Prioritize

At this weekend’s California Democratic Party Executive Board meeting, leaders in the Progressive Caucus, supported by outside organizations like the Courage Campaign, headed an effort to pass a resolution censuring Senator Dianne Feinstein for a number of her votes, including the push to confirm a pro-torture Attorney General. The resolution, submitted late, was killed in the Resolutions Committee: a supporter of the resolution was pushed by one Party staff member, and another staffer made inexcusably disparaging comments in the media about grassroots Party activists. It was all very unfortunate.

Equally unfortunate, however, was the fact that the Progressive Caucus of the party, of which I am proud to be a member, spent the greater part of it’s meeting time talking about the Feinstein resolution, even though only a handful of members voted against endorsing it (full disclosure: I was one of them). As a result, the Caucus had only passing discussion of the rest of the business of the Executive Board, and did not take a position on anything except the doomed, symbolic resolution of Censure. At stake: the Party’s positions on a multi billion dollar Indian gaming expansion contested by the Hotel and Restaurant Workers, a highly contentious education funding initiative and a plan to overhaul term limits. No official positions were taken on these issues by the Progressive Caucus.

Hardly anyone in the state cares or knows about resolutions passed by the California Democratic Party. Sure, a resolution of censure would make some headlines, but it was also a non-starter in a Presidential election year. The most that would come out of it would be a series of press stories about unruly Democrats. Meanwhile, the Eboard meeting was flooded with union folks, Native American tribes, political operatives and education advocates debating where the Party should be on the issues which will actually appear on the next ballot. Those folks know where the party does have power, and were there to attempt to wield it. It’s on those issues where a progressive strategy, where input from the left of the party would be meaningful. But we were busy on the Feinstein resolution, along with much of the “netroots” activist community. I respect and admire many of the progressive leaders in the Party, and am always straightforward and constructive when I disagree with them. This was one of those moments.

I want to move toward setting the agenda as much as anyone. It’s not enough for us to react to things which are brought to us. But a big part of moving an agenda is moving one which is focused on issues which effect people’s lives directly, and not getting swept up almost exclusively in issues which are sexy or which animate communities we are the most comfortable with. I think that there were good people on both sides of the debate over the resolution, and disagree with the idea that the important fault line in the party is between those who support such actions and those who oppose them. All the time and energy that was spent on the resolution, I believe, would have been better spent educating delegates and the public about the initiatives we just took positions on, furthering progress in developing the party’s infrastructure, and building our clubs, central committees and leadership. I know that it’s possible to multitask, but it’s also crucial to prioritize.

the democratic party is possible

Don’t believe the hype. The Democrats did not win by moving to the center. Some socially conservative candidates won, particularly in states where strong majorities are anti-choice and against civil rights for gay and lesbian families. However, there were at least as many progressives elected, including eight new members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, now the House’s largest non-party group. Nancy Pelosi is a member. Many of them will inherit powerful committee chairships.
That’s not to say that the victory demonstrated any kind of fundamental realignment. In fact, “all” that happened was that Republican gains within the Democratic base were eroded. Key constituencies within the old Democratic majority coalition came back to the fold. This can be seen geographically, as the electoral map begins to look more and more like a map of Civil War America, only with the parties switched. We made almost no gains in the South, while Ohio, Missouri, Maryland and New Hampshire snapped back into the Union. The Republicans, for their part, held the South and are in danger of becoming a regional party. Blacks stuck with the Democrats to the tune of 90%, despite high-profile campaigns by black Republicans in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Latinos shifted to the Democrats by a margin of nearly 30%. Support rose among women, working people, the poor and people at both ends of the educational spectrum. In short, this election showed that a majoritarian Democratic party is possible. The key will be keeping this coalition together, and expanding it, even when the Republicans aren’t falling on their own bibles/swords.
One important factor in this election was the slight but noticeable move toward economic populism by our Party. Gains in Ohio demonstrate the importance of this move. Witness Sherrod Brown, the state’s new Senator. On November 6th, Ohio was Republican, from the State Assembly to the Governor’s mansion to the contested Senate seat. The pro-choice, pro-gay and fervently pro-worker Brown led a clean sweep of the state, as all levels of government went to Democrats. The hook was Brown’s strong stands on economic issues: a re-evaluation of “free trade”, a rise in the minimum wage, a crackdown on corporate malfeasance. He did so without trading away the Party’s commitment to so-called “social issues”.
If social conservatism is the glue that holds the Republican majority together, economic justice can serve the same role for Democrats. Even the much ballyhooed “moderates” who won senate seats in Montana and Virginia ran ads against free trade and attacked their opponents for scuttling a minimum wage increase. Jim Webb, the Reagan Republican turned Democrat who won in Virginia campaigned hard on jobs and income inequality. Ballot initiatives raising state minimums passed everywhere they appeared on the ballot- a move widely seen as beneficial to Democratic turnout. In a nice symbolic turn of events, the Kansas state house turned totally Democratic. We even picked up a Congressional seat there. The idea that what is the matter with Kansas is that Democrats haven’t given working class folks a reason to vote for them seems like a pretty unassailable hypothesis.
Not to the right wing of the Democratic Party. They have joined the mainstream media and Republican sour-grapes pundits in arguing that super Tuesday was the result of the party’s move to the vaunted “center.” Rahm Emmanuel, the clarion voice of the New Democrats, has been buoyed by his successful gambit to recruit Gulf War veterans to run as Democrats. That was clever politics, but it only worked because both Republicans and Democrats gave people a reason to vote our way.
Organizationally, Emmanuel has called for DNC chair Howard Dean’s head. As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Emmanuel has been highly critical of Dean’s strategy of (re)-building party organizations in every State. The DCCC is beholden primarily to members of Congress and the party’s fundraising base, and is locked into the logic of the short-game. Their preference for one election at a time, slash and burn strategies has led to twelve years of Party defeats and a general erosion of progressive values and discourse. The deep victories by Democrats in state government (we now control more state legislatures and governorships than the bad guys for the first time since 94) demonstrates that long-term base building reaps benefits. The Dean path will help solidify the base, the way that Republicans have done for 30 years. We shouldn’t go back to the days of Clintonian shallow victories. The Democratic Left should continue to rally around Dean.

No doubt, Congressional Democratic leaders could very well overplay their hand. I’m glad that symbolic, oppositional red-meat like impeachment has been jettisoned from the table. We have to achieve a modest program of actual reform to lay the groundwork for winning back more of the Democratic coalition. We will have to tread carefully, even on issues surrounding Iraq, regardless of the clear mandate for withdrawal.
If it is hard to call it a decisive victory, we can safely conclude that it was a decisive defeat. The Karl Rove strategy of combining jingoistic paranoia with cultural reaction went down in flames. What, precisely, it will be replaced with remains to be seen. Nevertheless, whether by accident or by design, the Democratic Party has won a major election, one that will have huge positive effects for working families and for the cause of international peace and security.
The minimum wage will be raised. Anti-labor fine print will be removed from bills. Real health care reform will get a hearing, and even “single-payer” will see the light of day. Judicial nominations will be blocked. Investigations will be mounted, and from the dais rather than the basement. For this we should be happy.

Next week: Progressives and the Party

is the democratic party possible? Part 2: Party Unity

I am a big fan of partisanship. I know that this is an unpopular position, both among the growing plurality of “independent” voters, as well as those on the left who wish to remain outside the “confines” of the Democratic Party. However, a disciplined political party, with a loyal voter base, active civil society organizations in and around it, and a clear national or statewide agenda can accomplish considerable social change. Unfortunately, it seems that only the Republican party got this memo.

And so I was surprised today to read a great defense of partisan strategy written by none other than Paul Krugman, a guy who normally leads the squishy brigade. I am used to him offering above-the-fray niceties, and was quite shocked to read him lay down some bomb tracks:

“The point is, those who cling to the belief that politics can be conducted in terms of people rather than parties –a group that also includes would-be centrist Democrats like Joe Lieberman and many members of the punditocracy- are kidding themselves.”

Krugman hammers NARAL and the Sierra Club for endorsing liberal Republican Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island. Chaffee has a decent voting record on both choice and environmental issues. However, as Krugman points out, if the Democrats do not take back the Senate, people who dismiss climate change as “a hoax” will continue to oversee the nation’s environmental policy. Conservative NGO’s, on the other hand, are down the line partisan, even rolling with policies they don’t deem perfect in order to make sure that their larger interest, a Republican government, remains fulfilled. This is a profound point. Partisanship matters.

However, this relationship is a two way street. If we are going to expect labor folks, environmentalists and civil rights activists (and their organizations) to stick with the Party, the Party needs to stick with them. And themselves.

Democratic politicians have a tendency to show their “independence” to voters by stepping on the faces of their base supporters. Consider Clinton’s welfare “reform” initiatives and his support for NAFTA. A whirlwind of discussion in the liberal magazines (The Prospect and Nation, specifically) has centered on the need for the Party to generate a set of “big ideas”, organizing principles within which a majority of Americans can find themselves. This is certainly a necessity. However, in arguing for this, writers like Todd Gitlin, Michael Tomasky, and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga have suggested that politicians need to distance themselves from the groups which make up their base. That’s nonsense, and it’s precisely why so many organizations at the grassroots level want to assert their own independence. When you add in the American cult of individuality, the weakness of our party system, and an electoral arrangement built around individual candidates (especially in California), there are a lot of incentives for issue and constituency-based social movement organizations to be quite guarded and even schizophrenic when it comes to dealing with Democrats. Any “big idea” that comes out of the Democratic Party has to be a sum of its parts, appealing across the varied communities and interests under its tent. You aren’t going to get that by following Tomasky’s advice.

A third problem is that so often elected Democrats put short term gains ahead of long-term strategy. Compromise is the life’s blood of politics, but Democrats seem to suffer from hemophilia.

Take a look at the California Gubernatorial race.Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa both could use a dose of party loyalty. Nunez, while serving the largely ceremonial role as campaign Chairman for Phil Angelides, has in recent months become a regular podium-buddy to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Together, they have crafted a “bi-partisan” package of infrastructure bonds and sent them to voters, thus reinforcing Arnold’s strategy of delivering public goods while passing the cost on to kids who can’t vote against him. That’s not good for Phil. In an even more craven mode, Assembly and Senate leaders are discussing a swap: Arnold gets to take redistricting away from them (one of his failed proposals in the Special Election last year) and in return they get relief from term limits. Now is not the time to be playing footsy with a rich, telegenic populist Republican. Now is the time to be sending a single message about why the Democrats should take back the governor’s office.

Villaraigosa, of whom I’m generally a fan, has done his friend Fabian one better, publicly feuding with Angelides over the Mayor’s attempt to take direct control of the LA school system. He has even enlisted the support of the Governor in pressing his case. So far, Villaraigosa has failed to endorse Angelides.

At best, this is about the short-term goals of shoring up their own voter base. At worse, however, this could be about intentionally working to sink Angelides in order to clear the way for a Villaraigosa run for Governor in 2010. I'm not so sure, but San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has floated that theory in his recent call to Democrats to muster for Phil.

In the end. Party unity must be earned. It emerges from a healthy balance between compromise, strategy, principles and trust. If you don’t believe me, ask Joe Lieberman.

is the democratic party possible? Part 1

Several weeks ago, Rick Jacobs, the pundit and activist behind the Courage Campaign, wrote an editorial for the Los Angeles Times in which he criticized the state Democratic Party for making endorsements in its own primary. In part, his missive seemed to stem from his support for wealthy centrist Steve Westly, who was thankfully beaten by the more progressive and labor-friendly Phil Angeledes for the gubernatorial nomination.
His essay, however, raises important and interesting questions for those of us who are attempting to create a political home inside the Democratic Party. Jacobs argues forcefully that the “party structure” is run by “insiders”, a group in which he seems to include not only elected officials, but unions, donors and large social movement organizations. Jacobs writes:

The last thing elected officials want is a party structure that could have a life of its own, European style, in which policy is actually decided by the party and in which ideas matter more than old connections. The state party's central committee, which meets annually, consists largely of well-intentioned, mostly older individuals who work year-round on political activities. Some go to monthly meetings where a parliamentarian drones on about Robert's Rules of Order and the proper way to make a motion. Most care deeply about the state but have at best a cursory connection to (California’s) 7 million Democrats. And they have no connection to the "decline to state" voters, who also may vote in primaries -- albeit only for initiatives and nonpartisan offices. In short, it is neither a disciplined structure nor a porous, welcoming organizing vehicle for activists outside of the club, or for the millions who vote.

It is refreshing to see a player of Jacobs’ stature recognize a key truth about Californian (and American) politics: the game is rigged to constrain the party grassroots. In fact, California is particularly bad. It’s electoral system, characterized by local non-partisan elections and an insane initiative process make it very difficult to develop the kind of “European style”, idea-based political culture that Jacobs mentions. Elected officials have, over the past twenty years, worked hard to further marginalize grassroots party structures, or to turn them into rubber stamps for their own decisions and endorsements. Add to this the nightmare of McCain-Feingold, which has further weakened political parties by making it harder for them to run coordinated campaigns at both the local and federal levels.

However, this is precicely why Jacobs’ thinking is so, well, whack. We all want to get rid of the smoky room, and empower grassroots activists to be more than shock troops for party elites. That’s not going to happen without the participation and buy-in of social movement actors (labor, feminists, Latinos, blacks, etc). These groups are often derided by Jacobs, Kos, and other Atari Democrats, who see the line of struggle in American politics as between the “netroots” and the “elites”. Would that it were.

Ironically, Jacobs’ main complaint, that the party endorses candidates in its own primary election, is exactly the sort of thing we need to facilitate the “Europeanization” of American party politics. For a more independent, grassroots-based party to exist, it must have some kind of independent power to intervene in politics as a coherent organization. Endorsing candidates in the primary which are “more” rather than “less” worthy of the Democratic Party mantle is a small but crucial power that the party can bring to bear. Otherwise, primary battles are nothing more than expensive beauty contests. The endorsement process facilitated a handful of promising (if ill-strategized) floor fights at this year’s state party convention. If there was no endorsement process, the Progressive Democrats wouldn’t have bothered to show up as part of their attempt to unseat pro-war Democratic congresswoman Jane Harmon.

Jacobs is also mistaken about the ability of “decline to state” voters, (people with no party identification) to vote in Democratic primaries. They can. That’s not a good thing. Campaigns like Westly’s, which sought to appeal to non-Democrats in order to win the Democratic nomination doesn’t build the strength of the party or lead to political contests where “ideas matter”. It pushes all politics to the so-called “center”, and begins the downward spiral of triangulation, poll-fetishization and compromise before the choices are even put to voters in the general election. We are very lucky that last year’s attempt to essentially do away with the primaries and just have two rounds of voting went down in flames.

All of this, of course, is part of an open question. It is quite possible that the structure of American political life is determinant enough that the electoral arena will always be personality-driven and expensive. Certainly, this is the direction that European politics is heading, though at a slower clip. I, for one, am still willing to fight for a democratic Democratic Party, and I know I am not alone. Jacobs and the Courage Campaign have an important role to play, along with the social movements, intellectuals, precinct captains, peace activists and neighborhood leaders. It would be nice if folks like Jacobs would put their money and time where their mouths are. Instead of dumping millions into a network of bloggers and point-and-click “activists”, the Courage Campaign should be identifying, training and supporting activists to –take over- the apparatus that Jacobs argues is geriatric and out of touch.

So, let us move forward, but be careful not to destroy the party even as we are building it.