Common Sense at Work

A Liberal Minor League
Progressive Majority says the left needs to develop a good farm system if it is to take back Congress.

by George Howland Jr.

(Excerpt From Seattle Weekly article)

2005 is an off year. There are no regularly scheduled elections for Congress, and liberal Democrats cannot do anything about conservative Republicans' complete and total domination of the federal government, right? Wrong, says Dean Nielsen, state director of Progressive Majority. This year, Nielsen says, liberals need to get busy building the farm team. "If we have any hope of taking back congressional seats," says Nielsen, "we have to start at the local level." Seventy-five percent of the members of Congress were once locally elected officials—members of city councils, county councils, port commissions, and school boards. For instance, nine out of 11 of Washington's congressional delegation began their political careers in local office. If Democrats want to take back the majority in Congress, Nielsen says, they need a pool of locally elected officials who are hungry to move up to the big leagues. "We believe in investing in people," he says.

Progressive Majority is an independent organization devoted to recruiting and training liberal candidates. After the 2000 election, when conservative Republicans ended up in control of the White House and Congress, Democrats began figuring out what had gone wrong. Progressive Majority was founded the following year in D.C. with the help of liberal members of Congress, including Washington's senior U.S. senator, Patty Murray. Most of the group's funding comes from wealthy individuals and labor unions. In 2004, Progressive Majority opened state chapters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Washington. It has since added chapters in Colorado and Arizona.

(My Comments)

There are many local Democrats out of office by virtue of having lost the last election. Some of these people are seasoned politicians and worthy of support should they be convinced to step up one more time. Talk to them…write about them…then support them however possible should they answer the call.

Do not neglect to consider the Independents or third party candidates either. All people of honesty and integrity need to be encouraged in their political endeavors. Only by purging the system of the political blight we now suffer by infusing local politics with those truly concerned with the common good will we begin to see an end to the corruption that is nurtured and fertilized by many current office holders.