I think this is right - progressives are often too much focused on a national agenda, perhaps because the injustices we perceive are such that piecemeal solutions seem themselves unjust.  But on the principle that winning easy victories does more good than fighting and losing the Good Fight, focusing more locally is probably what we ought to do. 

But if one way progressives sabotage themselves is by focusing too much on wholesale solutions to trenchant social problems, through federal action that we cannot really effect, the other is by focusing too much on winning now, rather than winning a generation from now.  As far as I'm concerned, the real fight isn't in the statehouses, it's with the electorate.  We need more voters enthusiastically supporting a progressive agenda - without that, the best agenda we can muster will falter. 

So keep up the good work on the legislative front, and here's hoping we can win some on the cultural front, as well. 

I think a focus on states inevitably helps Democrats' national chances.  Beyond getting progressives in on the ground floor, it provides an even more straightforward function: incubating talent.  The national Democratic party is stunted by mediocrity.  While we are constantly talking about bringing in new blood, that's difficult to do when most new Senate and Congressional candidates are rich guys who leave private industry to enter politics at the national level, without paying their dues at the state level.  Seeding the states with progressive young candidates will return the Party (to some degree) to a meritocracy, where national candidates get their shot based on a history of electoral success rather than connections.  The Party needs skilled politicians, not celebrities, and focusing on the states will allow the talent to emerge...

Devon, you my man. Why stop at the states? What I learned from the Dean campaign is how to use the web to organize house parties and grass-roots connections within a community. I always thought we should capitalize on that. Move-on cant do it all. But there is a challenge to overcome. Conservatives have a natural local neighborhood consituency- the local church. They very aggressively make connections through churches that allow them to reach out to voters, recruit volunteers, collect contributions, and cultivate leadership. In many ways, our equivalent of those churches is the local union hall, but the ability of the unions to reach large numbers of people is more limited than ever, and seems unlikely to recover. We need to find a replacement, another 'natural local neighborhood constituency" I would be very interested in other people's ideas as to what that could be. School PTA's are a possibility, a natural 'in' with regard not only to education but all issues that concern parents.

Churches are another. We might not have the same reach as conservatives but cultivating a network of open-minded churches would help us build bridges to an important constituency. Plus we have an advantage that the Repugs really cant exploit- an openness to non-fundementalist and/or non-Christian constituencies. It should be far easier for us than for them to develop networks within Jewish Synagoges, Catholic Churches (esp Hispanic ones), and others. We also need an "in" into the African-American Baptist community. The challenge is to find a cause that can unite all these disparate communities, and I would like to hear others' input on that as well. I suggest strengthening family and neighborhood services.

These are just some off-the-cuff ideas. But the main point is that if you want to win at the national level, you have to be strong in the States. And if you want to win a State, you have to be strong in the local communities. The question is how to do that.

I think we should expand our definition of "getting the message out".  What if, instead of talking about health care in Harlem, Democrats ran an immunization clinic, distributed nutrition information, or provided logistical help in applying for Medicaid?  What if, instead of talking about agricultural policy in Iowa, Democrats helpedfarmers to organize into co-ops or to petition for the expansion of ethanol production?  What if Democrats ran local projects on sustainable logging, urban beautification, or beach maintenance?  What if they helped organize after school programs for kids of working families, or helped parents identify local resources for gifted and special needs kids?  All of a sudden the message that Democrats are for farmers, health care, families, and the environment is no longer an abstraction - it's a visible, potent reality.  All of a sudden we're the party that's DOING something.

That kind of organization could take place through churches (though the First Amendment is awfully pesky in that regard), it could take place through schools, it could take place through community boards, town halls, or simply local party activity.  None of it need be particularly elaborate or expensive, but it would illustrate, unmistakably, where Democratic priorities lie.

Now that's an idea! Stop talking about it, and do something. That could change the direction our society is taking without even winning anything yet. A true grass-roots social movement. And in a way that would appeal very strongly to the mainstream. I think it's legal as long as you dont use service delivery as way to campaign.   

It strikes me how similar your suggestion is to what the hard-line Muslim movement does in many countries in the Middle East (Wahabism I think). They set up schools, clinics, and so forth as a direct means of promoting thier political goals. The idea being that not only do you build good will with the population, but you protest the ruling regime by demonstrating how incompetent they are. And it's paid for by charitable donations. You could almost call it "Productive Sabotage". It's resistance by outperforming the ruling party.

Anybody out there know any other examples of this sort of thing?

I was actually thinking that it sounded a bit like Hamas when I wrote it, but the fundamentals of the ideas are still sound.

Hell, this month proves that it worked even better for Hamas than I thought it had.  And if you had to share an ideology with a group to steal its tactics, modern-day American conservatives would really be communists. 

Thats right- if the neo-conservatives can steal tactics from the Marxist0Leninists, we can steal them from Hamas. Come to think of it- maybe we better hurry up before they beat us to it!

I think the point is that there's no way to get cohesive values (or even a plan of some sort) back into the Washington Dems without building up the grassroots and state level party organization.