Endorsements

by digby

There has been a lot of talk over the last couple of days about Tom Geoghegan’s loss in the special election on Tuesday. I am not a field organizer or a campaign consultant so I’ll leave the discussions of those things to others. I did hear one concern that I think is worth addressing here and that is that bloggers are losing credibility and the trust of our readers by backing candidates who fail. Since I do endorse candidates, either personally or through Blue America, I want to explain my thinking on that once again.

There was a time when I probably would have backed just about anyone in order to put an end to the horrific reign on George W. Bush. I knew it was bad, but the new things we are starting to see come out about that time are so stunning that I am prouder than ever of having been among those who helped in that endeavor. Had our enemies been even a a tenth as lethal as they claimed, and another terrorist attack had taken place on American soil, there is no longer any doubt what would have happened. That’s what they were laying the groundwork for. So, no regrets.

However, since 1996, the mission changed. In addition to fighting the conservatives, I and many others have been trying to specifically advance progressive causes and congressional candidates, with an eye toward long term movement building. And in my view that means sometimes backing causes, ideas and people who are not yet in the political mainstream but which I think have resonance and meaning and reflect principles that I hold. There’s no list of criteria or any great manifesto — I’m just an old country blogger, after all, and have absolutely no delusions of political grandeur about any of this. I trust that everyone who reads this blog is a free thinking adult and knows to do their own research.

I was invited to join Blue America some time back, which was great because the group is dedicated to electing “more and better” Democrats, which translates to more and better progressives because of the philosophical inclinations of the members of the group. And Blue America has a terrific track record over the past few cycles even though the criteria for choosing candidates is based almost entirely on issues and responsiveness to the netroots. To me, that says something.

My personal reason for being part of the group has to do with supporting people with ideas. It’s what I’m interested in and it’s a job that I think the netroots is distinctly qualified for and good at doing. We’re both activist and media and we have a unique function (among others) which is pumping new thinking into the ether and getting both our readers and the political class to consider things that stale conventional wisdom, by its nature, locks out of the conversation. I consider that to be the lubricant in the engine of change.

Anyway, about Geoghegan, there was some discussion that he was difficult to understand. And on a performance level, there were probably some good reasons why that might have been. Public speaking off the cuff is very difficult (and a very good reason why I would rather stick needles under my fingernails than do it myself.) I wrote some of the following in an email on the subject and I thought I would share it with you in case you were wondering about this:

I didn’t find Tom’s presentation to be difficult to understand, but I can see where someone might if they were used to hearing the narrow range of discussion that normally takes place in our discourse. The reason he may have caused some dissonance was the bigness of his ideas.

He called himself the first “post-meltdown” candidacy, which (along with his rivals) was true in a literal sense, but also in an ideological sense. He talked about things like erasing individual debt and *expanding* social security and said that single payer was the only logical system. He did talk about usury and even (gasp!) used Europe as a model for certain programs. He was way outside the parameters of comfortable political discourse in this country. I’m sure some people thought he was incomprehensible — he said things they’ve never heard any politician say before.

When I heard him speak I felt that dissonance and I was aware that the public’s ears had not yet been prepared for these ideas and understood this was going to take a while to sink in. Since this was a special election, I certainly had hope that the large field would provide an opening, but I knew he probably sounded pretty radical to a lot of people.

And I was thrilled to support someone who was bringing these ideas into electoral politics and gaining the attention of the political establishment through the blogs and friends in the liberal intelligentsia — particularly the young, new establishment that’s going to be growing up in the Obama era (and can easily be subsumed in tired conventional Broderism if they aren’t challenged.) It’s movement building at its best. It pushes the conversation left, makes people think in new ways and prepares the ground for other, perhaps more mainstream politicians, to adopt these progressive ways of thinking. It’s extremely useful in an era where the wind is at our backs and big things are being done.

I know everyone feels that we should win all these races and I like to win too, but I think that’s a very cramped vision for progressivism. There’s no opportunity as good as an election to educate the public about policy, principles and ideology, even though most of it is wasted with soundbites and slogans (which are also important, don’t get me wrong.) I’d rather support a new big thinker like Geoghegan over a predictable, blow dried political robot any day, simply for the opportunity to get those ideas out there.

Geoghegan’s speech opened my mind to some things I hadn’t thought about before and I would bet anything he did the same to some others. That’s how new neural pathways are formed in the body politic and how long term change is made. After all, Obama would not be able to speak a common language about progressive change if dirty hippies hadn’t been out there tilting at windmills about the environment,health care etc. for years.

Geoghegan was in a field of number of acceptable Democratic candidates in a Democratic primary for a solid Democratic seat. In cases like those, I back the one who is the most progressive and has the big ideas. To me, that’s just a no brainer. There is no way you can lose.

So, that’s where I’m coming from. If you want to only back those who the political professionals think can best beat Republicans, the DCCC and the DSCC spend many millions of dollars doing research to find and nurture those people. Their track record isn’t any better than others’ a good part of the time, but that is their sole criteria. But if you want to help progressive candidates who have a chance of winning but who, even if they lose, will advance the progressive message in congressional and senate campaigns, then you might want to look at other groups or people you trust who are endorsing candidates for those reasons.

And I would caution anyone who thinks that just because the political class says that a candidate “can’t win” to think again. It happens all the time. In fact, if you read the previous post by dday, you’ll read about one of them — Alan Grayson, a guy who all the smart guys told Howie Klein didn’t have a chance. Blue America endorsed him anyway. Now he’s in Washington giving the Big Money Boyz headaches and causing the Politico to write hit pieces on him because of his rude attitude toward Rush Limbaugh and bankers. Talk about a winner.

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