President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are abandoning their party’s base. The media is busy congratulating them, and the base is patiently watching the strategy unfold and letting them get away with it.
President Obama is reversing himself on civil liberties, he is failing to deliver on campaign promises to gays and lesbians, and the bank and auto bailouts are continued giveaways to big business. Congress is failing to do it’s job: the Democratic caucus is unable to unite to do much of anything, from investigating the lawlessness of the previous administration, curbing the expansion of executive power, or providing meaningful oversight of the billions of dollars of bailout money you and I provided to banks. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) recently told reporters the the truth about Congress, that the banks “frankly own the place.” It is time to put a stop to the endless compromises that the Democratic Party makes with powerful business interests who pay for their campaigns and the increasingly bold minority party, whose power to block legislation and nominees paradoxically seems stronger than ever. There is one way, and only one way in our power to break this cycle: we must work to defeat Democrats in Congress.
This might seem crazy to you, or it might seem self-defeating. There are any of a dozen arguments that you might make against this. But consider this: there is a tremendous amount of pressure on Democrats to cave to the right, or bend to the will of powerful lobbies. There is absolutely no pressure on the Democrats to listen to their liberal base – in fact, it’s considered politically savvy to ignore or even antagonize the base of the party. Any Democratic politician is viewed as a “centrist” or a “pragmatist” when he or she opposes the faithful progressives who worked hard to elect him. Because they know the truth – that the base will grumble and whine, but there will be absolutely no real consequences for caving to the right.
Progressives, it is time to get help. We are in an abusive relationship with our party and it’s time to stand up and threaten to leave them. There are no excuses left to be made – the Democrats are playing “smart politics.” It’s time to learn to play hardball, it’s time to pressure them to do the right thing and stop waiting around for them to suddenly wake up and decide to listen to their hearts and not their campaign finance directors.
AccountabilityNow PAC was formed by a coalition of progressive bloggers to bring accountability to the Democratic party for this very problem. There biggest target next year is going to be Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican who now pretends to be a Democrat in order to save his seat. Although he still blocks much of the Democratic Party’s agenda, Harry Reid and the leadership are supporting his re-election and trying to block real Democrats from challenging him. This is exactly the type of behavior that needs to be stopped, and it will require time and money from regular citizens like you if we ever expect to have a working democracy again. I urge you to donate to AccountabilityNow.
In Los Angeles, Congresswoman Jane Harman is a Blue Dog who votes with the conservative Democrats from the South. She was the Bush Administration’s staunchest Democratic defender of its illegal wiretapping program — until she was caught on a (legal) wiretap in an influence-peddling scandal allegedly agreeing to intervene in a federal investigation on behalf of lobbyists. She once called herself “the best Republican in the Democratic Party.” She is being challenged by Marcy Winograd, a school teacher and the founder of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles. Her district, the California 36th, is often described as “conservative” in the media, but it voted for Kerry in ‘04 and Obama in ‘08 by huge margins.
Primary defeats for Specter and Harman will send a powerful message to the Democrats. We’ve had it — we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore! Taking our money and running can no longer be a winning strategy for Democrats. There must be powerful consequences for ignoring the liberal base and from now on, doing so must be a grave political risk. Any more excuses from us are just an invitation to be ignored.
Accountability Now PAC
Winograd 4 Congress
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
-
RSS Feed
-
May 22, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Jon,
Thank you for pointing out the urgency in defending our democracy and in standing by the principles which propelled us to work so hard for change, both in 2006 and 2008.
If we are serious about wanting to protect constitutional rights and human rights for all, then we need to speak up, speak out, and run for office, even when the opponent is, at least in name, a member of the Democratic Party.
In 2006 when I challenged Jane Harman on the war in Iraq and her defense of illegal warrantless wiretapping, I mobilized almost 40% of the vote in just three months of campaigning. Today, as I organize a new 2010 challenge, one that builds on the previous campaign, I urge the people of the 36th district and beyond to protest, both in the street and at the polls, the trillion-dollar waste of taxpayer money spent on the drones and the killing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; on the no-strings-attached bail-outs for banks and mega-insurance corporations that brought us the subprime meltdown, on all that is wrong rather than on the human needs that cry out so desperately at home where the newly-found homeless sleep in their cars or on the streets, hoping the police won’t see them, hoping to become invisible.
Let’s speak out and stand up for universal single-payer health care. What a glorious day that will be — when we know that, regardless of our pre-condition, a single public fund will allow us to choose our own doctor without fear of skyrocketing medical bills. Let’s shout from here to the capitol, “Stop your killing machine — and freeze the foreclosures, halt the evictions — No, give us a job, one that builds a bridge to a sustainable future, not a nuclear vision, not a fictitious clean coal fantasy, but a real alternative landscape of solar panels and wind farms.”
Make America strong, much stronger, by investing our wealth in our future: our youth, their education; in our infrastructure; our roads, our water; in our belief that a better day awaits for a prouder America.
Jon, thank you and others for joining me in this challenge. Please visit me on Facebook at Marcy Winograd for Congress and contribute, volunteer, endorse at Winograd4Congress.com
I can’t do it without you.
Onward to victory!
May 22, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Great posts, Jon and Marcy. You both give me hope after listening to days of Obama/Cheney dueling torture justification. Even David Brooks and E.J. Dionne on NPR this afternoon are saying Obama’s policies sounds like an extension of Bush’s. (I also think that’s pretty great, considering that Obama seems to “bristle” at being compared to Bush — so NPR unwittingly does something right for once! And hey, note to Obama: if you don’t like being compared to Bush, you’re going to have to actually do something different; even your fancy rhetoric can’t fool those clever, corporate-owned folks over at NPR.)
September 7, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Jon,
Thank you for pointing out the urgency in defending our democracy and in standing by the principles which propelled us to work so hard for change, both in 2006 and 2008.
If we are serious about wanting to protect constitutional rights and human rights for all, then we need to speak up, speak out, and run for office, even when the opponent is, at least in name, a member of the Democratic Party.
In 2006 when I challenged Jane Harman on the war in Iraq and her defense of illegal warrantless wiretapping, I mobilized almost 40% of the vote in just three months of campaigning. Today, as I organize a new 2010 challenge, one that builds on the previous campaign, I urge the people of the 36th district and beyond to protest, both in the street and at the polls, the trillion-dollar waste of taxpayer money spent on the drones and the killing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; on the no-strings-attached bail-outs for banks and mega-insurance corporations that brought us the subprime meltdown, on all that is wrong rather than on the human needs that cry out so desperately at home where the newly-found homeless sleep in their cars or on the streets, hoping the police won't see them, hoping to become invisible.
Let's speak out and stand up for universal single-payer health care. What a glorious day that will be — when we know that, regardless of our pre-condition, a single public fund will allow us to choose our own doctor without fear of skyrocketing medical bills. Let's shout from here to the capitol, "Stop your killing machine — and freeze the foreclosures, halt the evictions — No, give us a job, one that builds a bridge to a sustainable future, not a nuclear vision, not a fictitious clean coal fantasy, but a real alternative landscape of solar panels and wind farms."
Make America strong, much stronger, by investing our wealth in our future: our youth, their education; in our infrastructure; our roads, our water; in our belief that a better day awaits for a prouder America.
Jon, thank you and others for joining me in this challenge. Please visit me on Facebook at Marcy Winograd for Congress and contribute, volunteer, endorse at Winograd4Congress.com
I can't do it without you.
Onward to victory!…