Winning Progressive

There can be no sugar coating the fact that last Tuesday’s recall elections in Wisconsin were a tough loss and massive disappointment. But the results in Wisconsin have also galvanized some lessons that it is important for Democrats and progressives to take to heart so that future political fights can turn out more favorably.  In addition to being a great reminder of why we all must vote in every election, here is what Winning Progressive thinks are the three most important of such lessons.

1. Getting Money Out of Politics is THE Issue

The Wisconsin recall elections are perhaps the most blatant example to date of how vast sums of campaign cash can impact and corrupt our political system.  Scott Walker is still sitting in the Governor’s mansion because of a massive financial advantage.  Walker’s campaign had more than $29 million, plus over $18 spent by outside groups, for a total of at least $47 million of mostly out-of-state money that it used to purchase a flood of advertising, voter suppression robo-calls, and GOTV efforts.

Such spending undermines the legitimacy of our democracy by demonstrating that money, not people, run the system.  It also makes progressive change much harder to achieve, both because corporate interests can always swamp an effort at progressive political change with a flood of opposition money, and because even the most progressive of politicians are limited by the need to raise large amounts of money in order to stay in office.  If we want politics to respond to the interests of the people and advance progressive values and policies, the Wisconsin recalls demonstrate just how critical it is that we get money out of politics.  That means reversing Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions equating corporate political spending with speech and pushing for publicly financed campaigns.  It also means recognizing that achieving those goals will take a massive, focused effort by progressives, and that we have to support whichever candidate in an election is best on issues of campaign finance even if they are far from perfect.

2. We Must Start Playing For Keeps

Walker’s first two years as Governor of Wisconsin have been a textbook example of the GOP’s strategy of using government policy to dismantle the infrastructure of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement.  Walker attacked public employee unions because they are the largest remaining sector of the labor movement, which provides substantial organizing and financial support for the progressive movement.  And he pursued voter ID legislation in order to reduce the number of people from Democratic-leaning groups who will be able to vote. And this strategy, which is being repeated by the GOP throughout the country, is supported by virtually all elements of the conservative movement, which realize that dismantling the infrastructure of the left will serve all of their interests. In short, the right is united behind a well-coordinated effort to achieve complete political victory over the left.

Progressives and Democrats have nothing close to the kind of unified effort aimed at political victory. Instead, many of us on the left are motivated by interest in a particular issue rather than an adherence to an overall progressive movement. And too many progressives appear more interested in attacking some Democrats for being too centrist than in taking on the right, while too many moderate Democrats appear more interest in distancing themselves from progressives than in challenging the GOP. As a result, folks on the left spend most of their time working on individual policy issues or engaging in infighting rather than building a progressive movement that will advance all of our goals.

Progressives and Democrats have to start playing for keeps just like the GOP has been doing. That means we need to realize that, regardless of our policy differences, liberals, progressives, and Democrats are all in the grand scheme of things on the same side.  Because if we do not, the right is going to roll all of us.

For progressives, that means realizing that Democratic elected officials are virtually always substantially and materially better than Republicans, even if those Democrats are not as progressive as we would like. And for establishment Democrats it means understanding that progressive activists play a critical role in advancing our shared interests and that, therefore, their activism should be encouraged, not shunned. And for both groups, it means realizing that our real political enemy is the conservative movement, not each other.

Playing for keeps also means prioritizing good policy ideas that help to build the progressive movement. Examples include policies that make it easier for people to vote, that rebuild the labor movement, and that create paths for more immigrants to become citizens of the US.  Now we have to make sure not to mimic the Republican approach of prioritizing building the conservative movement and undermining the progressive movement no matter what the merits of the policies being promoted are.  But where we have a large number of policies that are justified on their own merit, prioritizing the pursuit of those policies that also provide political benefit is an appropriate and necessary step.

3. We Should Encourage, Not Discourage, The Type of Activism We Witnessed in Wisconsin

It has been disappointing to hear Democrats such as Barney Frank and Ed Rendell call the Wisconsin recall effort a “mistake.”  Yes, the effort fell short of its ultimate goal of replacing Walker.  But the recall put the State Senate back in the hands of the Democrats, at least for the next five months.  And more importantly, the effort fired up Democrats and progressives like they have not been in quite a long time, leading to months of sustained protest, the collection of nearly 1 million signatures in the petition process, and the inspiration of progressives throughout the country.  Progressive change is always a long, hard struggle that includes many victories and setbacks along the way.   The activism that we witnessed in Wisconsin over the past two years is the necessary core for sustaining progressive efforts through such struggle and ultimately for advancing the progressive cause.  As such, we should be thanking the folks in Wisconsin who took on the conservative juggernaut and came up short only after an onslaught of out-of-state campaign cash, and encouraging others in the progressive movement to use the Wisconsin effort as an inspiration for further grassroots organizing throughout the US.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles on the role we all must play in achieving progressive change, lessons to learn from the Wisconsin recall, how the media is aiding conservative efforts to destroy community colleges, state efforts to reduce rates of imprisonment, the disastrous impacts of federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws, and how far off the tracks today’s GOP has gone.

Creating Change is the People’s Job – A good overview of how, if we want to create a society governed by progressive values and policies, we progressives — not just the president — have to be the agents of change in our society.

7 Lessons Democrats and Progressives Should Learn From Wisconsin – How the Wisconsin recall election, despite not being successful in ending Scott Walker’s reactionary reign, shows the value of grassroots organizing, focus, and voting.

The Washington Post, PBS, and the Koch-Funded American Enterprise Institute Attack Community Colleges – how the Washington Post and PBS Newshour have interests in private, for-profit colleges and, at the same time, are aiding right-wing organizations in trying to undermine our nation’s system of community colleges.

States Take Sizeable Steps in 2012 to End Overincarceration – An encouraging overview of efforts in seventeen different states throughout the country that have taken steps this years to begin reducing their astronomical prison rates.

U.S. v. Jamel Dossie - an interesting federal district court decision explaining how federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws have created an unjust system marked by unnecessarily harsh prison sentences, the undermining of due process rights, and the exclusion of promising alternatives to incarceration.

The Truth About American Politics – an overview of three new books documenting how extremist today’s Republican Party has become and how that extremism is destroying our political system.

(By Fay Paxton, cross-posted at The Pragmatic Pundit)

Oddly the lesson to be learned from the failed Wisconsin recall has little or nothing to do with the recall or Wisconsin.  Recalls are hard.  Many people, even people who might agree that an official is rotten to the core, simply don’t believe in recalls.  They believe the idea silences the voice of a legitimate election and upends the democratic process.  In fact, according to CBS News exit polls, sixty percent of Wisconsin voters said recall elections are only appropriate for official misconduct. While twenty-eight percent believe they are suitable for any reason and nine percent think they are never appropriate.
I completely disagree with the declarations by political pundits that Wisconsin is a preview of the November elections; at least where voters are concerned.  A recall election is a totally different animal.  When you consider the results of the CBS News exit poll, 69% percent of voters had misgivings about the recall election as a legitimate means of expressing political discontent.  It seems if we had been armed with that data beforehand, the results would have been anticipated.  On the other hand, it will be impossible to determine to what extent the huge amount of campaign cash influenced the outcome, since most voters claim they had made their decision before the flood of cash even reached the state.

Was this a victory for the united citizens of Wisconsin or for Citizens United?  Whatever, it only reaffirms what I have always believed…outsiders should not be able to influence the outcomes of state elections.  The Wisconsin recall should have been coordinated, supported and influenced by Wisconsinites only.  But that’s another argument.

This is about the lessons we can take from Wisconsin.  First and foremost, Wisconsin validates the importance of voting…not just sometimes, but everytime.  Many voters only show up at a polling place during a national election, ignoring the elections closer to home that actually have a greater impact on their lives.  Scott Walker cruised into office in 2010 as did Republicans across the nation because Democrats stayed at home.  Democrats didn’t vote.  One million fewer voters showed up at the polls in 2010 than in 2008, in Wisconsin alone.

People often say, “I can’t deal with politics”, or “I don’t like politics” or even, “I don’t understand politics”.  Politics is not just about government, it is about governance.  Politics determines who gets the bottom bunk in a shared bedroom and who gets the last pork chop at dinner.  Like it or not, politics is interwoven into every phase of your life, your philosophical and religious beliefs.  Politics is about power.  The power you possess in your vote,  activism and engagement.  When you fail to vote, you give your power away.

Sadly, many will become discouraged by the recall results.  Still others will be resigned to believe that ordinary citizens have no voice in the shadows of Citizens United, but it’s a common-sense calculation that united citizens can prevail.  Don’t be deterred by all the Republican bluster about their “Wisconsin defeat”.  If you think back, they were quiet as a mouse after being turned back in Ohio.  The score is even, but citizens can win.  Citizens simply need to unite for the wellbeing of their families, friends and neighbors, just as the wealthy and corporations have united against citizens, their families and friends.

Know the issues. It is your armor against relentless deceptive rhetoric.  That doesn’t mean you must become a political guru, but know what is important to you, your family, your life.  That’s what you should vote for…neither party, nor ideology, but that which best expresses and answers your needs.  And finally, remember the words of motivational speaker Denis Waitley,

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

We’re starting a new occasional feature at Winning Progressive called “Quick Hits,” in which we briefly flag some important progressive stories from the past few days.  Feel free to e-mail us if you have any suggestions for future editions of Quick Hits. 

Recall Scott Walker – progressives in Wisconsin have officially begun the effort to recall GOP Gov. Scott Walker and stop his anti-worker conservative agenda.  At least 540,208 signatures must be collected over the next 59 days, and then a recall election will be held six weeks after that.  Visit the Wisconsin Democratic Party’s Recall Headquarters, where:

You can sign up to volunteer your time, make a donation and attend recall events in your area. You can also download petitions to circulate amongst your friends, family and neighbors here.

President Obama Calls Waterboarding What It Is – Torture – After a recent GOP Presidential debate in which a number of candidates supported resuming waterboarding, President Obama forcefully rejected the practice, explaining:

“They’re wrong. Waterboarding is torture,” Obama said. “Anybody who has actually read about and understands the practice of waterboarding would say that that is torture. And that’s not something we do — period.”

Contact the White House - 202-456-1111 – to thank our President for standing up for basic human decency.

Health Care Reform Goes to the Supreme Court – The Supreme Court has announced that it is going to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of President Obama’s historic health care reform legislation.  As we explained recently, two conservative appellate court judges have upheld the constitutionality of the legislation’s “shared responsibility” provision, which bodes well for Justice Kennedy or some other conservative joining with the moderates and liberals on the Court to uphold the law.  Oral argument is expected in March 2012, with a decision likely to be issued in June or July 2012.

Elizabeth Warren’s First Campaign Ad – Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (MA) is working to define herself and her campaign by launching her first television commercial.  The commercial discusses Warren’s working class background, and explains how she is fighting to provide a level playing field for all Massachusettians.   Watch the commercial below and if you like it visit Ms. Warren’s campaign website to learn more about how you can support her campaign: