Lieberman Must Go
Brave New Films : Joseph Lieberman
After his repeated attacks at Democrats and support for Republicans it's time for Lieberman to switch sides already.

Brave New Films : Joseph Lieberman
After his repeated attacks at Democrats and support for Republicans it's time for Lieberman to switch sides already.
Gary Younge : Electoral Politics
Does Obama's candidacy represent a progressive paradigm shift--or is he just another mainstream Democrat?
John Nichols : Ted Kennedy
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, diagnosed today with a malignant brain tumor, is sidelined at the moment his party is poised to realize the causes and ideals he has promoted for so long.
Rep. Maurice Hinchey
With the nation's economy in a slump, it's time for a twenty-first-century New Deal.
John Nichols : Economic Policy
As Clinton rewrites the history of her support for NAFTA, Obama needs to prove he understands what's wrong with global trade pacts.
John Nichols : Howard Dean
Holding Democratic primaries in Florida and Michigan a second time would send the message that Americans do not need to accept illegitimate elections.
Mary Mapes : Texas
As a crucial primary looms, Democrats in Texas have gotten the Party started again, as the state continues its remarkable shift from red to blue.
Ari Berman : Howard Dean
The DNC chair has energized aging, ailing or previously nonexistent state parties.
Gary Younge
If democracy does not prevail in August, the Democrats will not prevail in November.
Laura Flanders : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Grassroots Democrats, parched for their party's attention, should play hardball with candidates on Iraq.
Ari Berman : Presidential Election 2008
Unelected insiders may well hold the key to the 2008 Democratic nomination. How did things become so undemocratic?
John Nichols : Electoral Politics
With the Congressional race under way, the essential question is: will the Democrats be more progressive post-Bush?
Matt Stoller : Electoral Politics
Democratic campaigns are refining the art of reaching more people.
Laura Flanders : Electoral Politics
This could be the year that Democrats finally let the people play a role in politics.
Christopher Hayes : John Edwards
No matter who wins the Democratic election, the John Edwards campaign has set the domestic agenda for the entire field.
Glenn Hurowitz : Electoral Politics
As Democratic candidates strive to keep their messages upbeat and cheerful, they should take a lesson from the environmental movement on the power of fear to motivate political change.
Bob Moser : Electoral Politics
Have Democrats already blown the biggest swing state?
Eric Alterman : Media Analysis
At the Las Vegas Democratic debate, CNN Anchors Blitzer and Malvaux twisted legitimate questions into "gotcha" traps. There's gotta be a better way.
As Congress grapples with the wave of foreclosures and bankruptcies resulting from the subprime mess, why are some Dems siding with the banks?
The President is determined to bankrupt the nation, morally and financially. And who in Congress has the will to stop him?
Steve Early & Suzanne Gordon : Wages & Hours
Americans spend more time on the job than workers in any other country. Isn't it time presumably labor-friendly Democrats did something about it?
Robert Scheer : George W. Bush
A deceitful President, masking the chaos his $3 trillion war has unleashed with photo-ops from Iraq, now confronts cynical Democrats in Congress poised to write another check, willfully blind to the waste of US and Iraqi lives.
Alexander Cockburn : George W. Bush Administration
Are we better off or worse since the Democrats won back Congress?
Bob Moser : Presidential Election 2008
Democrats are poised to seize a historic opportunity to win back voters in the South and West they started losing four decades ago.
The so-called bipartisan compromise on trade is a bad deal for all who seek to reform corporate-led globalization.
Ari Melber : Electoral Politics
Working For Us, a new coalition of unions and Internet activists, seeks to reform the Democratic Party from the ground up.
Habiba Alcindor : Student Movements
Did the recent College Democrats of New York State Convention augur a new day for the Democratic Party?
Bob Moser : Campaigns & Elections
The candidates ignored race, class and religion, and fumbled the key question of how to get out of Iraq.
: Iraq War
After four years in Iraq, America and the world are crying for a way out of the bloodshed. Can Democrats lead the way?
Ari Melber : Internet & New Media
John Edwards's netroots flap only proves that Democrats should tap into bloggers' energy and learn to manage their passions.
Jim Webb's blunt talk on populist economics challenges Democrats to craft a 2008 strategy that allows all Americans to share the wealth.
Jim Webb's gutsy response to Bush's unconvincing State of the Union message bodes well for the Democratic Party.
President Bush's State of the Union address proved he is hellbent on going to war with Iran. Here's what the Democrats must do to stop him.
John Nichols : Ethical Economics
In an interview with Senator Sherrod Brown, Nichols shows that the new Democrats are pursuing a new trade agenda.
George Scialabba : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Eight books explore the right-wing assault on American politics and chart a course for a Democratic resurgence.
: Iraq War
Do the Dems have the vision to force Bush to pull back on Iraq and rebuild the economy?
Sasha Abramsky : Electoral Politics
Democrats are on the verge of a fundamental shift in the regional balance of political power.
: Iraq War
Democrats in Congress must remember that their midterm victory was a clear mandate to reverse Bush's war policy.
Michael Tisserand : Legislative Campaigns & Elections
There's little evidence so far that Democrats will push for reconstruction in New Orleans.
Expect a flurry of hearings on Iraq when the new Democrat-controlled
Congress convenes. But no real action from lawmakers or the President is
likely to be taken.
John Nichols : Dennis Kucinich
Yep, the Congressman from Cleveland's running for President again--but first, he wants to fix the Democratic Party.
James Carville's bizarre attack on Howard Dean exposed an explosive battle for control between Clintonistas-in-waiting and advocates of renewal. This is a good fight to have.
John Nichols : Electoral Politics
Democratic gains in Statehouses around the country validated Howard Dean's "50-state strategy" and set the stage for a long process of party renewal.
Katha Pollitt : Electoral Politics
It's always a bad idea to rely on your opponents to be knaves and fools. It worked for the Democrats this time. But what about next time?
Christopher Hayes : Wages & Hours
Economic populism was the most underreported story of the midterms and will be the cornerstone of any new Democratic majority.
Jimmy Carter's bold new book on the plight of Palestinians has piqued Congressional Democrats who tailor their views to the Israel lobby.
The Pennsylvania Democrat's opposition to the Iraq War and Pelosi's endorsement couldn't match Steny Hoyer's seniority, experience and connections to House Democrats.
William Greider : Electoral Politics
It's time for Democrats to break out of their risk-averse habits and blaze a new trail--if they can only remember how.
Alexander Cockburn : Electoral Politics
The party of permanent war--which includes lawmakers like Biden, Emanuel
and Lantos--is regrouping for a counterattack, their numbers refreshed
by a phalanx of incoming Blue Dogs.
Bob Moser : Electoral Politics
Claire McCaskill's victory in Missouri proves that moral politics is growing more expansive--and less Republican--as values voters waken to the moral bankruptcy of the religious right.
Democratic Congressional leaders are taking the first steps toward
real reform to clean up corruption, rein in lobbyists, limit earmarks
and insure greater transparency in government.
Steny Hoyer spouts Beltway conventional wisdom no matter what the cost to his party; Jack Murtha has the potential to help revise our national security and economic priorities. Is there really a choice here?
John Nichols : Electoral Politics
Democrats will claim their electoral mandate by understanding how they won: by fielding activist candidates with a clear antiwar message and by defending civil liberties.
While Democrats on the national level dream of a landslide, in
California, the party is facing another electoral debacle.
Ari Melber : Internet & New Media
Democratic House candidates who once were long shots now have a crack at winning. Will party power-brokers lend them a hand?
If Democrats take control of the House, they could revitalize national politics by convincing reluctant senators and presidential candidates to embrace a more progressive agenda.
John Nichols : Gubernatorial Campaigns & Elections
If current trends hold, Democratic governors will soon be popping up all over the country, and with them comes a greater opportunity to challenge the Bush Administration.
America can't talk about the legalization of torture or about Iraq, where soldiers are raping girls and shooting families at close range. It stands to reason they are now obsessed by a Congressional sex scandal.
Nicholas von Hoffman : Electoral Politics
Will Democrats lose 50,000 votes every time the price of gasoline drops? If they do, don't blame the GOP (they don't have that much power). Blame instead the greed of US consumers.
: Torture
The only thing compromised in the Senate's catastrophic "compromise" of the enemy combatants bill is the rule of law and our democracy's basic principles.
Katha Pollitt : Reproductive Rights
NARAL ProChoice America wants its sisters in Connecticut to support Joe Lieberman. Are they out of their minds?
A winning economic strategy for Democrats: Push for realistic policies to relieve workers' frustrations, rebuild their damaged confidence and improve lifetime security.
John Nichols : Legislative Campaigns & Elections
The road to the Democrats' renewal runs through Ohio, and Sherrod Brown is on it, looking for the towns his party forgot and the voters who got away.
John Nichols : Campaigns & Elections
Anyone looking for a signal from the primaries that Democrats will be a clear antiwar party didn't get it.
Democrats must transcend all their intraparty squabbles over the war in Iraq and focus on the obligation of politicians to be honest with the public.
: Legislative Campaigns & Elections
As the Democratic Party embraces Ned Lamont, it must also embrace his antiwar message: It proved a winning strategy for Connecticut, and will be for the midterm elections.
Liberal bloggers were just one aspect of a sophisticated netroots strategy that led Ned Lamont to victory. Lamont must now leverage his digital constituency to force Joe Lieberman to drop his independent bid and win the support of a broad spectrum of voters.
Without a motivated base, fundraising capacity or resonant message, Joe Lieberman is now in free-fall, lacking the strength and credibility to run as an independent.
In New Haven, Joe Lieberman dismissed questions about a possible independent run if he is defeated in today's primary by antiwar candidate Ned Lamont and declared if re-elected to the Senate, he would not change his ways.
The Lamont/Lieberman Democratic primary race is a referendum not only on the Iraq War but on a new vision for the Democratic Party.
Ari Melber : Internet & New Media
As progressive bloggers seek the ouster of Joe Lieberman, they have recruited "Reagan Democrat" Jim Webb to challenge George Allen in Virginia. What does this say about netroots Democrats' emerging electoral strategy--if there is one?
Peace sentiments are rising among the American public and even in the much-divided Democrats. What does this mean for electoral politics and for the course of a war that seems to have no end in sight?
Elections are decided by message, money and mobilization. The Democrats' choice of tactics for the latter may determine not only the outcome of the '06 elections but the party's future.
: Iraq War
Americans know it's time to end the US presence in Iraq. They will reward the party that offers a plan for leaving before more American soldiers--and countless Iraqis--are killed.
A Father's Day remembrance of a courageous politician who, in an earlier era, challenged America to resist the apostles of fear who would barter liberty for false security.
John Nichols : Voters & Voting
Voting debacles in Florida and Ohio have inspired a new crop of Democratic candidates to run for Secretary of State, transforming an oft-neglected post into a platform for activism.
It's time for conviction, not caution, as Democratic voters show they would support a party that promised the country a course correction--an exit from Iraq and an end to corruption and the ineptitude of the GOP.
The limp grassroots response to Democratic gubernatorial
candidates reveals that the plummeting popularity of one party doesn't
automatically translate into support for the other.
As centrist Democrats slowly but surely unite around a plan for military withdrawal from Iraq that is heavy with hawkish reasoning, what are the implications for the peace movement?
After years of vacillation, John Kerry has gone bold, finding his voice on Iraq and national security and thinking hard about running for President. But his future cannot be separated from his past.
With executive pay scales soaring, only bumblers are willing to work for the Bush Administration.
Upcoming primary challenges are forcing Democratic incumbents in Congress to be more critical of Bush and to press for a plan to bring the troops home.
Katrina vanden Heuvel : Wages & Hours
The Democratic Party needs to reset its moral compass and close the gap between workers' pay and CEO salary by raising the minimum wage.
William D. Hartung : Terrorism Targeting the US
Instead of parroting the Republicans' "tough" approach to national security, Democratic candidates should distinguish themselves from the Bush Administration by, for starters, setting a date for withdrawal from Iraq.
When Democrats ignored Russ Feingold's motion to censure the President,
they provided more evidence that there is no visible national strategy
to end the war and bring the troops home.
With Bush's popularity dropping and Iraq in chaos, Democrats must provide clear leadership without making themselves targets of political assassination by the right. How can they do that when the master story in the media depicts a party in disarray?
William Greider : Russell Feingold
Senator Russell Feingold should be praised for calling on the Senate to censure the President for breaking the law and lying about his domestic spying program. Instead, he's mocked by the media and abandoned by many of his own party.
Ari Berman : Legislative Campaigns & Elections
Eight months ahead of the 2006 midterm vote, Democrats are either ignoring Iraq or supporting the war while criticizing Bush's prosecution of it. But it's not too late to mount a strong opposition.
Sherrod Brown is the right candidate to be the Democratic Senate nominee in Ohio because he has the support of grassroots voters whose energy is essential to win.
Alexander Cockburn : National Security Administration (NSA)
The NSA's use of artificial intelligence for "data-mining" surveillance is not only constitutionally illegal, but a technological fantasy. Why aren't the Democrats challenging it?
The rise of Samuel Alito and the death of Coretta Scott King mark the end of an era and the abandonment of our civil rights legacy by both political parties.
William Greider : U.S. Economy
Democrats can capitalize on the current economic stall and gain control
of Congress with a return to bedrock principles: creating jobs,
restoring incomes and rescuing families from debt.
Evidence is mounting that Connecticut Democrats are dismayed by Senator Joseph Lieberman's support of President Bush and the Iraq War, giving impetus to assertions that voters are ready to dump him.
Alexander Cockburn : Political Analysis
2005 added up to this: No credibility for the President, or for the Democrats, or for the New York Times, which took a year to figure out whether the Constitution is worth fighting for. 2006 should be exciting.
While the Democratic Leadership Council issued a report advising Democrats to behave more like Republicans, Senator Russ Feingold has transcended party lines, forging a large, bipartisan coalition to revise the Patriot Act to better protect Americans' civil liberties.
William Greider : Electoral Politics
With persistence and strong convictions, insurgents can change a political party. Galvanized by the war and disgusted with weak-spined party leaders, rank-and-file Democrats may at last be ready to bite back.
The GOP is an object of popular loathing, yet prospects seem dim for ousting it from power. Three new books explain why: Off Center explores the GOP's genius for subverting the mechanisms of accountability, and Death by a Thousand Cuts and Stand Up Fight Back examine how the Republican machine dominates issues from tax cuts to energy conservation. Plus, the Clinton biography The Survivor looks at the man who once made liberals feel like winners, yet whose legacy holds them back.
Eugene McCarthy, the Minnesota senator, frequent presidential candidate and poet who died Saturday at age 89, never had a chance at the Democratic nomination in 1968. But his passionate anti-Vietnam war campaign would change the course of the war.
Eugene McCarthy's political life was full of contradictions: A conventional cold war liberal and fierce anti-Communist, in the Vietnam era, he was transformed into the standard-bearer of the liberal antiwar movement, a true hero.
David Sirota : US Politics & Government
The Democratic Leadership Council purports to speak for Democrats, yet still employs former Christian Coalition official Marshall Wittmann to parrot dishonest right-wing talking points about the war. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi joins Representative Jack Murtha to demand withdrawal from Iraq.
Christopher Hayes : Campaigns & Elections
Progressive groups that mobilized for the 2004 elections are now dismissed as failures. But though they were unable to defeat Bush, grassroots activists are creating waves across the country. They may be the ticket to Republican defeat and the creation of a new movement.
The truth about the Iraq war may be clear to John Murtha and 60 percent
of the American people, but not to the three Democratic senators
interested in becoming President in 2008.
While Steny Hoyer seeks to "make himself the first contact for K Street," Nancy Pelosi and George Miller are pressing forward with their crackdown on lobbying and ethics abuses.
: Senate
Undoing the savage inequalities of the Bush era will require a titanic fight, but the new-found courage of GOP moderates hints that significant changes are in the wind.
Joe Biden buoys up Samuel Alito's nomination by tamping down
speculation of a filibuster. But California's George Miller convinced
the President to revoke an executive order that would undermine
prevailing Gulf Coast wages.
: Iraq War
In 2005, The Nation declared it would only support candidates who made a speedy end to this war a major campaign issue.
As Democrats gloat over two gubernatorial wins and the defeat in California of Gov. Arnold's intiatives, the GOP approaches off-year elections weighed down by Bush's baggage.
David Corn : Electoral Politics
Democrats celebrate electoral victories in Virginia, New Jersey and
California, they shouldn't waste time gloating. They need to find
effective candidates like Tim Kaine and Jon Corzine who will build
momentum.
Eric Alterman : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Liberals need to find a means to bridge the gap between Americans' belief in liberal solutions and their willingness to trust liberals to enact them.
Senate minority leader Harry Reid forced Republicans into a closed-door session Tuesday to examine the Administration's use and misuse of intelligence on Iraq. Could Democrats finally be acting like an opposition party?
If the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court becomes the titanic battle that both sides in the judicial wars have been anticipating for years, Democrats must create a new playbook. If they stick to the same old strategies, they could end up wishing that Harriet Miers had fared better.
David Sirota : Political Analysis
While Rahm Emanuel sticks with a "stay-the-course" approach, despite polls that show Americans want out of Iraq, Carl Levin becames the latest high-level leader to make a compelling argument for withdrawal.
Jonathan Schell : Presidential Campaigns & Elections
A new report by Democratic strategists urges the party to aim
toward the center. But what meaningful difference will that make?
Democrats have a chance to stand up for competence, civil liberties and the integrity of the Supreme Court by challenging Harriet Miers's lack of credentials and blocking Bush from using the Supreme Court to expand presidential powers.
Americans are becoming more hostile by the day to the war in Iraq,
the nation is demoralized over official abandonment of the victims of
the Gulf Coast storm, but the Democratic Party is missing in action.
The political chess match between the White House and Senate Democrats over the future of the Supreme Court took on new complexity as three Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to confirm John G. Roberts Jr.
John Nichols : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Antiwar Democrats in Washington are facing a moment of truth: Now is the time to raise the volume on the previously taboo discussion of a real exit strategy from Iraq.
Alyssa Katz : Working Families Party
Two political lines could be better than one: Consider the successful tactics of the Working Families Party.
David Sirota : US Politics & Government
A dozen Democrats are feeling timid about opposing Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., while a score of unions and grassroots organizations are showing muscle against CAFTA.
William Greider : U.S. Economy
Senate Democrats are preparing to take a dive on the issue they have righteously hammered for four years--the estate tax.
Two states recently restored the estate tax to fund critical middle-class programs.
Christopher Hayes : Republican Party
With Ohio's GOP tainted by scandal and corruption, Democrats see an opening for 2006.
The Senate should abandon its comical pretensions to being a body reflecting any democratic mandate.
Crafting a politics uniquely her own, she's making her mark on the Democratic Party.
Why do Americans trust Bush and the Republicans on national security issues?
: Iraqi Reconstruction/ Occupation
The Democratic Party must become a strong voice against the occupation of Iraq.
David Sirota : Republican Party
State Rep. Wes McKinley of Colorado stays in the minority, while Democrats and Progressives in Vermont move toward the majority.
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich : Iraqi Reconstruction/ Occupation
Democrats can draw no clearer distinction with the President than over the Iraq war.
Christopher Hayes : Republican Party
It led to Democratic control in Illinois.
Sasha Abramsky : Guns & Gun Control
The West, the future and the political price of gun control.
The Los Angeles mayoral race raises difficult questions for progressives.
Conceived as a progressive challenge to the DLC, PDA has organized chapters in thirty-six states.
Danny Glover & Bill Fletcher Jr. : African-Americans
History holds clues to a winning electoral strategy for progressives.
His headline-grabbing investigations are enough to give the GOP heartburn.
Robert L. Borosage : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Activists are pushing hard from below.
David Sirota : Corporate Influence in Washington
It's what corporations want, not the public.
Peter Dreier & Kelly Candaele : Labor Organizing & Activism
The Democrats should start framing economic justice as a moral issue.
Various Contributors : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
A forum with Noam Chomsky, Mary Robinson, Mary Gordon, Eric Foner, Van Jones and many others.
Frances Kissling : Reproductive Rights
The religious left needs to deal with gender, sex and reproduction.
George Lakoff : US Politics & Government
If we communicate our values clearly, most people will recognize them as more deeply American than those put forth by conservatives.
Maybe labor should give up on Washington in favor of friendlier terrain.
Robert L. Borosage & Katrina vanden Heuvel : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Applying the lessons of 2004.
Democrats hope demographic changes will translate into a win in November.
Bringing more churchgoers into the fold poses a complex challenge for Democrats.
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw : Al Sharpton
Why did the pundits declare the Reverend's rousing DNC address to be "off-message"?
JoAnn Wypijewski : Jesse Jackson
Twenty years after Jesse Jackson's historic run for President, what does it all mean?
Katrina vanden Heuvel & Robert L. Borosage : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Election 2004 can help toll the end of the conservative era that has defined US politics for the past quarter-century.
Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Howard Dean, George McGovern, Walter Cronkite, Ellen Chesler, Margaret Cho, George Lakoff, Bakari Kitwana, John Brademas, Arthur Miller, John Sayles, Chuck Close, Andrew Jay Schwartzman, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Jamin Raskin, Nell Minow, Lani Guinier, Studs Terkel, Sherrod Brown, Eric Schlosser, James K. Galbraith, Gary Indiana, Jeremy Bernstein, David Bonior
: Presidential Campaigns & Elections
This editorial originally appeared in the July 17, 1948 issue of The Nation.
Michael Blanding : Dissent After 9/11
Organizers hope to provide a positive alternative to both the Democratic platform and the kind of confrontational mobilizations that have led to violence in the past.
Eugene McCarthy, the Senate dove who in 1968 challenged Lyndon Johnson's conduct of the Vietnam War, died Saturday at the age of 89. In this 2004 review of Dominic Sandbrook's biography of McCarthy, Jon Wiener assesses the man and his impact on liberal politics.
Frances FitzGerald : US Foreign Policy
The Democrats can make a persuasive case that Bush is outside the mainstream.
Florida remains the most evenly divided state in a deeply polarized America.
Robert L. Borosage : Joseph Lieberman
The demise of Lieberman's campaign should represent the end of the line for the DLC.
Bush projects macho, but it looks forced. Could Howard Dean be the "it" candidate?
Sasha Abramsky : Republican Party
The Republican drive represents a power grab unprecedented in scale and timing.
Democrats can win the farm and small-town vote--if they pay serious attention.
Ibrahim Ahmad, Ari Berman & Sasha F. Chavkin : Al Gore
A speech at NYU offers a stinging condemnation of Bush's leadership on the war.
William Greider : Bill Clinton
If the Democratic Party is to find a sense of purpose, it must get beyond Bill Clinton's influence.
John Nichols : Presidential Election 2004
The campaigning has never been this intense this early.
Jim Hightower : Gap Between Wealth & Poverty
Don't despair, our base is still there, still huge and still available for building a progressive future.
John Nichols : Legislative Campaigns & Elections
George W. Bush may have lost the 2000 election, but he won the 2002 election--with a good deal of help from Democrats.
David Corn : Legislative Campaigns & Elections
The Democrats should be sued for malpractice--or nonpractice.
Narrow political calculation gives us the phenomenon of politicians hot for war even as polls show that the voters want to wait.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich : Health Insurance
The Democratic Party must become the party of reregulation, of public control, of public accountability and of public power.
Katrina vanden Heuvel : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
As long as there is no bold challenge to the extremism of this Administration, it will exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11 in an ever more regressive direction.
In numerous ways, Enron Democrats helped set the stage for the current scandal.
Democratic criticism of the Attorney General has been extraordinarily muted.
Virtually the entire Democratic Party establishment wishes Gore were gone.
