Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA) celebrated his nomination to the top tier of 2010 Senate races by voting against the cap-and-trade bill on Friday. He voted his district, which is perfectly sensible: southern Louisiana is dependent on the energy industry for jobs. But I've decided that, as a progressive, I'm not prepared to give money in this cycle to candidates who are bound to disappoint me as soon as they get in office.
I've just read for the first time Matt Stoller's year-old essay "Do We Really Need 60 Democratic Votes?", which argues that it is more important to nurture and support a bloc of Senators who will support progressive legislation than it is to think of 60 votes (a threshold the Republicans never reached) as a magic number that will unlock the gates to nirvana and universal health care. Subsequent events have so far mostly borne out Stoller's argument, I think.
Charlie Melancon may be a perfectly fine politician, but I am not prepared to spend money on his campaign and then spend the following six years swallowing my tongue as he votes against progressive legislation. (Want a preview? He was in the top 10% of the most conservative Democrats in the House last year.) Adding another number to the Democratic majority in the Senate will be useless for most of the things I care about if it means a new addition to the Ben Nelson/Evan Bayh bloc of legislators.
So, over the year and a half to come, as the solicitations roll in, and in, and in, I will have to decline to answer those from the Melancon campaign in particular. And I'll have to draw an additional line: in the past I've given money both to individual candidates I liked and, towards the end of the election season, to the DSCC and DCCC, figuring that they know best where to spend it as the race goes down to the wire. But I have to be honest with myself: giving to the party committees means that my donation will be lost amidst a swirl of big interests that have jockeyed for diamond and ruby and zirconium sponsorships at any number of D.C. fundraisers. And those same lobbyists will be the ones hosting the "Welcome to Washington" mixers and special briefings on emerging issues (i.e., their clients' interests) while I'm sitting at my keyboard fuming about the slow pace of change.
The Emily's List strategy makes a lot of sense: putting progressive money behind progressive campaigns early-- and, let's face it, starving conservative campaigns-- will put the overarching campaign committees on notice. Keeping it there, all the way through Election Day 2010, will send an even bigger message that progressives are no longer willing to enable politicians opposed to our policy goals. But reminding progressive politicians (and wavering moderates) about the funders and canvassers and volunteers who helped put them in office after Election Day and the swearing in have passed may be the most important way of all to build the bloc for progressive legislation.