The following article by Democratic Strategist Robert Creamer, author of “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win” is cross-posted from HuffPo:
2014 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for the Progressive Movement in the United States.
The Right Wing did everything they could dream up to block progressive change in 2013.
The coming year will determine whether progressives allow the obstructionist tactics of extremists and their billionaire allies to stop change that benefits the vast majority of ordinary Americans.
It will determine whether the Affordable Care Act is successful at establishing that health care is a human right.
It may determine whether the discredited Neo-Cons that brought us the Iraq War are allowed to drag us into yet another war in the Middle East.
And most important, it will determine whether the progressive forces in America have the toughness of character necessary to turn on the after burners and once again defeat the forces that would drag America backward.
Here is a list of fourteen 2014 New Year’s resolutions for progressives — and one resolution for every year:
Resolution #1 — We must make 2014 a turning point year in the battle to reverse the gradual demise of the American middle class.
The defining economic fact of the last three decades has been the growing economic polarization of American society between most Americans and the wealthiest among us.
Over the last thirty years most Americans have experienced zero increase in their standard of living. Yet our per capita gross domestic product and productivity per person have both increased by 80 percent.
Virtually all of that increase has gone to the stop 1 percent.
2014 must be the year when increased economic inequality stops being the new normal. We need to insist that every economic proposal — every policy — every political debate must be evaluated by the critical need to reverse the increasing economic polarization of the last 30 years.
Resolution #2 — Our first order of business must be to restore unemployment compensation to the 1.3 million Americans who lost it three days after Christmas.
Right now there are three job seekers for every available job. Worse, a disproportionate share of those job seekers have been unemployed for 6 months or longer.
For decades we have never let unemployment benefits laps for the long term unemployed while more than 1.3 percent of the population in unable to find work for six months or more. Today double that number — 2.6 percent — have been out of work for 6 months or longer and are still unable to find a job.
Yet the Republicans have been unwilling to allow these benefits to continue. Some of them have actually argued that providing people an economic bridge to help carry them until they find a job makes them “dependent”.
Progressives cannot rest until the GOP is shamed into restoring long term unemployment benefits until the number of unemployed Americans drops to a level where it is reasonably likely that someone can find productive employment.
Resolution #3 — Progressives must stand up loudly and forcefully for unions, the right of collective bargaining and — in particular — public employee unions.
The increasing economic polarization of American society will never end if workers cannot demand to share the fruits of increased productivity at the bargaining table.
The last thirty years have shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that left to its own devices the laissez-faire labor market will siphon all of those benefits to the top one percent of society. In fact, the stagnation of middle class wages has directly paralleled the reduction in the percentage of private sector workers represented by unions.
The right and America’s economic elite have been particularly keen on attacking the collective bargaining rights of public employees — one sector where union representation has grown.
Unfortunately, in 2013 some public officials who think of themselves as progressives have been complicit in cutting the pensions and pay of middle class public employees at the same time they have continued to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy and the country’s biggest corporations.
And progressive must strongly support labor actions by fast food and other service workers who are demanding a living wage of $15 per hour.
In 2014 we have to make clear that to be a progressive, you have to support the right of collective bargaining. It’s just as fundamental to democracy as the right to vote or the right to free speech.
Resolution #4 — Progressives must insist on a serious increase in the minimum wage. We have stand up strongly for the view that no one should work full time and still live in poverty.
A bill to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and index it to inflation — including workers who get tips — is supported by the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate and by the President. Progressives need to resolve to mount a no- holds-barred campaign to pass the bill. If Republicans refuse to bring a bill to the floor of the House (where it would pass), we need to hold them accountable in the fall elections.
Resolution #5 — Progressive need to resolve to prevent another war in the Middle East. The same Neo-Cons that brought America the Iraq War are promoting resolutions in Congress that would, in effect, derail negotiations to limit the development of nuclear weapons by Iran. Unfortunately, some Democrats have bought in.

Read more…

The following article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Three days after Christmas, unemployment benefits end for 1.3 million people who have exhausted their state unemployment benefits, but still can’t find a job.
To be eligible for unemployment benefits, you have to be actively looking for a job. Virtually all of these people would rather work, but can’t find a job in today’s economy where there are three applicants for every job available.
But when the budget deal was negotiated in Congress over the last several weeks, Republican negotiators refused to agree to continue those unemployment benefits. And at the same time, they demanded the continuation of tax breaks for big oil companies and loopholes for Wall Street billionaires who get their income from hedge funds.
Merry Christmas from the GOP.
Of course this kind of Christmas cheer comes from the same gang that routinely drags out the well-worn charge that progressives and Democrats are engaging in a “war on Christmas”. Maybe someone should force Republican Members of Congress to sit through a showing of “A Christmas Carol” and then explain why they think Ebenezer Scrooge is the hero.
Over the last decade the far right, that now dominates the GOP, has conducted a real war on the values that we celebrate at Christmas.
In case they missed it, Christmas is about giving, and sharing and loving your neighbor. It’s about family. Christmas has nothing to do with greed or selfishness or paying people poverty level wages so you can maximize your bottom line.
The Christmas spirit is not about cutting off an economic lifeline for over a million people so the wealthiest in the land can continue to prosper beyond imagining. And remember many of those same wealthy people who are doing so well are personally responsible for the recklessness that caused the Great Recession and cost the jobs of those whose unemployment benefits they now believe we can “no longer afford”.
You hear a lot from the right wing about having to make “tough choices” because some things “we just can’t afford”. Ironically those “things we cannot afford” never include the things that benefit the very wealthy.
In fact, as surprising as it may seem to many Americans, there is more bounty in the land this Christmas, than at any time in our nation’s history. Our income per capita – and our productivity per person – has increased by 80% over the last 30 years. But over those same 30 years, average incomes for most Americans were stagnant – and virtually all of that increased income and wealth went to the top 1%.
That is bad enough. But then to insist that our country “can’t afford” to continue paying unemployment benefits to people who can’t find a job – and by the way – cut off their benefits three days after Christmas – that is an outrage.
Many on the right are so out of touch with ordinary Americans that they argue that providing unemployment benefits makes people “dependent”. This of course completely ignores the fact that to qualify you have to have been working and lost your job for no fault of your own; you have to be actively looking for work; and the maximum benefits in many states are very low.
Ask the Koch brothers to support a family on the $258 per week maximum benefit in Louisiana, or the $275 per week maximum benefit in Florida – or even the $524 per week maximum benefit in Ohio.
People don’t want to stay on unemployment benefits. They want to find a job that provides them with income and benefits that allow them to give a better life to their families and their kids. They want to make a contribution and feel that they do worthwhile work. Most Americans want to be proud of what they do for a living – they don’t want to be “dependent” on anyone.
You have to be from another planet to believe that most people will become “dependent” on a total income of $275 per week.
Unemployment benefits provide workers and their families with an economic shot in the arm to get them through being laid off in an economy when jobs are still hard to come by.
And let’s be real clear why jobs are so hard to come by. Jobs are still hard to come by because of the policies of those very same right wing politicians who refused to reign in the orgy of reckless speculation on Wall Street that resulted in a ruinous financial collapse from which the economy is still recovering.
Jobs would be a lot easier to come by if the GOP did not do everything it could to block President Obama’s American’s Jobs Act that would create millions of jobs in both the public and private sectors by investing in teachers, and infrastructure.
Jobs would be a lot easier to come by if the GOP were not fixated on cutting government investment at a time when virtually all economists – including the Federal Reserve Chairman – believe we need more fiscal stimulus and that the policy’s of the Republicans in Congress continue to be a major drag on economic growth.
In fact the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that failing to continue federal unemployment benefits will cost the economy 240,000 jobs and slow the growth of the overall economy by .2%.
Those who receive unemployment benefits spend virtually every dime on the goods and services they need to live. That spending provides jobs to thousands of other Americans. So cutting federal unemployment benefits will actually create a quarter million more people who are unemployed. Great work GOP.
So here is the bottom line. It turns out that a society that reflects the spirit of Christmas – one where we have each other’s back – where we care about each other and not just ourselves – a society like that is better for everyone.
In fact, it turns out that the “moral” thing to do – the “right” thing to do – is also the “smart” thing to do.
It turns out that progressive values like loving your neighbor as your self – are the most precious possessions of humanity because they are the values that will allow us and our children to prosper and survive.
And that’s why the spirit of Christmas doesn’t just belong to Christians – or Catholics or Baptists or Episcopalians – or anyone. The Christmas spirit belongs to everyone on our small fragile planet. And that spirit embodies exactly the set of values that we must use to chart our course not just on Christmas Day but 365 days each year – including December 28th when over a million families will lose the economic lifeline that provides them a bridge to a better life.

Ryan Cooper’s Washington Monthly post on “The Austerity Cultural Conspiracy” unloads on the destructive impact of austerity economics and the journalists who treat it as an apolitical value.
Flagging a Paul Krugman column showing that “government spending is shrinking faster than at any time since the post-WWII demobilization,” Cooper adds, “This would be notable in and of itself, but coming when the economy is so weak–when aggregate demand has been chronically insufficient for so long–it’s horrifying. It’s unprecedented austerity at the worst possible moment.” Cooper then quotes a Brendan Nyhan post from the Columbia Journalism Review:

Under the norm of objectivity that dominates mainstream political journalism in the United States, reporters are supposed to avoid endorsing competing political viewpoints or proposals. In practice, however, journalists often treat centrist policy priorities–especially on fiscal policy–as value-neutral. That’s wrong. While it’s widely accepted that the federal government faces limits on what it can borrow in the financial markets, there is significant disagreement, including among experts, over the priority that should be given to reducing current deficit and debt levels relative to other possible policy objectives. It is, in other words, a political issue. Reporters often ignore this conflict, treating deficit-cutting as a non-ideological objective while portraying other points of view as partisan or political…

Cooper elaborates: “These reporters aren’t just picking sides, they’re advocating in favor of a horrible policy. Since the Great Recession, austerity has failed at its stated goals almost everywhere it has been tried, and the intellectual case for it has completely collapsed.” He quotes Nyhan again:

The root of these problems is the philosophy of “objective” journalism itself, which forces reporters to try to draw lines between opinion and fact that often blur in real life. But even if reporters aren’t willing to rethink objectivity, they should try to understand why prioritizing deficit reduction over other competing values is a kind of ideology of its own.

Cooper concludes: “Writers build austerity into the background, and you can’t get at the argument because no one will acknowledge disagreement; instead, it’s just what “everyone says.” Meanwhile, the country is slowly falling to bits.”
Reporters who fail to acknowledge the ideology behind “deficit reduction” and treat it as an apolitical value are doing a disservice to their readers — and to a serious topic that deserves more thoughtful discussion. Editors who allow it are even more responsible.

The following analysis is cross-posted from the Think Progress website

The group Third Way got sternly rebuked for its scurrilous attack on Elizabeth Warren, by several of its honorary co-chairs among others. But it would be a shame if the conversation stopped there. The real issue here is not Warren, but rather economic populism as a legitimate political strategy for progressives. Third Way says it isn’t one; it couldn’t be more wrong.
Start with how Americans feel about inequality today. In a newly released Bloomberg poll, by 64-33 percent they endorsed the idea that the country no longer offers everyone an equal chance to get ahead. In the same poll, by 68-28 percent, they said the income gap between rich and poor is growing. And Americans overwhelmingly believe these trends are bad for the country.
So progressives are on firm ground when they denounce these trends and pledge to address them by overwhelmingly popular measures like raising the minimum wage, creating jobs through infrastructure spending, safeguarding Medicare, and expanding Social Security. Third Way, by contrast, suggests that progressives rally around massively unpopular policies like cutting Social Security and Medicare to address a non-existent fiscal crisis. To say this is bad advice is to considerably understate the case.
Even worse is Third Way’s insistence that progressives should never utter a discouraging word about big banks or the one percent. This is stupefyingly poor advice — as Judd Legum and Adam Peck have shown here, these policies are extremely popular.
But it’s about more than just the polling numbers on individual policies. Polling consistently shows that one of the biggest obstacles to building support for government action is the perception that government favors the wealthy and corporations, not the middle class. And topping Americans’ list of economic goals is the simple idea that the economy should work for everyone, not just the one percent and CEOs. It would be political malpractice not to acknowledge these sentiments and use them to promote a conversation about who government serves — far better turf for progressives than conservatives’ preferred debate about the size of government.
So going into 2014, progressives should intensify their advocacy for the 99 percent and be unafraid to link their campaigns and policies to a broad economic populism. This is their great weapon in a campaign season where the GOP hopes to put Democrats on permanent defense through their relentless attacks on Obamacare.
But the best defense is a good offense, and a sturdy economic populism is Democrats’ best bet. With such an approach, combined with an economy that finally seems to be getting into gear, Democrats have an excellent chance of beating back the GOP’s bid for unified control of Congress, not to mention setting themselves up for a successful election in 2016.

The following article is by Erica Seifert of DCorps:

The final Democracy Corps battleground survey of 2013 belies the conventional wisdom that Republicans have enjoyed a major rebound over the last few months. On the contrary, our survey of the 50 most competitive Republican House seats and the 30 most competitive Democratic seats shows that there has been no movement. Furthermore, the second tier of less vulnerable Republican target districts has actually destabilized — meaning that there may be more Republican seats up for grabs than many believe right now.
While the disastrous ACA website rollout has taken a toll on the president’s approval rating and image, we do not find that voters are willing to punish Democrats — or, more importantly, reward Republican incumbents — for these failures. Instead, this poll finds that Republican members are damaged by their total focus on Obamacare. Voters increasingly believe that these vulnerable Republican incumbents are part of the gridlock in Washington, are too focused on battles with Obama, and are too aligned with Speaker Boehner, whose plans have not helped the economy or the jobs situation. We tested a series of messages and attacks (both for and against Republican incumbents), and found that battling on Obamacare is their weakest case for re-election. In fact, it undermines it.
This survey also confirms what we have been tracking all year: Seniors are moving more solidly into the blue column. In this survey, Democratic challengers have a 4-point advantage on the named ballot against Republican incumbents. As a reminder, Democrats lost seniors nationally by a 21-point margin in 2010.
Make no mistake, both frontline Democrats and frontline Republicans are made more vulnerable by what is now a total anti-incumbent wave. Both parties in Congress fare poorly in the public’s mind, but let us be very clear: Voters — even in Republican districts — reserve most of their anger for the party in power, which is now totally despised in terms of public image. When these incumbents are connected to the party and its leadership, voters’ trust in them takes a sharp decline.
Tomorrow, Congress will leave town for the year. We wish them all happy holidays. But we would not want to trade places with the Republican incumbents returning home to their districts tomorrow.
The full results of the Democracy Corps 2013 battleground survey can be found here (PDF).

It’s a little early to get all horse-racey, but Kyle Kondik has a Crystal Ball update on how the struggle for control of the House and Senate is shaping up, vis a vis the 2014 elections. Kondik’s nut graph for the Senate:

Looking at the big picture, we wouldn’t predict Democrats to capture any seats the Republicans currently hold. Republicans, meanwhile, should capture the aforementioned open seats in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia and also defeat at least one Democratic incumbent (most likely that’s Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas). That would be a net Senate gain of at least four, with more than a puncher’s chance of netting two more seats and winning a majority.

And for the House:

At the moment, Republicans hold a lead of about three points in averages of House generic ballot surveys, a good measurement of the national mood in the race for the House. Those generic ballot figures would translate to a gain of roughly 10 House seats for the GOP in 2014, according to a model from the Crystal Ball’s Alan Abramowitz. That might be a bit too high on a map where there aren’t a ton of great targets for either side, but we’ve reverted to our pre-shutdown outlook: Republicans seem likelier to make a small gain in the House than Democrats. As we wait to see what happens to the national environment, we’re also mulling a number of other House ratings changes, most of which would be moves in the Republicans’ direction. Stay tuned.

Lots of wild cards still to be played, including Dems’ edge in the ground game and demographic transformation favoring Democrats. But we can be clear that now is not a good time for Democratic complacency. Do read Kondik’s post for illuminating particulars on individual races.

As the Democratic Party increasingly focuses on social security and the minimum wage as key issues for a more populist approach as the key to future victories, John Russo, long time director of the Center for Working Class Studies in Youngstown Ohio, looks back at two other issues that played an important role in sapping working class support for the Dems in the 90’s.
Here’s his analysis of Ohio:

In January 2014, we celebrate two anniversaries – the beginning of the War on Poverty (1964) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA 1994). So it is a good time to consider how these two programs affected the working class and how they continue to shape working-class political attitudes towards the Democratic Party…
Together, NAFTA and welfare reform give poor and working-class voters, and the community and labor groups that advocate for their interests, good reason to feel betrayed by the Democratic Party. In Ohio in 1992, for example, labor and community groups engaged in massive organizing efforts to get President Clinton elected. Yet within four years, Clinton’s trade and welfare policies had undermined both good paying jobs and social and economic support structures.
Because of this betrayal, it would take more than a decade for Democrats to regain enough support to win statewide offices in Ohio…While support for Democrats reemerged nominally in 2006 and 2008 in Ohio and nationally, that support remains fragile and often relies on voters suspending their disbelief in Democratic Party politics.

You can read the whole analysis HERE

Yesterday, TDS Editor Ed Kilgore commented on the recent Wall Street Journal editorial penned by the principals of the group Third Way in both his Political Animal column at the Washington Monthly and in a TDS Strategy Memo. Ed’s comments appear in the post below this one.
Today we are pleased to print a response from Jim Kessler, the Senior Vice President for Policy of Third Way.
Ed – As a fellow centrist, I always appreciate your views, so please allow me to respond to your posting.
First, Senator Warren and Mayor DeBlasio are important voices within the Democratic Party and they are valued for their passion, dedication to the poor and middle class, and for many of their ideas. They each bring energy and ideas to the Democratic Party. We did not write or even suggest that there should be an intra-party purge. In fact, as you know, some have actually called for the party to be purged of moderates/centrists and have funded efforts to push them out of office. We believe the opposite – that Democrats are best as a big tent party that can and must have passionate policy and political debates. So rather than a “purge,” the question we posed in our op-ed is whether their vision of progressivism is right nationally. And on this question, we do not agree.
Second, there is nothing in our op-ed that suggests antagonism toward New Deal programs. But there is a brewing entitlement crisis in this country – in our view. The number of senior citizens will grow by 80% over the next several decades, while the number of working age Americans (those who pay for their programs) grows by 8%. Meanwhile, as entitlement spending increases unabated, other investments suffer. We’ve seen that over and over again. There are various ways to address the entitlement crunch. A few years ago we proposed to expand benefits to those at the bottom and middle and feel strongly that is crucial to do. But we don’t think that every single senior citizen should get a larger Social Security benefit no matter how wealthy they are or whether or not they paid more into the system. We need to take care of senior citizens, for sure. But in 2011, one out of every nine senior households earned more than $100,000. Why should we increase their COLAs?
What we find concerning about economic populism is that, in our view, it adheres to a belief that we can have it all. We can expand entitlement programs, we can invest more in kids, and we can adequately defend the nation all by increasing taxes on the wealthy. Absolutely, we need to increase taxes on the wealthy – let’s be clear. But there just aren’t enough of them to cover the costs of these programs. So what happens is that programs for kids and investments get hit (like sequestration). It’s happening in the federal budget and it’s happening in state budgets.
Thank you for the opportunity to respond.
Jim Kessler.

A big brouhaha broke out last week over a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Jon Cowen and Jim Kessler of the Third Way organization. These gents penned an intemperately worded attack on Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio, and “economic populism” generally, while advancing deficit-hawky rhetoric about the need for “entitlement reform.”
As a veteran myself of centrist/populist battles over the years and also as long-time editor of The Democratic Strategist which is firmly and emphatically committed to advancing both Democratic unity and intra-democratic civility, I’m reasonably sure the Cowen-Kessler piece was deliberately intended as a provocation to create a fight the authors very much wanted to have. In contrast to the op-ed, Warren and de Blasio have not called for any sort of intra-Democratic Party purge, and both are operating entirely within the zone of acceptable progressive opinion. The op-ed’s wholesale condemnation of populism, and belligerence towards the New Deal programs–published, moreover, in the chief organ of Wall Street finance capital rather than some more neutral venue–was certain to draw blood and then fire, which is exactly what happened.
But I would hope that progressives who are currently beating up on Third Way as the embodiment of Democratic “centrism” will pause for a moment to recognize that there is also a very different kind of centrism that exists within the Democratic coalition–one that is neither reflexively anti-populist nor intentionally divisive. A much better representation of the tone among what I consider genuine centrists is a brief symposium published yesterday by the Brookings Institution in which five wonks who are typically associated with Democratic “moderates” (Thomas Mann, Bill Galston, Elaine Kamarck, Molly Jackman and Michael O’Hanlon) suggest what they think should have been in today’s budget deal. You don’t have to agree with all their suggestions–I certainly don’t–to acknowledge their tone and objective of civil discussion rather than civil war.
So if I may be so bold as to make a very emphatic recommendation to all members of the progressive and Democratic communities, next time you read any “centrist” broadside or manifesto expressed in highly provocative and divisive terms that seeks to foment a highly public battle over the direction of the Democratic Party, pause to consider the motives of the authors and don’t cooperate in defining them as the exclusive spokespeople for entire sectors of the Democratic coalition, when all they may actually represent is a far smaller group with an aching hunger for more media attention and new, well-heeled financial donors.
Ed Kilgore
Managing Editor