(Welcome to our newest Contributing Editor! – promoted by buhdydharma )
How do we move the Democratic party, and the nation, to the left?
How do we become a more progressive nation?
I think that our approach must take two forms. We must change our leaders in tow ways. First, by replacing bad politicians with better ones, and second, by changing the politicians while they stay in office. Nice as it would be to replace a few hundred representatives and a few dozen senators with clones of Dick Durbin and Diane Watson (the most liberal senator and representative, per National Journal) it isn’t likely to happen. In the meantime…
Part one:
Replacing bad people with good ones:
subpart A: Replace Republicans with Democrats. This is a no-brainer, or ought to be. The Democrats who run against Republicans are always more progressive than the Republicans they run against. The 2006 election brought in a bunch of new Democrats; some were as progressive as we could wish for (e.g. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) who Progressive Punch calls the most progressive senator. Others were not: Robert Casey (D-PA) is only the 12th most progressive, Jim Webb (D-VA) is only 28th. But Casey and Webb are way better than Santorum and Allen.
subpart B: Primary Democrats. This is trickier. A lot of the most conservative Democrats are from districts that are Republican strongholds. The most obvious case is probably Gene Taylor (MS-04) is one of the most conservative Democrats, but MS-04 gave Bush 68% over Kerry. In FISA, the 42, and winning over at Daily Kos, I identified 6 Democrats who voted wrong on FISA but have relatively safe seats: Cooper (TN-05), Costa (CA-20), Davis (AL-07), Higgins (NY-27), Lipinski (IL-03), and Wilson (OH-06). Of these, only one has a challenger as far as I know (Mark Pera is challenging Lipinski).
Part two: Reforming our politicians. Politicians like getting re-elected. Every call matters to them. OK, some are so entrenched and so popular that it seems like nothing will change them. But you never know. People do change. Sometimes in very big ways. Some politicians even switch parties. And many politicians have some issues they feel strongly about, and others where they are on the fence. If you reach someone who’s on the fence leaning one way, you could push him or her to leaning the other way. So, I think we here at docudharma should identify a particular issue each week, and then go over to larger blogs and diary them, and try to get something going, that way.
If a representative suddenly gets 20 or 200 calls about an issue, he or she may listen.
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I’m now a contributing editor, I thought this would go to the FP, but apparently not…..I must have pushed some wrong button
The only point I would take issue with is this–and god knows I’ve made the same mistake–we can’t assume that more progressive challengers will drop from out of the sky, or that they will win easily. They typically have to come from local elected positions.They also have to have money, and tons of it.
On the right, conservative primary challenges are funded by the Club for Growth. So far as we know, there is no equivalent organization of any strength on the left. The dirty secret of the Club for Growth is that they don’t even have to win; they just have to be a credible threat. If you ask around Congress, you’ll find that one of the reasons the Republicans have such good party discipline is that many of the supposedly moderate members live in fear of getting hit by a serious primary. Joe Lieberman aside, that really isn’t a credible threat on the left.
The way politicians think isn’t about to change because they will always take the safest route to solving a problem. What has to change: And not just in America is the way people think. If they feel empowered and?effective they’ll participate in the electoral process. With the way the system has evolved the average citizen has very little to feel empowered about and that is the one issue that must be changed. Without citizen involvement there isn’t a government for the people by the people. There’s a government for the few by the few.
Phone calls are good, office visits are better. Don’t wait until you’re in DC, call and visit the local offices of your Rep and Senators–even the “good” ones. Constituent contacts, when in large volume, get discussed amongst legislators. A Rep from another district might have statewide ambitions (they almost always do), and they want to know statewide trends.
The Canidates are looking for MONEY not SUGGESTIONS.
The candidates are not interested in the “people” the are interested in the “PEOPLE WITH MONEY”.
The American populace is viewed as an item to be manipulated.
The American people are manipulated with advertisiing…whoever has the MOST MONEY WINS.
They win because they have the most advertising.
There is nothing you can do at this point.
Quit believing in the system. You naivete is destructive.
America is a corrupt, fascist nation comprised of fascist leaders elected by a largely fascist electorate.
Deal with that. Talk about that. Not about this naive non-sense of reforming the Democrats.
Politicians are simply millionaires who are looking for something to do. They are fundraisers and not really interested in domestic and foregin affairs. Rahm Emmanuel thinks Saudi Arabia is a Shiite nation….forget about it. That’s like a classical musicians who has never heard of Beethoven……
You people forget…politicians are supposed to know alot about what’s going on in the world. Knowing the make up of Saudi Arabia should be automatic.
None of these representaives, despite their trips to Iraq…understand anything about it. It’s becuase they really aren’t interested.
Our so-called “representatives” should not merely be concerned about losing their congressional seats.
The Democrats who are currently failing us should be concerned that they will be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a war-criminal, for deliberately subverting the constitution, conspiring to defraud our democratic electoral process, and other un-American activities.
They should be concerned that they will be held responsible as traitors to America.