A Progressive Caucus?

In recent threads on this site's Yahoo sister group, the discussion of establishing and supporting a Progressive Caucus has been getting a lot of travel. To begin with, it has been established that there is a Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chaired by Dennis Kucinich and Rep. Barbara Lee of California with Jim McDermott doing a fine job of representing us in Washington. What, you might ask, is the significance of this fine group? Well in my opinion, it is what should be at the core of our activities in this election cycle. My selection of Howard Dean over Dennis Kucinich in the presidential race was made very much with the Progressive Caucus in mind. Kucinich was fond of reminding us that he was co-chair of that caucus but was hard pressed to count their accomplishments over the past 8 years. My feeling was (and is still) that Howard Dean would have signed whatever the Progressive Caucus could have gotten through the House.

The shift in our own party, so dynamically pointed out by Dean in his famous "What I want to know...." speech, has been gaining ground with each passing election. Since the 2nd coming of Reagan (1984), the DLC has been slowly but surely making great inroads into the soul of our party. Indeed, it has been the DLC who have given us "Free Trade" over "Fair Trade" and "Welfare to Work" and a shift in foreign policy that helped George W Bush launch a preemptive strike in Iraq. Of course the key element in the DLC argument is "electability". Friends, make no mistake, Bill Clinton won re-election on shear force of his personality, not on any values of the DLC. One only needs to look to the mid-term election of 1994 for that answer.

We have all been told that we must not only take the Whitehouse but that we must take back the congress as well. In my opinion, it is not enough to win back the House of Representatives however. We must make it one that once again represents our values. It is my feeling that, not only can we not afford to lose a Dennis Kucinich in the Progressive Caucus, but we must be tireless in our efforts to put more true Progressives in Congress. As you look for places to invest your time and resources this year, look for where there are contested races and where there is a real difference between progressive values or "electability" ask what you can do to help restore our values and start taking back our country.