Progressives Being Attacked in the Primary

by Ilya Sheyman [courtesy of Blog for America]

(This post represents my own personal views).

These past few days have witnessed attacks on the top three progressives from the DFA pulse poll. While these are unrelated incidents, they all represent attacks in some form on the progressive movement we are all building. Regardless of which candidate you support, or would like voters to Unite around, we must stand up in each case to build our movement.

Dennis Kucinich

Rep. Kucinich was excluded from yesterday's Democratic debate in Iowa. This because he did not meet the technical need of having an office in Iowa. Check out The Hill for their story about this.

Kucinich, who is running his second consecutive presidential campaign but is doing poorly in national polls, has received strong support in online surveys from liberal groups such as Democracy for America. The Ohio lawmaker’s anti-war campaign resonates with parts of the Democratic base even though that support has not boosted Kucinich from the lower tier of candidates.

While this decision may have followd the letter of the rules, it clearly contravened their intention. Congressman Kucinich has an active national campaign, with staff and support across the country.

Barack Obama

Senator Obama has been running a youth oriented campaign relying on students' passion, energy, and political interest to help put him over the top. He's follow the clear law which states that students who study in Iowa (live there months out of the year, pay taxes, pay tuition) can vote in the caucuses (much like NH students who domicile in NH can vote there). In response, David Yepsen of the register, Sen. Clinton, Sen. Dodd, and others have cast doubt on the results. There's a great summary story about this whole incident over at Politico.

Young Voter PAC, another Democratic youth organization, has also responded aggressively. The political action committee, which works with Democratic candidates to engage young voters, founded the Facebook group “Hey Clinton, Stop Telling Young Voters to Stay Home.”

John Edwards

Senator Edwards is about to have major problems if the FEC follows its draft and rules that contributions via ActBlue are PAC donations. That's an entirely ludicrous claim. Sen. Edwards has helped build the progressive movement by using ActBlue to fundraise for his campaign. The money is clearly contributed by individuals to the campaign, and ActBlue is merely a conduit for the funds like an envelope holding a check.

There's a great diary about this over at DailyKos.

Obviously, while ActBlue is a "political committee" in the strictest sense of the term, in reality it does not act as such. ActBlue is a conduit for individual contributor preferences, to track and aggregate small-dollar contributors. It asserts no control over the recipients of its funds; the site’s only criteria is that the recipient be a Democrat. It fulfills FECA’s anticorruption goals by reporting contributors’ names, addresses, employers, and occupations to campaign, which in turn provide that information to the Commission as is legally required.

Progressives can contact the FEC and let them know you support ActBlue and its contributions to the progressive movement.