If Warren Opts Out of "2016" Bernie Sanders May be Liberals Only Hope--Learning From the Past

BTW: The full article is a better read than the snips I could pull out for the post. He interviews many of the Progressive Groups and his conclusions are interesting.


---------------
"If Warren sits 2016 out, an unelectable longshot may be liberals' only hope. Let's take a lesson from Pat Robertson"

Paul Rosenberg

Dave Johnson, who blogs for Campaign for America’s Future, views a potential Sanders run somewhat differently. On the one hand, he acknowledges there’s a real concern about “a chance of weakening Democrats in the general election, and thereby enabling/increasing the right’s destructive power.” On the other hand, he sees strong positive potential in a Sanders run.

-------Snip---------

So a serious primary fight could really make a difference, even if Hillary won as expected. Key to this would be long-term institution-building — the crucial role that unions played in FDR’s era, and the only reason that Robertson’s 1988 campaign had any lasting impact. “It takes a significant national structure to run for President. You have to have existing institutional power behind you,” Johnson said. “Lay the foundation now. That has to be our goal. Institutional strength. And that should be the message we get out there. We have to build up a small-donor base to tap into (Dean and Obama) but also the national people connections.”

“Progressives still have not laid out a 10-year, 20-year plan,” Johnson stressed. “One thing the Christian right did was start a farm team of candidates locally so they could rise up. Of course, they had the funding base for that. They had Weyrich out there building institutional power and funding. … The goal of a Sanders campaign should be to build that. It should be the purpose from the start, to get going on a 10-year, 20-year plan.”

Naturally, progressives will never be able to match the right dollar-for-dollar, but with popular policies that people actually want, that’s never been the goal. We need enough to be heard. They need enough to drown us out. Johnson had an immediate example in mind. “I think the shortage of acknowledgement that there was a 300,000-400,000 person march in New York with adjunct marches around the world this weekend should send the message that we can have a groundswell, but we need to build institutional power to accomplish what the groundswell is demanding.”

Johnson also echoed a common theme that this would be good for the party as a whole. “Unless Hillary is an idiot — and she isn’t — she would want to help make this happen for a number of reasons,” he said, ticking them off quickly:

This last point is a particularly interesting one. It’s always taken for granted that independent political power on the left is bad news for Democrats — though sometimes it’s admitted there can be an upside as well.

-----snip-----

Focusing specifically on the subject of message, Cobble said, “The campaign needs to begin to develop an updated ‘progressive message’ for reformers to coalesce around, something along the lines of Naomi Klein’s new book, ‘This Changes Everything‘ — a big message, a future message, a hopeful outcome possible, a big fight with big stakes. This opens up space for local organizing.”


MORE AT.........

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/04/is_bernie_sanders_really_all_there_is_lessons_from_pat_robertsons_insurgency/?source=newsletter