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Foot In The Doorby Ron McBride "Meaningful change always begins at the grassroots, and engaged citizens working together can accomplish extraordinary things."~ U.S. Senator Barack Obama While I disagree with a lot of things that the DLC has done, I do agree with them that progressive politics needed to be 'modernized'. And that includes the Netroots aspect as highlighted by the Howard Dean Campaign in 2004. We Progressives, or Populists as some wish to be called, felt that:
Thus was WeDemocrats.org formed. Privately funded and operating as an extra-party organization without official Democratic sanction, and calling ourselves "New Democrats," WeDemocrats seek nothing less than the miraculous, the transubstantiation, a change in the very essence of America's oldest political party. We felt the DLC had essentially become an influential right wing corporate implant in the Democratic Party. Under the guise of the battle for the middle, they had become less Democratic. Their attempts to use corporate funding instead of traditional labor and individual funding had alienated many in the Democratic Party. We must reduce the role of special interest big money in American politics. Federal and state campaign reform is the way to do that. Politics is not a battle for the middle. It is a battle for defining the terms of the political debate. I know that diminishing or denigrating one diminishes and denigrates all. True democrats try to lift themselves, not at the expense of others, but by lifting others. FDR governed as a liberal but operated like a populist. When LBJ rightly, and to his everlasting credit, removed one of the Dem pillars of paranoia, racism, the GOP co-opted it. To racism, add the Jeffersonian notion of government and institutional hatred, throw in a dash of paranoid Red scare and you get political victories. Now Bush uses the terrorism scare. To embrace liberal governance and understand populist politics, you must get your "foot in the door" to govern. Lincoln knew this. FDR knew this. When we make folks pick sides against the GOP Extremism of Dobson and for the committed support of a policy of making sure the government leaves you alone in your private decisions, advocated by Liberals, the people will pick our side, in droves. Don't fear that fight. Since every one of you working with and for WeDemocrats is non-paid, a volunteer, voters will view your opinions and information as more credible. The same information provided by a paid Democratic staffer could be viewed as a sales pitch and be counterproductive. Only a current dedicated WeDemocrats.org member can really sell our progressive values with true honesty and enthusiasm. You have the ability to act as positive role models for people in your community. Your example and experience may well encourage others to visualize themselves as WeDemocrats, something that they might not otherwise have considered. Online activism can make an impact on the world. That has been clearly demonstrated. It is also vitally important that we consider how all these exciting new technologies can be leveraged to mobilize and activate people effectively off-line as well. The netroots/grassroots must not forget this fight, how we won it and how we must continue to win it in our Democratic Party. There are folks engaged in anti war work, folks engaged in local and state issues, folks engaged in the beginnings of the presidential cycle, and folks working on community outreach. These are the "modern" progressives, those who combine grassroots with netroots to form the new progressive movement. The DLC has received funding from the right-wing Bradley Foundation, from oil companies, military contractors, and various Fortune 500 companies. Now, I am all for receiving funding, especially in our infancy, but I could not hold my head up and with a straight face say I am a grassroots/netroots progressive, if I accepted funding from the same sources as the GOP right wing, because that type of funding always requires that we sell out our principles. No! It can not, and will not happen, at least not on my watch. Let me end with this reminder of some excellent basic principles that Ruy Texeira and John Halpin provided last year for Democratic political strategy: The politics of definition is grounded on five postulates that we believe can serve as the basis for making sound decisions about how best to organize progressive campaigns and present a coherent identity to voters. We provide an overview of core progressive values and beliefs that can serve as the organizing principles of long-term campaigns and then sketch out what a politics of definition approach would be like in terms of economic, social, and national security policy. The five postulates for the politics of definition -- the guideposts, questions, and "lines in the sand," so to speak, that need to be drawn out in order to craft better politics -- are as follows:
If we can follow these
guidelines in 2008, we can get our "Foot in the Door",
and we can have another blue victory! Ron McBride ~~~~~~~~ Ron McBride is the author of numerous articles on Democracy. He is founder and Chair of WeDemocrats.org. His writings may be found at We! The People http://wedemocrats.org/wtp/wtp.htm, www.WeDemocrats.org and www.MyTown.ca/mcbride/ plus blogs such as http://www.dailykos.com:80/user/WeDemocrats and http://www.mydd.com:80/user/WeDemocrats |
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