Notes from the Take Back America Conference

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Universal health care, kick starting the economy, rebuilding unions and the middle class, ending the war, achieving social and economic justice were once pretty much the exclusive province of the progressive movement. But activists pushed and talked and pushed some more and these are now mainstream values, absorbed by the more centrist candidates themselves.

TBA’s Recipes for Success: Some Examples

Energize, mobilize, join together. These were the themes of this conference. Many speakers hailed this as a historic opportunity to toss out a broken system, an unworkable ideology. John McCain has rapidly morphed from maverick to Bush clone, mimicking his economic wrongheadedness as much as his foreign policy. And all this while pandering shamelessly to the Religious Right. Before McCain’s emergence as top dog of the GOP, the other contenders likewise distinguished themselves by being indistinguishable from a president with the lowest approval ratings in our nation’s history. Talk about sheep chasing one another over a cliff!

Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood comes by her vision of justice and equality rightly. She is the daughter of former Texas Governor, Ann Richards. After laying out some of Planned Parenthood’s achievement - among them, giving health care to five million women last year - she sternly shunned applause with a big caveat. Don’t think that any of these actions matter, she warned, if the next president appoints another conservative to the Supreme Court. Her words resonated with the crowd and underscored how much remains to be done.

Anna Burger is chair of Change to Win, a joint effort of SEIU and six other major unions which together represent more than six million workers. They have successfully worked to mobilize and get out the vote to elect pro-worker candidates in the last several election cycles. She told the haunting story of a woman who joined her in promoting universal health care by going door to door. Anna asked her why she was involved. Her adult son apprenticed to be a plumber and was now working in his field but was worried about his lack of health coverage. She was mobilizing public opinion out of a concern for him. Subsequently, Anna learned that the woman’s son joined the National Guard to receive health insurance. He reassured his mother, however, that the recruiter had promised that he would not be sent to Iraq. Victim of one more promise that was not kept, her son is now overseas. As Burger poignantly put it: “No one should have to join the National Guard to get health insurance.”

Burger also touched on the concept of accountability - how candidates so often know the right thing to say while campaigning, but once elected, suddenly develop selective amnesia about their promises. Change to Win has developed a program of exposing elected officials’ records - their votes and their policies - so that they can no longer hide their positions from their constituents. If your elected official no longer represents your views, she urges you to find candidates to challenge them, or run yourself. “Take them on or take them out.” Change to Win is making this possible.

Democrats traditionally have taken a perverse pride in their reputation for independence, for shunning cooperation. The image that comes to mind is trying to herd a roomful of cats. The Republicans are certainly infinitely more disciplined. Just listen to their robotic, lockstep repetition of Talking Points. They’ve systematically spent hundreds of millions of dollars since Goldwater’s defeat to build an infrastructure of think tanks and media outlets that have pushed a message and an agenda with frightful success.

Democrats may be belatedly understanding the need to coalesce and do what’s necessary to take back America. Every election cycle, we bemoan that so much is at stake. If you doubt it this time, think Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, endless war. The alternative is truly frightening. Simple awareness of that fact should be enough to galvanize people into action. Almost 2000 years ago, in Ethics of the Fathers, Rabbi Tarfon pointed out: "It is not up to you to complete the work [of perfecting the world], but neither are you at liberty to desist from it." More recently, Yogi Berra said, “The game isn’t over until it’s over.” In other words, let’s get crackin’; there’s a lot to do and no time to lose.

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Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election (more...)

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