What if we all decided to run for president? Thousands of us, in every town, in every state? We'd all carry roughly the same progressive message:
1. The country must be returned to the people.
2. Corporate power must be checked.
3. We need to confront global warming and the destruction of the environment.
4. We need to wind down our various wars, close down at least some of the 360 military bases around the world.
5. We need to end the drug war too, stop incarcerating millions of citizens, stop destabilizing whole countries through our appetite for drugs.
6. We need to rebuild our national infrastructure -- roads, bridges, schools, libraries, and institute a national broadband plan worth having, so that everyone can afford to be online, and at high speed.
7. We need a single payer health care system. Stop the windfalls to the insurance companies and big pharma. Give small businesses a boost by making it easier to hire people since health care would not be an onerous cost to them.
8. We need the wealthy -- that top 1% that owns over 40% of our nation's wealth - and corporations -- the 68% that pay no taxes at all -- to pay their fair share.
9. We need to promote green energy and get off fossil fuels ASAP.
10. We need to take on Big Food, and institute policies that will lead to a healthier diet and lifestyle.
I think most progressives would agree with these planks.
At this point, it seems futile to look for any one candidate to get behind who would carry that progressive banner for us. Nader? Kucinich? Elizabeth Warren? Even the last feels tired. All this top down stuff, waiting for a leader to make things right, is not working. Falling in line, and hoping the democratic party leadership will do the right thing isn't working. We need to lead from below, each of us.
We should have progressive challengers in every primary, lots of them, whoever can get on the ballot. Write ins, protest candidates, primary challengers in every town. We're all running for president! Speak from soap boxes in every town square.
What if there were 10000 progressive candidates for president? Each gets on average, say, 100 - 1000 votes via there personal/social networks and however many of their neighbors' votes they can get. That would be engaging civic discourse, speaking truth to power. That is a national movement.
I know that the electoral laws, filing requirements would mitigate against such a strategy, but lets take them to court. I doubt any of those requirements are legal or constitutional. I bet there would be 1000 lawyers who'd gladly take on these laws -- all meant to preserve the two party duopoly.
Call this progressivism, call it populism, call it 'citizens united,' if you care to be ironic. By the 2012 elections, an energized populace could change the political landscape.