Watching the middle class chickens vote the foxes into the henhouse last night was surely depressing. But here in MA, progressives and Democrats could celebrate. Looking forward, one can expect Obama to do the Clinton '94 shuffle to the right. Moreover,in the wake of the Citizens United decision, it seems likely that the federal govt. will become increasingly beholden to large corporate interests. If that is the case, then partisan gridlock may not be such a bad thing. Progressives therefore, shouldn't look to Washington for leadership on the policies that we know can move America forward. Rather, progressives should support a new Federalism that protects states sovereignty and rights. We should focus on adopting progressive policies at the local, state and regional levels and make our own communities into the places where we want to live, work and raise our families.
As the federal govt. devolves into partisan gridlock, it will be states like Massachusetts, NY and California that can move forward with progressive policies that prove to the nation we can build a brighter future and better quality of life.
In the past decade, Massachusetts adopted and implemented much of what can arguably be called the Obama Agenda:
- Focus on 21st century economic development with state govt. promoting industries that will lead to good jobs: high tech, bio-tech and green tech;
- Universal health care;
- Focus on education, student achievement and rebuilding our schools;
- Rebuilding our infrastructure to facilitate smart growth;
- Addressing global warming.
The results are in. Under Deval Patrick leadership and vision, MA is:
#1 in job growth coming out of recession;
#1 in student achievement;
#1 in health care coverage;
#1 in clean energy initiatives.
Instead of running from his record, Patrick focused on promoting it and defending it. This impressive performance in the face of adverse economic times and a hostile political environment led to his re-election and the clean sweep for Democrats in MA last night. National Democrats could take a lesson: take credit for what you do and defend it.
But I digress. The main point here is that we live in a United States where there are wide divergences in public opinion among the states with respect to the type of community we want to live in. This diversity of opinion We should work to support and defend states rights and the ability of states to adopt policies supported by their people from excessive federal interference and preemption, except where Constitutional interests are paramount. This does imply some difficult trade-offs. "States Rights" has been largely a conservative issue, and we would never support abdicating enforcement of Constitutional civil rights. However, if we want to implement progressive policies here in MA, we may need to respect sovereignty of states where people are regressive, so long as their actions are not clearly in violation of the Constitution.