This writing comes from Vermont, where I'm attending the Prospect Center's Summer Institute on the Descriptive Review Processes. While many progressive educators are here, there are of course, many other progressives attending a conference of a different sort, YearlyKos.

My trip to Vermont has been phenomenal. As someone who is generally "anti-social" and doesn't look forward to hanging out with strangers, I was a bit fearful of attending. I had originally planned to get over my phobia of conferences by attending YearlyKos, however, commitments to the school we're opening in the fall didn't permit it. With a bit of relief, I packed away thoughts of traveling and meeting strangers. But then my boss offered me the opportunity to travel to Vermont to attend the Prospect Summer Institute.

Without going into a long explanation, it's a conference that has been held for, I think, more than 25 years. Every summer, progressive educators from around the country come together to share work, study, and learn the descriptive processes.  

Within hours of arriving, my "New Yorker on the subway" mindset began to subside. Since then I've had conversations and ate dinner with strangers. It's been a complete departure from my typical social pathology.

Perhaps more important than my personal journey, is the work we have been doing. We've shared stories and  strategies with each other. We also  identified common enemies and obstacles of progressive education. The co-founder of Prospect Center, Pat Carini, gave a powerful talk yesterday, about the dark times that progressives and progressive educators are in the midst of. And, indeed, progressives face challenges on many fronts. It goes beyond the fear mongering of our president, and extends to politicians of both parties, who lack the vision and courage to identify and challenge our enemies.

I may still be a bit hopped up from my experiences this week, but I am convinced like I have never been before that progressives are in a battle with nothing less than the promise of a nation at stake. The theatre I've chosen is education, and I've renewed my commitment to respecting and supporting the humanity of children. I hope those of you attending YearlyKos have as many conversations as you can with fellow progressives and leave reminded that there are others just like you fighting to take back and take forward our country.

It's been a while since I've posted here (and blogged in general) as I've been tied up with some other project related to education reform.

With No Child Left Behind coming up for renewal, I want to look at an aspect of it that has some rather important implications on the future of American politics, and in particular our efforts to build a progressive majority.

Aside from the usual "they left the money behind for NCLB" criticism, there is another area where NCLB and our education system in general, are failing. While legislation like NCLB and the typical policy prescriptions to fix our education system place emphasis on standardized testing and assessment, there are areas of the student and our educational goals that are often left unaddressed. To be explicit, aside from the hard skills that students must be equipped with to compete in the global economy, how are we preparing them to make our democracy healthier?.  While we remain committed to creating fitter, happier, more productive workers, what kind of citizens are leaving our public schools?

Anyone that has watched the Democratic and Republican debates has probably come to the conclusion that the two parties are living in entirely different universes. We debate universal health care and how to get out of Iraq, while they appear to be thumping their collective chest, seeing who can "double Gitmo" or use "tactical" nukes against Iran first. The other thing that jumps out, particularly in the first Republican debate, is the Regan fetish that has been rightly lampooned and mocked. It's pretty scary to see Republicans foaming at the mouth over a corpse: "Come back oh great leader... Come back..." It kind of reminds of the Death Eaters from Harry Potter trying to resurrect Lord Voldermort. But I digress.

But perhaps there is something progressives can learn from the Regan fetishization. The Regan fetish serves two core functions for Republicans. First it calls to mind a concrete set of ideals, foreign and domestic policies, and for a select few, the good ol'days of the 1980's. Secondly, the Regan refrain is part of the larger race to bottom competition for so called "conservative credentials" or "true conservative" mantle. The exultation of phrases such as "conservative" and "Regan" re-enforce beliefs, ideas, morale, and most importantly partisanship in Republican primary voters. Moreover, it creates an ideological pull of sorts that pushes candidates further to the right of the party (see Mitt Romney). Politically speaking, it allows a candidate, say, Fred Thompson to score points on John McCain for not being a "true conservative". Beyond its effect on Republican primary politics, general election voters are assured that aside from bombing Iran and doubling Gitmo, the nominee will be, if nothing else, a conservative. What's more, is that this is taking place in the context of a so-called identity crisis within the Republican party. There's actually a relatively healthy debate about what it means to be a Republican.

It's not to say there isn't some what a leftward pull within the Democratic party, or that we aren't having a debate. And I don't advocate progressives developing fetishes over former Democratic presidents (and indeed with Hillary in the race you won't have too many candidates playing the Clinton card); but the framing/ideological lesson here is pretty clear. In the Democratic primary you won't hear any of the candidates saying that they are the "true liberal in the race" or repeatedly accusing one another of not being progressive enough. That kind of rhetoric creates a floor, if you will, or a base line cost of entry to taken seriously as a candidate in a party. While Republicans go to great lengths to make the words conservative and Republican are synonymous, a similar effort isn't underway on our side, and thus liberal remains the dirty word in American politics.

This phenomena has been discussed before, but I don't think it can be stressed enough. And it's important to remember that this isn't just about partisanship, but about ideology as well. No matter what the economy or federal deficit looks like, Republicans favor tax cuts, period. No matter what our status in the world is or how many wars we are fighting, bombing is always in play, period. That's the Republican way. Similarly, Democrats should always fight for social justice, whether it be government doing whatever it can to keep citizens healthy, well educated, and economically secure or working with the global community to help people around the world find peace.

Our goal should be to make sure that future Democratic candidates proudly say "I'm a (insert your favorite candidate here) Democrat". That starts with partisan pride, but continues with advocating and supporting progressive policies. It means winning elections and then enacting legislation that changes peoples lives in meaningful ways for the better. It means aiming high and being ambitious, when we have that ball. We have to make people feel that this country and their lives are headed in the right direction, and when we do we must associate that positive change with the Democratic brand.

Part of this is getting comfortable with disagreement, part of it is about emphasizing ideology more. It's also about shaping the contours of our internal debates: What 's the floor for being a Democrat? What are the ideological costs of entry? Those answers come from consistently reflecting on what it means to be a liberal and how best to advance that agenda to American people.

Via Marc Ambinder we find this fund raising appeal from the Romney campaign:

So today I'm announcing a special opportunity to join me for a celebration at a Major League Baseball game, including box seats and all travel expenses paid. I know my Dad is so proud of his supporters across the country, and it would mean a lot to me to thank you personally. How do you qualify? Anyone who contributes $100 to our campaign by Tuesday, June 12th will be entered to win two tickets to join me at the game.

Mind you, this isn't a night at the ball park with Mitt "making-it-up-as-I-go" Romney, but instead his son Tagg. Pardon my slight digression. Now, please, contrast that to this recent Edwards appeal:

We're closing in our goal of 10,000 contributions by John's birthday, Sunday, June 10th...If you can give at least $6.10, we'll send you Bobbie Edwards' delicious family recipe for pecan pie so we can all share a slice together on John's birthday.

Or this from Obama:

In the next week, four donors will be selected for a new kind of fundraising dinner. If you make a donation in any amount between now and 11:59 pm EDT on Wednesday, June 13, you could join Barack and three other supporters for an intimate dinner for five.

It would be too easy, to Tagg tag this one up to Republicans being out of touch and appealing to those in the upper-crust (though that may have had a hand in things here). So let's look at this from a fund raising perspective. My guess is that the Romney campaign thought that the ask wasn't too high in relation to the prize--boxseats & Tagg--which I suppose makes some sense. But still if I, being a college student and all, was a Romney supporter, $100 is certainly too rich for my blood. It's also important to note that this is from the Republican's best fundraiser thus far. Alternatively, both the Edwards and Obama appeals set the bar for participation pretty low, which I imagine, maximizes the number of possible contributors. Particularly in a really long campaign season, it seems to me, that a lot of small appeals are better than a few big appeals. It's for this reason, I think, that Democrats will continue do well in fundraising.

A while back Chris wrote a series of posts on diversity in the political blogosphere. At the time I found the discussion to be rather insightful, as it brought some pretty important questions into focus: How is the progressive, political blogosphere defined? What, if any, obligations do blogs have to be diverse? What new media activities are different groups of people engaging in? Furthermore, why do groups gravitate to one kind of media over another? What are the consequences(if any) of that? I don't intend to try and answer any of these questions in this post, but rather I want to put something on the table that may help further our thinking on these matters.

A few months back, a group of black progressive bloggers, formed what we call the Afrospear/Afrosphere. I might be wrong, but I would trace its origins to discussions between various bloggers about the so called "whitosphere" and "blackosphere" and the CBC Institutes initial decision to let the Fox News host the Democratic presidential debate. That at least, is where I joined the conversation. Either way, there was a sense among us that political blogging could be used as a tool to rally the black community around certain issues and affect change. We also felt that collectively we could better achieve these aims. Speaking only for myself, I looked to the various successes that the larger progressive, political blogosphere, has had in changing the Democratic party, and wanted to achieve similar goals within the black community. In my opinion, there is a leadership crisis within the black community, particularly in the realm of politics and the connection between blacks of my generation(I'm 21) and older blacks. It was and is my hope that political blogging can be a small part of changing those dynamics and is one of main reasons I started blogging.
Since we joined together, we have been working to build basic infrastructure within the Afrospear. We've talked about setting some basic goals and positions that we can all agree on. Most recently, we've been engaged in a conversation about increasing awareness of the health care crisis in our communities, and discussed tactics to achieve that goal through blogging and other new media.

Lets bring this back to the questions raised earlier. What I have always thought to be most beautiful and perhaps, most important about what we are trying to do, is the diversity of experiences, beliefs and opinions within the group. We are spread throughout the country, and indeed, the world-- not to mention the ideological map. And yet we all agree that there are serious issues facing people of the African Dispora, and we feel an obligation to try and address them.

As we build our own movement, one of the questions I've thought about is what, if any, role can the larger progressive, political blogosphere play in our aims? In my opinion, I see the two movements as part of the many constituencies that converge in the Democratic party and use it as a vehicle to achieve certain political goals. My thinking on that is similar to how Chris outlines here. If we accept that premise, then what are our mutual points of interest and convergence? What actions can we take together and what can we learn from each other? Or is any of that any of that even necessary? Thoughts?

Before I begin, I'd first like to say thanks to Chris for the opportunity to post on MyDD. Secondly, I look forward to being a part of the MyDD community. I also want to disclose to the community that I also blog at Students for Barack Obama--yes I'm an Obama supporter. Anyway, heres my first post.

As anyone who has ever thrown their support behind a candidate will tell you, there is, perhaps, nothing more infuriating than reading a blog or an article about your guy or gal, that you believe is totally off base. It's a lot like watching sports when you feel like the refs are making all the wrong the calls. A better analogy may be, watching "very serious journalists" talk about Democrats on Sunday mornings. As someone who has made their '08 presidential choice this early, it isn't very pleasant browsing through the internets, when news comes out that I know he's going to catch flack for on the blogs. Usually, the criticisms are on base if not justified. But I must confess, there are times that I have to quiet the conspiracy theorist in the back of my head. It's human nature to, at times, assume the worst of people you disagree with, and assign malicious motivations to their actions. Which begs the question, are we-- the progressive base of the Democratic party-- keeping our eye on the ball?

The latest MyDD and DKos straw polls(and the others prior), indicate a clear divide within the progressive political blogosphere, between Obama and Edwards. This information is, of course, supported by the flame wars and accusations, that arise in comment sections of blog posts as well. I'd go further to suggest that this divide also exists in the netroots as a whole, although, probably to a lesser extent. The point being that the progressive base of the Democratic party seems to be split, to varying degrees, between Edwards and Obama. For us, the race is a contest between those two. There is no Howard Dean of 2008. This dynamic has been documented and discussed before, but its importance remains.

The point being that the national polls tell a very different story than those straw polls. Moreover, we in the progressive political blogosphere all know this. The biggest story of the past few weeks for progressives, shouldn't be that Obama's plan has no mandate or that Edwards says he would keep troops in Iraq--on the margins, I think, neither of those positions are deal breakers. Rather, our concern should be the expansion of Hillary's lead in the polls. As best documented in The American Prospect debate between Garance Franke-Ruta, Matt Yglesias, and Sam Rosenfeld, Hillary is not the progressive candidate in this race.

The larger question for progressives is, at what point does the Edwards v. Obama dynamic become self defeating? Does it at some point make sense for us to "declare" a winner between the two? Barring, a mass transfusion of support from either candidate or an Al Gore entry into the race (see this), I don't see either candidate locking up or losing their support within the progressive wing of the party. The math is clear. In almost every national poll, the support between the two of them outweighs Hillary's. That means that we or rather those in the party that think like us, can, in fact, put a progressive on the ticket. Putting aside if you think Obama is no longer a progressive or if you feel Edwards' move to left shouldn't be respected, it's fair to say, better one of them than Clinton. Therefore, how useful is it for us to remain split, or rather how much longer is it useful to remain as such?