Progressive Activism Seen as Key to Democratic Turnout in Midterm Elections

[xchrom]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/23559-progressive-activism-seen-as-key-to-democratic-turnout-in-midterm-elections


Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) warned that Democrats are likely to lose ground to Republicans this November if they continue to emphasize fundraising over organizing.

He told Truthout that midterm turnout is "killing us" and that the party needs to rally working- and middle-class families to bridge the enthusiasm gap.

"Republicans don't really vote more than us during the non-presidential years; they just vote the same as they always do. We've got to re-engineer our turnout," he said.

The cochair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said that "issue-based campaigning" could facilitate organization and boost support for the party's candidates this November. He singled out minimum wage increases, immigration reform, equal pay and mandated paid sick leave as being crucial to this strategy.

[Laelth]

1. He's on the right track, I think.

I want to hear Democrats hammer the need for a minimum wage increase from now until November. I want to read a story about the need for this change every day. This issue, more than any other, resonates with boatloads of Americans. It's easy to understand, and it would make a tremendous difference in the lives of millions.

Carry on, Mr. Ellison, and well said.



-Laelth

[TBF]

2. A photo-op at Walmart is not the ticket -

that much I know.

If I were on the campaign I'd be on TV buying the best commercial time I could to remind folks to vote. Some good Obamacare testimonials, things like that may help ... the die-hards will always show up to vote but reminding the rank and file would be my strategy.

[riqster]

3. The progressives and other reliable voters need to inspire others to vote.

If each of us (on DU and elsewhere) gets one more voter to the polls, that is a large increase in turnout. If we get even more Dem voters to the polls, we win.

[TheKentuckian]

4. I agree with the premise but I am dubious that we can inspire, I think it is on the office holders

to provide inspiration, what they actually do is where the rubber meets the road and it is that which determines if we actually win, elections are a means not an end. You have to win to have the power but how the power is wielded when possessed is not a side item.

I cannot and will not sell "embrace the suck", "eat your peas" or "bipartisanship" with a bunch of delusional villains that we just desperately ditched, it is a shifty product that no one is going to be motivated to go a moment out of their way to get.

Our officials are in word and deed making our job like pushing a boulder up a hill, I'm getting traction on Social Security and Obama goes on TV and says he and Romney agree on the subject and we can just move on! That kind of stupid shit is a killer.

People don't get why Nader got a few to respond to "not a dime's worth of difference" when Gore spends the debates building up a montage of "I agree with Governor Bush" clips?

They chase a phantom section of the electorate at the expense of real folks that could be convinced and turned into reliable voters if we would ever stop shitting on our own credibility and ceased chasing the radical regressives in a vain effort to capture "the middle" not because you don't need the actual middle to win but because they have no fucking clue who the middle is or what they want and it has become a dangerous compulsion rather than a strategy.

[Laelth]

8. +1.

Give the people something to vote for instead of merely reminding us what we need to vote against.

-Laelth

[L0oniX]

6. Are you saying that the corporate centrist 3rd way doesn't inspire voter turn out?

[riqster]

7. You got it.

[L0oniX]

5. ...if we can get out from under the bus.