A discussion on a DFA State Leaders mailing list started over the weekend asking for comments about the creation of PDA style Progressive Caucuses within state parties. Thought I would share my thoughts.
In Washington State, it's very much 'us vs them'. The words used on both sides to describe the other are literally painful, and we're having a lot of trouble getting people to stay involved. The last year and a half since reorganization has been a very difficult time for progressives in our state. Maria Cantwell's reelection is the biggest division.
It comes down to this for us:
Those that consider the purpose of the party to be electing Democrats to office are seen by many people as ignoring our party platform or really reducing the importance of the document. We had our state convention this weekend, and while every candidate got a chance to speak to the 1,000 delegates, we were only able to get through about a third of the platform before we ran out of time and had one of our local party chairs make a motion for cloture so people could go home. This brought a lot of people to tears because we hadn't gotten to their top-priority section, especially immigration. The state party chair agreed to convene a review committee to try and come up with a better plan for 2008. It should be mentioned that such a plan was being drafted already by progressives the night before.
Those that consider the purpose of the party to be standing for our platform principles are seen by the party leaders as hurting our chances of getting Democrats into office and letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. And of course because this is a very strong attitude in our party leadership, it is nearly impossible to build the grassroots campaign necessary to let a candidate who doesn't have their own big bank account to put their voice in the game. Not that perfect candidates have come out of the woodwork, as Mark Wilson and Hong Tran are great people but each have disadvantages, but these two candidates running for US Senate in our primary against Cantwell are willing and able to put it all on the line, quiting their jobs and leaving young families to campaign all around the state trying to drum up support for their efforts. The reception they get is cold and often hostile by the leadership, while the grassroots members who want to have a choice are left frustrated and alienated.
The Progressive Caucus in Washington is of the second camp. We strongly believe that if the party would focus on giving people a voice in the development of the platform and then help those people hold their elected officials and candidates accountable to that platform, we would gain an instant majority because the big tent would suddenly exist where it was percieved before as a smoke filled room. What we saw over this weekend was anger to the point of hate against progressive efforts to bring people in and let them talk. On Friday night we had a potluck dinner in parallel with the Party Gala, and where in the Gala all the big name candidates were able to speak to the crowd, our own event had just a few candidates and elected officials come and speak. But part of that was answering the questions that were on people's minds, making it a two way conversation among equal citizens instead of putting candidates and elected officials on a pedestal. We were only able to secure a room that fit about 35 people, and we had almost 150 people swarming around talking and getting to have a chance to speak their minds. Then we had a hospitality suite where we had probably 40 people in a small two room hotel suite. It was loud, let me tell you.
Putting the priority as electing Democrats, any Democrat, above where the party stands for makes for a weak party that can't explain what we stand for, and thus can't attract voters to vote for our candidates. Instead, making the priority inclusion of diverse voices and enforcing the platform that we worked so hard on makes for a strong foundation for a party because we know what we stand for and we can practice with each other the skills of debate to convince voters that we know who we are and where we want to go. Even the party leadership itself is divided within each person, knowing that we don't have the best possible candidate but knowing that they don't have a choice but to go along.
Maria Cantwell does not regret her vote on the war, and thus has trouble being taken seriously when she says that we need to make 2006 a year of transition in Iraq. She voted for Cloture on Alito, thus has trouble being taken seriously when she says she is defending the Supreme Court from right wing judges. She voted for Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State and John Negroponte as the Director of National Intelligence, so has trouble being taken seriously when she says she wants the best people in office. She supported Dirk Kempthorne as Secretary of the Interior even though he supports drilling in ANWR. She says she supports labor, but she votes for the free trade agreements that undermine our economy. She is described as an independent thinker, but it comes down to the fact that she is independent from the grassroots of the party.
But anyone in Washington that voices angst or concerns is told that she is the only candidate who can beat the Republican challenger, and that we need to keep our voices down and hold our nose on election day. And most of us will for the General Election. But we want to help and support candidates that reflect our values better in the Primary Election, which is what a primary is all about. And we are told by many that we can't even have a place at the table for those values because party divisions can be used against Maria Cantwell by the Republicans. Her 2000 race was won with 2,229 votes. The 2004 Governor's race was won by 129 votes. We know exactly how vulnerable the seat is, and we believe that by using the principle of inclusion and stand on principle we will bring more people to the party and more votes to the candidate.
They don't want to hear it.
In my opinion DFA and the NetRoots Community is more of a party than the Democrats are. We have found a way to balance our priorities, and we treat them as Yin and Yang. You can't have one without the other, and you honestly can't put one as more important than the other. Standing on principle and values doesn't mean anything if you can't get people elected to office to govern with those values. And electing people to office that won't govern with those values does nothing to help us create the world we want. We need both, and we here in DFA and within the NetRoots know how. The Democrats don't, so we'll have to teach them.
Chad Lupkes
Seattle