what do Progressives need to work on to WIN?

I am a little amazed that I haven't seen a poll asking this. Or maybe there was one and I slipped into a coma without realizing it.

Anyway, What things/tactics/policies should we as Progressives work hardest on counter the Republicans and Cons, and make the Dem politicians into a true opposition party instead of ..whatever it is they are now?

The list is hardly exhaustive. Nor do you have to choose just one. But if you go for an "Other" or 'Combination" please explain yourself so we know exactly what you mean.

than defining clearly what "progress" means today. Before even thinking about "re-framing", it seems logical to put down exactly what such platform is.

but I only have a line for each choice so i had to hope that we all knew what I was talking about.

I think we alreayd have a pretty good idea of what we stand for. But we often aren't very godo at expressing it.

and yes, i am taking this from lakoff. but I agree with him on this. we talk policy but often forget that most peopel want to hear our vision for the country.

A bit illogical but true in my opinion.

THe rightwing propaganda machine has already defined and justified a conservative economic agenda for 30 years. Their agenda centers around lower taxes (especially on the rich people (tax rates used to be 70% or more on the top earners), less regulations on business, lower trade barriers, weakened unions, etc etc etc. Everything else is window dressing. THe Conservative agenda centers around ECONOMIC ISSUES.

Now, if you want a Progressive Agenda, then you need to go in the OPPOSITE direction, and justify a progressive ECONOMIC agenda. You need to define the progressive agenda in terms of economics. You need to develop a compelling economic narrative. THe Rightwing has a compelling economic narrative. Unfortunately, the nations with the highest quality of life are in countries that DO NOT adhere to the Conservative, Rightwing economic agenda, countries like Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, where the top tax rates are over 60% or more and even tax wealth.

But do you hear the Democrats spreading the news from these countries to American voters? Of course not. Gee, I wonder why? Why do the Democrats define their agenda in terms of social issues like gay rights, gender rights, affirmative action, and other WEDGE ISSUES. Do ya think maybe the democrats at the top of the party actually agree with the GOP when it comes to core sconomic issues? Why do they completely ignore how these other countries provide for their people in ways that run contrary to the conservative economic agenda?

Yeah, yeah, Kerry said he would roll back the tax cuts on the wealthy. Yeah, I heard that already.... But did he explain WHY high taxes are good? Did he provide a rationale and background for the progressive agenda? Of course not. That because he is conservative, economically. And a top tax rate of 39% on earned income and 15% on unearned income (Kerry's plan) is not progressive. That is conservative.

But you will say that if Kerry did as I suggested, he would not even have been nominated. Well, maybe, maybe not. But you see, the Conservative agenda was not popular 30 years ago either. First, they had to spend millions of dollars justifying their agenda INDEPENDENT OF ANY PARTICULAR POLITICAL CAMPAIGN. They spread the news that low taxes are a good thing far and wide. For years! Then, when the politicians ran and called Democrats "tax and spend liberals," a lot of Americans thought bad of Democrats.

So, first you have to disseminate information to justify this progressive agenda. I suggest we start by showing how the social democracies of Scandanavia provide the world's highest quality of life for their citizens using progressive taxation. That is opposite of the conservative economic agenda. If you want to do battle with conservatives, it helps if your economic agenda is different from theirs.

And we start explaining it to the rural, white voters in swing states. Start by gathering explanatory, expository, persuasive articles (explaining a progressive economic agenda) from progressives all over the internet, putting them in a small newspaper, and paying liberals a little money to start giving away that newspaper in small towns in states like IA, NH, OH, PA, WI, MN, MI, WV, FL, etc. THe blue states already have enough people who would buy into a REAL progressive agenda. And the red state voters don't matter.

If we start now in Iowa and NH, we can get into enough minds that we might be able to nominate a REAL progressive. And then that progressive could be elected because we changed enough minds in the other swing states.

You don't try to discover electable politicians as the foundation of a progressive political agenda. You try to persuade enough voters that the progressive agenda is feasible. Then, if you persuade enough voters, the right politicians will show up and get elected.

By other I mean Marketing. It is the responsibility of progressives from the highest levels to the grassroots to perpetuate at every opportunity, the positive precepts of progressive politics. This is where the Dems are failing as a party. They spend all their time acting as if the pukes are right in their criticisms of our programs and policies. They aren't right. The right is successful in defining us for the public because we aren't defining ourselves. If the Dem party isn't going to do it, the progressives must.

We need ads to run all year, every year, on a variety of progressive issues. MoveOn and ACT are great organizations to support in this effort. We need progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold to continue to stand up and profess in common sense language the progressive ideals. And we need the grassroots to continue to be a presence in our communities supporting progressive events, policies, and politicians.

In essence, a combination, but not exactly a combination of any of those you listed.

In poll after poll, Americans agree with the Democrats on most issues. We need a nominee and a campaign who are willing to rip-apart the GOP's policies. They need to be ready and EAGER to eviscerate the GOP's moral hypocrisy. They need to SMEAR when necessary. In other words, we need some killer instinct. I saw none of this from the campaign this year. I saw pleasantries, positivity, and (pardon me for saying this) pussy-ness.

There was no pointing-out how the standards of living is pretty much consistently lower in Red States. Test scores, divorce rates, teen pregnancy rates, crime rates, yadda yadda yadda.

The was no light shone onto the money trail in D.C.:
1) Donor A gave X dollars to the GOP.
2) The GOP Congress then formulated Policy N.
3) Policy N screwed you over. You, the average citizen, lost T dollars over this.
4) And Donor A, in return, gained an estimated G billion dollars out of the deal.
No such diagram was clearly drawn for the American people, a la Ross Perot. I proposed repeatedly an informercial exposing such injustices, but the campaign ignored my recommendations. Sorry, but Americans won't learn unless we point these things out on television. And we can't depend-upon Wolf Blitzer to expose these things for us; he's too busy with Paris Hilton and Scott Peterson.

I want someone who's willing to say "I'm calling bullshit on you, GOP!" Not someone who'll dawdle and meekly point-out, "Well.. if I must say, I tend to disagree with you." Politeness has won us nothing.

When the Democrats nominate someone with pair of gonads, and get people with gonads to run our campaigns.. then I'll be convinced that we can win. Until then, I fully expect us to remain at 'Doormat' status.

That's my answer, in short. So you could chalk it up to "framing the issues."

The FIRST thing we need to do is clarify what we as a party stand for - "Get back to our progressive/liberal base." Right now I feel that almost nobody in the democratic party is fighting for me, and those that are do not have power. I'm really just feeling like somebody punched me in the gut. I feel like the most I can possibly get is a more powerful and vocal party that doesn't represent me. The lesser of two evils. This is NOT motivating and nobody will vote for Republicans lite. Nobody is addressing the dire and real threats to our nation that I've come to believe in.

If and when this happens, THEN the rest of the problems can be dealt with. First, we will need representation in the media. This will come alongside a reframing of our (newly reformed) message.

Then we need to link up the progressive groups/work on grassroots. Now, I would say we completely own the right on a grassroots level, if it were not for corrupt churches advocating political candidates. This can be partially countered by energizing the religious left(hint hint - get back to progressive base!) But about grassroots activism: If corporations can outsource tech support to India, why is it so difficult to find a way to get involved in my town? In every town? We should all be able to contribute directly.

To conclude, I'd like to point out yet again that I feel betrayed by the democrats.

and that the process of vote tabulation is conducted in a transparent manner.

Catholics need to be peeled away from fundamentalists. Just tell them what the fundamentalists REALLY think of their faith.

SOCIAL ISSUES

There is little federal funding of abortion already, due to the Hyde Amendment.

If a Democratic candidate said he's against federal funding of abortion, we would have a chance at more "pro-life" voters.

ECONOMICS

By opposing NAFTA, the WTO, and federal contracts for companies which outsource, we would give people an economic reason to vote for the Democrats.

I wish i had added fix the voting system.

But I only had 10 choices

we did nothing wrong, we did not lose. They cheated, they lied, they obfuscated. Perhaps we should do the same??

..if we do that. how are we going to tell the difference between us and them?

Freepers and terrorists BOTH justify thier actions under the idea that They are GOOD, thier enemies are BAD. So they can commit lesser evils (like killing civilians or cheating at elections) for a "Greater Good". and they can break thier own rules and morals becuase the rules and basic human decency don't apply when dealing with 'Bad" people.

I really don't want to become a freeper, even a Liberal one.

We need to get rid of NAFTA and GATT. The Clinton free trade policies are unpopular among the working americans that used to be our core support.

Fair trade is an emotional issue that would connect with the rest of America as well. If we combine that with less gun control and less fanaticism about abortion we will retake control of the country.

become conservatives. :eyes:

but also reforming the media is also high on the list and getting back to basic progressive principals with emphasis on economic rather than moral agendas. Also, may not hurt to energize the religious left a little.

then the candidate can walk into the frame later on.

if you don't do that, it doesn't matter what you do.

You're wasting your time if you don't deal with this

1. Seriously look at how we frame our issues. Come together on what exactly our core values are, and find ways to succinctly state these values in terms that most people can identify with. Then, frame every single policy and issue in a manner than can easily be traced back to these values. We win by reaching people on an emotional level first, before we even attempt to reason with them.

2. Bring progressive groups together to work on the same purpose, rather than herding cats. If we want to take over the Democratic Party, we have to act like a party. We cannot afford to be an assembly of affiliated coalitions. We need to all come together, and encourage many of the single-issue groups to do the same.

3. Run progressive candidates for office on every level. This is how we create our leadership for the future. Also, make sure that every race is contested -- even in apparent Republican strongholds. When we find compromised Democrats, primary them until they are ousted.

4. Maintain a bottom-up organizing strategy. The way we get progressive Democrats in areas that are seemingly hostile to them is to recruit them from those areas. Ensure that candidates running for office in different areas "speak the language" of their friends and neighbors.

These four are just a start, but we have to start somewhere.

We're not going to get ordinary Americans to give up their TV news and mainstream newspapers so we should reform our tactics to make our points more effectively in the media and use grassroots pressure to make mainstream media more balanced.

We tried reforming the party from the inside. Kucinich, Dean, Sharpton, Clark, supporters held their noses and voted for Kerry as the lesser of two evils because he was "electable".

As long as they can count on us to be suckered they'll continue to move to the right until they are absorbed by the repugs as the irrelevant "opposition".