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Get The Right Blend Into The Discussion

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:18:48 -0400

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Kuttner and Borosage Discuss the Progressive Moment

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:32:37 -0400

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McNary Calls For a "Next New Deal," Lamont Stands Firm on Ending The Occupation

Bill Scher — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:57:49 -0400

In my interview with William McNary, president of USAction, he instructs us to ask ourselves, do we want "progressive change, small change or chump change?" And, he lays out a comprehensive progressive vision for a "Next New Deal" that invests in people, from day care to health care, from pre-school breakfasts to affordable college.

And Ned Lamont, the man that schooled Democratic politicians on how to talk about the Iraq occupation in 2006, explains how we should approach Iraq in 2008.

What Progressives Should Do From Now To November

Bill Scher — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:11:56 -0400

Following his Take Back America panel discussion, I caught up with MoveOn.org's Eli Pariser to find out what he believes progressives should be doing between now and November, to build the mandate for change.

The Explosive Growth Of The Progressive Movement

Bill Scher — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:00:27 -0400

Reporters always complain that there is no news at political conventions any more. Perhaps. But there is news outside the convention hall: the loud buzz of progressive activity, organizing and mobilizing around big issues, hundreds of decibels louder than at the Democratic convention of 2004.

All my bloggingheads.tv partner, and Heritage Foundation blogger, Conn Carroll could do was scoff at the notion that "The Big Tent is sponsoring no less than ten panels about global warming this week." But all that shows is progressives are coming to Denver to work, and work hard.

With that in mind, allow me to share with you me a few more interviews from my Monday of live streaming (Tuesday's stream should get going around 9 AM MT).

Arianna Huffington shares what she expects from convention week.

Claire Silberman discussed how Crafting Liberally -- part of the Living Liberally empire -- is helping expand the progressive community.

While Michael and Al Shaw, father-and-son team at BAGnewsNotes, talked about how progressives still lag conservatives in using visuals to communicate ideas.

Taking The Progressive Moment to Denver

Isaiah J. Poole — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:49:12 -0400

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The Missed "Clinton Moment" and "Deval Moment"

Bill Scher — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:18:26 -0400

Robert Borosage has asked us on this site—bloggers and commenters alike—to explore "How Do We Seize The Obama Moment?" and substantively advance a bold progressive agenda, after laying out an "inside-outside" activist strategy with Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Nation.

Why must we answer that question now? Because we've seen what happens when we don't. Moments are missed.

We missed the "Clinton Moment." Bill Clinton was swept into office, but without a strong progressive mandate to work with on Day 1 (though there were populist elements in his signature campaign proposals of welfare reform and middle-class tax cuts). And while individual organizations fought hard for their issues, there was not a cohesive progressive movement organizing around a set of issues based on common principles.

So in Clinton's first term, when he tried to achieve health care for all or a "BTU tax" that would discourage fossil fuel use and bolster renewable energy, grassroots activists were outgunned by corporate lobbyists, and Democratic congresspeople had no political incentive to stand with the president. When he tried to follow through on his campaign pledge to allow gays in the military, he was spooked by the conservative backlash and embraced the ugly "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise.

But when Clinton pushed for a corporate-friendly NAFTA deal, or was faced with a conservative welfare reform bill that completely removed the safety net, those bills became law over progressive objections.

Here in my state of Massachusetts, we are witnessing another missed moment, the "Deval Moment."

Deval Patrick won a massive 21-point victory for governor, after thumbing his nose at the Democratic party machine in Boston, and basing his campaign on organizing grassroots progressives. He faced typical right-wing attacks on crime and taxes and he faced them down with progressive arguments, ending 16 years of Republican governors in Massachusetts.

Patrick quickly worked to protect the state Supreme Court ruling upholding equal marriage rights for gays. But after that, his next battle was to legalize casinos, something his grassroots base was vehemently against.

Patrick's rationale was he needed more revenue to close a large budget gap that jeopardized critical government services. But as blogger Frederick Clarkson observed during the casino debate, that argument ran counter to his progressive mandate: "Patrick got it right when he argued during the campaign that rather than debating whether we should raise or lower taxes, we should first consider what we want to do and then discuss how to pay for it. In that spirit those of us who were with him from the beginning are saying that it is time to talk."

The result? Patrick lost both the casino battle and the enthusiasm of his base.

But the fault does not solely lie with Patrick. It also lies with the state's progressive movement.

Beyond protecting gay marriage, the progressive activists of Massachusetts also failed to hit the ground running with a clear issues agenda to prod the governor and state legislature into action. As the Boston Phoenix noted:

...Massachusetts officeholders don’t fear paying a price at the polls for standing against the liberal base of the Democratic Party, a perception that State House staffers confirm.

Patrick’s casino initiative is a case in point. Despite mounting opposition, voiced mostly in left-wing blogs, Patrick chose to champion multiple casinos licensed by the state.

The apparent popularity of the casino plan, and of Patrick, wrote the left-wing blogger The Outraged Liberal, “suggests no one is listening to us.”

One reason these progressives are feeling marginalized might lie in their lack of unanimity on the issues. It was easy to feel united and effective on an issue like gay marriage, says [Boston progressive politician Matt] O’Malley, because all the progressive groups were working together on it. It’s been hard to find other issues that bring the left together in the same way.

That leaves progressives often splintered, working at cross purposes, or fighting losing causes.

For us in the progressive movement to realize the potential of the "Obama Moment," we cannot be splintered. We need to have priorities and focus, while maintaining the progressive community's strong breadth and diversity. How do we learn a lesson from these moments missed?

We must realize that even with an expected "spasm of furious activity," as Borosage and vanden Heuvel envision, not every single issue can be addressed in the first 100 days. And we need to establish a level of coordination even though we are primarily a bottom-up community, not a top-down hierarchy with a single leader barking marching orders.

Putting a rigid game plan down on paper is no help. Chris Bowers at Open Left understandably chafed at a Netroots Platform, which invariably includes some things not everyone supports:

Platforms are where democratic movements and changes in the national social fabric go to die. Once a political movement is delineated into a specific set of planks, then factionalism, totalitarianism and stereotyping set in, while creativity, innovation and pluralism are tossed aside. Once a movement can be clearly defined by a specifically delineated set of characteristics and beliefs, any ability for that movement to grow, change or develop is lost.

Bowers is right. To thrive we must operate in fluid fashion, But to win, we also need clear direction.

I fully expect the first days of a potential Obama administration to be a crush of pent-up progressive frustration, with Washington politicians scrambling to take control of the legislative agenda—a mix of bottom-up pushing from activists and top-down agenda setting in Washington. And certain issues will break out the pack.

Instead of remaining in separate corners, the broader progressive movement will have to run with, and get ahead of, the pack.

The corporate-backed conservative movement will be itching to land a couple high-profile blows to the progressive community and make sure the "Obama Moment" only lasts for a moment. And they will have cards to play—we have already seen how a coordinated propaganda push from Big Oil and Newt Gingrich around coastal drilling shifted the political landscape, and how timely neocon posturing shaped media coverage of the Russia-Georgia conflict in a matter of hours.

We will need to marshal our forces to properly frame the debate, get ahead of the curve and win those early battles.

But since we don't know what issues will break out of the pack, we need to sharpen our messages across the issue spectrum now. And once it's crunch time, we will need to accept an eventual prioritization of issues, and eagerly coordinate in kind.

A Call For 'Revolution' To Counter The Middle-Class Collapse

Isaiah J. Poole — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:02:13 -0400

On "Meet the Bloggers" Friday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that there is a "collapse" of the middle class and that nothing short of a revolution will be needed to reverse it.

"What we really need is a political revolution in this country," Sanders said, beginning with countering the corporate media spin on what is happening in the economy.

Sanders indicted the media for not probing what is happening to working people on a consistent basis. "We need to raise the consciousness of the public" so that more Americans will ask such basic questions as why America is the only industrialized nation without universal health care or why the disparity between working-class families and the wealthy are at record levels.

Sanders, in the Meet the Bloggers interview, cited these statistics as evidence of what he's calling the middle-class collapse since President Bush has taken office:

5 million people in middle-class households have slipped into poverty
Household median income for working families has declined on average $2,500
3 million people have lost their pensions
8 million people have lost their health insurance coverage
Almost 20 percent of children are living in poverty, the highest poverty rate for children in the industrialized world.

To move Washington to solve these problems and overcome the roadblocks set up by corporate interests and conservative ideologues, Sanders said we need to force a discussion in the media of these issues and "we need a strong, grassroots political movement to fight for progressive change, to take on the big-money interests."

Watch the full interview, which features a discussion between myself and Amanda Logan of Center for American Progress.

How Do We Seize The Obama Moment?

Robert Borosage — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:11:28 -0400

When Sen. Barack Obama receives the Democratic presidential nomination before 75,000 people in Denver's Mile High Stadium on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, new possibilities will be born.

Obama may not be a "movement" progressive in the way that Reagan was a "movement" conservative, and he may have disappointed activists with his recent compromises, but make no mistake: His election will open a new era of reform, the scope of which will depend—as Obama often says—on independent progressive mobilization to keep the pressure on and overcome entrenched interests.

Keys to seizing the moment

Prepare to get allies into strategic positions in an Obama administration
Mobilize the peace movement to press for Iraq withdrawal
Continue independent mobilization on other key issues
Monitor the opposition aggressively
Challenge obstacles to reform in both political parties
Embrace bold, smart ideas that expand the limits of the policy debate

What do you think? Click the "Discuss" link and respond.

» Read the full article in The Nation.

While focusing on what is certain to be a difficult campaign, progressives should start thinking now about a strategy for an Obama presidency.

The inside-outside strategy

For Obama to achieve his core promises, he will have to push significant reforms early. Periods of significant change in American politics are rare, but they feature spasms of furious activity: Roosevelt's first 100 days, Johnson's push in 1964-65, Reagan's reaction in 1981-82. Inevitably, these spasms don't last long before reaction sets in. So it is vital to move rapidly and boldly and across many areas to have any chance at success.

Progressives should be pursuing an inside-outside strategy. For example, during the transition, we should push to place allies in strategic positions, particularly in the areas of economic policy and national security. The AFL-CIO and other groups are preparing lists of potential candidates. These inside efforts should be complemented by watchdog monitoring and reporting on potential nominees. No free pass should be given to those who drove the financial and trade policies that led to the current economic debacles or supported the invasion of Iraq, the worst foreign policy fiasco in recent history.

Obama's first decision—to be made, no doubt, during the transition—will be the most telling. He has pledged that he will instruct the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare a sensible plan for ending the Iraq occupation. Already, Democratic security advisers who initially supported the war are calling for "conditional engagement," arguing that the United States can't afford simply to set a timetable to get out. Thus it is vital that the peace movement organize aggressively during the campaign, and mobilize independently and visibly immediately after the election. The Obama White House must have no doubt about the firestorm in Congress, in the streets and within the Democratic Party that would be caused by a retreat from this pledge.

If the Iraq promise is kept, progressives will sensibly work to help define Obama's agenda from the inside and support key parts from the outside.

He will lay out a major initiative on jobs and energy. He has said that he'll try to push through health care reform quickly—although that is likely to trigger trench warfare in Congress (and progressives will have to overcome deep internal divisions to ensure that fundamental reform succeeds). Obama will reverse many of the reactionary Bush executive orders, from the global gag rule to secrecy excesses stemming from the "war on terror." His first budget decisions most likely will have to deal directly with a broader stimulus plan to get the economy going. He has pledged to support passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, enabling workers to organize unions without employer harassment.

Overcoming obstacles

But Obama will encounter formidable obstacles. He'll face a business lobby girded for battle. Corporations have already begun moving more of their money to Democratic incumbents and are snapping up former Democratic legislators and staffers for their lobbies. They will do everything they can to stall health care and drug-pricing reform, empowerment of workers and re-regulation of Wall Street. Moreover, while Democrats are likely to enjoy larger majorities in both houses, their caucuses are likely to be less progressive as they pick up seats in very conservative, formerly Republican districts.

Progressives will enjoy their greatest strength mobilizing independently to support Obama's promises. We can organize constituent pressure on politicians who are blocking the way, something even a president with Obama's activist network would be loath to do. We can expose the lobbies and interests and backstage maneuvers designed to limit reforms. Now that newspapers increasingly lack the resources for investigation, progressive media, online and off, and the independent progressive media infrastructure—from The Nation to Media Matters to Brave New Films to The Huffington Post—must assume a greater role in monitoring the opposition, even as we mobilize activists in targeted districts across the country.

In doing this, we can help give backbone to the Obama agenda, even as we supply muscle and energy to help pass it. The best way to achieve this is to generate large-scale independent-issue campaigns. A clear example is the Health Care for America Now Coalition, which is ready to take on the insurance companies and support the White House's commitment to universal health care.

Acting in support of Obama will require challenging legislators in both parties who stand in the way, a task progressives should undertake aggressively. Democrats should be on notice from their own constituents that they will be expected to help move reform, not stand in its way.

Expanding the limits of the debate

The great challenge for progressives is whether the energy and idealism unleashed by the Obama candidacy—and the collapse of conservatism—can expand the limits of the current debate. McCain promises merely more of the same bankrupt policies, but Obama's reform agenda is itself limited by a very constricted establishment consensus that is an obstacle to real change.

This corrosive consensus reflects the entrenched power of the established order. It is enforced by aggressive lobbies—the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, corporate interests—-and rationalized by well-upholstered house scholars. The establishment's strength is its ability to simply exclude alternatives from serious consideration.

An Obama administration may well realize that the dire condition of the country demands a far bolder agenda than what is now on the table. Progressives should recognize that an Obama administration would have no alternative but to be one of constant experimentation. We should embrace the best of the public-policy proposals that scholars are developing in our universities and think tanks. These ideas challenge limited assumptions about government and call for everything from dismantling our empire of military bases to curbing the imperial presidency, from passing progressive tax reforms to strengthening the public commons. Again, independent campaigning—particularly regarding concerns not high on the national agenda—will help lift issues into the mainstream.

As a former community organizer, Obama has taught that "real change comes from the bottom up." It comes about by "imagining and then fighting for and then working for—struggling for—what did not seem possible before." As president, he will face conflicting pressures, and undoubtedly he will carefully pick his fights. The movement that he has called into being will have little choice but to embrace his charge and mobilize across the country to achieve what "did not seem possible before."

This is excerpted from "Progressives in the Obama Moment," in the September 1 issue of The Nation, co-authored with The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Why We Don't Shoot Back

Sara Robinson — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:44:00 -0400

Drew Westen and Mike Lux both have cogent and persuasive posts up that deftly explain — and raise the alarm about — the timidity that's recently settled into Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain's shooting live rounds now; and, as usual, the Democrats are refusing to fire back. If that doesn't change — this week, before the Olympics starts — this could all too easily turn into Dukakis-all-over-again.

Progressives have been picking at the whys and wherefores of this pattern ever since Adlai Stevenson lost to Eisenhower. (One of my favorite explanations came from Paul Rosenberg, who dug into the psychology of both sides in this excellent series last year at Open Left.) But there's one fairly simple and glaring factor that I'm increasingly convinced plays at least some role in this — and since I've never seen it discussed anywhere else, I'm going to propose it here.

We've all got our short lists of books that changed the way we look at things forever. One of the ones I keep going back to is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, published in 1989 by Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer. Fischer's basic argument -- which he supports with a weighty and richly researched sociological survey that runs to 700 pages plus another 200 pages of footnotes -- is that most of America's most enduring cultural and political conflicts can be traced back to essential differences between the first four groups of English settlers, who brought four very different worldviews with them, and set deep patterns that continue to influence America's identity and choices to this day.

To quickly summarize, the first of these groups were the Puritans, the bulk of whom arrived in New England between 1630 and1650. They were Reform Protestants who brought with them a notion of "ordered liberty." They believed that government authority, including the right to use force, properly belongs not to individuals, but to communities; and that individuals would necessarily need to conform their will to that of the larger whole for society to succeed. In the generations that followed, their descendants spread Puritan culture across the northern tier of the county, into the Pacific Northwest, and down the West Coast to northern California. These are, today, still the most liberal parts of the country.

They were followed, starting in 1660s, by Cavaliers -- Anglican royalists from the south of England who took refuge from the English Civil War by settling up the Chesapeake and the coastal south. They believed that liberty and authority rightly accompany tradition, wealth, and inherited social status; and that government had no right to infringe on the God-given absolute "freedom" of the highest-ranking people to order the lives of those under their authority. If you're poor, you don't deserve freedom. If you're rich, you have a sacred right to do whatever you see fit to whomever you please. The lowland South is still dominated by traditional, hierarchy-oriented Cavalier values, from tidewater Virginia all the way around to New Orleans, and remains one of the most conservative parts of the country.

In the 1670s, the Quakers began arriving from England's industrial midlands. They were working class and middle class, earnest, hardworking, and nonviolent. The most productive and successful of all the British immigrant groups, they introduced the ideas of tolerance and racial and gender equality to the American conversation. For them, people were entitled to freedom to the degree that they were willing to grant the same freedoms to others -- a perspective that gave them a very expansive view of human rights. They valued a rough-and-tumble party politics that engaged everyone in political debate to solve problems. Their ancestors (most of whom eventually converted, and became Methodists or Baptists) spread out across the Midwest, where the plain-spoken, plain-living, deeply egalitarian Quaker way still flavors the culture.

And, finally, in the early 1700s, the Borderers (more commonly known as the Scots-Irish) started arriving from the borderlands of northern England, lowland Scotland, and northern Ireland. The area they came from had been a constant war zone between English and Scottish kings for some 700 years; and the never-ending violence had made them clannish, tough, fiercely independent, contemptuous of all forms of authority, and firm believers in a vision of "natural liberty" -- including the God-given rights of man that were eventually enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Philadelphia Quakers and Charleston Cavaliers took one look at this unruly, self-sufficient warrior society, shuddered, and immediately shipped them far off to their own highland frontiers. When we speak of "pioneer stock," we're talking about the Borderers. Their wandering descendants spread out and settled up the roughest places of the south, west and southwest, and gave us cowboys and country music along the way. Wherever you find populists and libertarians, you're likely among Borderers.

Fischer argues that these four groups formed the original cultural and political matrix into which later-arriving immigrant groups adapted themselves; and their ancient differences underlie many of the regional and philosophical differences Americans still grapple with today. The migration patterns of these four groups have largely determined the geography of civil and women's rights, economic justice movements, and many other social and political trends. And it seems possible to me that these conflicting value systems may also be at the cultural root of the strikingly ineffectual way that Democratic candidates have consistently responded to GOP attacks over the past 50 years.

Fischer noted that the four groups have radically different approaches to conflict. Cavalier and Borderer cultures are extremely honor-driven. A person's good name is their most cherished asset. Any challenge to that must be answered. Anyone who is unwilling to defend his or her honor, or to stand up for his or her own kin, or defend his or her principles, reveals his or her essential unworthiness to lead others. A Cavalier will challenge you to a duel. A Borderer will start a fistfight. A more modern politician will do it with public ridicule, a stirring speech, or a TV interview. No matter. You call these folks out, and you are going to have to reckon with some consequences.

In the southern and western areas that were dominated by these two cultures, many people simply don't understand and won't accept leaders who shy away when attacked. Strength matters. (So do wit, grace, and style in shutting down upstarts. There are big bonus points for doing it in a way that never lets them see you sweat. Ann Richards, for example, did it in a way that was funny, feminine, and murderously effective.) Failure to exercise that strength is fatal. People figure that if you're not even willing to defend your own honor and interests when someone confronts you directly in public, how on earth can we ever count on you to fight for the rest of us on the stuff that really matters?

The northern Puritan and Quaker cultures, on the other hand, have much more measured and careful responses to being challenged. Publicly question the honor of a Boston gentleman, and he probably won't dignify the challenger with any response at all. He trusts that the community will exercise its own judgment, measure his character against that of his opponent, draw the correct conclusion, and quietly defend him by shunning the cad. (Both the Puritans and Quakers relied heavily on shaming, shunning and banishment -- all forms of community discipline -- to deal with people who upset the collective order.) If someone crosses the legal line, he'll let the courts sort it out. In the meantime, he will say nothing on the matter at all. If you ignore ugly, it will go away. Under no circumstances do you take matters into your own hands.

Our gentleman also takes it as a matter of personal honor that civilized people never, ever, ever use force. Fischer writes that you can tell when a New Englander is on his very last nerve when he says something like, "I swear -- I almost hit him!" (Contrast that to Borderers, who will gin up fist fights for fun.) Puritan and Quaker leaders demonstrate their moral superiority by doubling down on their self-control when under fire. Losing it brands you forever as a hothead who's a potential danger to self and others, and who should never again be trusted with any kind of serious responsibility.

In Quaker culture, challenges do get answered -- but since violence is not an option, the community is obligated to come together and frankly talk the matter through until the truth is discovered and the matter resolved. Both groups see confrontation as destructive to the resolution process and a threat to community order and cohesion, and discourage it at all costs.

For one example of this ethos at work, look no further than the last election. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, in true Boston gentleman form, refused to dignify the Swiftboaters with any kind of response at all. He knew his record and his reputation were solid, and believed that any reasonable person would look at that, take his word over theirs, and shun the Swiftees as the shit-stirrers they so obviously were. That's the way it works in New England. But he didn't reckon with the fact that there are 44 states out there that aren't New England, and most of them were full of voters with a value set that interpreted his silence as a withering sign of weakness.

At this point, you can probably see where this is going. As a broad generalization, the roots of American conservatism -- along with the deep culture of much of the country -- lie in two foundational cultures that accept high levels of conflict and confrontation as normal, and take the measure of a candidate on the basis of how confidently and creatively he or she responds to it. On the other hand, the roots of American liberalism -- along with the deep culture of the northern tier of the country -- lie in two foundational cultures that are extremely conflict-averse, and regard returning fire as an incontrovertible sign of personal weakness and poor character.

Unfortunately for progressives, the descendants of the Cavaliers and Borderers far outnumber those of the Puritans and Quakers (who, from the start, had much smaller families); and, thanks to the wanderings of the Borderers in particular, they're far more spread out across the country. Worse: these were joined later by large immigrant waves from traditional Catholic cultures (Irish, Italian, Latino, and so on) that, wherever they landed, also subscribed to the belief that a leader who won't rise to defend his or her own honor or interests is no kind of leader at all.

On the other hand, the Puritans were tremendous builders of social networks and educational institutions -- and to this day, the areas of the country they dominated enjoy a disproportionate share of political and cultural power, particularly on the liberal side. The bottom line is that the "don't fight back" crowd dominates the eastern power establishment -- but they're a distinct minority across the rest of the country. And that's where the fatal disconnect lies.

The persistence of those elites, and the commanding role they play in every election, explains why, time and again, Democratic presidential candidates refuse to engage attackers. Those lingering Puritan/Quaker cultural expectations always come to the fore at exactly the wrong moment, as experienced party heads from those regions, or that ancestry, or those universities do the cool-headed thing and stay their candidates' hands. And the rest of the country -- steeped in very different set of expectations that leaves them eagerly awaiting the glint of a gimlet eye and the deft flourish of a terrible swift sword -- is instead left wondering where their candidate left his balls. (Hillary, to her credit, left no doubt in anyone's mind that she'd had a bellyfull of these people, and was looking forward to taking the fight right back to them. It would have been a thing to see.)

And every time this happens, without fail, the GOP seizes on that moment of hesitation to reinforce the branding that Democrats are effete elites who lack the necessary backbone to lead. This argument works because even yellow-dog Democrats from the south and west are at a total loss to refute it -- at least, not in any kind of way that has meaning in their culture. Their candidate as been publicly exposed as an unprincipled, chicken-livered wuss -- and they know better than anyone that once that happens, the conversation's over. There's nothing left to be said in defense of someone who can't even be bothered to defend himself.

Fischer's thesis suggests this may be why an overwhelming number of the most successful Democratic candidates and political advisers have come out of the south and west. These native sons and daughters understand, viscerally, how badly it plays across the country when a Democrat refuses to respond forcefully to shut down GOP attacks. In their heads they can hear, loud and clear, just what the folks back home would say. Because of this experience, they're able to put up some resistance when the party's elites advises them to rise above it all and ignore the sniping, or find a way to talk it through. Where they come from, that dog don't hunt, and never will.

Look at it this way, and a couple of solutions become obvious.

First, progressives need to acknowledge that the vast majority of the country is firmly convinced that a candidate who refuses to answer challenges from the other side irrefutably proves that he or she is unfit to lead. The electorate has been sending us this message, loud and clear, for over 50 years now — and it's time that the Ivy Leaguers in charge finally sat up and listened.

It won't be easy, because everything in their own cultural training screams at them that rewarding an attacker with an assertive, confident response is the worst possible thing you can do to your own credibility. But the first step out lies in humbly recognizing that this opinion isn't rooted in reality — in fact, the data from recent elections refute it soundly — but rather comes out of a set of cultural norms that, while sacred to them, are not shared by most of the country.

Out where the voters live, you never lose by fighting back. And you never win by holding back. You see this principle at work everywhere you find winning Democrats these days — and another several decades of enlightened examples of New England-style "civilized behavior" seem sadly unlikely to persuade the rest of the country to change on this point. (More's the pity.)

Then, progressive candidates need to recruit — and listen to — political experts who cut their teeth in the South and West, and know how the tackle version of the game is played. It's no accident that LBJ, Carter, and Clinton — our only successful Democratic presidential candidates over the past 40 years — came out of the South. (And the Kennedys were products of bare-knuckles Irish machine politics that didn't pull punches, either.) It's not an accident that James Carville, Lee Atwater, and Karl Rove all came from there, either.

Obama is at his best when he reaches back into his Kansas populist side; but these days, he's no doubt got plenty of old party hands giving him the same fatal advice they gave Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, Humphrey, and even old Adlai Stevenson. (Note that they're all Northerners, too. Gore was a son of the South, but spent most of his childhood in D.C., and went to Yale.) They're going to do him in, too — and in exactly the same way — if he keeps listening. He needs people who know how to stick it right back to the GOP — fast, fearlessly, fiercely, with deadly aim and a transcendently elegant sense of style. (There's no need to give up the high road, ever. You absolutely can do this and stay classy.) And he needs them this week.

We're not going to take back the country by doing things the way they do them in Boston, Philadelphia, or the salons of Georgetown. That low-conflict style of politics is, as the Wellstone people like to say, Not Normal — at least, not outside the Northeast. The pattern is clear enough now that we can bet the movement on it: Progressives win decisively when they acknowledge and directly address the deep cultural ideas about conflict and leadership that abide in the bars and churches and county fairs in flyover country. That's where elections are won — out where vast numbers of Americans of a very different heritage are looking for that firm assurance that their candidate has the guts and wit to fight for his own honor, and theirs, and the country's as well.