Progressives getting more active politically
By Bill Knight | 11th February 2008
It was 40 years ago when progressive Americans started to believe that they could change politics, but the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the ostracism of Gene McCarthy and the “coronation” of centrist Hubert H. Humphrey showed that progressives shouldn’t expect to start at the top and work their way back to the grassroots.
That was clearer four years later when progressive George McGovern was successfully nominated but defeated by Richard Nixon in a landslide that showed a consequence of building political organizations from street level.
In Peoria, Central Illinois and the whole state, that wisdom is bearing fruit, as more progressives are organizing grassroots efforts, running for office, and serving.
Successes range from State Sen. Dave Koehler of Peoria (D-46th) to U.S. Rep. Phil Hare of Rock Island (D-17th Congressional Dist.), but action echoes throughout Illinois, from the Greens to the campaign for the 92nd House seat in the General Assembly.
Partly as a result of Rich Whitney’s campaign for Governor as the Greens’ candidate (he got more than 10% of the vote in 2006), the Green Party is a legally established, “viable” state political party in Illinois. Plus, membership has grown, with chapters in communities and campuses and dozens of Green Party candidates filing petitions to run for office — for Congress, the state legislature and county and local offices.
“This truly is a monumental moment for the Green Party,” says Walter Pituc, the Greens’ congressional campaign coordinator. “Previously, we’d only had one congressional candidate ever in Illinois Green Party history. This year, we had candidates file in nine districts. That’s pretty remarkable growth, and we’re only going to continue to grow beyond this election.”
The Green Party is having its national convention in Chicago in July.
Elsewhere, Illinois activists affiliated with Democracy for Illinois – a spinoff of Democracy for America, started by Howard Dean – total more than 600.
Meanwhile, Republicans’ ex-Majority Leader Dennis Hastert’s 14th District around Aurora has a strong progressive candidate in union carpenter and former Navy intelligence analyst John Laesch; the Cook County State’s Attorney’s race has progressive Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin running; the 26th House District on Chicago’s South Side has former Barack Obama aide Will Burns running; and in DuPage – too often dismissed as a GOP stronghold – “Turn DuPage Blue” is a new progressive group trying to revive that county’s Democratic Party.
Peoria’s Democratic Party has some slight discordance with Jehan Gordon and Allen Mayer competing to be Democrats’ candidate for the 92nd House seat, but both are decent public servants with progressive impulses. That’s a bright spot. Gordon is on the board at the Pleasant Hill School District and has the backing of some unions, including the UAW and the Laborers, plus Koehler, former State Sen. George Shadid and five members of the Peoria County Board. Mayer is on the Peoria County Board, where he led the fight to stop the landfill expansion, and is supported by the Sierra Club and other unions, including the Operating Engineers.
Regardless of the outcome of the Feb. 5 primary, their points of views are mostly progressive – as are most Americans’, no matter how they identify themselves.
Americans have moderate to progressive opinions on 10 key issues, according to a comprehensive report from Campaign for America’s Future, The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America Is a Myth. Most people support progressive positions on organized labor, taxes, gays, foreign policy, guns, crime, the environment, energy, immigration and health care, the study shows.
Illinois is typical, too
“There’s a lot of progressive action going on in Illinois,” writes Irregular News, an organization that maintains online information on progressivism in all 50 states. “Illinois elected the great progressive hope for America, Barack Obama. There’s a reason Obama got elected – Illinois knows true vision when it sees it.”
Statewide, Illinois’ Congressional delegation has strong progressives, including Jan Schakowsky, Danny Davis, Bobby Rush, Luis Gutierrez, Rahm Emanuel, Jerry Costello and Hare. But Democrats don’t yet have a candidate running for retiring U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood’s open seat after ex-Bradley basketball coach Dick Versace dropped out in December.
“We reach out to possible candidates all the time,” said Peoria County Democratic chairman Billy Halstead, who’s expected help pick a candidate after the primary. “We get people involved at the grassroots, knocking on doors, putting up signs – finding out what campaigning is all about. Some respond, like Jehan Gordon, and some don’t.
“It’s like when my son said he’d like to run a restaurant some day,” Halstead continued. “I said, ‘Great! Let’s see if you can get a job as a busboy and see the whole operation from the ground up’.” There’s a lot of potential for more success in Central Illinois, he added.
“Steve Waterworth ran against LaHood and – with almost no resources – got 33% of the vote,” Halstead said. “In 2000, Joyce Harant challenged him and got 33% of the vote. So there’s a core that’ll support us. We have to win those independent-minded swing voters.”
Peoria-area Democrats get help from the state and national party for get-out-the-vote efforts and for Congressional races, Halstead said. To reform government will take finding and developing candidates and relying on old-fashioned organizing.
“We’re not like a lot of Republicans, who have a lot of money and own their own businesses and grow up with silver spoons in their mouths,” he said. “We’re regular people and have to work hard at the street level.”
Throughout Illinois, progressives have hope.
“With all this grassroots activity this election season, the progressive tide is rising once again, much as it did in the 1960s and ‘70s,” said Dick Simpson, chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois/Chicago.
See the Democracy for Illinois web site at www.dfalink.com/illinois
See the Illinois Green Party web site at http://ilgp.org/
For progressive news and analysis, see http://www.irregularnews.com/
For the report: Progressive majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth, go to http://mediamatters.org/progmaj/
Bill Knight is an award-winning journalist who teaches at Western Illinois University. Contact him at bill.knight@hotmail.com.