Following the President's failure to argue progressive values persuasively in the debt ceiling negotiations, and in view of the minimal attention to those values that can be found in the mainstream media, it's time to encourage a progressive primary challenge to Obama in 2012 that can help educate the public about what it is progressives stand for. It's time to lay a foundation for progressive governance in the future!

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The Right Challenger Could Spur a Movement That Sets the Stage for Bringing Progressives to Power and the Transformative Change the Country Needs!

In the crucial debt-ceiling negotiations just completed, President Obama has once again displayed a seemingly instinctual preference for political compromise over a vigorous, even if unprevailing, defense of progressive principle.   Given that demonstrated predilection, it seems progressives now have little to regret and possibly something to gain in backing a primary challenge to the President in 2012.   I recognize that such a candidacy has little to no chance of producing the Democratic nominee, nor even to push the inherently cautious Obama further to the political left.   As I hope to explain, however, it could well contribute effectively to a national consciousness-raising about what it is political progressives stand for.  

The need for such an educational mission hit home with me earlier this year, when I happened to catch a panel discussion on C-SPAN's "Book TV" about the impact of "extremist views" on the American political discourse.   Unsurprisingly, the panelists -- who included both self-acknowledged liberals and conservatives -- agreed that extremist views, though protected by the First Amendment, are by their nature beyond the pale and both hinder and distort the development of rational policy.   What did surprise me, however, was the panelists' facile, and unanimous, assumption that what they called "extremism" in America exists on both the left and right wings of the political spectrum.   For them, apparently, Noam Chomsky, the late Howard Zinn, or even Dennis Kucinich are as irrational as right-wing radio hosts, and the influence of each is equally to be regretted.     

It was precisely this assumption -- shared by putative political experts -- that set me on a course that has brought me now to support a progressive primary challenge to Obama.  

Mull as I might after watching the C-SPAN discussion, I could think of no expression of views from the progressive American left that offends against reasoned discourse as does the often demagogic bombast of a G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Savage, Limbaugh or Beck; nor do its few political voices utter the kind of bigoted inanities and jingoistic appeals characteristic of Tea Party politicians like Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann.   What I do find on the left are generally well-argued policy critiques from politicians like Bernie Sanders, Kucinich and Ralph Nader; well-informed media voices like those of Rachel Maddow and Ariana Huffington; deeply moral writers like Chris Hedges; and highly motivated, but rational and peaceful, activist groups like MoveOn, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Network for Spiritual Progressives, and People for the American Way.  

Clearly, the two ends of the political spectrum are not the same.   Yet, as the C-Span panel discussion showed, even sophisticated political analysts seem to accept as a given that those at both ends represent an equal nuisance to rational political discourse -- though (fortunately, as they see it) also equal futility as a political force.   This apparently mainstream view struck me as so shockingly misrepresentative of fact that it served as a kind of moral wake-up call.   It was evident that the country needed a major political consciousness-raising, and I wondered -- though unproductively at the time -- how this could best be achieved.  

Now I've had the flash of an idea.   Maybe the very few public voices who have called for a progressive challenge to the President in next year's Democratic primaries are really on to something.   At a minimum, such a campaign would offer progressives an unparalleled opportunity to make the public aware of the vital, but so far widely unappreciated, moral values that inform their worldview.   What better way could there be to get that message out than with the high media amplification that would surely accompany a challenge to the President from within his own major party?

We Need Progressive Solutions, but First a Progressive Movement.

Those of us on the political left are of course convinced that the progressive vision for change is not only eminently rational, but critical to the nation's well-being.   At the same time, however, we must acknowledge the reality that progressive views are seldom invoked in our political discourse.   As the C-Span panelists made clear, they draw no more serious attention among mainstream analysts than are accorded the lunatic right.

More critically, progressive values are rarely a part of our national legislative debate.   Can any of us recall an American president in our lifetime who has plainly declared that, as leader of the entire nation, his focus will be fixed on advancing the common good, not on solving particular problems that endanger the country's economic expansion or security interests?   And, how often, lately, have we heard any elected federal official address head-on one of the five moral issues that today matter most for the country's well-being: namely, the influence of private money on the outcome of federal elections and policies; economic fairness; corporate social responsibility; abatement of global climate change; and a foreign policy that is based not on domination, but on international cooperation?

No doubt the cards in America are stacked against progressive values.   In a society that is culturally right of center, broadly anti-intellectual, and politically unsophisticated, the Far Right seeks and easily achieves power through the simple means of divisive appeals to popular fears and resentments.   Meanwhile, those on the left are written off because their progressive approach to the issues is considered either soft-headed or "socialistic," and therefore un-American.  

Despite these obstacles, however, I think we must ask:   Will there ever be a better time than now, when conditions at home cry out for a sense of American community and our national security is tied more closely than ever to a willingness to respect and support the aspirations of other nations, to give progressive solutions a full-court press?   Isn't it in fact past time to make the broad middle of American political opinion aware of the country's need to structure more democratic federal elections; to shrink the increasingly obscene gap between our richest and poorest citizens; to invest in the public sphere of education, physical infrastructure, and technological research; to encourage more socially responsible corporate behavior; to care for our natural environment; and to foster a more caring, cooperative, and peaceful world?  

It must be conceded, of course, that a progressive primary challenger to the President would have little to no chance of unseating him.   It is unlikely, in this era of profound suspicion of government and a massive federal debt, that even the most effective advocacy of a policy agenda to the President's left could attract the broad support of Independent, or even died-in-the-wool Democratic, voters.   It would surely not gain the backing of the Democratic Party elite or of interest groups that would be needed to fund a truly competitive campaign.  

On the other hand, no one could give more effective voice to the progressive message than a major-party candidate for president who, aware that he has little or no chance to win, could rise above the usual pusillanimity, pandering, and partisanship of electioneering.   He could be completely open, and contribute significantly to the country's more immediate need of a broad political consciousness-raising.   That is the necessary first step toward building a political infrastructure that can, in the future, provide the basis for electing a progressive president and Congress that will enact progressive policies.  

As I see it, that first step, moreover, could be achieved without compromising the political powers of President Obama himself.   In successfully meeting a primary challenge, he would almost certainly reinforce his image with the electorate as an eminently astute, reasonable, and principled leader who, given the limitations of the current state of America's economy, politics and culture, remains the best realistic choice to serve as the nation's chief executive.

The Challenge of the Conservative Mindset.

In contemplating a progressive primary run against the President, it must of course be acknowledged that even the strongest challenger would face immense resistance to his message outside the proverbial "choir."   The widespread suspicions that a powerful "liberal elite" seeks to impose moral values that are at odds with those of ordinary Americans; the concomitant assumption that this same elite also shapes the social reforms pursued by an activist government; and the near-creedal belief in the sanctity of "free markets" and American "exceptionalism": all create high barriers for the progressive principles of participatory democracy, economic fairness, corporate social responsibility, care for the environment, and a foreign policy that is based not on domination by the strongest, but on a sense of human community.  

According to a 2008 study published in the journal Science, there may in fact be a rational explanation for conservative resistance to the political aims of progressives.    As summarized in the Los Angeles Times (Sept. 19, 2008), research on which the study was based traces a clear pathway in humans from genetic makeup, to physiology, to behavior.   In testing a cross-section of individuals, researchers found that genetically-conditioned levels of fear in response to various test stimuli were consistently indicative of how the individuals viewed the world.   Those with heightened fear responses took the conservative view on contentious issues such as gun control, pacifism, and capital punishment, and were far more inclined than those with minimal fear responses to oppose changes in the existing social order.  

These findings seemingly confirm something I myself have long suspected: that one is in fact born with a predisposition to the conservative or liberal point of view.   More importantly, in my own view, this inborn bias would appear to be strongly linked to an individual's sense of self-identity.   Because this sense is critical to personal psychological stability, it is necessarily resistant to contrary ways of seeing things and makes difficult a bridging of ideological differences.   The divide is especially daunting for the advance of progressive ideas, since it is highly likely that the inborn bias toward the conservative perspective is greatly more prevalent than that toward the progressive view.   This is because, as I hope to show, the conservative view reflects the very widespread human awareness of separation between the self and everything outside it, while the progressive view is based on a rare sense of moral connectedness with other human beings and all natural creation outside the self.

Before developing this idea further, however, I should note a number of qualifications.   First, in using the terms "conservative" or "progressive," I reference a conceptual mindset or psychological type, not actual policies or politicians.   Second, the two terms should be understood in the specific context of their meaning in American political, social, and religious life.   Third, the conclusions I offer are drawn from personal experience, reading, and observation, not from any special knowledge or scholarly research.   And, finally, although I distinguish fundamental differences between the mindsets of conservatives and progressives, I recognize that, since both groups share a common humanity, each also shares a part of the other's psychology.   That provides at least a narrow window for mutual influence and accommodation.  

Conservative Values and Resistance to Change.

With the caveat that these qualifications be kept in mind, I would suggest that the sense of self held by the prototypical conservative derives fundamentally from the connections of which he or she is a social product.   These might include, for example, parents; genetic inheritance; ethnicity; upbringing; education; religion; friends; spouse; parental role; career; social and economic station; natural surroundings; travel experiences; or cultural values held personally, or in common with a group, a locality, or the nation as a whole.   It is to be expected that persons with a self-identity shaped by such connections will strive continually to meet the expectations inherent in them.   Any failure to do so would loosen their grip on the sense of self and, if carried too far, run the risk of a psychological drowning.

Given their need to vindicate the influences that have shaped them, prototypical conservatives accept the world as a place of conflict and struggle.   In it, they believe, individuals must fight to preserve their claims on particular interests and values against other individuals who have competing claims.  

This mindset is a formidable barrier to possible inroads by progressive values.   Because prototypical conservatives have little sense of an underlying and interconnected humanity that transcends individual identities shaped by the social order, they do not see it as the role of government to help build and sustain a national community committed to the common good.   Instead, the primary demand they make on government is that it safeguard their freedom to wage the struggles they think are necessary to attain and preserve the social place to which they aspire.  

Interestingly, as the American experience seems to show, prototypical conservatives do not fear their competitors, who are an indigenous part of the world as they understand it.   They do, however, fear the "progressive" mindset.   In the conservative view, especially as it is expressed on the militant political Right, progressives constitute a self-anointed elite that, despite its small size, is intent on overturning the natural competitive order by imposing in its place its vision of a mutually supportive, "caring" society.   Because conservatives consider such a vision illusory, or even worse a calculated pretext for seizing power, they believe its only end can be to deprive them of a chance to claim a place as one of society's winners.   Without that chance, as they see it, they can only be "losers."  

For conservatives, then, conflict in the world is not an affliction to be overcome by morally-driven human empathy and creativity, but a central feature of the natural social order.   That order, moreover, is assumed to have been created and ordained once and for all by an ultimate power in the universe that the monotheistic religions have personified and named "God."   For many American conservatives, especially those on the "Christian Right," God is therefore seen not as a source of inspiration for leading a good life and building a better world, but as a protector against the self-anointed elite who would deprive them of their ability to wage a fair fight against those who stand in the way of their own success or dominance.

In the same way, American conservatives characteristically support whatever mechanisms are in place to preserve the ordained social order.   They assume the "free market" to be God-driven and believe that efforts to reform it are both self-deceiving and un-American.   They hold the same view on the Constitution, scripture, and the rights of gun ownership.   Only actions governed by Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of economic providence, by sanctioned tradition, or by instinctual libido can be trusted.   Conscious, deliberate choices are inherently suspect -- as they are also in the Eden myth, where man is forbidden the moral freedom to discriminate between good and evil.   It is therefore precisely in the social planning, laws, and regulations of the secular federal government that the American conservative sees the greatest threat of all to his or her own freedom.

This suspicion of government, and consequent antipathy to it, is perhaps most fully revealed in the abortion issue.   If the conservative's religious beliefs posit that God himself authorizes every new human life, abortion becomes a sin far greater than the torture of helpless adversaries in Iraq or the wanton bombing of villages and wedding parties, including babies, in Afghanistan.   The unforgivable offense lies not in taking defenseless human life, no matter how egregious the means, but in violating God's authority.   No doubt the conservative assigns a level of culpability to the doctor performing the abortion.   He assigns the same blame to the woman choosing to have an abortion.   She is seen in stereotype as a wayward and unimportant creature who, despite her manifest unworthiness, has presumed to take an action on her own authority that is contrary to the will of God.   It is of little account that the woman may have been pressed to her decision, with great moral regret, by circumstances that made it critical to the possibilities of her own life.   In the conservative view, humans have no choice but to accept the world and its governance as their traditions tell them God has ordained it.  

Still, conservatives reserve their greatest resentment and antipathy for the federal government, which, in making abortion legal, has by deliberate choice pitted its own binding secular power against God's authority.   For this, government is seen as the ultimate embodiment of evil.   Humanistic notions that men and women themselves are morally responsible both for the conduct of their own life, and for the social and economic structures and values that affect the common good, strike the conservative mind not only as illusory, but blasphemous.  

Conservatives Are Useful Realists, but They Need To Stretch Their Sense of Moral Connectedness.

Of course, the foregoing profile, though I believe it to be fair, is admittedly one-sided.   Few of even the most ardent progressives will deny that, as a psychological type, conservatives represent more than, at the high end of the socio-economic spectrum,   a reflexive defense of wealth and power; and, at the low end, a reflexive defense of guns, religion, and a literalist reading of the Constitution.   Most progressives will agree that conservatives also have a positive side that contributes invaluably to a functional and vigorous society.  

Conservatives are, for one thing, the natural generators of wealth -- our entrepreneurs, business executives, and bankers.   They are, in many cases, our policemen, firefighters, and nurses.   In their devotion to "family values," they can continue to remind us of the important roles of tradition, nature, art, family, friendships, and work in supporting our lives with beauty and stable points of reference.   And, on the political front, they can play a useful role in the legislative process by making sure that visionary initiatives for change are not excessive in scope or pace, and actually lend themselves to practical implementation in the real world.

At the same time, however, progressives believe it is only right that all conservatives be expected to stretch their sense of connectedness and obligation beyond their personal claims and attachments, to the greater community--even the global community.   They need to "walk a mile in the other guy's moccasins" and recognize that, just as their own privileges and freedoms would not be possible without the labor, consent, and support of the broader community, so they are morally obliged to reach out to the needs of that community -- many of whose members remain, or find themselves increasingly, economically insecure and socially powerless.   Fortunately, the small overlap of shared psychology between conservatives and progressives creates a narrow window through which such a moral appeal might be conveyed.

The Role Progressives Can Play.

In contrast to conservatives, prototypical liberals, or progressives, seem to derive their sense of self from a moral wellspring within themselves.   Martin Luther King is, I think, an excellent historical example.   He was born to be a prophet and speaker of inspirational words.   He was also endowed with the passion to carry that talent into the world as leader of a movement dedicated to the ends of human dignity and social justice.   In the pursuit of that vision, as we know, he ran into roadblocks imposed both by those who considered him not a liberator, but a threat to their way of life, and at first, also, by a timid national leadership that failed to give him needed support.   In the end, however, King succeeded in securing new federal legislation that ended racial discrimination as a legal barrier both to voting and to open access to schools, public accommodations, and employment.  

In our own time, just as Martin Luther King in his day came up against the institutional resistance of George Wallace, Bull Connor, and an ambivalent Kennedy White House, American progressives will not find it easy to shake conservatives loose from their molded beliefs and interests.   What I think progressives in America can do now, however, is to make conservatives at least a bit uneasy about their self-interested concerns in a time of widespread and growing social unrest.   They can do so by invoking the moral power of their commitment to participatory democracy, economic fairness, corporate responsibility, care of the environment, and global community.  

An interesting analysis of the effect of "progressive" values on institutional power can be found in Answer to Job, Carl Jung's speculative treatise on the nature of God.   In the book, Jung represents Job, a creature of God and his all-suffering servant, as, in a signal way, greater than his creator.   Job demonstrates over and over again a capacity for moral reflection, while God shows himself abysmally devoid of ethical discretion, exercising both good and evil without conscious thought and embarrassingly open to the misleading blandishments of his son Satan.   In Jung's own creative turn on the story, God is made uneasy by his inferiority of consciousness, and intuits that Job's capacity for "right" is in fact a higher power than his own capacity for "might."   In time, he plots a way by which he can make Job's moral powers a part of his own makeup, leading, in Jung's interpretation, to the incarnation of God's "logos" among humans.  

Another example of conscience prevailing over power is offered in the 2010 feature film "Temple Grandin," which documents the life of a woman who is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and is best known for her now widely adopted mechanical systems for the humane handling and slaughter of beef cattle.  

Temple was raised an autistic child, and throughout her life had a hard time fitting into conventional social environments.   She had, however, a passionate love of animals, an uncanny insight into animal psychology, and a seemingly unearthly geometrical capacity to envision complex three-dimensional systems in space.   In time, her childhood experiences at an aunt's cattle ranch and the encouragement of a science teacher at a private high school led her to design innovative chute and race systems that ease livestock handling at feed ranches, and a center-track restrainer system that dramatically reduces the anxiety of beef cattle led to slaughter in meat-packing plants.  

Temple is herself at ease with the mechanized killing of animals for meat.   "I'd rather be killed in a slaughterhouse than be torn to pieces by a lion in Africa," she famously said.   "But," she added, "we can do it humanely.   We owe [the animals] some respect."   That passionate, but practical, humaneness, her creative brilliance, her personal courage, and a capacity for fierce advocacy enabled Temple to convince hard-nosed cattlemen to utilize her elaborate shuttle-system designs, despite their great initial resistance based on start-up costs, suspicions about Temple's competence, and a reluctance to replace old methods.   Today, almost half the beef cattle slaughtered in North American meat-packing plants are handled in a center-track restrainer system designed by Temple Grandin.   

In the same way this inspired woman prevailed in her visionary mission, I believe, progressives can wake a latent moral instinct in political conservatives.   It will not be done, however, by occasional guest appearances on the Sunday news shows or in C-Span panel discussions; nor by the few liberal talk-show hosts, who, like their conservative counterparts, must push "hot buttons" to entertain; nor even by the often cogent political analysis and eloquent appeals to conscience found in the best progressive journals and websites.   In my own opinion, an effective load of evocative moral power can only be generated by a very few figures of cultural authority.  

We Need a Challenger To the President To Push a Progressive National Agenda.

In the U.S., the foremost authority figure would surely seem to be the president.  

Unfortunately, it is also almost certainly true that no incumbent U.S. president, including President Obama, can himself effectively champion or drive transformative change in the political order of which he is head -- absent an emergency, such as Roosevelt confronted, that threatens the very structure of the state.   As the noted political scientist Sheldon Wolin astutely points up in Democracy, Incorporated (Princeton University Press, 2008), the president is not a free moral agent but the chief executive of a corporate/state system that is designed to support its own interests, not the common good.   The president's job is not to change the system as he finds it, but to maintain and strengthen it.  

According to Wolin, and many other progressive thinkers, the system can in fact only be changed by the will of the people, whose support is required to allow it to do its work.   For that to happen, it is not the politicians, but the conservative majority of the people --in all their pride of self, fear of the state, and hostility to social compacts -- who must be challenged by a progressive call to conscience and community.     

As I've already suggested, that call, today, can initially be sounded most effectively by a primary challenger to President Obama who is fully committed to progressive moral values and can express them in a moving and evocative way.   We can speculate how the progressive moral vision advanced by such a candidate might be defined.   In terms of domestic policy, its natural focus could be expected to fix on building a more genuine democracy.   Specific reform proposals might include:

• Public financing of federal elections to reduce the role of private money in determining federal election results.

 

• Job-producing government investments in education, technology research, and infrastructure rebuilding.  

 

• Policies for economic fairness, including corporate and individual tax restructuring, that would aim to narrow the obscene and still growing gaps of wealth and income in our society.

 

• Regulations that would encourage or mandate corporate responsibility in promoting employment, upgrading local communities, and caring for the environment.  

 

In terms of international relations, we can surmise that the progressive vision would call for a foreign policy that is dedicated not to dominating, but to helping meet the needs of, an interconnected global community.   It would also entail the corollary principle that a foreign policy based on compassion and generosity, rather than on overriding self-interest, offers the best possible means to ensure America's own national security.   Specific reform proposals might include:  

• An American leadership role in efforts to effectively address the continuing poverty, conflict and misery that afflict a large part of the world's population.

 

• Formal rejection of the persisting, but increasingly anachronistic, assumption that, in conflicts among nation states, or between factions within them, might is equivalent to right, and war or other forms of violence can be tolerated as means of conflict resolution.  

 

• Committed participation in international efforts to halt the pending calamities of global climate change.  

 

In defining his own progressive vision, it is probably best that a challenger to the president articulate only general goals of reform, since more specific policy proposals would almost certainly, in the present political climate, be subject to knee-jerk derision.   The challenger must take on faith that, because all human beings have at least a latent sense of moral connectedness to others, progressive ideas presented in terms of moral principles and a commitment to the common good can earn not only a fair hearing but, perhaps also, even among many conservatives, a grudging respect of conscience.  

In addition to his "prophetic" call to the common good, the progressive challenger would also have to make a factual case for a truth that is often overlooked.   It is that history itself demonstrates that an activist government, supported by the people, can in fact work successfully in the general interest.   Government, as an institution, is not inherently   limited to the pursuit of its own power and domination.   In fact, contrary to the words of Ronald Reagan and to widespread popular belief, government is often not the problem, but a solution to the problem.   That was notably shown in the past by the vital New Deal direct-employment programs and the enactments of Social Security, the GI Bill, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Civil Rights laws.   It was also shown in the case of America's military withdrawal from Vietnam -- an action for which even a non-activist government brought itself into compliance with the will of the people.  

The People Themselves Must Drive Transformative Change

Of course, it must be kept in mind that no nomination challenge to the President from the progressive left, no matter how successful, can by itself bring about transformative change.   Such a challenge can at best achieve only two preparatory advances: it can motivate the small progressive popular base to mobilize politically; and it can prick the conscience of the conservative popular majority -- whether Democratic, Republican, or Independent -- in a way that leads it to at least perceive the seriousness and good faith of the progressive political and moral vision.  

Such steps forward would in themselves represent a magnificent accomplishment.   Their effect, however, would be only to lay a foundation for transformative change.   As a next step, a political infrastructure would have to be built from which progressive activists could be induced to run for high office, and from which, in time, a progressive congressional majority and president could be elected.

Only a widespread popular movement can create such an infrastructure.    People inspired and galvanized by an inspirational voice from the institutional left -- i.e. by a primary challenger to the President from within the Democratic Party -- would then need to lead other Americans to buy into the progressive vision: to see their own society and the world as a human community, and to support and vote into federal office progressive candidates who pledge to serve the common good rather than the narrow interests of power.  

As I see it, moving toward a progressive leadership is critical to America's future.   The country is currently afflicted by a syndrome of joblessness and social alienation that can be linked directly to a long period of conservative governance focused on economic power and world domination.   In my own view, it is only progressives, inspired by the creative wellspring at their moral center, who have the necessary vision to conceive and drive transformative social change in the interest of the common good.   That can never be the work of conservatives, who by their nature serve to defend existing interests and beliefs.  

At the same time, it should not be forgotten that a proper conservative role in government is also indispensable.   That role is not, however, as it has been so markedly in the past two years, simply to block progressive initiatives.   It is, instead, to refine them, if needed, to more closely meet the practical requirements of effective implementation.     This is a task for which the conservative mindset is far better suited than its inspirationally-based progressive counterpart.   In legislating, as in all acts of creation, the vision must come first, but then the forms by which it can be best and most fully realized.   It is only by combining the creative powers of progressives and conservatives that transformative change for the common good can be made workable in the real world.

Who Might the Candidate Be?

It seems evident that any progressive challenger to the president who is motivated to serve the common good by a sense of moral connectedness with other human beings and the natural creation would introduce ideas into America's political debate that are rarely discussed, yet reflect the values of a small, but passionate, segment of the population.  

At the same time, it is probably also true that only a few qualified Democrats who hold those views and values also have the personal passion and eloquence needed to articulate them persuasively.   The first name that comes to my own mind is in fact not even a Democrat.   It is that of Bernie Sanders, a nominal Independent and self-identified socialist whose heroic eight-hour speech on the Senate floor against the Obama/Republican tax agreement in late 2010 made him a progressive hero to many.   Sanders's party non-affiliation, however, does seem a fatal drawback.   Because he is not a Democrat, he could run against the President only in the general election, not in the Democratic primaries.   That would of course open the possibility that, like Ralph Nader against Al Gore in 2000, he could take votes away from the Democratic nominee in the general election.   Moreover, although Sanders's policy views generally accord with most thinkers and activists on the progressive left, his "socialist" orientation may be a problem.   He tends to look at things not from the point of view of a moral commitment to the common good, but of a class conflict in which those who hold the short end of the stick are in a continual struggle with those on the other end to get a more equal grip. That perspective undoubtedly reflects a true state of affairs, but it is probably not the right one from which to get strongly individualistic and anti-government Americans to consider progressive views.   

Among possible Democratic candidates, Dennis Kucinich is in my own opinion the one who best combines moral awareness with a progressive politics committed to the common good.   This is evidenced by his consistent support of goals that include public financing of federal elections, economic fairness, strategic investments in public infrastructure, corporate social responsibility, caring for the environment, peaceful conflict resolution, and a foreign policy based on cooperation rather than domination.   In addition, Kucinich is an experienced political warrior, personally courageous and intelligent, and a passionate, articulate voice for the values he holds.  

Regrettably, Kucinich has already publicly discounted any chance that he might run against the President in 2012.   It is just possible, however, that he might be selfless and idealistic enough to be willing to challenge Obama for the principal purpose of raising the political consciousness of his countrymen.   Perhaps an activist group like MoveOn, The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), or Americans for Democratic Action could persuade him to run on that basis -- then follow up by launching an Obama-like fundraising effort that would provide him the resources needed to maintain his campaign for an extended period.

If Kucinich remains unavailable, possibly another committed progressive Democrat could be persuaded to run for the same purpose and with the same support.   As I've tried to argue here, such a candidacy could be the progressive community's best hope to lay a foundation for bringing progressives to power -- a shift that is becoming increasingly vital with every passing year.   It is only progressives who can meet the needs of our time by driving the transformative political change that is essential to achieving true democracy, economic fairness, a flourishing commons, corporate responsibility, a healthy environment, international cooperation, and peace for ourselves and our fellow humans around the world.  

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Authors Bio:

In retirement, Bob Anschuetz has applied his long career experience as an industrial writer and copy editor to helping authors meet publishing standards for both online articles and full-length books. In work as a volunteer editor for OpEdNews, he has specialized in helping improve, where needed, the readability of articles submitted by authors for whom English is not their native language. With a background that also includes four years as a college English teacher, Bob points to Henry David Thoreau as a major intellectual influence. He cites Thoreau's many writings promoting conscience-based independent thought and action as instrumental in shaping his own continuing commitment to the progressive social and political values of economic fairness, social justice, non-violent conflict resolution, and global community. Bob also continues to pursue a lifelong love of learning. He has been a regular participant in political-science and philosophy seminars, a volunteer discussion-group leader on a variety of topics, and a literacy tutor. Bob is also a strong supporter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, associated with Tikkun Magazine, where he served as a volunteer archives editor for two years and published several articles online. His extended Letter to the Editor on the widespread triumphalism in America's response to the killing of Osama bin Laden was included in the Summer 2011 issue of Tikkun.