This is the point of progressive challenges
by digby
Today on Tamron Hall’s show on MSNBC she questions Chicago reporter Lynn Sweet about Rahm Emanuel’s victory last night in the Chicago mayoral race. Hall noted that Rahm claimed last night that the race will make him a “better mayor” and said he was grateful for the challenge. Sweet said:
We’ll see how long he remains humbled. I’d guess 10 or 20 minutes because he did win. But here’s what will be different.The campaign spawned an opposition that’s not going to go away. He had governed mainly by fiat in the first four years and I think his ability to just call the shots now is diminished with this…
Progressives will always have a hard time competing with people like Rahm, who has access to vast amounts of money. Sometimes they will win, nonetheless, and that’s great. It’s the goal. But these races are important regardless because they create progressive organization, experience and have the capacity to become a real opposition and at least dilute the power of the plutocrats.
One of the most frustrating aspects of progressive activism is having to defend the idea of raising money and organizing around progressive candidates who are facing uphill fights. But defend it we must because too many people believe that unless someone is obviously politically crippled there’s no point in challenging him or her because it’s unlikely you’ll win. Aside from the obvious fact that if you don’t bother to compete you’ll never win, the reality is that that politics requires long term strategy, reinforcement of ideas and philosophy and the building of coalition and institutions over time. Campaigns are a great vehicle for doing those things and are always worthwhile for their own sake. You may not always win, but the experience of doing it advances the cause, sometimes by increments and sometimes in great leaps.
If what Sweet says is true, that Emmanuel now has an opposition and will have to work harder to get buy-in from the people or face a backlash, then this was well worth doing.
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