Obama and the Power of Symbols
Gary Younge : Democratic Party
Does Obama's candidacy represent a progressive paradigm shift--or is he just another mainstream Democrat?
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Obama Makes History
The Editors : Presidential Election 2008
The Democratic nominee is betting on the basic decency of the American people, their hunger for a discussion of issues and their desire for real change.
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A Progressive Push
The Editors
It's time for candidates to focus on issues missing from the debate so far: the bloated military budget, an exit from Bush's "war on terror," our failing infrastructure and the deepening financial crisis.
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Progressive Democratic Challengers
John Nichols : Democratic Party
With the Congressional race under way, the essential question is: will the Democrats be more progressive post-Bush?
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They Like Mike
Micah L. Sifry : Third Party Politics
Is America ready for a nonideological problem solver with liberal views on gun control, gay rights and abortion?
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Dems Get New Tools, New Talent
Matt Stoller : Democratic Party
Democratic campaigns are refining the art of reaching more people.
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Grassroots Reseeded: Suites vs. Streets
Laura Flanders : Democratic Party
This could be the year that Democrats finally let the people play a role in politics.
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The Race Is On
The Editors : Hillary Clinton
Throw polls and pundits out the window: the race will be decided not by kingmakers but by the voters themselves.
2007
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Fear on the Campaign Trail
Glenn Hurowitz : Democratic Party
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.
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Will the Real Generation Obama Please Stand Up?
Lakshmi Chaudhry : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
The cranky, quirky and sometimes progressive politics practiced by a generation once considered slackers could be a deciding factor in this presidential election.
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Taking Celebrity Seriously
Stephen Duncombe : Media Analysis
The Paris Principle: politics are sooo hot.
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The Times They Are A-Changin'
Politics aside, a speeded-up primary season may be a unique opportunity to rethink our notions of time altogether.
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Failing Electoral College
As California Republicans seek to game the dysfunctional Electoral College, a campaign is rising to establish a national popular vote.
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Onward, Secular Soldiers
Memo to candidates: There are more atheists, agnostics and skeptics out there than you think. How about sending us some love?
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The Virtual Primary
Ari Melber : Internet & New Media
MoveOn.org's issue-driven primary may not end up naming a winner, but it's shaping up to be more substantive, thoughtful and participatory than the actual presidential primary.
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Get in It to Win It
: Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
Front-loaded primaries and a volatile '08 race are creating unprecedented opportunities for progressives. They'll gain traction only if they form a smart, tech-savvy and cohesive movement.
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Who Is Hillary Clinton?
Barbara Ehrenreich : Hillary Clinton
A closer look at Hillary Clinton's career reveals a technocratic centrist whose political ambition might trump any progressive policy promises.
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Digby Speaks: The Netroots Revolution
Digby : Journalists & Journalism
The pseudonymous Southern California blogger accepts the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award on behalf of progressive bloggers everywhere--and invites the nation to join the party.
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The YouTube Election
Rebecca Tinkelman : Freedom Of Information Act
Edwards primps, Hillary spoofs The Sopranos and Obama Girl oozes charm. But can web campaigns turn clicks into votes?
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Why We Need Fringe Candidates
They're laughed at and pushed to the edge of the podium as frontrunners dominate the debate, but they sometimes have the guts to tell the truth.
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Hillary Inc.
Clinton vows to defend Americans against the privileged and powerful, but her ties to big business compromise her populist promises.
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New Energy for America
Robert L. Borosage & Katrina vanden Heuvel : Global Warming & Climate Change
Under Bush, the right has failed to address energy independence. Can Democrats rise to the challenge?
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Nutter Wins in Philadelphia
Patrick Mulvaney : Philadelphia
A favored Democrat's mayoral primary win divides a city between those who support his hardball anticrime tactics and minorities who see them as a blueprint for racial profiling.
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Laboring for Edwards
Marc Cooper : Labor Organizing & Activism
John Edwards is meticulously laying the groundwork to become the candidate of organized labor, insisting prosperity can expand only if unionization expands.
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Spinning Hillary Centrist
How can Hillary Clinton maintain her populist credentials when Mark Penn, her chief pollster and campaign strategist, also represents the interests of some of America's largest corporations?
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America's Idiotic Political Debates
Nicholas von Hoffman : History
All France was transfixed as presidential candidates conducted a passionate, freewheeling debate this week. Why are American debates so intentionally stupid?
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Dems Tangled in Netroots
Working For Us, a new coalition of unions and Internet activists, seeks to reform the Democratic Party from the ground up.
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Protecting the Vote
Resolving a disputed Congressional election in Florida is key to setting the stage for a fair nationwide election in 2008.
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Bottom-Up Power
Laura Flanders : Campaigns & Elections
In Montana, grassroots campaigns elected politicians and influenced policy. The same can happen across the country.
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The Millionaires' Primary
As America embarks on the longest, most costly presidential race in history, Russ Feingold is asking Congress to apply the brakes.
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Senator Inevitable
William Greider : Hillary Clinton
Nothing personal, but Hillary Clinton is a candidate of the past.
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Time to Fix Healthcare
Affordable healthcare is rapidly emerging as the top domestic policy issue in the 2008 presidential race. Candidates, got ideas?
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Edwards Gets a Boost
Robert Scheer : Conservatives & The American Right
Thank you, Ann Coulter, for reviving the principled but media-neglected presidential candidacy of John Edwards.
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When's the Idea Primary?
This should be a time for vision and bold ideas, yet caution is the order of the day--and activist voters are demanding more.
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Rushed Primaries
Instead of front-loading political races with early primaries, we need a rotating calendar of regional primaries.
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McCain Mutiny
Outraged by his failure to stick to a far-right agenda as he pursues the presidency, Senator John McCain's conservative base in Arizona is abandoning him.
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Hillary the Hawk
Robert Scheer : Hillary Clinton
Let's face it. Hillary Clinton is not a peace candidate.
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Into 2008
America's next President must have a big heart, an open mind and the passion to set the nation on the way to equality, opportunity, true democracy and social justice.
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Which Side Are You On?
Jim Webb's blunt talk on populist economics challenges Democrats to craft a 2008 strategy that allows all Americans to share the wealth.
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Draft Obama! Why Bother?
Ari Melber : Internet & New Media
Ambitious politicians don't need a draft to run for higher office, but as "draft" sites become a campaign essential, genuine netroots activists will pay the price.
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Obama's Challenge
If Barack Obama is to secure critical grassroots support for his presidential bid, he must be less about celebrity and more about policy.
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Blue-ing the West
Sasha Abramsky : Democratic Party
Democrats are on the verge of a fundamental shift in the regional balance of political power.
2006
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The Irrelevance of Joe Lieberman
The fall and rise of Joe Lieberman was one of the major political events of 2006. But in 2007, Beltway and netroots pundits agree, he will be as irrelevant as George W. Bush.
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The Other Rocky
Sasha Abramsky : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
While most politicians win by appealing to the lowest common denominator, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson takes a decidedly higher road.
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Morality of the Minimum
Katrina vanden Heuvel & Sam Graham-Felsen : Wages & Hours
Let Justice Roll deserves credit for mobilizing values voters around minimum wage initiatives.
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What Makes Kucinich Run?
Joshua Scheer : Dennis Kucinich
The Congressman from Cleveland explains an urgent need for human unity, human security and peace motivated him to run for President.
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Big Win for Enviros
America's environmentalists won big in the midterm elections. But can they make real progress on climate change by 2008 and beyond?
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Their Opportunism, Our Opportunity
Mainstream media have transformed the permanent presidential campaign into a never-ending soap opera. Progressives must create the movements that will influence whoever decides to run.
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Power Shifts in the States
John Nichols : Democratic Party
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.
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Why They Lost
Katha Pollitt : Democratic Party
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?
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Nascar Values
The Democrats won the House and the Senate because the Republicans lost the garage. How Nascar fans helped turn the tide of the election.
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Watershed
William Greider : Democratic Party
It's time for Democrats to break out of their risk-averse habits and blaze a new trail--if they can only remember how.
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Now What?
Alexander Cockburn : Democratic Party
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.
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A Complicated Blessing
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.
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Exorcising DeLay's Ghosts
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.
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A New Southern Strategy
The midterm elections proved to Democrats that the South must not be written off. The key to winning rural and working-class voters in Dixie is the same as anywhere else.
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Measuring the Mandate
John Nichols : Democratic Party
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.
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The 'Off-Year Primary'
As presidential hopefuls from both parties press their advantage on the platform of the 2006 midterm election, the winners are...
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HRC: Can't Get No Respect
Katha Pollitt : Hillary Clinton
If people keep making sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton, I may just have to vote for her. That means you, Elizabeth Edwards!
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The Message of Campaign 2006
As things stand in organized politics today, a purely formal protest against what the GOP has done to America is the most we can hope for.
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Driving Planned Parenthood
Jennifer Baumgardner : Reproductive Rights
Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood's new president, leads an organization searching for new national strategies, as a crucial vote in South Dakota tests its grassroots clout.
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Rick Santorum's Beastly Politics
Max Blumenthal : Conservatives & The American Right
Dogged by a history of crude responses to abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage, Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum is trailing his Democratic foe. But a cadre of influential Catholic conservatives are already crafting a post-Santorum, post-Bush strategy.
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What Bush Has Wrought
We are now led by a false warrior who acts the simpleton, while playing to his version of what Middle America wants. To stop the madness, on November 7 voters must soundly repudiate what Bush has wrought.
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Character Assassin
Max Blumenthal : Republican Party
Republican adman Scott Howell has racked up a startling Democratic body count with his signature hyperemotional style. Will his attack on Harold Ford Jr. succeed or backfire?
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Ground Game '06
Republicans are hoping voters will forget about Iraq, Bush and the GOP Congress. But these are the issues that will drive Democrats and independents to the polls.
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What Is at Stake
November 7 is suddenly looking like a fateful election that could change the flow of politics in ways nobody anticipated.
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Weldon's Wild Ride
Ari Berman : Conservatives & The American Right
The wheels are falling off Curt Weldon's electoral wagon, as the wacky Pennsylvania Republican finds himself mired in a criminal investigation.
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Reproductive Rights on the Line in South Dakota
Kate Michelman : Reproductive Rights
An initiative that seeks to overturn South Dakota's draconian ban on abortion will have implications in states across the country.
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Rich's Stealth Campaign
Peter Schrag : Campaign Finance
Howard Rich is pouring big money into leveraging our electoral system to serve his libertarian agenda.
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The War and the Election
: Iraq War
Ending the Iraq War is the most pressing issue facing America today.
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Greasing the Skids
OK, market forces control oil prices. But market forces--with a lot of push from Republicans--are driving down the price of gas. And you can be sure they'll rise again after the election.
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The Coming Gay Republican Purge
Max Blumenthal : Gay & Lesbian Issues & Activism
How will the GOP woo back values voters after the Foley scandal? How about a purge of gay Republicans in Congress? That's the Rev. Don Wildmon's idea.
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AIPAC Runs Right
American Jews are liberals and support Democrats. Why, then, do Jewish organizations, supported by contributions of liberal Jews, strategize with Republicans on how to smear these same Democrats?
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Virginia's Rumbling Rebels
As Senator George Allen's faux-populist campaign devolves into a series of racial embarrassments, Virginia Democrat Jim Webb's unlikely campaign is surging, thanks in large part to Webb's unblemished record of opposing the Iraq War.
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The Economic Debate: Fear vs. Corruption
Robert L. Borosage : Economic Policy
As election day approaches, don't expect a reasoned discussion of economic policy between the two parties. A barrage of quips and one-liners have taken the place of detail and fact in political debate.
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Disgraced Republicans
: Congress
America needs a new Congress--the question is, Will Americans hold the GOP to account for their corruption, ineptitude and irresponsibility?
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Gas Pump Politics
Nicholas von Hoffman : Democratic Party
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.
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Reading the Reed Rout
Two Republican primaries in the Deep South expose potentially serious cracks in the party's religious-right foundation.
2005
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Rebels
William Greider : Democratic Party
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.
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Arnold Show: Canceled
Buoyed by their defeat of Schwarzeneggar's "referendum revolution," Democrats and organized labor are now energized to defeat the governor's re-election bid next year.
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Yes, Virginia...
John Nichols : Electoral Reform
Democratic gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey gave the lie to the GOP contention that "conservatism is on the march." But infighting among Dems doomed electoral reform in Ohio, gay marriage is still illegal in Texas and there's a long way to go to mid-year elections.
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Bringing Down the Bully
The lesson of the defeat in California of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's referendum revolution is this: The American people will not forever be fooled. The negative message of the Republican right has lost its power to terrorize voters.
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This Time, Rove's Tactics Failed
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.
2004
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Devolve This!
Progressives urgently need a strategy to take back the states from the GOP.
2002
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The Ventura Legacy
Jesse Ventura demonstrated that the public's desire for more choices outside the two-party system was real.
2001
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Jeb vs. Janet in Florida
Janet Reno's announcement that she'll challenge Jeb Bush in next year's Florida gubernatorial race sets the stage for the marquee melee of the midterm elections.
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Pundits Who Predict the Future Are Always Wrong
Rick Perlstein : Media Analysis
By refusing to remember how history always embarrasses the present, punditry only really knows how to be wrong.
This week: A look at the advocacy group MoveOn.org at 10. Plus: Controversy in Africa over the indictment of the Sudanese President; Amy Alexander and Chris Rabb on the challenges facing minority journalists in their transition to the web; and The Nation's new sex column. (13mb mp3)
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