Nathan Newman wrote:
>Not because they are some abstract "independent force" but because they
spend
>MORE time doing electoral work than the pro-choice movement.
>So it's all about elections, is it?
When we are talking about politicians, of course that's it. The political work may not involve elections, but politicians only care if it threatens them at their next election.
>The Xian right can say - look, there are 20 or 40 million of us, and
>we've got the membership and institutions to show it. Toy with us and
>we'll go elsewhere.
So do labor, environmental and womens groups-- I've done fundraising for a lot of them and their membership is actually much higher than groups on the Right. The Christian Coalition types have been better more recently at commandeering already existing institutions, like churches, and mobilizing them for their own political purposes. The Right also commandeered the NRA which used to be a service organization for hunters and marksmen.
The Left is not going to 'build" lots of independent institutions on that scale-- they need to better mobilize unions as the main independent institution with mass membership they are close to and figure out how to mobilize and appeal to other already existing institutions, whether churches, neighborhood watches, whatever.
And the Democrats do take exit by labor leaders very seriously; that's why the overwhelming number of Democrats continue to vote against NAFTA, Fast Track, anti-labor bills, and so on. There is no issue that labor makes a priority that two-thirds of Democrats in Congress do not follow. That's probably a better batting average than the Christian Coalition has with the GOP.
-- Nathan Newman