Election Day is a year away and the Democrats don’t yet have a presidential nominee, but for labor activists, environmentalists, pro-choice advocates and other progressives, the battle for the White House is well under way. About a dozen groups—backed by the likes of Emily’s List, the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club and MoveOn.org—are quietly building an infrastructure to undertake the most extensive… return to article
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Reader Comments (27)Page 1 of 1 pagesWhat a brilliant idea, going to the grassroots. How about some links where we can find out where to sign up?
Posted by Nora on Dec 10, 2003 at 12:27 AM This is awesome.. By going out to talk but even more important, listening to what people have to say in their own neighborhoods. This will truly make a difference..
Posted by Jackie on Dec 10, 2003 at 1:19 AM This is a great article—reminds me of what Robert Putnam (in Bowling Alone) was talking about with regards to the progressive movement getting mobilized in the early 20th Century after years of abuses by business and the years prior.
Posted by brian on Dec 10, 2003 at 1:46 AM They got the guns, but
We’ve got the numbers.
Gonna win, yeah, we’re
Takin’ over!
Posted by zeno on Dec 10, 2003 at 2:21 AM Don’t come knocking on my door. I’d rather deal with the Jehovah’s Witnesses than have some guilt-stricken egghead come to my house and tell me I need to atone for the sins of the white man and give more money to the government. No thanks.
Posted by Stanley on Dec 10, 2003 at 8:44 AM That’s funny, Neil. I get it…anyone who doesn’t agree with this magazine’s politics is a hateful racist. That’s another great way to drum up support for liberals—go around telling everyone who won’t support you candidates that they might at well join the Klan.
Good luck on “educating” those poor, misguided conservatives who just don’t know any better. Talking down to people and telling them what’s right and what’s wrong is a great way to change their minds.
Posted by Stanley on Dec 10, 2003 at 7:11 PM This is how we are going to defeat George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, leaders of the most corrupt Administration in American history, in 2004!
Most Americans support Democratic positions, not Republican. The problem is that many latent Democrats don’t vote!
After all, how many people do you know who support dirtier water and dirtier air? I think 80% or more of the public would say they are willing to pay more in taxes if they were assured of cleaner air and water. Same thing for education. Who isn’t for better schools (other than curmudgeons with no children)? Ditto for less money for the Pentagon, more international cooperation and national health insurance. The Republicans are on the wrong side of almost every issue. We just need to frame the issues properly and stay on message.
The problem is they have a bigger, more well-funded propaganda machine…..
Posted by Stephen Kriz on Dec 10, 2003 at 7:23 PM “Service Employees International Union Local 1199 in New York announced that it would pay the salaries of 1,000 union workers to take a full yearís leave from their jobs and spend the time canvassing in battleground states”- unbelievable.
Posted by MT on Dec 10, 2003 at 10:34 PM Democrats should decide on a candidate as soon as possible. Name recognition is vital to electoral success. The longer the candidate has time to establish himself in the public mind, the more likely voters will be to take him seriously as an alternative to Bush.
Posted by James Paterson on Dec 11, 2003 at 12:48 AM Hope it works.Reading stanleys reply reminds me that most people think in simplistic terms. He says he’s uptight about how much money the gummint sucks up, and i guess he’s pissed off about how little there is to show for it. Hope you all have a good explanation of what your goals and reasons for soliciting voters are. He’s right about the response he got here. Listen Stanley, the bushies are dangerous rip offs, no bs, 4 more years of those criminals will finish off the USA as you and I know it. Sorry I can’t go into more detail but I’m a two finger typer and I gotta go to work. Good luck to you all,JS
Posted by JS on Dec 11, 2003 at 1:31 AM Does one of these groups have a
website to put individuals in touch
with this work going on where they
live?
Posted by Leonore Johnson on Dec 11, 2003 at 3:43 AM Thanks JS, your liberal condescension and Stephen Kriz’s gross exaggeration have changed my mind. I don’t know why more people don’t take “progressives seriously” when they say things like “the Bush Administration is the most crooked adminstration in American history” (did you forget about Lyndon Johnson? or Grant?) and “if you don’t like the government taking almost half the money you make then you are simple-minded.” As long as you leftists are so sure of your intellectual and moral superiority you’re not going to make much headway with people who don’t already agree with you.
Posted by Stanley on Dec 11, 2003 at 6:25 AM To Leonore,
The following link has MANY other links to organizations that you may want to associate with.
Posted by Lisa on Dec 11, 2003 at 4:52 PM Progressives? Which progressives? The groups you mentioned are just Democratic Party loyalists, and we all know how progressive that bunch is. Most of the groups you mentioned supported Al Gore, the DLC version of Bush Light even then. (Think about issues like the death penalty, NAFTA/WTO, the drug war, corporate crime and K Street influence peddling, welfare “reform,” factory farms and GMOs, increased military spending, as well as his opposition to national health insurance and rather dubious lip service on women’s rights and abortion, for example.) Today there are only three progressives in the Democratic field: Kucinich, Moseley-Braun and Sharpton. With the possible exception of Dean, the rest are part of the same old rightward-leaning DLC crowd, pretending to be populists. Even the “liberal” Dr. Dean’s positions on the issues mentioned above resemble those of many moderate Republicans and their DLC counterparts. So what are these “progressive” groups going to do when the real progressive candidates fail to gain the nomination? Switch their support to a genuine progressive who shares their values, but might not be a Democrat? Of course not. They will get into lock step behind Bush Light and try to convince the nation that a Democrat who acts like a Republican is better than the real thing. They might even have a point there, but to call people “progressives” when they have such “flexible” values is to completely distort the meaning of the term and make it meaningless. One might just as well call a fish a cow. To borrow a phrase from an editorial in the Madison Capital Times (referring to the San Francisco mayoral election) theirs will be a triumph—if there is one—of “partisanship over progressivism.” Of course these groups don’t want real change, they just want a “kinder, gentler” version of the status quo.
Posted by David Skaugerud on Dec 11, 2003 at 10:44 PM How impressive. I would have dropped a certain 2 cents here, but David Skaugerud put in a good $1.50 for me.
I’ve always remembered the intrinsic truth of a statement once made by Jello Biafra that America “is a one party state masquerading as a two-party state.” What a farce. I for one will never ever settle for a “kinder, gentler status-quo” as Mr. Skaugerud phrased so succinctly. I am one of those thousands disillusioned by the piss-poor excuse for a “democracy” called the US Electoral College. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to vote. (My poll station is in a church for crying out loud!) The 2000 Presidential “Election” was an embarrassment to all of America. Richard Nixon was embarrassed once, but HE got caught! He might have tried his stunt in a state controlled by his own people & governed by his brother! I’ll vote, but I’ll still assume the same kind of thing will be attempted again in 2004. I don’t care who the Democrats nominate, because I know it won’t be anyone truly “progressive” (a term being deliberately cheapened by the elilte media). I know it won’t be anyone female or African or Latino (except for MAYBE as a Vice President pick) for at least another 20 years…unfortunately. (I hope I’m wrong on this point, but fear I’m spot-on.)
As for the conservatives who truly have real conservative values, most of them don’t realize they are being cheated by the corporate administration currently in control of the government.
As for people like Stanley, (and a guy named Ty, or posing as Ty…)they are in blind denial of having closed minds. They will refuse to think. They will refuse to change, and we should not waste too much time or energy on them. Besides, don’t they have elite media to ignore and insult the rest of us?
(P.S. to Leonore Johnson: good luck in Toledo! As my hometown, I know how repressed the minds there are!)
Posted by B.Siefke on Dec 12, 2003 at 6:32 AM I sent this to all my Howard Dean contacts. Thanks!
Posted by Joanne Russ on Dec 12, 2003 at 8:29 PM Stan,
I canvassed for 3 years, doing organizing and fundraising for SANE/Freeze (now called Peace Action). Any canvasser knows that you don’t change anyone’s mind at the door—what kind of idiot with real political commitments will change them cause I stop by and chat for 5 minutes with them? No decent canvasser from one of these 527s will want to spend time with you—you want different things out of politics, that’s fine, we shouldn’t waste each other’s time.
Canvassing is a mobilization tool—you find people who SAY they share your goals but aren’t doing anything about it, provide them with an opportunity to act and get them to do it. Canvassers are not missionaries, and any canvasser who thinks she can “convert” people at the door will fail. If these 527s know what they’re doing, they won’t be looking for conservatives, but for inactive progressives.
Posted by Nick on Dec 12, 2003 at 10:43 PM Excellent Article! It has energized me and given me hope that we can win this election and turn Bush out of office.
Posted by David R. Kendall on Dec 12, 2003 at 11:11 PM Some people upthread were wanting links for these groups. Here are a few:
http://www.americacomingtogether.com/
http://www.americavotes.org/index.cfm
http://www.environment2004.org/
http://www.newvotersproject.org/
http://www.partnershipforamericasfamilies.org/
http://www.voicesforworkingfamilies.org/
Posted by Matt on Dec 13, 2003 at 5:06 AM The grassroots have always been a strong backbone of the progressives in the Democratic Party. I’m glad that people are finally getting back on their feet and making a difference.
Also, If the RNC thinks 527’s are in violation of campaign finance law, they are twisting the law. The law limits contributions to cantidates, and limits spending by outside groups on behalf of a cantidate. If they want to change the law, they can try, but perhaps there might be a lot of… dare I say… grassroots(!) opposition?
I support all of the people who are willing to give up their time to support their cause. Bravissimo. Keep making a difference.
Posted by Mark on Dec 13, 2003 at 7:14 AM You forgot the youth! There must be millions of young voters who are not registered.
Posted by David Smith on Dec 16, 2003 at 3:32 AM I am as energized as I have ever been in politics. This is not a virgin expreience for me, but a first for this kind of “high level” political involvement. I confess that I am supporting Dr. Dean because he energizes me. Dispite what all the pundits, and other political hacks say about him, I firmly believe he can defeat Bush and send him packing back to Crawford where he belongs with all his other slimy, corrupt friends.
Posted by Greg on Dec 18, 2003 at 5:34 AM Stanley is right. It’s possible that “the Bush Administration is the most crooked administration in American history” is a slight exaggeration.
Perhaps we should rephrase it to say “the most crooked administration since the impeachment of a president whose #1 contributor was not the CEO of a corrupt near-bankrupt Enron, who did not send America to war on false pretexts, who did not select a vice president whose company has made $2.1 billion so far from that war, who did not game the tax laws to enrich the rich to the tune of $400 billion, who managed to imprison real terrorists (McVeigh) instead of bong dealers (Tommy Chong), and who did not seal the presidential records of his own oilman father whose preliminary war upheld not democracy but a oil-rich monarchy.”
Maybe that would be slightly more accurate as far as Stanley is concerned.
Posted by skimble on Dec 21, 2003 at 9:46 PM Matt Gonzales (a Green) almost had a near victory over Gavin Newsom (Democrat) in the San Francisco mayor’s election on Dec. 9th. Gavin wons with 53%, but he had to spend 10 times as much money, and bring Clinton to town to stump for him.
But it was Gonzales who had an impressive collection of volunteers who were doing Get Out the Vote and Precinct Captaining—many of them for the first time in their lives.
The election was a choice between Democrats and progressives, and the progressives almost won.
Posted by Jim on Dec 22, 2003 at 10:25 PM Why are people interested only in the White House? Doesn’t anyone care about Congress?
Posted by Jon on Jan 14, 2004 at 5:52 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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