One of the coolest things about Take Back America last week was the deep sense of cooperation on display among the various factions of the progressive movement. In past years, getting liberal interest groups to see beyond their own issue-oriented goals to work together has been likened to herding cats, but in 2008, with a newfound sense of solidarity as a result of having been together in the wilderness for 7 years as well as matured political and technological organizations, we are now seeing unprecedented cooperation among several groups all of which are devoted to mobilizing voters in unprecedented numbers in November.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Robert Borosage of Campaign For America's Future introduced an impressive array of progressive leaders who outlined their goals for the coming campaign season. Borosage put the amount these groups intended to spend in 2008 in the $400 million range, an unprecedented mobilization of forces on the left in a single election season.

Borosage included in his calculation Rock the Vote and Women Voices-Women Vote, which promote voting by young people and unmarried women, respectively; ACORN, which advocates for expanded housing opportunities; and the National Council of La Raza, which backs Hispanic causes.

Those groups are barred by their nonprofit tax statuses from backing candidates or engaging in partisan politics, but Borosage said they intend to spend a combined $75 million registering and mobilizing voters.

Then there are labor heavyweights SEIU, Change to Win and the AFL-CIO. They can spend money on both mobilization and partisan politicking. Plus, a Supreme Court ruling last year granted them more flexibility in funding and airing often hard-hitting issue ads right up until Election Day. [...]

As for MoveOn.org, which has endorsed Obama, Hogue said it would enthusiastically unite with the other groups behind Clinton if she carried the nomination into a general election showdown with the presumptive GOP nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

What's different this year than four years ago? For one thing, election law is a bit looser allowing more groups to coordinate with each other, while still not able to coordinate with candidates. But also, the political environment is much different than it was in 2004.

"In '04 the right mobilized its base and its resources," Bob Borosage...said in an interview. "Liberals mobilized, although we were still building at the time. Well, we've continued to build and expand and gotten more enthusiastic and more mobilized and their coalition has collapsed." [...]

"The progressive infrastructure was really evolving in '04," said Iliyse Hogue, campaign director for MoveOn.org Political Action. "Now what we've got is not only really good establishment roles, but also the kind of relationships and trust and confidence in each other that comes from working together in the trenches."

While the level of cooperation among the groups is impressive, each of them fills its own niche with its own set of goals. Some highlights from the press conference:

The AFL-CIO plans to focus on mobilizing 13 million union members in battleground states. They intend to spend $53.4m to fund a communications effort with union members to get across the message that John McCain represents Bush's third term. To that end they've launched the excellent McCain Revealed campaign. Promised Karen Ackerman: "Everywhere McCain goes working Americans will be there to confront him on his economic policies."

Women's Voices Women Vote plan to focus their mobilization effort on unmarried women who now make up 26% of the voting age population. For the first time ever, single women make up the same share of the population as married women and they are overwhelmingly pro-change and pro-Democratic. As Paige Gardener put it: "Unmarried women will be to Democrats in 2008 what evangelicals were to Republicans in 2004."

Rock The Vote, as you can imagine, will be targeting young people with a goal of registering 2 million new voters between the ages of 18-29. Registration is the biggest barrier to this group's voting; 82% that are registered actually do vote in the presidential election and to that end, Rock The Vote has launched an easy to use online reg tool, which users are offered the moment they hit the homepage. So far in 2008, we've seen unprecedented participation by young people; in state after state, youth participation is either doubling, tripling or quadrupling that of 4 years ago. Rock The Vote is uniquely qualified to tap into that excitement to translate to Democratic victory in November.

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Cross posted from 21stCenturyDems.org.

As I reflect on the Take Back America 2008 conference, I'm thrilled 21st Century Democrats was a partner organization at the event.  We are proud to stand with other great groups like Campaign for America's Future, Progressive Majority, ACORN, People for the American Way, the Center for Progressive Leadership, and many others who are working hard to change the direction of this country from the disastrous policies of George W. Bush.

For me, one of the highlights of the conference was the roll out of "A Responsible Plan To End The War In Iraq" by Darcy Burner, Chellie Pingree and several other Congressional candidates. Darcy explained how a the Bush Administration's top down approach to ending the war in Iraq has failed to stem the violence and that's why she drafted the plan and organized fellow Congressional candidates to take a bottom's up approach by putting forward a plan to end the war.

One of the most important points made during the rollout was the need to change the frame of the conversation about the war from whether the surge is working to what we should be doing to make our country safer.   To shift the conversation we need to get more people involved in this debate. We must talk to our neighbors, friends, family - and most importantly to the candidates where we live - and ask them to sign on to the responsible plan to end the war in Iraq.

We in the progressive community have asked for leadership on ending the war, and now have Darcy Burner, Chellie Pingree and several other candidates who have put themselves on the line by not only standing up against the war, but by providing a detailed plan of how the United States can bring our military engagement in Iraq to a responsible end and take steps to restore the checks and balances in our government to make sure we do not make the same mistake again in the future.

You can endorse the plan here. You can also show your support the candidates leading this effort by donating to Darcy Burner, Chellie Pingree or the slate of Congressional candidates who have signed onto the plan.

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I'm at the unveiling of the Responsible Plan To Get Out Of Iraq presented by Democratic challengers including Darcy Burner, Donna Edwards and Eric Massa. You can watch the event on UStream below (h/t Open Left.)

Update [2008-3-17 18:3:15 by Todd Beeton]:Darcy Burner: When I speak to people in my district the first question I get asked is how we're going to get out of Iraq. I knew I wanted to get out of Iraq but I didn't have a good answer for "how." I kept thinking an answer to that question would come out of Washington, DC but 5 years later we're still waiting...We've been waiting for a top down solution and no top down solution is coming. So now we are turning to a bottom up solution.

Update [2008-3-17 18:12:36 by Todd Beeton]:Donna Edwards: 3,988. I think it's important to repeat the numbers. 3,988 is the number of honorable servicemen and women who have lost their lives in Iraq. Whether they're American lives or Iraqi lives, whether they're military or civilian, we need to remember the numbers...It is time to end the war in Iraq and we need to do it responsibly and with the same honor with which our servicemen and women served their country.

Update [2008-3-17 18:34:43 by Todd Beeton]:In addition to Burner and Edwards, the Democratic congressional candidates who have signed on to the Iraq plan and who are speaking today include: Chellie Pingree who is running to replace Rep. Tom Allen in ME-01 who is running for Senate, Tom Perriello running in VA-05, Sam Bennett running in PA-15, and Jared Polis who is running in CO-02.

Update [2008-3-17 18:44:30 by Todd Beeton]: For more about the plan, you can read Darcy's diary HERE and check out the pdf HERE. Also be sure to support these bold Democratic challengers over at ActBlue.

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Donna Edwards received a standing ovation.

It became the politics of the usual once they got back to Washington.

The voters get it and it's time for members of congress to get it too.

Here's what's going to happen in 2008. Getting out of the war in Iraq is n ot rocket science. You know what it is, it's common sense. It's time for us to start investing in peace and prosperity and stop investing in war. It's time for us to engage with other partners in the world who walked away from us because we were engaged in something that was illfated to begin.

We know that the 100 years guy is out there too, but we're not going to let them have their way. We're going to rear our shoulders back, we're going to get some spine and we're going to team up with the Democrat in the White House and we're going to get out of Iraq.

It's time to put the war back on the front pages of America's newspapers.

reengage in diplomacy, take care of the returning soldiers, invest in international institutions so this never happens again and the US  congress takes back the responsibility for oversight, so they don't make the mistake in the first place.

I want to pat the congress on the back for last week finally standing up to the telecom companies. No to the banks and the credit card companies, no to those companies that are profiting from war instead of peace.

I am counting on you to have my back in the 111th congress.

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I'm here at Take Back America where the opening session's highlight so far has been a rousing speech by Campaign For America's Future's Robert Borosage (Donna Edwards hasn't spoken yet...), who expressed great optimism that now is the time, the conditions are right, to finish what we started in 2006 and truly re-make our country in a progressive image. That same message was at the heart of the next two speeches, one on universal healthcare by Diane Archer and one on global warming by Van Jones. But it's not just blind optimism about our electoral prospects in November; there's also an acknowledgement that should we win the presidency back and expand our majorities in both houses of congress, there will still be much work to be done, in fact it will only be beginning. Which is why I think the event today at 5:30pm here at the conference where some of our congressional challengers will be unveiling a plan to get us out of Iraq.

From Open Left:

Darcy Burner (WA-8), Chellie Pingree (ME-1), Donna Edwards (MD-4), Jared Polis (CO-2), Tom Perriello (VA-5) and Sam Bennett (PA-15) will be in attendance at the unveiling of a detailed strategy document at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC. The release of the document will take place at:

Palladian Room
Omni Shoreham Hotel
2500 Calvert St. NW    Washington, DC
5:30 pm EST

Other challengers participating in the effort but unable to attend include Eric Massa (NY-29), Larry Byrnes (FL-14), George Fearing (WA-4), and Steve Harrison (NY-13).

Originating outside the Beltway and based on consultations with retired generals and other national security experts on a path forward to end the war, the challengers' document lays out a series of actions for Congress to take to end United States military involvement in Iraq, strengthen America and improve our standing around the world, restore accountability and checks and balances to our government and work toward energy independence.

"I wholeheartedly endorse this plan as a responsible and forward looking plan for ending the war in Iraq. As Burner and her colleagues correctly note, bringing our troops home is the first, but not the only step that must be taken to ensure a debacle like Iraq never happens again," said Dr. Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "This plan addresses the root causes that allowed the Bush Administration to lead this country into this mess, and sets us in the right direction. I applaud their efforts on this ambitious and sound strategy. This is progressive strength on national security in action."

I'll be covering the event and the plan once it's unveiled and I look forward to challenging more of our challengers all over the country to join up.

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