Progressive Democrats of Cambridge - DFA

Cambridge Community Television has just won an amazing grant from the Institute for Interactive Journalism.

According to CCTV's press release, the group "is a winner of a 2007 New Voices grant. CCTV's project, Neighbor to Neighbor, will embed citizen journalists in the city's neighborhoods to create media. N2N will provide residents the information they need to fully participate in civic life and will foster individual and collective action to improve the quality of life in Cambridge."

This should be a great way to encourage members of our community to become aware of what is going on in their neighborhood and to share the news with others in the city. It should also be a great way for cross-neighborhood communication, which is too rare around these parts.

Congratulations, CCTV!

Full disclosure: my wife is a member of CCTV.

The Boston Globe today discusses Kerry's re-evaluation of his career in light of The Joke:

"That was a slip-up of one word," he said Thursday on CNN's "The Situation Room." "I really think people have made much too much out of it."

The fact that he's even still discussing it should be an indication that he's in trouble.

I like Kerry as a Senator, rather more than I'd like to admit. He is a tough and effective advocate, and I think he is slowly but surely "getting" the netroots. That's why he contributed money to the DSCC's fund in early October, and that's why he went out of his way to help out Ned Lamont. He appreciates that we are a bona fide community. He has lapses in judgement, but my gosh he deserves to be our Senator more than almost anyone else I can think of.

The problem is not just that he has a classic case of foot-in-mouth disease; it's much deeper. It's that his national character has been effectively defined as an aloof patrician who sticks his finger in the wind. I don't agree with that characterization, but that's why The Joke hurt him so badly. Like Howard Dean's scream, it reaffirmed a (mis)characterization that many people already had. In Dean's case The Scream solidified his image as a loon (though he is anything but), in Kerry's case The Joke solidified his image as an elite snob.

There is something else, too: Kerry is totally unable to recover from a slip-up in today's media world, something that is increasingly important in the post-YouTube world. What was the line we saw most frequently in the week or so after the incident? It was a "botched joke", Kerry explained, maybe a thousand times. You cannot overestimate how horrible an explanation that is. The words "Kerry" and "botched" appeared in countless headlines together. That created the perception that Kerry botches things up.

Well now, if he botches a simple joke, how on earth is he supposed to run the damn country? This is a classic case of a horrible, horrible frame, and Kerry should have found some other explanation for the incident.

A good part of the blame for this goes to Our Beloved Media, whose insipid focus on these kinds of dumb things and whose patently obvious conservative bias made this stupid incident into a feeding frenzy. But taking back OBM is a long-term project, and we can't hope to have this vital instituion back any time soon. Managing an insipid and conservative mass media is now one of the criteria for waging a successful presidential campaign, and Kerry simply can't do it.

I don't think Kerry should run for President. As good of an advocate as he is for Massachusetts, he needs to understand his own limits. It's a fundamental aspect of leadership. Kerry will not be able to win the presidential in 2008, and he should spend his numerous talents and formidable energy on more useful goals.

Barring some unforeseen event, Kerry Healey will lose the gubernatorial election. The Massachusetts GOP will be dramatically reduced in power and influence and, realistically speaking, for the next two years and probably the next 4 - 8 years, it will be a minor party.

On November 8, there will be two major political parties in this state: the Democrats, and the progressive Democrats.

What can we do to build up the progressive Democratic party?

To be clear: I do not advocate that progressives should split from the Democratic party, and form their own party. I'm not even sure we should use fusion voting, if Question 2 passes.

I *do* advocate, and emphatically, that progressives should have a caucus in the Democratic party. That caucus should be a political entity in its own right, with a separate website, media presence, process for endorsing candidates for office, and possibly a fundraising arm.

The purpose of the caucus would be to coalesce progressive strength within the Democratic party, to allow progressives to act cohesively to reform the party and to hold officials accountable to progressive principles.

Another purpose of the caucus would be to shift the center of power in political media coverage. For better or worse, the media landscape of the past 16 years has portrayed political power in this state as a balance act between Republicans and Democrats. Even after Healey loses, there will be temptation in the news media to perpetuate that narrative, even though it will no longer be valid. Progressives have more power in this state than do Republicans, and they deserve more media coverage in order to promote and circulate their ideas. A progressive caucus within the Democratic party which can visibly demonstrate its electoral and legislative might will rapidly draw media attention away from the Republican party, and start to shift the narrative of political coverage.

The twinklings of such a caucus are already very much active. On the one hand you have a constellation of groups I would call collectively the "netroots": DFA groups, PDA groups, the MA blogosphere, a group of rowdy drunkards, and of course the MA Roots Project.

On the other hand you have larger, more established, very powerful groups, like MassEquality, Neighbor to Neighbor, SEIU, and the state AFL-CIO. I would call these groups collectively the "establishment progressives." Quite often the netroots see eye to eye with the establishment progressives, although we do have our differences. (There are, of course, some differences of opinion within the netroots, but these are comparatively rare.)

I propose that the netroots and the establishment progressives together form a progressive caucus within the Democratic party, for the purpose of highlighting and coalescing the strength of the progressive movement in Massachusetts. Each group would have some share of representation within the caucus, and the caucus would have the power to endorse candidates for office in the Democratic primary. The caucus would also make a concerted effort to publicize its candidates and its shared vision for Massachusetts; for example, it could coordinate on proposing amendments to the Democratic party platform.

The hope is that such a caucus would facilitate communication and coordination within the progressive movement, and would help to shift the statewide political debate and media coverage from a Democratic/Republican axis to a progressive/conservative Democratic axis.

I can imagine any number of problems or objections to this idea. What are yours?

(Cross-posted to Blue Mass Group)