November 3rd is the first day of the next election cycle. So, let's talk a little strategy about what Progressives need to accomplish. To draw from the lessons of previous mistakes and losses, like the primary race in Arkansas I contributed my time and money to:
Progressive Community Needs Some Work
This was my effort in translating the online Progressive movement to on the ground support in an election. It may not have been the best state to try it in, but even in areas where it should have been easy, it was not. Part of the reason appeared to be that there were many liberals who were totally disconnected from the progressive movement. Not necessarily by choice, but simply because they are not active online or in national politics. We need to find a way to get these local and state liberal groups engaged. We need to interface with our local green groups and other local Democratic Party organizations. We need to get them on the Progressive team. Otherwise, the most active and respected members in our local areas will not be on our side. We need those people to make sure that our campaigns can get the on the ground support we need to win.
Here are the main things we need to work on:
- Progressives need to organize in local communities. I really can't stress this one enough. We need to be showing up in TOWN, COUNTY, and state Democratic Party meetings, local environmentalist meetings, Democratic Women's meetings, Democratic Seniors meetings, Young Democrats meetings, etc. As a lesson from the primaries of 2010, Bill Halter lost the LIBERAL areas to Blanche Lincoln. I personally know some local liberals who voted for her, partially because they are involved on a local level, but not as much in tune with the online Progressive movement.
- We need to change tactics. While we all crave to challenge the conservative Democrats that grab our goats, we have to be realistic. The truth is that it is extremely difficult based on odds alone to beat an incumbent. If I remember correctly, incumbents win some 90% of the time. If that is the case, why would we want to concentrate all of our efforts on winning a race with only a 10% chance of winning? What we need to do is take a lesson from the 50 State Strategy. We need to find good candidates that can run in every open seat possible. Someone is retiring (Republican or Democrat)? Field a good progressive candidate. Our chances of winning and gaining momentum will be much higher at a much smaller cost. This has to be done all the way down the ticket.
- We need to stick together. Historically, the Progressive movement has had the most trouble from within. We have a hard time sticking together. We have different ideas about how to proceed and we fragment. It is my hope the Progressives with different ideas can join together and fight for the same candidates. If we win some primaries and field some good candidates, that will sure help.
This election year was about as bad as it gets for Democrats. However, if Republicans actually try to do what they have been saying they want to do, 2012 may be as good for Democrats as this one was bad. We need to start the work now to be prepared to capitalize on a good position for 2012.