We stand today at a crossroads.
Looking at the complexities of the challenges we face as progressives and Democrats: the 2008 Presidential race and the state of our nomination process, the very real battle for control of the United States Senate, the challenge to expand our majority in the United States House of Representatives and to make that majority finally mean something tangible and real, the struggle over the balance of power in state legislatures and governor's mansions in all 50 states (especially given the impending census of 2010), our tenuous position in the Supreme Court and the judiciary, the influence of our ideas and political ideology in the policy decisions and career hires within the federal government, the battle for reform of an entrenched and too often backwards-looking Democratic party and, finally, more than anything else, the ultimate character and direction of our society in the 21st Century...our inclusiveness, our commitment to justice and civil rights, and our ability to rise to the challenges that this moment in history presents to us as a unified people...not least of which are the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the spectre of global warming.
You could say we have our work cut our for us, and you would be right.
So much hangs in the balance.
As we were walking between sessions at Yearlykos, Aarti Shahani, a NYC immigrant rights activist and founder of the dynamic organization Families for Freedom, asked me a straightforward question:
What motivates my engagement in electoral politics?
My answer to Aarti was simple: Politicians write the laws.
The United States is a society of laws and, as progressives, we must be the firmest and staunchest supporters of the value of the United States Constitution and the most devoted advocates for progressive reform in the fields of legislation, policy and the law. When we engage in electoral politics, when we exercise our democratic rights under the Constitution and advocate for progressive candidates, we do so in order to shape the laws of this land. As progressives, we must never forget the centrality and simplicity of that fact.
There is no greater power available to a political movement of United States citizens. When we neglect this focus, we forget one of the basic tenets of political engagement in American political life: a legislative majority is only powerful insofar as it impacts the law of the land. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. We have relearned that lesson in all its bitterness in 2007.
Politicians write the laws. Corporations and lobbyists have long known and taken advantage of this reality. It is high time that the American voting public understood and took action upon that fact. We must keep our eyes on the prize; our movement is about progressive reform of the laws of this land at the federal, state and municipal level. Nothing less is satisfactory. Electoral wins and legislative hearings mean little if they do not craft legislative outcomes that impact the every day lives of citizens of the United States.
The November 2006 elections and their failure to change the course, so far, of the war in Iraq are a central case in point. I said this at YearlyKos Chicago and I will say it publicly now: pretty much for as long as there have been blogs, there has been a war in Iraq. Why are we patting ourselves on the back?
It is August of 2007, and we are at turning point.
To be frank, Democrats are facing a "must-win" Presidential cycle without the presence of a "sure-thing" candidate. We have 14 months of grueling, yet hopeful, work ahead of us. There are very real reasons for this state of affairs, but, without going into needless detail, we must keep one thing in mind: we will select our nominee at a national convention after a process of debates, primaries and caucuses during which rank and file Democrats will cast their vote. That is central and sacred; the process has an inherent value.
No one has a "lock" on this nomination. No one candidate "owns" it. And, when all is said and done, given this precarious moment in our nation's history, I am confident that the Democratic base will rally around our eventual nominee with an unequivocal show of support.
That being said, I have a message for that Democratic base.
The time for complaining from the sidelines is over. The moment for a "holier than thou" politics of gripe and moan has passed. The days in office of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney are numbered. It is August, 2007, and if we are going to make a generational shift in American politics, the time to do so is now and the place to do so is here. The time for far-reaching party reform and roots-up reinvigoration at the state and county level is upon us. The time for new leadership is this very moment.
I go to meetings. I talk to Democrats and progressives. I talk to bloggers all over this country. I listen.
What is happening now, however exciting, is not enough. Too often, I talk to Democrats who are still using the language of being "let down" by our party and its leaders or "disappointed" by our chosen candidates and their votes.
Democrats and progressives, it's time to look in the mirror. There's nobody else who is going to take the initiative if we don't do so ourselves.
To be frank, I am sick of hearing brilliant and articulate people complain about the paucity of competent leadership in our political party. I am sick to death of divisiveness and bickering over side issues when there is so much essential we agree upon. It galls me that so many waste their time on the media circus and neglect the politics of their locale. I think every reader of this website knows what I mean when I say that in November of 2006 we in the netroots helped move our nation to vote for putting backbone into our national political life, and instead we got what seems at times like a majority of wimps.
Little will change in that state of affairs unless we do the hard and local work.
I am coming from a meeting of Young Democrats in Oakland. We talked about registering voters in the Central Valley and the "red" district in CA-04. We talked about holding politicians accountable.
I had a simple message for those Young Democrats.
You are the future leaders of our party. Some of you will run for office, and we will invest in you. In addition to registering voters in the Central Valley, you should be reaching out and empowering other future leaders, your brothers and sisters in towns all over this state. Nothing will change in the CA Democratic Party unless we band together and make that change state-wide. That is the way American politics works. That's how we reform this party locale-by-locale, county-by-county, state by state. It's that simple. (And that's the dirty little secret Karl Rove knew inherently: the party with on-the-ground grassroots initiative wins.)
We can talk about backbone and fighting Democrats till we are blue in the face, but our movement will make little difference until we all make a personal investment in fresh leadership and changing the face of the Democratic Party one district at a time. Want to see a dinosaur Democrat change their spots? Start getting fresh voices involved at the local grassroots level. Run some fresh candidates in an overlapping district. That is United States politics 101. All politics is local. It's time we in the netroots lived up to it.
I am not saying anything new. You've heard it from Howard Dean and Markos and Jerome. You've heard me bray about founding and participating in local blogs, recruiting local progressive candidates and doing GOTV election after election. But what I'm saying tonight is something that I believe to my core: until folks who've sat on the sidelines get off their asses and stop complaining and get involved locally, until our true leaders-in-waiting, with encouragement and investment from the rest of us, muster the courage to run for office, we won't make a whit of difference in American political life...we won't create the legislative victories that will prove to be the true political mark of the progressive movement in American politics: our impact on the law of the land.
I can say it five ways till Sunday but that won't make it less true: the most important person in American politics is you.