LIVE from Detroit: Making smart investments to build progressive power in 2014 & beyond

Good morn­ing from Detroit! Today marks the first day of Net­roots Nation, the ninth annu­al gath­er­ing of pro­gres­sive activists from across the Unit­ed States and beyond, which NPI has been send­ing staff and board mem­bers to for its entire his­to­ry. Three of us are here on NPI’s behalf and com­mit­ted to bring­ing you live cov­er­age of the con­ven­tion’s hap­pen­ings through­out the next few days.

NPI Pres­i­dent Robert Cruick­shank and I are kick­ing off the con­ven­tion with a pan­el called Pro­gres­sives and the Midterms: Mak­ing Smart Invest­ments to Build Pro­gres­sive Pow­er in 2014 and Beyond. Mod­er­at­ed by Aman­da Terkel of The Huff­in­g­ton Post, this pan­el con­sists of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from three great nation­al pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions, all found­ed in the wake of the rise of the Inter­net, and a can­di­date for U.S. Sen­ate, Shen­na Bel­lows.

Terkel launched the dis­cus­sion by ask­ing the pan­elists to talk about their focus for the cycle. For Shen­na, it’s all about cross­ing the fin­ish line first on Novem­ber 5th.

“I think it’s a real­ly excit­ing year for pro­gres­sives… Races like mine and Rick Wei­land’s are test cas­es,” Bel­lows said, explain­ing that can­di­dates like her are up against a lot of mon­ey and don’t have the enthu­si­as­tic back­ing of the par­ty estab­lish­ment in the Dis­trict of Colum­bia. (The con­ven­tion­al wis­dom in D.C. is that Democ­rats have almost no pick­up oppor­tu­ni­ties this cycle, except for maybe in Ken­tucky and Geor­gia — but of course, that’s nonsense.)

Stephanie Tay­lor, cofounder of the Pro­gres­sive Change Cam­paign Com­mit­tee (which I worked with last year as an orga­niz­ing fel­low) announced to hearty applause that PCCC has so far raised $1 mil­lion for pro­gres­sive can­di­dates like Bel­lows this cycle. That’s a lot of money!

How does PCCC choose which can­di­dates to sup­port? It does­n’t come down to an ide­o­log­i­cal laun­dry list. “We’re real­ly look­ing for those can­di­dates who are going to be orga­niz­ers and fight­ers inside Con­gress on the issues we care about,” Tay­lor told atten­dees, cit­ing some of PCC­C’s polling on Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. “Pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy and pro­gres­sive posi­tions are win­ning positions.”

Nick Bern­ing of MoveOn said that his orga­ni­za­tion’s top 2014 pri­or­i­ty is ensur­ing that Democ­rats hold the Sen­ate, because oth­er­wise, the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion’s abil­i­ty to fill judi­cial and exec­u­tive vacan­cies will be dimin­ished (because Repub­li­cans will refuse to con­firm the Pres­i­den­t’s nom­i­nees). Pri­or­i­ty can­di­dates for MoveOn include Bri­an Schatz in Hawaii and Mike Hon­da in California.

The pan­el then delved into pri­ma­ry strategy.

Stephanie Tay­lor explained that PCCC has been keep­ing an eye out for open seats in bright blue dis­tricts, with the objec­tive of find­ing strong pro­gres­sive Democ­rats to run and win. She cit­ed Pat Mur­phy in Iowa as example.

“Pri­maries are healthy for our democ­ra­cy… They make cam­paigns more account­able to the grass­roots,” said DFA’s Annie Wein­berg. She spoke to the need to reward bold Democ­rats like Mark Takano who have been cham­pi­oning pro­gres­sive caus­es like the expan­sion of Social Security.

MoveOn’s Bern­ing said that his orga­ni­za­tion is focused on 2014, but is already look­ing ahead to 2015, 2016, and beyond. He men­tioned that MoveOn recent­ly sur­veyed its mem­bers in Chica­go and found that more than 85% want to see a strong pro­gres­sive chal­lenger to Rahm Emanuel in 2015.

Mod­er­a­tor Aman­da Terkel asked Bel­lows to talk about her race and delve into the dif­fi­cul­ties she’s faced build­ing sup­port for her cam­paign. (Many large, D.C.-oriented pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions that ought to be sup­port­ing Bel­lows — like the League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers — have endorsed Susan Collins for reelec­tion because there are almost no oth­er Repub­li­cans who will engage with them at all.)

“Maine is the only state in the coun­try where Barack Oba­ma won in 2008 and 2012 that has a Repub­li­can sen­a­tor up for elec­tion,” Bel­lows said. “Our strat­e­gy is to be com­plete­ly true to all of our pro­gres­sive values.”

She empha­sized the need for an authen­tic Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date who could present a clear and com­pelling alter­na­tive to Susan Collins.

One of her biggest obsta­cles is a lack of name recog­ni­tion; her cam­paign’s polling has showed that many Main­ers have not heard of her. But she has a plan to intro­duce her­self. She announced that her cam­paign be going up on the air short­ly with its first tele­vi­sion ad across the state. The last thing her fel­low Main­ers need in their next sen­a­tor is “bipar­ti­san­ship in the name of bipar­ti­san­ship, where every­body los­es,” she said, allud­ing to Collins’ lousy vot­ing record.

Ques­tions posed to the pan­elists by the audi­ence ranged from how nation­al pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions can sup­port can­di­dates at the state and local lev­el to the impact that the imple­men­ta­tion of the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act has had on the polit­i­cal land­scape. The pan­elists empha­sized the need to sup­port bold pro­gres­sive can­di­dates run­ning all over the coun­try, even in areas that might not be bright blue, in accor­dance with Howard Dean’s fifty-state strategy.

Bel­lows deliv­ered a par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pelling response, mak­ing a point that is part of our phi­los­o­phy and cre­do at NPI: We can either work to deter­mine our own des­tiny or allow it to be deter­mined for us by oth­ers. “We need to stop say­ing [that’s] impos­si­ble and stop say­ing nev­er,” Bel­lows said.