11/5/10

Take Heart Progressives...There Is Much Hope For Future Progress

We all know the Republicans are going to make the country even more angry than Obama and company’s economic policies did. Those policies are exactly the same ones the Republicans would have used if we had a Republican president the last two years, because the people making the decisions are the same old Wall Street insiders that got us in this economic trouble to begin with. When we add two years of the party of "NO" trying to tear down what little progress we have made while running interference on any new progress, the voters will be ready to dump them again. Learning the hard way seems to be the American way. Picking candidates with a history of high ethics, who work well with others, who care about people, and actually understand the constitution instead of pretend-understand it will get us a higher quality congress. And selecting any candidate heavily funded by corporations or radical religious agenda is not the American way.

From by Karen Dolan, a fellow at the institute for policy studies, for Common Dreams:

The veil of a happy Democratic governing majority is finally lifted.

PROGRESSIVES WON! Two significant exceptions are of course the tragic defeat of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and the sad loss of principled Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL). But, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus in the House Democratic Caucus at over 80 members, emerged virtually unscathed, losing only three members.


By contrast, the conservative Blue Dog Democratic caucus was more than sliced in half from 54 members to only 26. Further, of the 34 conservative Dems who voted against Obama's Healthcare Reform, a mere 12 won re-election.

Dead weight gone. Good Riddance. The blame for the stalemate to come can now fall squarely where it belongs...on the anti-progressive, anti-democratic, anti-populist Republican members of Congress.

(snip)

Our work is now finally beginning. The veil of a happy Democratic governing majority is finally lifted. We didn't have it then; We don't have it now. But what we do have now is a more solidly progressive bunch of Dems in Congress and a president presumably less encumbered by the false illusion that playing nice will get him a date with the other team.

Let's thank Grayson, as well as Reps. John Hall (D-NY) Phil Hare (D-IL) for their principled time in office. Let's get Feingold on the ticket as Obama's runningmate in 2012. Let's throw our support unabashedly behind the Congressional Progressive Caucus and let's push Obama to finally do the right thing through as many Executive Orders as we can present to him.


People...Progressives WON!!! Republicans are all over the map. They're a mess and won't be able to wreak the havoc they seek. We should be energized. We must be energized. Too much is at stake. The road ahead isn't so bad as long as we have the big picture and the fighting spirit spurring us on. Progressives will be the heroes in 2012. Let's make Obama one too.

Two spelling errors corrected, not because I noticed, blame it on spell check.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

An honest & uplifting post. Sadly the repubs took control of both houses in my state of Michigan.

Anonymous said...

My congressman, Dennis Moore, was a Blue Dog who voted for healthcare. He retired, but his wife Stephane ran for his seat and lost. Kansas voted for a complete slate of Republicans, including voter-fraud guy Kris Kobach. There's no way a progressive could win in Kansas - it's Blue Dog or arch-conservative Republican, and I'm very sorry to lose my Blue Dog.