Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:50:56 EDT
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

How Progressives  Can Deliver on the Promise of Change in 2009 – Seven 
Rules for  Success 

A little over a year and a half ago I published a book called Stand Up 
Straight: How Progressives Can  Win.  At the time, Progressives  were emerging 
from decades in the political wilderness after Democrats had taken  control 
of Congress in 2006. That was followed by the extraordinary campaign of  
Barack Obama that convinced Americans to bet on progressive change.   
In 2008, America voted for the hope that  change would bring them better 
lives than the status quo.  But hope will only last so long. In  2009, 
Progressives have to deliver the goods.  We have to convert the “change we need”  
into change in people’s lives. 
The opportunity we have to make serious progressive change in the next  six 
months is unparalleled in the last half-century. But our success is not  
preordained.  
To succeed, we need to remember  seven key rules: 
1). The critical battles being  fought in 2009 are not about “policies” – 
they are about the distribution of  wealth and power. When we talk about 
putting an end to exploding health care  costs for families, the money we save 
will come out of someone’s pockets.  In the case of health care, those  
pockets belong mainly to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.   In the 
case of energy, it’s the  oil companies. When it comes to re-regulating Wall 
Street the oxen being gored  belong to the big Wall Street banks.   
These interests  won’t roll over and play dead simply because they have 
driven the health care  system into bankruptcy, caused the collapse of the 
economy, and jeopardized our  future by blocking the road to energy 
independence. They will fight tooth and  nail for the status quo. 
As Frederick Douglass famously wrote, “Power concedes nothing without a  
struggle. It never has and it never will.” They will mobilize all of their  
wealth and connections and the power of their political donations.  We have to 
counter by mobilizing every  resource at our disposal – mainly the 
organized power of millions of  voters. 
The President  can’t do this alone.  We have to  make sure that every 
member of Congress understands that they will not return to  Washington in  2010 
if they don’t deliver on health care reform, a path towards energy  
independence, regulatory reform, and immigration reform in 2009.  
That will require millions of phone calls from constituents, angry town  
meetings, lobby days, protests, letters, email, TV ads -- and cornering 
Members  of Congress in the grocery store.  It will require intensity. It will 
require a massive progressive  mobilization that won’t take “no” for an 
answer. 
2). Progressives – and our  Democratic Members of Congress – have to 
remember that we have the high  political ground.  In times  past, Progressives 
have correctly mobilized to protect minority rights, or  defend other causes 
that challenge the popular view.  This is not one of them.  Today, 73% of 
the population favors  allowing consumers to have a choice of a private or publ
ic insurance plan.  Overwhelming percentages favor legislation to create a 
new generation of clean  energy jobs.  Three-fourths favor  comprehensive 
immigration reform. And nobody likes Wall Street  banks. 
We are demanding  that Congress enact programs that are politically 
popular.  The other side will try to sow confusion  and fear.  We must proceed with 
 self-confidence and clarity – and not let one word of their attempts at  
misinformation go unanswered.  
3). We must always  present our case in populist terms.  We represent the 
interests of average people – not the elites that  benefit from the status 
quo.  The  other side will try to argue that we favor a “government takeover” 
of health  care that allows “Washington Bureaucrats” or some other elite 
to control our  lives.  If we spend all of our time  talking about “insurance 
exchanges” and the arcana of health care policy we will  lose.   
We must frame  the debate for what it is – a battle between the private 
health insurance  companies and their multi-million dollar CEO’s on the one 
hand, and the  interests of average Americans on the other.  Populist frames 
are necessary for each  one of our fights. Populism always trumps 
policy-speak. 
4). Actually, it’s not  just the sizzle; it is the steak. We have to get 
the reform  right.  Especially when it comes to  health care, people will put 
pencil to paper and determine right away how the  “reform” affects them.  It
’s not  good enough to pass just any bill and call it reform.  In the end, 
health care reform has to  bring down the cost of health care for everyday 
families – and make health care  affordable for all Americans.   
That is why it is essential, for example, that reform includes a public  
health insurance option that will compete with private insurance companies and 
 end their ability to control health care in America – a  public plan that 
incentivizes the delivery of health care for an affordable  price, not 
maximizing profits and market share. That’s why reform has to include  enough 
money for subsidies to middle class families to actually make premiums  
affordable.   
In 1989 all of the “wise men” in Washington passed a “catastrophic health 
care bill” for  seniors that was supported by Washington insiders.  But they 
failed to see that it would  make the average UAW retiree pay a higher 
percentage of his income towards taxes  and premiums than Warren Buffet. Seniors 
across America rejected  the plan.   
Many Members of  Congress remember vividly the image of senior citizens 
chasing the “powerful”  Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Dan 
Rostenkowski, down a Chicago  street in the middle of his own district to 
protest the new bill.  It was repealed six months  later. 
Today’s Congress must remember that each of this year’s reforms will be  
measured in very concrete terms by every American family.  They won’t be able 
to dress up the status  quo in a flashy new coat and call it reform. 
Even when it comes to issues that play out over the long haul, like  energy 
and regulatory reform, it will be pretty clear, pretty quickly, if  average 
people get real change or more of the same.   And of course, economic 
reform  has to deliver a real economic recovery or Obama will be a one-term  
President and the window for progressive reform in America may  close for many 
years to come. 
5). Progressives have to keep  their eye on the ball of real structural 
reform – changes in the distribution of  power.  
From the standpoint of the long-term direction of our society, the  
essential questions at stake this year are all about changes in the distribution  
of wealth and power.  Progressives  need to focus like a laser beam on those 
questions.   
The creation of a public insurance option will permanently change the  
structure of the health care economy. A cap and trade system will change the  
economic incentives over the long haul and channel investment into clean 
energy  jobs – not just into hydrocarbons.  The Employee Free Choice Act will 
allow a massive expansion of collective  bargaining rights for employees.  
Immigration reform will change the status of 12 million people who should  be 
allowed to contribute fully to our society.   A Financial Consumer Protection  
Agency will radically limit the ability of the financial sector to siphon  
massive sums of money from the pockets of average Americans into the 
fortunes of  a few.  
6). No whining. Progressives have to swear off whining  about the tactics 
of the opposition – and match them blow for blow.  
In the two days before the energy vote the opposition used Twitter to  
generate a flood of calls to swing members of Congress – many from outside their 
 districts.  There was a certain  amount of whining within our ranks – as 
if that were unfair.   
The other side will do whatever it can to win.  Next time we simply have to 
deliver  twice as many calls that actually come from within Members’ 
districts. A hundred  years ago, Mother Jones said: “Don’t mourn, organize.” We 
have to live by the  dictum: “don’t whine, organize.”  
7). This historic window for  progressive change will close if we don’t 
act, just as surely as a hole in the  line disappears in football if a running 
back doesn’t burst  through. 
Mike Lux’ book, The Progressive  Revolution: How the Best in America Came 
to Be surveys the history of  progressive change in our country.  He finds 
that it is not randomly spread.  It occurs in clumps – during “big change  
moments.”   
We are blessed to live in one of those big change moments. But, Lux  finds, 
the lengths of those moments have varied enormously depending mainly on  
how well Progressives execute.  
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book about the Roosevelt Administration is called:  
No Ordinary Time. This is no ordinary  time, either. 
For the next year, every Progressive in America needs to  realize that he 
or she has an opportunity to make history that simply isn’t  available to 
most people at most times.  That means that all of us have a responsibility to 
all of the  Progressives that have gone before us – and to our kids and 
grandkids – to make  the very most of this precious opportunity.  
More than anything else people want meaning in life.  They want to do 
something of lasting  importance.  At this very moment we  have that opportunity. 
 It is up to  each of us to seize it. 
I believe that President Obama and the key people in his Administration  
are completely committed to using every power at their disposal to make real  
progressive change in 2009. The same goes for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and 
 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  But – just as in last year’s election 
--  the critical ingredient that will allow us to be successful is the 
mobilization  of millions of Americans.  It simply  won’t happen without us. 
Some people are  lucky enough to be able to say: “I was there at Selma.” 
For many, it was the proudest moment of  their lives.  Their eyes well up  
when they speak of it.  It changed  the course of history.  
We all have the  opportunity to be present at another one of those moments. 
 To be there, each of us has to empty the  stands --- march into the arena –
 and help make history. 
Sign up  with Organize for America (OFA), Health Care for America Now 
(HCAN), Americans  United for Change, MoveOn.org, USAction, Campaign for America’
s Future,  Immigration Reform for America, League of Conservation Voters, 
The Sierra Club,  Environmental Defense Fund, Leadership Conference on Civil 
Rights, Rebuild and  Renew America Now, Americans for Financial Reform, the 
Center for Community  Change, Catholics United – there are scores of 
progressive organizations to  choose from that are working together to pass the 
progressive agenda.  Get active with your union.  Join a progressive religious  
organization.  
It’s simple as this:  If we  don’t take advantage of this historic moment 
we may not have another for  many years to come.  If we  do, we will help 
lay the foundation for a period of unparalleled  possibility and hope. 
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist and  
author of the recent book:  Stand Up  Straight: How Progressives Can Win, 
available on _Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1) 
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