Who Is Leading the Dem/Progressive/anti-Bush Coalition? Don't Let it Fade

In the buildup to the 2004 election, we saw the largest progressive coalition ever assembled come together. Everyone - even anti-war candidates and Nader supporters put aside differences and united behind Kerry.

Now many people are in various stages of disappointment, anger, frustration and resignation. There is talk about exposing voter fraud. There is talk about what the Dems need to do differently. There is speculation about 2008 candidates. Everyone has the feeling that 'we cannot passively stand for this' but everyone is going in different directions and no one is really providing direction or leadership. It's all self-initiated activists, which is great but that will not be maximally effective nor will it maintain unity or participation.

To be effective we need to have coordinated action. MoveOn.org was a way people organized and also to feel like they are acting together and making a difference. Without the feeling that others are acting with you and that your combined efforts are making a difference, it is much harder to stay motivated.

We need desperately for leaders to emerge in the post-election world and keep the progressive momentum going. It will dissipate and fade without leadership. It could be any person(s) or group(s) that have enough recognition within the progressive community and enough contacts and clout in the establishment. It could be MoveOn.org, or Air America Radio, or Michael Moore, or Bruce Springsteen or even the DNC (but I suspect a non-party person/group could be more effective). But SOMEONE has to keep people motivated, keep the message going, and give people a way to ACT TOGETHER and FEEL LIKE THEY ARE ACTING TOGETHER or we will lose what was built in the effort leading up to the election. And (real or fraudulent) election results aside, the progressive coalition of 2004 was nothing short of miraculous.

It’s something we’ve never had before. (Noam Chomsky endorsed a mainstream candidate for President - that is a once in a lifetime event!). It would be hard to piece together something as grand and motivated again. And although it was created to win the election, it is even more desperately needed post-election for Bush term-two damage control and for movement infrastructure building for future elections.

So I’m hoping beyond hope that someone or a few high profile people will emerge and speak to and lead our movement. We need leadership, we need to feel part of something, we need to work together to prevent the unopposed roll-out of the Bush agenda.

I heard someone on Air America talking about starting a "shadow government" to represent the 55,000,000 people that didn't vote for B*sh. Maybe we could try something a little less ambitious and have a Progressive Convention to discuss the future. It could be on-line or in person or a combination of the two and should include all of the organizations that you mentioned. There should be a way for all interested parties to participate with the goal being to stay together, get stronger and better organized.
We could elect leaders and create a framework where all of the various groups would be able to work together and not duplicate there efforts.
If anyone else heard the AAR interview and knows the blogger that was talking about this please let me know so I can search him out.