I know that people are extremely frustrated about the Democratic fold over the Iraq war supplemental. I had to pretty much take the weekend off and do other things. But I am somewhat mystified about how many progressives respond to such setbacks by threatening to fold up their tents and go home, or to pursue some quixotic and ineffectual third-party strategy.
Progressives have been beaten so far back and pushed so far down since the election of 1980 that we barely exist anymore in the national power structure. It’s true that the Progressive Caucus is the biggest caucus in the House, but it is made up almost exclusively of urban Democrats from extremely safe districts. They don’t have to win state-wide races. There are too few progressives in the Senate to even make up a caucus. They have a little kiddie table off to the side and they hope, one day, to get taken seriously.
We had three main goals in the 2006 midterm elections. The first was to win Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. That was accomplished (with no seats to spare).
The second was to move the party to the left and to get them to end the war. This goal was related to the first. We not only had to move the party to the left, we had to empower them to have the tools to end the war. In the latter, we largely failed, which had an adverse affect on the former.
The third goal, which was related to the second, was to punish the more appeasing members of the Democratic Party. We did that by defeating Henry Cuellar in Texas, kicking Lieberman out of the party, and scaring Jane Harman of California with a strong primary challenge.
The netroots, however, had a fourth goal, and that was to prove that progressivism (or, at least, populism) is back, and that it is viable in conservative districts and in red and purple state-wide elections. In this goal we were partially successful. We got started late and did not have much of a say in who our candidates would be. There were a few exceptions, here and there, and netroots candidates like Jerry McNerney, Jim Webb, and Jon Tester went on to win, even though Schumer and Emanuel had wanted different people for those races. On the whole, though, we won quite a few conservative seats with a good government, anti-war, populist message.
Even before the midterms, I advocated funding our candidates directly, through outfits like ActBlue, rather than funding Schumer’s DSCC or Emanuel’s DCCC. I didn’t, and don’t, have any problem funding the DNC as long as Howard Dean is there and pursuing the 50-State Strategy. But there is no reason to fund Schumer and Emanuel when we can exercise our own judgment and push progressive candidates when they offer us pro-lifers and corporatists. And that is what they gave us in the last election. They did recruit some progressives, but for every Sherrod Brown they selected, they gave us a Harold Ford.
To take a measure of our success, it pays to look at how the vote over the McGovern Amendment shook out among freshman Democrats:
FRESHMAN DEMOCRATS WHO OPPOSED THE McGOVERN AMENDMENT:
2006 % Bush '04% * Jason Altmire (Pa.) 52 54 * Nancy E. Boyda (Kansas) 51 59 * Christopher P. Carney (Pa.) 53 60 * Joe Donnelly (Ind.) 54 56 * Brad Ellsworth (Ind.) 61 62 * Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.) 54 53 * Baron Hill (Ind.) 50 59 * Nick Lampson (Texas) 52 64 * Tim Mahoney (Fla.) 50 54 * Jerry McNerney (Calif.) 53 54 * Harry E. Mitchell (Ariz.) 50 54 * Ciro Rodriguez (Texas) 54 57 * Heath Shuler (N.C.) 54 57 * Zachary T. Space (Ohio) 62 57 * Charles A. Wilson (Ohio) 62 51TARGETED FRESHMEN DEMOCRATS WHO SUPPORTED McGOVERN:
2006 % Bush '04 %
* Michael Arcuri (N.Y.) 54 53
* Joe Courtney (Conn.) 50 44
* Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) 53 54
* John Hall (N.Y.) 51 54
* Steve Kagen (Wisc.) 51 55
* Ron Klein (Fla.) 51 48
* Dave Loebsack (Iowa) 51 44
* Patrick Murphy (Penn.) 50 48
* Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.) 51 51
* Tim Walz (Minn.) 53 51
* John Yarmuth (Ky.) 51 49
Gillebrand, Kagan, and Walz all flip-flopped when it came time to vote on the supplemental, but this chart gives us a good sense of where the members stand on ending the war because it didn't include a minimum wage hike, Katrina aid, or other goodies that might have influenced members.
As you can see, most Freshmen were voting their districts on the McGovern Amendment, and we lost a few more in the final vote.
Among those that opposed the McGovern Amendment were our scandal candidates: Chris Carney (Sherwood, mistress strangling), Tim Mahoney (Foley page scandal), Zach Space (Ney Coingate/Abramoff scandal), Harry Mitchell (J.D. Hayworth ties to Abramoff), Nick Lampson (Tom DeLay's indictment) and Jerry McNerney (Richard Pombo, Abramoff scandal). These are our most vulnerable seats, and we wouldn't have any of them if the incumbents had not been crooks.
But, our problem was not really in the House, which passed a bill to phase down the war, then had a majority of Dems vote against funding the war without timetables.
Our problems are in the Senate, and there is not much we can do about that in this election cycle except increase our caucus to up over 60, where no filibuster can be invoked by the Republicans, and where veto overrides become more plausible.
We might plausibly exert some pressure by running primaries against Mark Pryor and Max Baucus, or even Frank Lautenberg, but we won't be knocking any of our incumbents out. The best we can do is to knock more Republicans out, like Pajama Pete Domenici, John Sununu, Gordon Smith, Susan Collins, Liddy Dole, and Norm Coleman. And with the exception of the seat in Maine, we can have some influence over the Democratic primaries for these seats. That is why I have been writing so much about the recruitment process for the Senate.
We do have the opportunity to elect some fairly progressive senators. Al Franken in Minnesota, Steve Marchand in New Hampshire, Alan Bates or Steve Novick in Oregon, Brad Miller in North Carolina, and Mark Udall in Colorado come to mind. All of them would occupy the most liberal third of the Democratic caucus, if they were to be elected.
There is much constructive work for us to do. It's not time to take our ball and go home. But, if you need to take a break from activism and recharge your batteries for the next fight, that might be the better course than becoming bitter or discouraged.
