A New Blueprint for Change
A revived progressive program must be built year-round, 
at the local level.

By Amy Dean

In These Times
December 2010 issue - web release: Nov. 10, 2010

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6626/a_new_blueprint_for_change/

The finger pointing and soul searching has begun. Most of
this post-mortem discussion is focusing on a narrow period
of time, asking what went wrong with the Obama
administration during the president's first two years in
office. The real problem the country is facing, however, is
better considered over the span of two decades.

In 1992, as in 2008, Americans elected a Democratic
president after a long period of Republican rule. And like
President Barack Obama, Bill Clinton created high
expectations for change. Yet those who put a Democratic
administration and congressional majority into office ended
up seeing too little difference between the two major
parties - especially on core issues of economic justice.
Just as Clinton, once in office, proposed a failed,
corporate-friendly healthcare plan, reneged on his vows that
NAFTA would include serious protections for labor and the
environment, and did not even consider labor's demand for
strikebreaker replacement legislation, Obama has too often
embraced Washington horse-trading. Apparently believing that
appeals to moderation and pre-compromised policy stances can
substitute for political vision, he abandoned the public
option in healthcare, made no moves to advance legislation
that would expand the role of labor in the economy, and did
not promote government spending significant enough to
address the needs of people hit hard by the economic
downturn.

Like the midterm elections of 1994, the November 2, 2010
midterms have provided a wake-up call for Democrats who
should have learned long ago that they cannot defeat the
right with a watered-down version of the right's own
positions.

This strategy has succeeded only in opening a vast gulf in
American political life. On one side are Democrats in
Washington who believe they are cutting the best deals they
can for their constituencies. On the other are those working
and middle-class people who actually make up this base and
who have grown ever more disenchanted with the policies
their elected representatives have delivered.

It would be easy to merely lament this divide and stop
there. Yet two key developments are taking place that make
the present moment different from the early 1990s and that
provide important building blocks for bridging this gap:
First, in the past decade organized labor and other
progressive movements have built a political machinery for
running electoral campaigns that is more effective and
coordinated than ever before. Second, progressives are
finding their voice at the local and state levels, scoring
victories that demonstrate how policy can be changed in ways
that concretely benefit working and middle-class
communities. Together, these two developments can serve as
the foundation of a revived progressive political program.

New election machinery

The labor movement is the institution on the left investing
by far the greatest resources in political organizing - and
its outreach goes far beyond union members alone. Hence,
evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of unions' existing
political programs is central to considering prospects of a
wider progressive effort. In the latter half of the '90s,
labor started to invest heavily in political campaigning.

In the 1998 midterms, unions spent just over $100 million on
electoral efforts, according to the Wall Street Journal and
the Center for Responsive Politics. By the 2006 midterms,
when Democrats scored a sweeping victory at both state and
national levels, labor invested well over twice that - a
total of $271 million between direct contributions to
candidates and election-related advocacy. Unions and their
political action committees spent $450 million during the
2008 election cycle, when Obama was vying for the White
House.

Not only did progressive movements spend more time and
treasure on political campaigning, they overhauled their
techniques for running effective field campaigns. Using new
technology and hard-won experience in the "ground game,"
they developed ways to make better use of voter file
technology, more efficiently recruit activists to run
campaigns, create savvy messaging for candidates, and
ultimately turn out sympathetic voters on election day.

The establishment of this type of nuts-and-bolts political
infrastructure was one of the things that made possible the
Democratic surge at the polls in 2008. Yet Democrats make a
mistake when they rely on electoral machinery that is
powered from Washington. Two pitfalls in particular - the
Democratic establishment's neglect of the base between
election cycles and its centralization of political strategy
- contributed to this year's midterm debacle, in which
Republicans took control of the House and made major gains
in the Senate.

A most dramatic example of the collapse of organizing
efforts between electoral cycles is that of America Coming
Together (ACT), an aggressive labor-based advocacy and get-
out-the-vote operation led by Steve Rosenthal, former
political director of the AFL-CIO, during the 2004 election
cycle. With major financial supporters including George
Soros, Peter Lewis and the Service Employees union (SEIU),
ACT had 78 field offices spread throughout 12 swing states;
it mobilized more than 50,000 people to canvass on Election
Day. Yet despite an effort to keep the group intact after
the elections, it folded completely within months. Its
funders did not have a vision that extended beyond the drama
of a big election year. "In an ideal world," says Rosenthal
today, "we'd have a progressive campaign that works year-
round to create policy change and then gears up for election
work. Unfortunately, right now, there is no permanent
funding mechanism for progressive infrastructure, and
without it, it's very difficult to sustain operations."

The absence of ongoing progressive mobilization also
contributes to a lack of accountability on the part of
elected officials. Joan Fitz-Gerald, president of the get-
out-the-vote coalition America Votes, puts it this way: "A
lot of people think an election cycle is about putting
someone in office and then taking off their training wheels,
sending them off and hoping that they do the right thing.
Well, democracy is not a spectator sport. You have to be
present for it. That means being a part of a permanent
infrastructure that advocates."

In addition to a lack of organizing between election cycles,
much of the electoral machinery meant to mobilize the
Democratic base runs campaigns from the top down. Organizing
for America (OFA), was supposed to be a reincarnation of
Obama for America - Obama's famously grassroots and
Internet-savvy campaign. Yet many activists who tried to
remain engaged with the group found that they were asked to
do little more than carry water for the administration's
initiatives, with priorities and talking points shipped in
from Washington.

Ben Smith and Alex Isenstadt wrote in Politico,
"Progressives blast OFA as a soulless, top-down machine
that's alienating the base." And Micah Sifry blogged, "The
local base of the Obama campaign had no meaningful say in
the creation and structure of [OFA], and there is no
evidence that OFA is actually driven by anything but what
its DNC-paid staff and White House advisers want."

Long-term, year-round

Even while lowest-common-denominator deal making carries the
day in our nation's capital, progressives are finding their
voice at the state and local levels. By creating robust
political programs that keep politicians engaged with social
movement constituencies, these local progressives are
providing a model of how to win even in difficult times -
when national top-of-the-ticket candidates fail to inspire
large numbers of voters.

I saw this in San Jose, where I worked as head of the AFL-
CIO's South Bay Labor Council (SBLC) from 1993 to 2003.This
once-fractured organization has spent nearly two decades
rebuilding its political program, and its long-term
investment has resulted in an operation that runs year-
round. Not only do area unions come together as a
coordinated force, but they also work closely with
community-based organizations and interfaith groups. They
see their role not as endorsing the least-bad option among
candidates, but rather developing their own policy proposals
and finding candidates who will champion them.

Cindy Chavez, current executive officer of the SBLC and the
executive director of Working Partnerships USA, explains the
changes that have taken place:

    The SBLC has undertaken to develop new policies rather
    than react to policies developed by someone else. We are
    constantly moving policy and that means we are
    constantly organizing to support it. And we are
    developing and training leaders who will advocate and
    implement it. The ongoing nature of the political work
    builds an institutional memory in our organization. We
    are working on some aspect of policy development,
    candidate training, training newly elected officials and
    organizing every single day. This is a much different
    approach than making elections the ultimate goal and
    leaving the daily work of governing as an afterthought.

The long-term results of this model have led to local
victories that do not depend on the leadership of high-
office candidates. In 2000, even as George W. Bush took the
White House, the Silicon Valley Metro's headline about local
efforts read, "Labor-Backed Candidates Stomp Big Business
Boys in Legislative Races." This fall, even as Democrats
faced defeats nationally, progressives in San Jose
successfully ran three candidates for city council,
trouncing a slate of competitors backed by the Chamber of
Commerce.

A similar process of building political power from the
bottom up has been happening at the state level in Oregon -
producing impressive results even in the era of Tea Party
ascendancy. There, the labor movement, working closely with
community allies, was able to win a three-fifths majority in
the state legislature in 2009, and in 2010 it successfully
advocated a tax increase on corporations and families
earning over $250,000 per year. The measure allowed the
state to preserve essential public services amid the
economic downturn. Following the victory, Patrick Bresette
of Demos wrote:

    The energy that fueled months of hard work by a broad
    and deep coalition of concerned organizations and
    individuals, with thousands of volunteers, endless door
    knocking, phone calls and conversations with neighbors
    was not merely a "soak the rich" anger, it was a deep
    concern for the future of the state.

As in San Jose, the Oregon victory was made possible by a
sustained investment in building ongoing local political
infrastructure, with the labor movement taking a leading
role. Arthur Towers, political director of the 45,000-member
SEIU Local 503, says, "Having institutional memory allows us
to build local relationships from cycle to cycle that allows
us to demonstrate our commitment to elected officials who
take tough votes."

In particular, labor has emphasized educating candidates by
bringing them along on house visits during their organizing
drives and by having union members themselves tell their
stories to elected officials. "Because candidates work
directly with our members they begin to feel connected to
us," Towers says.

The policy victories at the local and state level provided a
standard by which progressives can define what a successful
political program should look like on a grander scale. Yet
expanding upon these victories requires national structures
that do not dictate strategy from the top down, but rather
provides resources for the coordination of bottom-up
efforts.

Given that the labor movement has union locals in some 650
U.S. communities, spread through every state in the union,
this network is a logical place to invest in creating
lasting political structure. Local affiliates already
contribute funds to their unions' national political
programs. Some may see field offices open in their
communities during intense pre-election periods. Yet very
few of them retain the capacity to run their own program.
Lacking this, local endorsements become pro forma, with
Democrats who are not true champions for working people
treating the labor movement like an ATM. Rather than
entering primary battles as a unified movement to secure
candidates committed to making progressive constituencies
partners in governing, unions' endorsements are often
disconnected from any larger vision.

Empower the base

Strides forward at the local level, combined with the
potentials of a more sophisticated national political
machinery, give hope for moving beyond the impasse that has
plagued progressives in the electoral realm during the past
two decades.

As with Jesse Jackson 20 years earlier, progressives
organized in 2008 around Barack Obama as a charismatic
leader. Yet the effort left behind little in terms of
lasting structure that could allow delivery on promised
changes. Groups reinventing politics at local, metropolitan,
and state levels take a different tack. These groups insist
that elected officials see their role as helping grassroots
movements successfully mobilize and push forward their
demands on an on-going basis.

"The most important question to ask before endorsing any
candidate," says Chavez, "is, `What will you do to increase
the capacity of your base?' "

Progressives would be wise to take this message to heart.
Unless candidates and local groups alike are continually
expanding the political space and generating the political
will for reform, the difference between the next Democratic
administration and this one will be just as little as the
difference between Obama and Clinton. And unless the local
base begins to lead and national politicians follow, 1994
and 2010 will only be two dates within a much larger litany
of setbacks.

[Amy Dean is co-author, with David Reynolds, of A New New
Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor
Movement (The New Century Foundation, 2009).

Dean's roots are in the American labor movement where she
served for almost 20 years. From 1993-2003 Dean, served as
President and CEO of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council.
During her tenure, the New York Times called Dean, "the most
innovative figure in Silicon Valley." As leader of the 15th
largest regional labor federation in the country, Dean
represented more than 90 unions and 110,000 members in the
heart of Silicon Valley. She was the youngest person and
first woman to lead a major labor federation of the AFL-CIO.

Dean is founder of two successful and innovative nonprofit
organizations. In 1995, she founded Working Partnerships USA
(WPUSA), a non-profit organization committed to rebuilding
the links between regional economic policy and community
well being. In 2005, Dean founded Building Partnerships USA,
a national organization dedicated to increasing civic and
political participation to strengthen democracy and advance
social and economic justice at the regional level.

Dean has also served on the Board of Governors of
California's Community Colleges and has received many awards
for her leadership including Woman of the Year from the San
Jose Mercury New, John M. Gardner Exemplary Leaders Award
from the American Leadership Forum, and the Gloria Steinem
Women of Vision Award from the Ms Foundation.

She can be reached via http://www.amybdean.com/.

Amy Dean is available for media interviews: Contact Karolyn
Raphael ([log in to unmask], (312) 494-0422) or
Ramona Oliver ([log in to unmask], (202)
360-6258)]

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