A Short Note On The Democratic Party And The Progressive Left....

[H2O Man]

286. I also agree in general

with what you wrote (though I did not see it pre-editing).

I am an activist who has been on the Democratic Left for many decades. In the past few years, I've posted a number of essays here, regarding the town of Sidney, NY. In that town, the voters fall into three groups, by way of registration: republicans at 60%; independents at 25%; and democrats at 15%.

Republicans have held a large majority of seats on the board, usually 80% of them. There hasn't been a democratic Town Supervisor since 1954. The town attorney and clerk positions have likewise been held by republicans forever.

Recent "tea party" mutations within the republican party in Sidney resulted in a trinity of the lowest forms of life winning elections. This instituted "McCarthyism": Bob McCarthy would lead the attack upon a tiny Sufi settlement, attempting to force it to destroy its perfectly legal cemetery. In September of 2011, this was reported on by the Huffington Post, and quickly picked up by Keith Olbermann, Steven Colbert, AP, and even the European media.

People in Sidney contacted me to help them organize at the grass roots level. Long story short, the group I've worked with has now won 5 out of 5 elections since. We have three more in November. (I'm also helping to run three more in another town in another county in upstate NY.)

It's not an easy task. There are obvious tensions between the Democratic Left and Democratic Party. Each would prefer to run their choice of candidate for each and every seat. Should this happen now, their candidates would lose each and every election.

The winning ticket must have someone (or sometwo, somethree, etc) who represents the values of each group. This includes appealing to the independents, and even those who, despite being registered republicans, are sick of "business as usual."

I also have advocated others in the Democratic Left do voter education-registration drives. A huge portion of society does not vote. These include, not surprisingly, the low-income population. With few exceptions ( such as Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition), attempts to register the poor, and engage them in the political process, have not even been seriously attempted. Until the Democratic Left joins with the poor, we will remain a minority, and be forced to chose between doing business with the Democratic Party, or making symbolic statements.

There are times and places for symbolic statements. But we really don't have that luxury now. We need to win.