I love watching the Federal races, mostly because I'm a sucker for very big things, and those happen at the Federal level.  But if you want to watch real changes in governance, it's the localities and states where you have to focus your energy.  Proposition 13 in California was the model in 1978 for the crippling of governance we're seeing across the country, from the Bush tax cuts (which Mark Warner is inexplicably embracing) to the TABOR initiatives to the complete decimation of our urban school systems.

I'm particularly excited about three men running for office this cycle.  Deval Patrick is running a stellar campaign in Massachusetts, a state that has had Republican governors since Michael Dukakis's tenure.  The campaign is interwoven with the internet and speaks through social influentials, and is (like Jon Tester's) crushing the campaigns of wealthier and less grassroots-oriented men.  Patrick is a real progressive, but he also has the base to enact progressive policies, because his campaign is predicated upon organizing and not big media and top-down policy.  If there is one big problem with Rahm Emanuel's The Plan, and believe me, there isn't just one problem, it's that it totally leaves out the role of people in sustaining our politics.  One of the reasons I argue so aggressively against the traditional forms of campaigning is because even if they are done perfectly, they don't sustain a progressive base for policy.  If you raise money from lobbyists you are beholden to lobbyists, and maybe you can get a minimum wage increase in between gutting various important labor regulations.  The people I'm excited about are not just good Democratic politicians, they are game-changers.  

Eliot Spitzer is another game-changer.  He's just a devastatingly powerful fighter and a creative executive figure.  His campaign isn't particularly innovative at this point, but that's because he's so good at New York politics that he hasn't really had to run one.  With his base in New York, he's going to be able to enact genuinely progressive policies that can be moved nation-wide.  He will be helped by people like New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman, who has Clintonian rock star-like charisma, and is working aggressively to take back the New York Senate from the slothful Republicans through his work with the state DSCC.  Schneiderman is thinking in terms of a progressive movement, and is focused on organizing people as a way of sustaining progressive policies.

I spend a fair amount of time criticizing Democrats, but there are great progressive politicians throughout the country, from Congressman Henry Waxman in California who has quietly been building support for the Safe Climate Act to Alderman Joe Moore in Chicago (who pushed through the living wage law that reactionary Mayor Daley vetoed).  I see them making change, and I can't help but prod Democrats to do the same.  We have a lot of power, and I'm excited to blog about the changes the progressive movement is going to be making over the next thirty years.

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