SHARE        Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Volunteer Energy and Political Tipping Points -- What We Can Do What a difference we can each make. I've made calls and doorbelled and got a few people to the polls who wouldn't have gone otherwise. Magnify my efforts and those few people by hundreds of thousands of volunteers and we can truly make the difference in this election.

(3 comments) SHARE        Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Seductions Of Clicking: How The Internet Can Make It Harder To Act Without online technologies, Barack Obama would never have gotten past the primaries. Yet now progressive hopes are faltering, not only because of Obama's compromises and mistakes and Republican intransigence, but also because far too many of his supporters have come to believe they can act exclusively through these online technologies, to the exclusion of face-to-face politics.

(3 comments) SHARE        Thursday, August 6, 2015
Youth Vote at Record Low -- Here's How to Reverse the Trend The numbers are dismaying. According to a new US Census report, only 20% of eligible 18-29-year-olds voted in 2014. It was the lowest turnout in 40 years, below even 2010's doleful 24%.

(3 comments) SHARE        Monday, February 11, 2008
Hillary Heeds Hawks: How Obama's and Clinton's Advisors Mirror Their War Stands In their focus on the electoral horse-race, the media have ignored a key difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- the positions of their foreign policy advisors on the Iraq war. As political scientist Stephen Zunes points out in Foreign Policy in Focus, Clinton's key advisors overwhelmingly supported it, while Obama's opposed it.

(2 comments) SHARE        Friday, June 11, 2010
Why the Arkansas Primary Challenge Was Worth It It's always a dilemma to spend scarce resources taking on sitting members of the party you normally support. That said, I believe the groups who tried to unseat Blanche Lincoln in the primary run-off in Arkansas made the right choice.

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Target Global Warming, Target Exon Those who dismiss global warming's threat have embraced a series of arguments, retreating from one to the next as they're trumped by reality. Many of us know Exxon's role in climate change denial, and have avoided buying their gas for that reason. Others have avoided the company because of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. But we need more than individual actions.

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, July 15, 2010
'Soul Of A Citizen': Village Politics -- Rebuilding Engaged Communities Churches and temples, PTA's, block associations and Rotary Clubs, soccer clubs and softball leagues, the places we work, and all the other ordinary institutions of daily life. Building on the community that they offer, and on our relationships with colleagues, co-workers, and neighbors who already know us, they can provide powerful venues to engage our fellow citizens in our country's most critical issues.

(5 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, March 9, 2010
How The Democrats Can Reclaim The Youth Vote If the Democrats don't get the youth vote, they're toast. That happened in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, where young Obama voters stayed home in droves. It's an ugly conceivable future portended several recent polls that show that young voters still prefer the Democrats, but their margin is slipping and their enthusiasm level is worse.

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Ten Reasons Why I'm Spending This Election Day On the Phones I admit it. 2008 was a whole lot more fun. Even so, I'm going to spend my entire day on the phones today, from when the polls open in Pennsylvania and Illinois to when they close in Washington and Alaska. I hope you'll join me with whatever time you have.

(3 comments) SHARE        Friday, January 18, 2008
Hillary Clinton's Sleaze Parade Politics can be a rough game. Candidates need to hold their competitors accountable and challenge distortions and lies. And God knows, we need a Democratic nominee who's willing to fight. But Hillary Clinton's campaign has included far too many cheap shots, sleazy manipulations, and unsavory players.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, September 1, 2008
The Rovian Politics of Choosing Sarah Palin What does it say about John McCain that he not only picked the least experienced Vice Presidential nominee in America's history, but picked someone he really didn't know? What makes Palin such a cynical choice is that McCain doesn't know her and doesn't know what drives her. Until she was selected by the Karl Rove types running his campaign (like campaign manager and Rove protégé Steve Schmidt), McCain might not even have

(8 comments) SHARE        Friday, December 28, 2007
A Plea to Kucinich Supporters-- Help Stop Hillary Clinton Think about how you'd feel if the headlines after the early caucuses and primaries read "Hillary places third," and you were part of that process. Imagine if those losses helped stop her nomination, the party ended up with either Barack Obama or John Edwards as the nominee, and one of the two became America's president.

SHARE        Monday, June 8, 2009
Gutting the Health Care Plan: The Scorpion and the Congress Like the scorpion who stings his reluctant turtle ally as they work together to cross a river with the explanation: "it's just who I am," I fear we're about to get stung again. The sting will come of we continue to assume insurance companies must be at the table while forcing a single payer plan aside because it isn't currently politically achievable.

(2 comments) SHARE        Thursday, March 6, 2008
Did Clinton Win Ohio on a Lie? Hillary Clinton's win in Ohio was greatly affected by her focus on what seemed to be a controversy about Obama's position on NAFTA. Recent news provides evidence that the leaks about his supposed hypocricy were fabricated. Since a foreign government, Canada, was involved, this scandal about a scandal is becoming more than just about the standard sniping that happens in campaigns.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Saving the Economy, One Furnace at a Time Like most Americans, I'm guarding my dollars, but when my furnace died during Seattle's coldest winter in decades, I had to replace it. And when I did, with a high-efficiency model, the costs and gains underscored key lessons about how to craft a stimulus package that actually builds for America's future. My new furnace saves energy and fights climate change. It promotes American jobs, and pays back in a reasonable time frame.

SHARE        Monday, November 1, 2010
The Party of Non-Voters--Why Our Election Day Volunteering Matters More Than Ever The Pew Research Center just released a poll contrasting those who intend to vote this round with those likely to stay home. Among all adults, the Democrats or those who leaned Democrat had a 50 to 39 margin. But among those likely to head to the polls, Republicans were up four points. The difference was among non-voters, where the Democrats led by a staggering 24 points, except that these people were likely to stay home.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Stiffed: Why are Bailed-Out Banks Helping Pfizer Buy Wyeth? Perhaps the new combined entity will come up with some miracle drug that neither company would have created on their own. But mostly, it seems just one more example of how a bailout without strong government control, or even oversight, just feeds the same greed-driven abuses that have gotten us into our current predicament. It's going to take more than Viagra to strengthen our economy once more.

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, April 28, 2011
Three Cups of a Flawed Hero: The Limits of Greg Mortenson's Model of Change It's tempting to expect perfection from those we admire, but we romanticize lone heroes at our peril. A story of unimaginable individual heroism and sacrifice that drew people in could also leave them feeling insignificant in comparison. I believed that Mortenson's books had their limits as models for how ordinary people can create social change.

(24 comments) SHARE        Thursday, January 31, 2008
A Dozen Reasons Why This Edwards Supporter is Backing Obama I gave John Edwards more money than any candidate ever and I'm glad I did. He put critical issues about America's economic divides on the Democratic agenda. He was the first major candidate to stake out strong comprehensive platforms on global warming and health care. He hammered away on the Iraq war, even using scarce campaign resources to run ads during key Senate votes. He'd have made a wonderful nominee - and president.

(2 comments) SHARE        Friday, August 13, 2010
The Seductions Of Clicking: How The Internet Can Make It Harder To Act Without online technologies, Barack Obama would never have gotten past the primaries. Yet progressive hopes are faltering, not only because of Obama's compromises and mistakes and Republican intransigence, but also because far too many of his supporters have come to believe they can act exclusively through these online technologies, to the exclusion of face-to-face politics.