, and then followed up with those who I didn’t see come into the voting place. All summer long I chanted a soothing mantra about how better Salazar would be than Coors. So in a way, I have some of the responsibility for him being there.
And then, in his first act on the Senate floor, he endorsed a known torture advocate. I am partly responsible for torture. Every time I hear about extraordinary rendition, or catch a gimpse of an Abu Ghraib photo I feel ill. You see, I own part of that filth. I made it possible.
The nightmare continues. Alito, where women became second class citizens. Salazar and Bush together a couple days ago in Golden Colorado. I can’t go down the complete list because I get too ill.
That’s why I can’t do it agin. I have too much to atone for from the last guy.
We shared that experience, and it was for me the final straw.
As for the sanctimonious accusations in the story, the Primary Directive at BT prevents me from responding further.
Peace
That was an excellent explanation of the responsibility we have for our work and the choice to withdraw from participation when that choice is made. Thanks for that comment. You displayed the type of responsibility I would like to see in our elected officials and it’s a rare virtue anywhere these days.
I have been having a difficult time with my own responsibility for putting Salazar in there too…….and strongly dislike being a military family right now too. Still processing all of it and figuring out where I need to go and what I need to do for myself to remain true to myself.
I’m an independent trying to make progress but I have no idea where I fall in the political spectrum. I’m working to make you proud to be a military family again regardless of any other issue.
It means so much more to my husband to do what he can while he is there. He has dedicated over 17 years of his working life to the Army and I know that it is his investment there that energizes him to keep moving forward. It will be the words that I hear from the people that will keep me in the game. This issue really did “burn the house down” two days ago. There has been a Neocon support backlash taking place within the Army and people that crazy with guns just makes me want to get the hell out of there.
Can you tell us more about that resurgence without driving yourself insane?
I will place here but this is my take on it as a civilian spouse. Iraq has not been much of a success and it has worn a lot of the military down, but many stayed in because they are career and they believe in what they do and how they serve. When we reach a bottom there are a couple of different choices we can all make about the reality around us. We could accept responsibility for invading Iraq and accept responsibility for the lives lost there both Iraqi and American and we can work for Peace for all. It would be a self examination of how we got there. Or we could deny that reality and get stuck in or addicted to WAR DOCTRINE. Now we have this dangerous dangerous world around us and every single day we are being spoon fed how so very very dangerous it is and now the China arms build up is in the press too! Some people get addicted to violence and help CoCreate violence so they can have plenty of what they are addicted to. The violence junkies in the military have been rewarded and promoted and were feeling a bit down about Iraq, now the Bush administration and the press have been providing lots and lots to feed their internal monsters though. They are feeling renewed and it doesn’t matter that people die every day in Iraq…..the world is dangerous and violent and they are just staying alive in it along with everybody else. It feels really crazy to me, if I get around too many people who are that emotionally disconnected from the reality around them and they seem to be loose cannons with guns, I tend to feel very unsafe and want to leave immediately. Under the climate that our soldiers are working in everyday I can’t believe that these people will remain safe to go home to their families daily either. They are losing their boundaries pertaining to humane living and it is only a matter of time before they start knocking the crap out of their families.
I’m not familiar enough to know if he can leave temporarily and return in a few years but that seems like something that might help. I know it sounds crazy but are there any special programs in place that would allow it?
I think this is a horse that cannot be saddled. We are in for a bumpy ride in trying to hold together the left. And the fighting Dems being pushed so hard at the orange place isn’t helping.
What we need is straight-talk and a commitment to core principles, and what is being pushed by both Schumer and Kos is ideologically-free mayonaisse sandwich on white bread.
The only way I can see forward is to unite with disgruntled libertarians and centrists in our opposition to corruption, lies, and the abuse of the armed forces and intelligence agencies, while simultaneously struggling for ideologically progressive unity within the party. Candidates like Casey are making life a living hell for those of us that want to win in November.
Why does it seem to be such a bad idea when I suggest those concepts?
However if I listed it all here . . .
BooMan, I agree with you on tactics and strategy, but I’d say every one of us here agrees with Chris’ “List”. So to you, Chris, Matt, Jerome, and any other owner: list it all here. The next time you guys hit the bar for DrinkingLiberally, write it down. Trust me on this, you’ll have no problem editing – your combined audiences will take care of that for you.
If the progressive audience can design a survey, we can sure as hell design a “Statement of Principles”.
Candidates like Casey are making life a living hell for those of us that want to win in November.
We have identified the problem with the pretty horse before he has managed to enter the gate.
What we need is straight-talk and a commitment to core principles, and what is being pushed by both Schumer and Kos is ideologically-free mayonaisse sandwich on white bread.
You forgot Bowers, but I just added him in.
You cut straight to the heart of the matter.
I posted about this below, but here’s what it boils down to:
First, we have candidates who can’t win shoved down our throats…or candidates who, if they do win, will vote like a Republican on most issues.
Second, those candidates either lose (and then it’s the fault of progressive voters who refused to support these Republican wannabes, or didn’t support them with wild-eyed enthusiasm) or else they win and go on to Washington and act like the Republican they just replaced.
Third…repeat for next election. And then it’s the fault of progressives because the Democrats don’t have a majority.
Yeah, right.
How’s it working so far?
I’m certain that Casey will be a very progressive opponent of Roe v Wade and privacy rights , and a very progressive supporter of torture and escalating war in the Middle East.
You forgot that he will be a very progressive Senator who will vote for at least one more Supreme Court vacancy that will occur before 2008.
Yup, it’s worked really well in the past, this “progressive” willingness to hold your nose and vote for the enemy, as long as they’re wearing your teams jerseys.
good luck with it. PA will be stuck w/ an anti-woman misogynist asshole either way … though it will end up being Santorum, as Casey will turn off so many women, so many liberals, that he will never be able to hold off the onslaught of Republican money, Republican dirty tricks and his own inability to articulate ANYTHING worth supporting.
But he’s otherwise ok, right?
I wonder if some history wouldn’t be helpful here.
Didn’t Alice Paul and the National Women’s Party refuse to support President Wilson in his re-election because he wouldn’t support a constitutional amendment giving women the vote?
I don’t think the civil rights organizations of the 50’s and 60’s got much support from the Democrats in their initial efforts. Can’t imagine what would have happened if they had tried to create change by working within the Democratic party.
Doesn’t seem to me that the strategy you are proposing about “hold your nose and vote” has worked much better in our history than it has lately.
Tell me how on earth enabling the current system is a progressive thing to do.
If Democrats had a majority in the Senate, do you think Alito would have even been nominated?
Depends. How many of those Democrats are misogynist lunatics? If Bush thought he had a fillibuster-proof majority of Republicans + Republican-lites like Casey, he’d have had no problem slipping through.
Clarence Thomas.
Biden, even then seriously past what ever prime he may have ever inhabited, was chair of the Judiciary Committee. Jane Mayer has exhaustively documented the wretchd tale of how CT got to the Supreme Crt from a majority Democratic congress.
I swear some people online think irritated former Democrats and angry present day Democrats were born middle of last week.
Oh yeah. Calvinist Reconstructionalist Pervert.
Sorry, should not try to watch Olympics and make reasoned arguments at the same time. :^)
You are right. Crap.
I wouldn’t put it past them, as it would give them the opportunity to show how “fair and balanced” they are, largely in fear of being branded “obstructionists” which presumably would cause them to lose their cushy DC offices and to return to cushy think tank offices.
Bush and Cheney have yet to win a legitimate election but when the Democrats had the power and position, they refused to mount a serious challenge. That is really going to hurt when the virgin voters from 2004 feel so let down that they don’t come back.
As for Bush not nominating Alito? Why wouldn’t he? He knows the MSM is trained to portray every dem strategy in the worst light possible. It’s about controlling the minds of the voters and they are masters at that.
I believe Scalia was both nominated and approved of by Democrats. Anyway, with me it is a matter of thinking conservative dems do a better job of passing the repuke agenda than crazy right wingers like Santorum.
I have health problems and we are enduring a situation in Tennessee where the Democratic Governer back stabbed us worse than any republican could possibly do. He killed Tenncare for thousands of poor people including the mentally ill. If a republican did what he did, they would have been fought by the Democrats. Instead all the Dems supported him. We literally would have been better off with the republican in charge.
plus they want us to vote in a democrat that is just like leiberman. <<<puke>>>>> not me….and I do not think much of my blue dog republican either.
actually I meant to say blue dog democrat, but fraud made me do it…;o)
If Democrats had a majority in the Senate, do you think Alito would have even been nominated?
With Bush as President? yes. Although such questions are, by their very nature, unanswerable and something of a diversion.
What I think is that if the Dem leadership actually succeeds in getting this vile man elected in a state which is majority pro-choice they will regard ‘taking social issues off the table’ as a viable election strategy and in 2 years we’ll see a good many more religious right candidates parading around in Dem uniforms. Thus I would rather see Casey lose.
is to do the same thing over and over again even though the result is always an abysmal failure. Maybe in an insane system, what you’re suggesting is “sane.” To an outside, it just seems nuts. That begs the question of why one would remain in such a system.
I got bruised trying this yesterday, but I lived to fight another day. Jerome’s post at DFA today was inspiring as well, so I am ready to keep on hammering at the gate. We are already partly in the loop in our area. We hold several offices in the county party.
I am going to keep fighting to change the party. I think it is very wrong to leave it now to go to the nothingness out there.
Governor Dean right after he dropped out of the race said something interesting at Dartmouth while he was a visiting fellow there. He called the Democratic Party an “amalgam of nothingness.”
Then he decided to run for chair to change that. I am on board with that. I will fight hard to get the primary candidates I like.
I’m so glad to see you here baby! I don’t pretend to know any simple answer other than I have to be true to me and I will respect that in others. We are going to fight right now it seems because it is the Primaries in more ways than just one. Democracy is going to get a little bloody one way or the other.
I believe if a woman votes for Bob Casey she votes against her autonomy.
I refuse to do so.
The democratic party needs to be very careful about what it defines as core values. But perhaps more importantly, the party needs to be very careful about which core values it is willing to toss aside in a race, as is the case in the Casey candidacy.
If you do want my vote then proper candidates must compete in the contests.
I urge every woman in this country, Democrat or Republican, who believes in her autonomy to cease voting for all anti-choice candidates regardless of party. Do so beginning now, in 2006.
The problem with this thinking is that it defies basic psychology – either that or it doesn’t look at the whole problem. The problem is that DC insiders are clearing the primary field on behalf of candidates whom large swaths of Party loyalists cannot abide. They continue to do this because they realize that the Party loyalists will religiously fall in line to vote for this lizard in order to keep that lizard out of office – the option to not support a lizard is never presented.
If you stop and think about it, what exactly is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican these days? Republicans say that we should rape Iraq with a 10-foot dildo while Democrats demure that 6-inches is plenty long enough. Republicans long for the second-coming of the Roman empire while Democrats support a kinder, gentler imperialism. Republicans support corporate welfare and so do Democrats. On too many fundamental issues the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is the difference between an alligator and a crocodile.
We need a super-sized lizard-ectomy.
The way we begin this process is with basic psychology – present a consequence for bad behavior. Squash a primary? Bad lizard! No support from the base for you! Vote for cloture in the Scalito battle? Bad lizard! No support from the base for you! Vote for cloture in the Patriot Act battle? Bad lizard! No support from the base for you!
Get the idea?
There’s an old saying: elections have consequences. The same must be true for lizards masquerading as public servants – bad behavior must have consequences. Otherwise, much like the bratty kid who pulls his mother around the store screaming about what he wants and what she has to buy him and what she better do, the tail will continue to wag the dog; the lizards will continue to rule the people.
Absolutely agree, Oscar. You do not end undesireable behavior by rewarding it. The DC Dems have not done much to protect the citizens. With their “hand-picked” candidates running in so many primaries I would expect things to continue not-happening just as they have. I do not like what I have had from them, so why would I want more of the same? Kerry was my last fear-of-the-Republicans vote. There won’t be another. I will vote for candidates whose first concern is the people they represent, not “winning” and not “my party”. Right now the Dems are to me like a serially-cheating husband who swears he’ll do better if you’ll only take him back. Every time the Dems manage to shove one more DINO down our throats they become more complacent and less likely to change.
What really astounds me is how those who believe as this diarist does, can possible NOT understand that coming at the rest of us with this kind of arrogant, accusatory, condescending tone is guarenteed to fail.
First you tell us how grandly progressive YOU are. (according of course, to your definition of a progressive) Then you let us know that if we don’t do as YOU do, we aren’t progressive at all.
Brag, judge, condemn, THEN expeet us to join you your point of view? How progressive and enlightened is that communication style?
If I lived in Pennsylvania, I’d be sick and tired of hearing about how I should vote for Casey. I don’t even live there, and I’m sick of it!
I read MyDD every day; it’s one of my favorite blogs. In this case, however, I wish all of the “progressive” bloggers out there would stop telling us how we have to vote for Casey in PA, Brown in OH, or Tammy Duckworth in IL (I’m assuming she’s still around.). Casey has a primary opponent, so does Duckworth. Brown…well, we all know what happened there (I’m sure Brown will be a fine Senator, but I’m rather bitter at the moment.). We need to be supporting primary opponents running against these … what to call them … institutional candidates.
I think part of the problem here might be that different groups have different ends. Some people want Democratic control of Congress. That’s perfectly fine, but other people want more — to paraphrase Howard Dean, they want their party back. Therein lies the rub (more like a prickly chafe really). People who want to change the party understand that Casey isn’t a path to a new party — he’s more of the same. People who want power for Dems see that, yeah, he’s not perfect, but he’s one of us. I think that whether or not one is willing to vote for Casey depends on what your goals are.
I don’t know the answer for people in PA, aside from hoping that Casey isn’t the nominee. I do know that I’ve reached the point that I don’t want to vote for anyone who has the support of the DCCC or the DSCC. The candidates they run are too bland, non-threatening, and focus-group tested to make anyone want to vote for them. New year, more of the same losing strategy.
But, even losing keeps the people in safe seats in power, and I think that’s all they really care about. If they wanted to grow the party, they could certainly do more than look for name recognition or a sad biography. The could do a LOT more, but they won’t. Doing so would challenge their own power, and that’s more than they can take.
Lots of people voted for Bush, not because they liked him, but because he had the power of his convictions (no matter how evil, stupid, and misguided). Maybe it’s time the Democrats got some convictions and started supporting candidates who have them too.
As an aside, I’ve thought for years that moderate Republicans and the true Conservatives ought to either sit out an election or hold their noses and vote Dem — just once. My thought was that a good stern loss would yank the party back toward the center. I just realized that Democratic voters have been doing that for years, and it hasn’t worked. We need a new party.
This is a classic, and one I’m saving to my folder of diaries I want to keep at hand.
If you need ANY proof of the destructive result of “my way or the highway,” look at Geov Parrish’s story about Gov. Christine Gregoire in Washington state.
The longtime state attorney general was a shoo-in for the nomination in 2004 but alot of “progressive” Democrats wanted to run others, so they did. Their candidates lost badly to Gregoire in the primary, butthey saw all kinds of problems with Gregoire, and were pissed off at the state party for not promoting their preferences. They stood out her campaign. She was also supposed to be a shoo-in to win the governorship. This is a Democratic state. But the GOP ran an attractive candidate for the first time in a long time.
And the “progressive” Dems were still so pissed, they didn’t lift a finger for Gregoire. (If you ask them, they’ll tell you that Gregoire’s people ran a bad campaign. That’s the stock answer to all questions about Gregoire’s difficulties in winning.)
The huge recount debacle ensued and in the worst place possible: Liberal King County, which the rest of the state either hates or resents.
Fast forward: Most amazingly, Christine Gregoire has flown out of the gate and become the most outstanding, active, responsive governor we could ever wish for. But her polls are low, low, low.
One reason? Oh, don’t just blame the still-furious GOP that claims the election was stolen. She still gets almost zero support from the “progressive” Democrats. I wonder if they’ll even show up for her 2008 reelection campaign, or if they’ll more likely find some obscure third-party type to run against her.
How self-defeating.
It’s an inescapable fact that we are a community. If each of us got what we wanted, we’d each require our own sovereign states.
The fight goes on. I’m glad i belong to Democracy for Washington because THEY are sending me the info I need for the upcoming caucuses, which our local county chair — which has a mailing list — has not bothered to let us know about. (They probably have memories of us upstarts showing up at the 2004 caucuses and causing trouble.)
We need to stay in the thick of things to protect our aspirations, and to slowly move the Dems towards the progressive ideals we generally share.
Sorry, Susan, that’s total bullshit. Progressives want a very simple and succinct list of things from a candidate. We’ve seen over and over what happens when we work for and vote for candidates that don’t pass an ideological litmus test. They lose to Republicans or, if they win, they vote with the Republicans. The problem isn’t when progressive candidates lose in primaries. The problem is when the party anoints a chosen candidate – Kerry, Gregoire, or Casey – and then starts stabbing the others in the back or pretending they don’t exist.
You want to know how the religious right, a tiny group of voters with next to no political power in the 1970s had siezed near-total control of the Republican party by the early 1990s?
They refused to support candidates they didn’t like. They didn’t work for them, they didn’t vote for them, they didn’t donate to them. So the Republican candidates that aligned themselves with the religious right won more often than the ones that didn’t, and took total control of the party over a span of about ten years.
You’re proposing that we do the same thing as the “soft” conservatives did – support any candidate from the right party. Seeing as the religious right has recently started a similar attack on the Democrats through groups like the DFL… This is a supremely stupid move, and will only result in progressives losing any power. We won’t slowly take control of the party by doing this. We’ll slowly lose control of the party, as we have over the past two decades or so.
Then again, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, when we consider the big names in the blogsphere that’re pushing it. Most of them would be more comfortable working for the other side, but they prefer to be called “Democrats”.
Well, it’s not quite all bullshit … although I’ve dished my share in my life like everybody else.
We had no clue that Christine Gregoire would turn out to be such an outstanding governor. Thank god the “alternate” candidates lost in the primary. Thank god she finally — with the help of a conservative judge — won the governorship.
She’s amazing.
So, that teaches me something. I’d assumed, like most progressive Dems, that she’d be another ho-hum governor just like (yawners) Gary Locke.
I was wrong. I like being wrong sometimes. It’s a learning experience. Sometimes the party powerful do do the right thing.
But I wonder if a single progressive Dem will ever concede that point.
(It goes both ways.)
Yeah, but here’s the thing… Because they were pushed out during the primary by party wheeling-and-dealing, we don’t know how the progressive candidates would’ve fared as governor. We don’t even know how well they’d’ve done in the general. Thus, saying “the party was right to backstab the progressive candidates” because “Gregoire is a wonderful governor” is totally bogus. Especially since such party machinations have historically landed us with horrible candidates like Casey or Kerry. If the party hadn’t started laying about with its elbows, who knows? One of the progressive candidates might’ve gotten an unassailable margin of victory. Since Christine is almost certainly going to get replaced by a Republican in 2008, maybe she wasn’t such a good candidate after all…
The bottom line is this: the party must remain neutral in the primary process. If there was a fair primary process, progressives would be much more inclined to support (or at least, not actively oppose) the eventual winner.
I don’t know what happened in Washington’s primaries but your last point is so true. If Bob Casey won the nomination in a contested primary against a progressive that had money and the party kept impartial, most progressives would accept that as the will of the people/party and vote for Casey.
It is the clearing of the field that is causing the most consternation, and that is what needs to be stopped. If the Democrats want centrists and pro-life candidates then fine. I don’t think they do.
That’s what I’ve been trying to say, though it got kind of muddled. Progressives aren’t upset that progressive candidates aren’t winning primaries. While we wouldn’t all vote for candidates like Casey even if they won an open primary, most people probably wouldn’t work against him (IE, badmouth him to friends and colleages) without the field-clearing.
If he could win without the field-clearing. Big if there.
Here’s my issue with Wash. state: It was a fair, contested primary. But several who’d supported the other primary candidates were still bitter, and wouldn’t pitch in for Gregoire. That’s questional sportsmanship, imho.
(And everybody had known for years and years that Gregoire planned to run for governor when Gary Locke was done. And so those who preferred other choices for governor had years to promote their own choices. It wasn’t like the state Dem elite foisted her on us as with your terrible Casey situation.)
Oh, you’re right … it was an anomaly, to be sure.
I just found it an interesting turn of events that’s worthy of discourse.
btw, it’s highly doubtful the other two could have beaten Rossi, the GOP candidate, but they’d have been FINE candidates.
No one, best I know, undermined the other two primary candidates’ campaigns. They just lost.
And the Gregoire situation is entirely different from Casey/Pennacchio.
It has kind of blown my mind that, during the primaries and general, I was like so ho-hum about Gregoire, and thought she’d be mediocre at best. She’s really surprised me. And I’m GLAD! (Even if she wasn’t my favorite, I’m just thrilled she’s doing a great job. That won’t happen with Casey, but that also doesn’t mean it can’t happen elsewhere.)
I’ll bet if you hadn’t been ho hum about her, she would have been just as mediocre as you thought. Her squeeker with the progressives forced her to pay attention to them. They know this so they are still ho hum.
She wasn’t in a squeaker in the primary. She won easily although the other candidates had as much time and ability to mount a campaign as she.
Than why are you holding a grudge against those who opposed her?
The longtime state attorney general was a shoo-in for the nomination in 2004 but alot of “progressive” Democrats wanted to run others, so they did. Their candidates lost badly to Gregoire in the primary, butthey saw all kinds of problems with Gregoire, and were pissed off at the state party for not promoting their preferences. They stood out her campaign. She was also supposed to be a shoo-in to win the governorship. This is a Democratic state.
Were you at the same election I was? Three people ran and the best one, Talmage, dropped out for health reasons before there was an opportunity to vote for him in the primary. Thus voters had the choice between Sims and Gregoire, two DLC Democrats, both shitty candidates. Gregoire ran an exceptionally bad campaign and the reason she almost lost was because she was tied in the voter’s minds with Gary Locke’s administration and Locke (likewise a DLC Democrat) was a terrible governor, particularly in his last term.
Your understanding of the latest WA governor’s race reminds me of the explaination of why Grey Davis lost in CA (his loss was likewise blamed on ‘liberals’ despite the fact that the exit polls demonstrated that self described liberals voted for him in greater numbers than any other group. May I suggest that any analysis that lays primary responsibility on the activists and voters rather than candidates and strategists isn’t particularly constructive and that this is particularly true in a State where party affiliation is, at best, weak?
Also, do yu have any idea why the Bradley and Olin Foundations would be funding the DLC? It’s a particularly important question for WA state where we have the most regressive tax structure in the country.
Nice analysis of local (Washington state) politics.
I agree with your analysis of California’s politics, as well.
Progressives are the whipping boys of the Republican Party.
And progressives are the whipping boys of the Democratic Party, too.
People have done that in history, such as FDR, as Captain Future pointed out. I think we should try to encourage that — at least that seems to be my only practical course of action with my conservative Dem senators in Arkansas. I even keep in touch with my “Blue dog” Dem rep.
It’s not that I expect them to change. But a friend who used to work for a congressman told me they kept a count of calls. I am only one voice, but my state is more purple than red, so I will continue to add my voice. On some issues, maybe there will be enough of us to make them think.
We all change over time, especially as we live through the change going on around us and as we obtain information. People change. I’ll never give up on that, and I will probably never shut up.
I have every confidence that if it comes to anyone getting re-elected, they’ll change.
Okay, if even one person can explain to me how <s>not voting</s> and not engaging in <s>progressive activism</s> maintaining the status quo will somehow further progressive goals, I’d like to hear it.
How is it that progressives can be so damned fundamentalist, so binary, so on/off, all or nothing, with us or against us? Nothin’ but straw, man, and borrowed straw at that. NOBODY is talking about action vs. inaction so let’s can that canard right now.
Let’s move forward with a simple definition, shall we?
Main Entry: pro·gres·sive
Pronunciation: pr&-‘gre-siv
Function: adjective
1 a : of, relating to, or characterized by progress b : making use of or interested in new ideas, findings, or opportunities
2 : of, relating to, or characterized by progression
3 : moving forward or onward : ADVANCING
Such fundamentalist “get with the program” arguments couched as “progressive action” is an offense to every true progressive movement throughout history. That’s right – progressives acted despite political power brokers to bring real change on everything from labor to civil rights. That’s true activism, real change, real progressive values in action.
Continuing to support party king-makers and their merry band of so-called moderates is not progressive nor democratic nor activism. Continuing to frame false fundemantalist arguments as somehow progressive or activist is downright dishonest and dangerous.
What a crock! So your position is, just STFU and vote for the DINO. Good plan.
Yes, I waded through the entirety of Mr. Bowers’ long-winded post.
It is pure bullshit.
Allow me to boil it down to its essence:
Step One: The Democratic Party establishment has knocked progressive candidates out of primary races (as they did with Paul Hackett in Ohio) so that they can shove “centrist” Democrats (DINOs, or Democrats In Name Only) down our throats.
Step Two: The Republican-lite DINOs lose the general election because the Republican candidates fire up their base (which is CRUCIAL for a midterm congressional election, where voter turnout is historicaly low) while the DINO candidates fail to turn out the Democratic base. When given a choice between a Democrat who will support Bush’s policies and a Republican who will support Bush’s policies, people vote for the Republican–or don’t vote at all.
Step Three: People like Chris Bowers, Jerome Armstrong, Markos Moulitsas (aka Kos), et al, then blame the progressive voters for the failure of their “centrist” candidates.
It’s not their fault they drove the car off the cliff (again and again and again)…it’s OUR fault for not offering to chip in for gas.
I’ve seen this movie before, and I don’t want to sit through to the ending.
just one correction. Paul Hackett is less progressive than Sherrod Brown. Sherrod Brown is a member of the Progressive Caucus and he is probably one of the three most progressive white congresspeople.
Paul Hackett was a fighting Dem, and I don’t know but would be pretty surprised if he would have joined the progressive causus or have been remotely progressive.
And I like Paul Hackett a lot and I think he is a very attractive candidate and I hope he makes it to Washington someday to represent the people of Ohio. I’m not dissing Hackett. But it does change the narrative from the one in Pennsylvania.
But again, the narrative should be party neutrality in primaries. The party throwing its weight around cost the Democrats the 2004 presidential election, and may cost them a PA senate seat in 2006.
I agree. As I said elsewhere in this thread the Democratic Big Whigs are making it a living hell for the Democratic activists and the playing around with primaries is more harmful than the actual candidates they are pushing.
No one is thrilled about Casey except a very few who still think his polling numbers are reflective of Casey’s appeal rather than Santorum’s lack of appeal.
Chris layed out in another article just how good things look for Casey. And the numbers look outstanding. So, there is a certain glee at the prospect of seeing Santorum jobless, where he can join Frist and DeLay (hopefully). That’s a nice hat trick, you’d have to admit.
And Chris, who is suppoting Pennacchio, is optimistic that Casey will win based on the numbers, not the man, and not the policies. Just the numbers.
I am beginning to see a certain disconnect and I having trouble articulating it. Part of it is that people react to Chris and sometimes to me as though we are all in agreement with Markos over strategy. It is stunning to see Chris attacked in this way because I know him personally and it just doesn’t make any sense to me.
But I think it comes down to this. Chris and I, I think, just have a really different way of self-relating to the party. I don’t think we see the party as something outside of us on the exterior that we can point to and criticize. I think we see the party around us in the people that we work with and drink with and socialize with. Chris is so immersed in changing the party here in Philadelphia and so dedicated to improving the party that it is hard for him to relate to someone who has decided ‘fuck it’ the party screwed me and I am not having any part of it anymore.
I know I feel that way. Schumer has enraged me and I written about it over and over. But ultimately I have bigger fish to fry than to get bogged down over a mistake that took place over a year ago.
I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. And I know Chris is getting very frustrated. I am getting frustrated. But we’ve got to keep pushing through.
I have a simple response to your diary.
You, and others like you, ARE the problem.
This is the same line of bullshit David Horowitz used to peddle when he was a Left-Wing Stalinist loon before he morphed into a Right-Wing Fascist loon. (Yeah, I go back that far) including the ‘More Progressive Than Thou’ list.
I’ve heard and watched it go down all before. Guess What?
It didn’t work.
It didn’t work in the 1950’s when Progressives were told to sit down, shut up, and follow orders so Communism could be contained. It barely worked in the 1930’s when Progressives actually did have some power in Washington.
It didn’t work in the 1920’s when the radical unions: IWW and WFM were destroyed, the FBI and Red Squads were institutionized, and hundreds of people were exiled. It didn’t work in 1910’s when we “Had to Stop the Kaiser.”
What we should learn from this is: if you elect a half-ass, mealy mouthed, sell-out spineless candidate you get a half-assed, mealy mouthed, spineless sell-out incumbent. This ain’t rocket science, folks. Even the Right-wingnuts have figgered this one out.
But I’m willing to be convinced otherwise.
So, Mr. Bowers, when did your strategy work? When did a half-a-loaf, if that, candidate magically transform into a full-loaf incumbent once they parked their butt in DC?
FDR
I see the dKos style of debate has made its way over here, now. So, in your chosen argumentative style I reply:
piffle.
Very interesting and passionate debate, although I could have done without personal insults to Chris Bowers, who I don’t know but by all evidence lives out his committments admirably.
If you try to look at it all objectively, it comes down to individual times and cases, because historically a strong progressive or radical left helps bring the centrist or establishment Democrats to more progressive positions and policies, both to appeal to that left and to scare the establishment Right with the spectre of its influence growing.
And people can surprise you when they get into office. FDR is the classic example. His core values were always there, but his campaign positions didn’t signal what he would do in office. He was elected to change things and make them better. Except in a very broad sense he wasn’t elected as a progressive, except in contrast to Hoover.
So I guess I come to the unpopular-by-definition view that progressives willing to work within the party and progressives threatening to abandon the party are both necessary.
I do think the Democrats have to earn their votes this time. The primaries are the time to go all out to do that. After that, the debate will continue.
I do feel however that the argument stops at the presidential level in the general election. Then you have two choices, you have to hire one, and the decision has proven to be crucial. I do not for a moment doubt that this would be a far better country with Al Gore as President (despite many on the left proclaiming in 2000 that there was no difference between Gush and Bore), and I have no doubt this country would be getting better rather than apidly deteriorating if John Kerry were President. “We have not found angels in the forms of men” has lots of real world application.
As for imitating how the hard right gained power, there are lessons, but demanding litmus tests is not one of them, especially in general elections (although of course strong matters of conscience must always be respected), because progressives will never agree on what issues should be on the test, and in what order. The hard right has one ideology, unmolested by contact with reality. No progressive agenda is ever going to be like that.
Where we can learn from them is in funding and supporting organizations that incubate ideas and groom candidates and activists, which the hard right still does so much better than progressives. American Progress is a good start, but much more outreach and active engagement with young people and with the tremendous resource of retiring baby boomers needs to be done. Out of such efforts could perhaps come politically effective networks, and a set of fully articulated ideas we could all support, though nobody is going to satisfy everyone with every policy.
I really don’t care what you believe. I will not vote for Bob Casey! This is about party leaders who do not believe voters are entitled to an open primary and don’t believe we are entitled to progressive candidates. If Santorum is re-elected they have no one but themselves to blame. Shame on you for focusing your ire on people like me instead of at them. There is still time for them to withdraw their endorsement of Casey and to support an open primary. The Lancaster County Democratic Convention rejected endorsing Casey in favor of supporting an open convention yesterday. Good for them. Shame on Governor Rendell who argued the merits of an open primary when he ran for governor against Bob Basey and today is trying to crown Casey his party nominee over the objection of progressive voters.
and impassioned diary, though more than a bit insulting (do you understand that?), but I have to say I think you’re wasting your time.
If you want to defeat Santorum, you should follow the lead of your party powers and start chasing the votes of that huge mass of conservative PA voters who are yearning to vote for a Dem IF ONLY…, instead of appeal after appeal to the liberal voters who tend to post here and on your own blog.
Quit going to Drinking Liberally in Philly and start heading out to the VFWs and Elks Lodges in the hinterlands. Because that is where the Casey campaign will be fought. I think you might find the facts on the ground a wee bit different here in the T than they are in Philly.
Hell, don’t even bother with the T. Stick to the Philly suburban ring. Why do you think they went for Rendell and do you think that they will have the same reasons for voting for Casey? I don’t. You will need an entirely different mindset to campaign for Casey. Best to start honing your arguments now, IMO, so you can learn to control your gag reflex.