From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan at newman.org>
>You make it seem as if liberal activist groups are a vast bloc of Green
>Party hardliners dogmatically opposed to working with Democrats. You know
>the opposite is true. The vast majority of liberal activists would love to
>get a call from Tom Daschle seeking to build a left-wing Contract With
>America. They'd be on board in a second.
>The problem is that Tom Daschle is terrified of doing in 2002 what Newt
>Gingrich did in 1994. Why?
Gingrinch was not the leader of the GOP when he led that upsurge-- he started as a marginal backbencher in the early 80s, fought against the leadership for the whip position, and organized a cadre of folks to overthrow both his own GOP leadership and take over the national debate at the same time.
There are a few Dems with that kind of vision-- Jesse Jackson Jr. is one of my favorites, but the issue is what we as left activists do, not continuing bitching about hack politicians who will go which way the winds go. Not to resurrect a bad political metaphor in action, but we need to create our own weather. We need to build well-disciplined wind to push both the Dem leadership and the public at large to elect more progressive Dems in general.
People act like I spend lots of time speaking with respect for folks like Gore or Gephardt or Daschle, when the opposite it true. I refer to them as hacks and opportunists most of the time, but I recognize that they are opportunists in our interests more of the time than not. But they are not our leaders, they are our followers. If we as progressive fail to lead from the grassroots with discipline and direction, the center in DC will be weak as well.
Gingrich did not take over from controlling DC but from organizing at the grassroots around the country through his GOPAC operation. Among the Dem leadership, Bonior is the closest to that impulse, although he hasn't had quite the national focus for organizing and he just lost his seat to redistricting in Michigan. So we need to build our grassroots organization beyond the Dem DC leadership.
The impulse to build grassroots-controlled organization a la the Greens is the right one-- I just wish it was devoted to a strategy that was not so organized for spoiler and failure. The unions in the 30s build the first Political Action Committee for a similar purpose and were very successful. The idea is not new, but since Goldwater took over the GOP in the 1964 nomination using the Young Republican-YAFer base, the rightwing has been far more disciplined in national electoral organizing.
-- Nathan Newman