Am I a scary guy? I am a progressive candidate for Congress whose values have been shaped by my religious faith. I have even been an active part of the progressive faith movement since 2004, and my faith has called me to work on human rights issues in some of the roughest spots on the planet. Yet some (but certainly not all) of the great reactions to yesterday’s conversation about a culture of greed suggest some believe there is a contradiction between being progressive and talking publicly about religion. This tees up today’s post about whether there is a role for a progressive religious voice in American political discourse. The answer to this rests on two questions – whether there is any role for religion and morality in political discourse and, if so, what this progressive religious movement stands for?

There has been a lot of hype and hysteria about the rise of progressive faith groups, but this movement is still finding its voice. It is a collection of mostly progressive, interfaith, issue groups that accept the separation of church and state, but not of politics and ethics. There are two key components of this movement: (1) issues crusaders who want to shift the moral conversation towards poverty, peace, and protection of the planet; and (2) the cultural/spiritual prophetics, like Bill Moyers, Jim Forbes and Michael Lerner, who believe there is something deeply off kilter in our culture that needs to be addressed. This group tends to push beyond the Iraq war itself to questions of American exceptionalism, look beyond the health care crisis to a culture of go-it-alone, and look beyond FISA to a culture of instant gratification that enables our leaders to sacrifice over 200 years of commitment to liberty in the name of a short-term political payoff.

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A couple of years ago, a cable channel was launching re-runs of Dallas under the tagline “J.R.: The Original Bling.” This almost quaint attempt at marketing crossover struck me as a sad statement about the once extreme culture of selfishness and materialism that has become mainstreamed today. While culture wars rage over sexual politics, child rearing and the teaching of evolution, there is one thing that the urban Blues (Jay-Z) and the country Reds (J.R.) can agree on, "greed," in the famous words of Gordon Gecko, "is good."

I believe that America is facing a culture crisis. Our national soul has been infected with a virus of selfishness. This selfishness takes on many forms, most commonly greed, extreme materialism, and instant gratification. But it is not the obvious individual cases (Tyco’s Kozlowski, Bush’s Executive Privelege, internet pornography) that cause our national ills but rather the fact that they each are outgrowths of a culture that has lost its commitment to the common good. The abandonment of the common good is the central thread in our failed politics.

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I was very interested by the response to my post yesterday. The ambivalence many progressives feel about voicing their convictions is frequently based on the following concern "I believe this, but will others? Wouldn't it make more tactical sense to take a position people already agree with, such as 'immediate withdrawal'?" When we think this way, we forget two critical things about polls, opinions and political power. One, there is a difference between what people say they are for when given a limited set of established options and what really gets them excited and committed to action, and two, that what we say as leaders and community members creates what the established options are.

I was talking to a small business owner in Rocky Mount the other day about Iraq. He considers himself an independent voter and is furious about the Iraq war. He echoed many of other people from my district– which covers very red and very blue counties – by saying that he wants us “out of Iraq,” but he was more despondent than excited. Then I spoke with him about the NEW plan for Iraq proposed in yesterday’s blog – a plan that includes withdrawal but only as a piece of jump starting a new political solution. The entire tone of the conversation changed and he was fired up. By proposing a solution that would truly set things right rather than just retreat to a less awful alternative, conviction politics can transform the debate.

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I saw a new Zogby poll last night showing that a majority of Americans would support a US military strike in Iran to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon – in short, preemptive strike on Iran. This is the result of failing to make the core case for why President Bush has made us less safe. Forget the peripheral bits, President Bush and the Congress – including my opponent Virgil Goode (R-VA) – made the decision to subvert over 200 years of American strategic and moral wisdom about security through legitimacy and validate the idea that might makes right. Our failure to make that case, resorting to the safer arguments about mismanagement and bad intelligence, leaves us playing defense again as the drumbeats crescendo.

Before applying conviction politics to Iraq, it is worth looking at an example of where the international community pulled off regime change in the right way – Liberia. The proudest moment of my life was playing a role in forcing Charles Taylor from power in Liberia. I served as Special Advisor and Spokesperson to the prosecutor of the Special Court that indicted Taylor – an indictment which became the lever and the legitimizer forcing Taylor from power. I have seen the elation on the faces of amputees and survivors of systematic sexual violence after seeing the mastermind of their torment locked up. And I have seen that when a strategy combines legitimacy, aggressive diplomacy and a credible threat, we can make the world a better and more secure place.

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I am running for Congress against Virgil Goode in Virginia's Fifth District—and the reason might surprise you.

First a word about the race. The Fifth includes 22 mostly rural counties in central and Southside Virginia, stretching from Charlottesville down to the North Carolina border. Mine is an area hit hard by factory closings and lost farming jobs. The incumbent Republican Virgil Goode came to national prominence for his remarks about Rep. Ellison being sworn in on the Qu’ran. An ex-populist, he has repeatedly voted against SCHIP, backed credit card and pharmaceutical companies, and supported the Iraq surge. I believe the key to victory is conviction politics.

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Welcome to Table for One, the guest-blogging section at TPMCafe.

This week we are joined by Tom Perriello, who is running for Congress in Virginia's 5th congressional district. In addition to working with theInternational Center for Transitional Justice, National Council of Churches of Christ, AfghanistanWatch and The Century Foundation, he also co-founded Avaaz.org and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and helped launch FaithfulAmerica.org.

See earlier Table for One guest-blogs:
Jacob Soboroff, Sam Quinones, Jeffrey Toobin, Ben Naimark-Rowse, Charlie Savage, Congressman Steve Kagen, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Scott Winship, Robert Hormats, Bill McKibben, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Sen. John Edwards, the ACLU's Anthony Romero, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Andrew Rasiej, Gov. Tom Vilsack,Gen. Wesley Clark, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Sen. Russ Feingold.