US Politics: The Challenge to Democrats from the Left (Haddigan)

EA correspondent Lee Haddigan writes:

Most of the attention paid by the media to the anti-incumbent insurgency in US politics has dealt with the Tea Party. But two events of last week reveal a much more worrying trend for the Obama Administration in Washington, developments that will shape the success or failure of the Obama presidency far more than conservative grassroots protest.

For the progressive left of the Democratic coalition are not happy, and they are becoming increasingly less circumspect in voicing their disapproval of the direction of the Administration. the federal government is taking. It is disturbing news for Democrats because it was the grassroots efforts of the progressive left that swept Obama to power.



Last week the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, was heckled at a conference in Washington by a group of disabled activists.  The protestors were complaining about the slow progress of the Community Choice Act in the House. This Act would allow the disabled to receive care in their own homes as a federal right, instead of being forced into residential centers by cash strapped state governments in an effort to save money.

Pelosi’s speech was also protested by CODE PINK, a progressive antiwar group, who unfurled a banner reading "Stop Israel Funding Terror" but were otherwise quiet.

The protests made great headlines but masked the real significance of events at the three-day conference. ADAPT and CODE PINK both have personal grievances against Speaker Pelosi (CODE PINK co-sponsors the pelosiwatch.org website) and her perceived inaction on single issues. The conference, in contrast, aired the general disappointments of the entire progressive movement.

Three days before the conference, "America’s Future Now", Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, wrote about his hopes for the gathering. He acknowledged:

When progressive activists gather next week at the annual America’s Future Now conference, frustration and dismay will be widespread. Action on jobs is stalled among mixed signals from the White House. A Democratic Congress pours billions into the war in Afghanistan even as legislation to forestall the unimaginable layoff of 300,000 teachers is derailed in the Senate. The growing calamity of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill only highlights the lack of action on climate change and new energy.

Borosage could have added, as others have done elsewhere: the omission of a public option or protection of abortion rights in the health care reforms, no action on repealing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" in the US military, the freezing out of the Employee Free Choice Act, and failure to reform the financial industry. Although he conceded the White House had made great strides in passing legislation that met part of the progressive agenda, Borosage maintained that the changes did not go far enough, leaving an "enthusiasm gap" in the core Obama base: the young, minorities, and single women.

For Borosage the answer and the way to re-engage the Obama base was for activists to campaign outside the establishment of the Democrat Party and press candidates to address the concerns of their supporters on the Left or face the withdrawal of progressive support. He warned, "Conservative Democrats and compromised administrators must learn once more the temper of their own activists. Those who are standing in the way must understand that they will not be given a free pass.

Borosage then reminded progressives, "History suggests that progressive movements must organize independently of Democratic administrations to effect change. We must be 'off the reservation' as labor was under Roosevelt, and the civil rights movement was under Johnson."

Borosage ended his article with a veiled warning for Democrats running for reelection this autumn: they need to change their priorities if they want the backing of progressive activists:

Only limited reform can come from an administration necessarily seeking the best deal it can get. Only independent progressive mobilization can change the balance of forces in Washington. It is time for progressive to lead once more.

Borosage’s comments, and the Conference, may not have deserved much notice had it not been for another event: Bill Halter’s primary challenge against Senator Blanche Lincoln for the Democratic nomination in Arkansas.

A strategy similar to that outlined by Borosage almost upset Lincoln. Richard Eskow, a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future, advised progressives on the best way to persuade politicians to enact a meaningful reform agenda:

[This] means showering them with calls and letters of praise for their positive actions, followed by flowing cascades of donations, volunteers, and support. Believe me, that'll make any politician's cheeks turn rosy with afterglow. When they don't do the right thing? Stony silence, angry letters, lack of funds or volunteers - hey, maybe even a primary challenger. This needs to be tactically applied, of course - to have a Democrat replaced by an even worse Republican is usually a Pyrrhic victory. But Halter's primary challenge to Sen. Blanche Lincoln was an excellent example of the progressive movement's ability to punish anti-progressive behavior, which discourages it, while also pressuring pols to take better policy stands.

CAF was far from the only progressive grassroots organization to campaign for Halter, and their near success bodes ill for establishment Democrats. Lincoln, the chair of the Senate Agricultural Committee, won by only 52%-48%. Take away her leading Senate role in a state where agriculture is vital to the economy, and she would have lost. Equally important, when Halter decided to run three months before the primary, he was 20 points down in the polls.

The progressive movement got their activists and money together to work to defeat a candidate who had failed to support the public option in health care reform. Much of the money came from labor unions, but a significant figure also came from thousands of small individual donations to progressive groups to flood Arkansas with a pro-Halter message. It was a campaign on national issues, in a single state, that built on the growth of nationwide internet fundraising by progressives.

Actblue is a website founded in 2004 with the purpose of being a clearing house for Democrat fundraising. You visit the site and make a donation (within campaign limits) to whichever Democrat candidate –-- in any of the 50 states –-- you choose. In its report on the Lincoln-Halter primary Actblue noted:

There's a structural change that explains the viability Halter's challenge: the rise of fast, effective online fundraising. In the 48 hours after he announced, Halter hit $1,000,000, raised from tens of thousands of individual donors. On ActBlue alone, he raised over 1.2M via 40,000 individual contributions over the course of his campaign.

Actblue continued:

Much of Halter's online haul came from members of MoveOn, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), Democracy for America (DFA) and the DailyKos community. That's a remarkably young list. MoveOn is far and away the eminence grise, a digital dinosaur whose pedigree stretches all the way back to the late 90s. DfA is younger, growing out of Howard Dean's '04 run, and the PCCC was founded in '09 by MoveOn and AFL-CIO alums (the latter being another major player in Halter's race). In 8 weeks they were able to raise millions for a will-he-won't-he candidate whose name had been floated for just about every office in Arkansas. Their fundraising propelled him into the national spotlight, and gave him the resources he needed to run a remarkably successful campaign against a sitting senator.

The national impact on a state race in numbers? Senator Lincoln received $17 562 in donations from 73 individuals on Actblue; Halter received $1,209,157 from 39,206 separate contributions.

These progressive grassroots groups are not going away. Halter’s campaign enabled them to begin to build areas of cooperation that will only make them stronger in the future.

These are the activist organizations that are trying to bridge Borosage’s "enthusiasm gap". As Stephanie Taylor, a co-founder of PCCC, explained in an e-mail to fellow members immediately after the primary:

We formed the PCCC last year to create a new model for supporting progressive candidates. This race was an important building block.

PCCC members donated over $250,000 to Halter's campaign. Unprecedented for a new organization. PCCC staffers Michael Snook and Keauna Gregory directed Halter's field program and invented new ways of working seamlessly with our partners like Democracy for America and MoveOn...practices we will bring to future races that we win.

Some commentators have read too much into the protests against Nancy Pelosi protests at the "America's Future Now" conference. Dana Milbank in The Washington Post saw the spectacle of a Democratic Speaker being “eaten by her own”:

Political movements tend to unravel gradually, but on Tuesday this one seemed to be imploding in real time. As the "tea party" right has gained strength, Obama's hope-and-change left has faded. The frustration has crystallized at the gathering this week of demoralized activists.

The vitality of the Halter campaign proves instead that the "hope-and-change left" are not so much demoralized as disappointed with the inadequacy of the administration’s reform policies. And the story that emerges from the Conference is that activists will continue to pressure the President to enact meaningful progressive legislation and that they are prepared to work against Democrats who do not meet their criteria. How those candidates will react to the "insurgency" on their Left will determine the success or failure of Democrats in these off-year elections, and the future course of the Obama Administration.

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