Lately Democrats have been going through all kinds of gyrations to try to make themselves seem more religion friendly. But Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst at Political Research Associates, reports at Talk to Action that it isn’t working. And thinks he knows why too.

Less than a third of Americans think the Democratic Party is friendly toward religion. According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in July of 2005, only 29% of those surveyed thought Democrats were “religion-friendly;” down from 40% in 2004. More than half of those surveyed–55%–thought the Republicans were friendly toward religion.

At the same time, 45% of those polled thought that “religious conservatives” had too much control over the Republican Party, while 44% thought that “non-religious liberals” had too much control over the Democratic Party.

These results can be interpreted in many ways, but I think they show that the Democratic Party and its allies need to spend more time thinking about how the average American perceives their attitude toward religion.

Indeed. Chip and I have been beating this drum for a long time.

There is an odd psychology in play here. Some Democrats, particularly some inside the Beltway, publicly pander to “people of faith” to the point of aping evangelical styles of religious expression that are, well, unconvincing. But on other occasions, Democratic leaders and aligned interest groups will trot out focus-group tested slogans with which to label everyone remotely associated with the Christian Right. On one day we love them because they are people of faith. But on another day we hate them because they are out to destroy America as we know it. Or something like that.

No wonder the polls are weird on this.

I wrote about this in Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy in a subsection titled “Its the Substance, Not the Slogan.” I called for use of accurate descriptors instead of the language of demonization.

There are pols who think that cheap slogans can substitute for the inherent persuasiveness of people who know what they are talking about, and who care enough to speak in ways that communicate values that connect with people’s interests. They have been around forever. But in our time, cheap sloganeering has substituted for aquiring relevant knowelege and putting it to use in evolvling political strategy in response to the growing strength of the Christian Right.

Berlet continues about the particulars of the slogan industry:

“Every week I get postal mail and e-mail solicitations for donations that use demonizing buzz phrases such as “Radical Religious Right,” or “Religious Political Extremist.” That type of rhetoric may scare some people into writing checks in the short run, but it makes it harder in the long run for grassroots organizers to build a broad-based movement for social change that includes people in progressive, liberal, and centrist religious groups…. Most Christian evangelicals, however, are not part of the Christian Right. I know from talking with evangelicals and fundamentalists across the country that they are offended by the rhetoric from some liberal and Democratic Party leaders who do not seem to be able to talk about religion without chewing on their foot.”

Read the rest of his essay here.

“Demonization is a two way street,” I wrote in Eternal Hostility, “and is engaged in by demagogues for purposes of their own. Sometimes, it simply adds a B-movie excitement to the normalcy of politics. [But] Whatever the outcome of the political struggles of the day, people still need to live in the same communities when it is over. This does not mean that debate and political mobilizations need to be meek and mild — only that those who would speak for democratic values need to effectively and forcefully speak for those values, in ways that demonstrate those values in action.”

I am not going to put forward a whole manifesto on language in this short piece. Maybe another day. Or maybe Chip will get around to it first. But as Dems gear up for 2006, I just want to suggest that different approaches to talking about religion and politics are definitely in order.

Last spring, the Graduate Program of the City University of New York and the New York Open Center, co-sponsored an important conference on the theocratic Christian Right. I was pleased to be among the speakers, and am honored to be participating in the follow-up conference. Here is some info about the event, and a link to where you can get registration info.

Dominionism, Political Power & the Theocratic Right

Dominionism is an influential form of fundamentalist religion that believes that in order to fulfill biblical prophecy, “godly Christians” must take control of the levers of political and judicial power in America in the near future…. Just how has this religious ideology gained influence in Congress, American political culture, and in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East and on the environment? What can be done to alert concerned citizens to the theocratic impulse growing in their midst? The goal of this seminar is to examine the power and influence of a religious and political movement that questions the separation of church and state, and that aims to establish a biblical society governed by biblical laws.

Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst, Political Research Associates; co-author, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort; Frederick Clarkson, author, Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy; Michael Northcott, teaches Christian Ethics, University of Edinburgh, Scotland; author, An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire; Esther Kaplan, author, With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy and Democracy in George W. Bush’s White House.

Friday October 21 7:30-9:30pm & Saturday Oct. 22 10am-6pm $85; $50 students

Friday October 21 7:30-9:30pm $15

Saturday October 22 10am-6pm $75

A DVD of highlights from the previous conference Examining the Agenda of the Religious Far Right is available for $19.95. It features Karen Armstrong, Joan Bokaer, Joseph Hough, Robert Edgar, Hugh Urban, Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson.

Abortion can be hard to discuss — between family members; between ostensibly pro-choice allies in the Democratic party; among friends. But there is one place where abortion is discussed in a lively, engaging and dynamic way, where the voice of the lives of ordinary people, not wonks, are heard. And that’s following a performance of Words of Choice, a play by my friend Cynthia Cooper.

Words of Choice is about to go on the road — in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas: St.Louis (Sept 14); Webster University (Sept 15); Lawrence KS (Sept 16); Manhattan, KS (Sept 19); Wichita, KS (Sept 20); Tulsa, OK (Sept 21); Washington University, St. Louis (Sept. 23).

“I didn’t set out to measure the health of Roe v. Wade when I toured my play Words of Choice from New York to 10 states in the past year,” Cooper wrote earlier this year for Women’s eNews. “But traveling to Missouri and Florida, Virginia and Minnesota, I keep feeling the temperature: signs of liveliness and weaknesses in ways I didn’t imagine.

At a church in suburban St. Louis, a young woman in a hip pink poncho offers me one clear insight when she strides up to the front of the community room after the “Words of Choice” performance. The play weaves together a dozen diverse writings about true-to-life experiences, comic and serious, with contraception, childbirth and abortion; my role is guiding the post-play discussion.

“Can you come to my college in Kansas?” presses the young woman. “This made me realize that I’m pro-choice and I want my friends to see it.” she says.

Another woman, whom I soon learn is her mother, steps forward. “Just a minute,” the 40ish woman interjects. “You grew up in a pro-choice household.”

“But we never talked about it,” the student says in a tone of exasperation best known to mothers and daughters.

“I told you about your grandmother’s illegal abortion, didn’t I?” the mother continues.

The daughter’s unblinking stare indicates otherwise. Within moments, we hear the decades-old story of a frightened Midwestern girl willing to gamble on outlaws and dangerous conditions to procure an abortion in the time period before the U.S. Supreme Court said, on January 22, 1973, that the government cannot criminalize abortion in all circumstances–the decision known simply as Roe to many…..

The experience of Roe in the lives of ordinary people is far from the world where policy analysts describe Roe’s wrinkles and sagging losses to hundreds of state anti-choice laws, or explain that one or two anti-choice replacements on the Supreme Court could make Roe into an historical artifact. More than one newswriter has confessed to being tired of the whole saga.

But tell that to the woman from Southside Chicago who approaches after a performance. She has never heard of Roe before. “I intend to do some research,” she says.

Roe is the pulsating heart of America’s right to privacy. If it is eliminated, many rights are in peril: right to contraception, in vitro fertilization, medical privacy, sexual freedom, gay and lesbian rights, end-of-life medical options, and, of course, abortion. Roe articulates the right to be free from government restriction in all manner of personal decision-making–essential individual rights in a free society.”

The play, which weaves together comic and serious stories by 15 writers, Angela Bonavoglia, Kathy Najimy, Emily Lyons, Michael Quinn, Emilie Townes, Alix Olson, Judith Arcana, Sherica White, Kathleen Tolan, and Justice Harry Blackmun, has been produced in over two dozen cities and states.

The true-to-life stories in Words of Choice touch upon hot-button topics such as emergency contraception, sexual assault, unintended pregnancy, abstinence education, and safe and legal abortion.

“It is funny, moving, informative, entertaining, and an evening of theatre like no other,” says Joan Lipkin, director.

Words of Choice is touring three ‘red states’ in a time period in which the right of privacy is under attack,” according to the tour press release. “The state attorney general of Kansas has subpoenaed the records of women from two abortion clinics, and most recently, he sued the state to stop payment for the abortions of survivors of rape. The governor of Missouri is spending $100,000 in an “emergency” special session to pass anti-abortion legislation. The U.S. Senator from Oklahoma decries the use of condoms for birth control or safe sex.”

Cooper has blogged about Missouri Gov. Blunt’s draconian legislation at Talk to Action (the temporary site of what will launch as a national, interactive site in a few weeks. Cooper will be a front page writer.)

“I want to break open the conversation on reproductive rights,” Cooper says. “The right to privacy belongs to all of us. It can’t be left to politicians trying to score points.”

FEMA Director Michael Brown, who was relieved of day-to-day responsibility for Katrina relief efforts in the Gulf is not gone and not forgotten. Knight Ridder newspapers is reporting that Brown is “the boy for what’s gone wrong with an agency once lauded for its lightning reflexes. The nation’s federal disaster agency has been politicized and dismantled over the past four years and Brown is a symptom of that transformation, said disaster and government-efficiency experts.

“The Bush administration has filled FEMA’s top jobs with political patronage appointees with no emergency-management experience, cut disaster-preparedness budgets and marginalized the agency by merging it with the new anti-terrorism bureaucracy, according to those experts, which include four former senior FEMA officials. The number of career disaster-management professionals in senior FEMA jobs has been cut by more than 50 percent since 2000, federal personnel records show…..

New York University Public Service professor Paul C. Light….[said] ‘The real problem here is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the appointments process. It’s the people who decided to put him in place and put all those politicals in place.’

George Haddow, a former FEMA deputy chief of staff under President Clinton and the co-author of an emergency-management textbook, called what happened in the last four years the ‘deconstruction of the most robust emergency management and effective response system in the world.’”

Deval Patrick’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Massachusetts is picking up steam. Following up on his Labor Day op-ed in The Boston Globe in which he and fellow former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman endorsed Patrick as the choice for working people, Robert Reich has followed up with a letter to supporters.

Reich came in a strong second in the Democratic primary for governor last time — after waging an energetic progressive reform challenge to the party establishment. Reich’s campaign activiated thousands of people who had previously felt alienated from electoral politics. Reich’s campaign preceded by two years the similar reform movement that arose out of the Howard Dean campaign for president. The organizational outgrowth of the Reich campaign is Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts, (to which a lot of Dean supporters have joined) which is nearing a formal endorsement of Patrick, following the publication of a detailed endorsement rationale.

Here is is part of Reich’s letter.

On September 19, 2006, the Massachusetts Democratic primary for Governor will be held and the winner that day could play a major role in the direction of this state.

After 15 years of Republican rule in the Governor’s office, we can elect not just a Democrat, but a Democrat who will make us proud–my friend Deval Patrick.

Deval could have led a private, comfortable life, but he chose a more difficult and rewarding path. He chose to run for public office and motivate others to get involved or re-involved in politics. Judging from the 1,850 volunteers who have already signed up, Deval is having a substantial impact. He will have active operations in every community in the state by next summer.

But there’s more. Deval is attempting to run a unique campaign, one in which —

– he appeals to our better nature, not our worst
– he supports Democratic values of fair play, equality and opportunity
– he has the listening skills and imagination to find bold, creative answers to problems of unemployment, inadequate education and costly health care
– he is the rare Democratic candidate who knows what makes businesses tick, and whose corporate experience has prepared him to create and keep good jobs in Massachusetts
– he reminds us of the forgotten and vulnerable in our society, even if it makes us uncomfortable
– he tells us the truth, not what he thinks we want to hear
– he is inspiring and exciting and reminds us of the type of leaders we can be proud of
– he brings to the Governor’s job a unique blend of leadership in the public, private, non-profit and community sectors.

Read the rest of Bob Reich’s personal endorsement letter to supporters.

Bill Moyers delivered a powerful address at Union Theological Seminary in New York last week. He drew on central themes of American and Christian history to offer perspectives on what Americans need to do to come to grips with the dangerous, anti-democratic Christian Right.

An edited version appears on TomPaine.com.

Its worth sitting down to read Moyers’speech with a cup of coffee, a notebook, and a mind to figure out how we can preserve the best of constitutional democracy in our time, against the most dangerously anti-democratic movement to come along since the McCarthy era. Here is an excerpt to get your mind warmed-up for a stirring read:

“At the Central Baptist Church in Marshall, Texas, where I was baptized in the faith, we believed in a free church in a free state. I still do. My spiritual forbears did not take kindly to living under theocrats who embraced religious liberty for themselves but denied it to others. ‘Forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils,’ thundered the dissenter Roger Williams as he was banished from Massachusetts for denying Puritan authority over his conscience.

In l651 the Baptist Obadiah Holmes was given 30 stripes with a three-corded whip after he violated the law and took forbidden communion with another Baptist in Lynn, Massachusetts. His friends offered to pay his fine for his release but he refused. They offered him strong drink to anesthetize the pain of the flogging. Again he refused. It is the love of liberty, he said, ‘that must free the soul.’

Such revolutionary ideas made the new nation with its Constitution and Bill of Rights ‘a haven for the cause of conscience.’ No longer could magistrates order citizens to support churches they did not attend and recite creeds that they did not believe. No longer would ‘the loathsome combination of church and state’ — as Thomas Jefferson described it–be the settled order. Unlike the Old World that had been wracked with religious wars and persecution, the government of America would take no sides in the religious free-for-all that liberty would make possible and politics would make inevitable.

The First Amendment neither inculcates religion nor inoculates against it. Americans could be loyal to the Constitution without being hostile to God, or they could pay no heed to God without fear of being mugged by an official God Squad. It has been a remarkable arrangement that guaranteed ‘soul freedom.’…..

Democrats are divided and paralyzed, afraid that if they take on the organized radical right they will lose what little power they have. Trying to learn to talk about God as Republicans do, they’re talking gobbledygook, compromising the strongest thing going for them — the case for a moral economy and the moral argument for the secular checks and balances that have made America ‘a safe haven for the cause of conscience.’

As I look back on the conflicts and clamor of our boisterous past, one lesson about democracy stands above all others: Bullies–political bullies, economic bullies and religious bullies–cannot be appeased; they have to be opposed with a stubbornness to match their own. This is never easy; these guys don’t fight fair; Robert’s Rules of Order is not one of their holy texts. But freedom on any front — and especially freedom of conscience — never comes to those who rock and wait, hoping someone else will do the heavy lifting.”

Amidst all the cat-5 scale spin that is going on inside-the-beltway over who is to blame for the disaster of New Orleans, some facts about the Federal Emergency Management Agency are nevertheless coming out.

The picture that has been emerging is an agency whose mission was underappreciated by Bush administration higherups obcessed with terrorism; whose budget and staff were cut; which suffered in the bureacratic deck shuffle that created the Department of Homeland Security; whose most experienced top personel departed and were replaced by patronage hires.

The Washington Post reports: that “Five of Bush’s Eight top FEMA appointees are “Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience: ‘Brain Drain’ At Agency Cited”

Meanwhile the FEMA employees union is speaking out:

“All of us were just shaking our heads and saying, ‘This isn’t going to be enough, and the director has to know this isn’t going to be enough.’ But nothing more seemed to be happening,” said Leo Bosner, president of the FEMA Headquarters Employees Union.

Bosner has been with FEMA since it began 26 years ago. He says the agency has been systematically dismantled since it became part of the massive Department of Homeland Security.

“One of the big differences I see,” said Bosner, “besides taking away our staff and our budget and our training, is that Homeland Security now, in my view, slows down the process.”

The union warned Congress in a detailed letter about FEMA’s decline a year ago. State emergency managers also warned Capitol Hill and Homeland Security just weeks ago that DHS was too focused on one thing — terrorism.

In an editorial The New York Times adds:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced this week that it didn’t want the news media taking photographs of the dead in New Orleans. A FEMA spokeswoman talked unconvincingly about the dignity of the dead. But the bizarre demand, a creepy echo of the ban on news media coverage of the coffins returning from Iraq, is simply the latest spasm of a gutted federal agency.

It’s not really all that surprising that the officials who run FEMA are stressing that all-important emergency response function: the public relations campaign. As it turns out, that’s all they really have experience at doing….

The Chicago Tribune reported on Wednesday that neither the acting deputy director, Patrick Rhode, nor the acting deputy chief of staff, Brooks Altshuler, came to FEMA with any previous experience in disaster management. Ditto for Scott Morris, the third in command until May.

Mr. Altshuler and Mr. Rhode had worked in the White House’s Office of National Advance Operations. Those are the people who decide where the president will stand on stage and which loyal supporters will be permitted into the audience…. Mr. Morris was a press handler with the Bush presidential campaign. Previously, he worked for the company that produced Bush campaign commercials….

The Times further observes that

“President Bill Clinton appointed political pals at FEMA who actually knew something about disaster management. The former FEMA director James Lee Witt, whose tenure is widely considered a major success…. had run the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services. His top staff came from regional FEMA offices….

But President Bush chose to make FEMA a dumping ground for unqualified cronies…. What America needs are federal disaster relief people who actually know something about disaster relief.

The callous indifference and astounding and far-reaching incompetance of the Bush adminstration is just unspeakable. So for now, I want to zero in on one thing: How FEMA was turned from a crack disaster relief agency under Bill Clinton and into a patronage parlor by George W. Bush in his top three appointments to the agency:

As the Chicago Tribune reported:

“Top officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency have strong political connections to President Bush, but they also share at least one other trait: They had little or no experience in disaster management before landing in top FEMA posts…. Before joining FEMA in 2001, [FEMA head Michael] Brown, a protege of longtime Bush aide Joseph Allbaugh, was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and had virtually no experience in disaster management.”

Brown’s lack of relevant experience is matched by his Chief and Deputy Chief of staff. Kos had the story on these characters on September 6th.

The Chief of Staff is a guy named Patrick Rhode. He planned events for President Bush’s campaign. Rhode has no emergency management experience whatsoever. From Rhode’s official bio:

His first position with the Bush Administration was as special assistant to the President and deputy director of National Advance Operations, a position he assumed in January 2001. Previously, Mr. Rhode served as deputy director of National Advance Operations for the George W. Bush Presidential Campaign, in Austin, Texas.

The Deputy Chief of Staff is Scott Morris. He was a press flak for Bush’s presidential campaign. Previously, he worked for the company that produced Bush’s campaign commercials. He also has no emergency management experience. From Morris’s official bio:

Mr. Morris was also the marketing director for the world’s leading provider of e-business applications software in California, and worked for Maverick Media in Austin, Texas as a media strategist for the George W. Bush for President primary campaign and the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign.

“FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule,” according to The Chicago Tribune, “said the absence of direct experience managing emergencies is irrelevant because top managers need ‘the ability to keep the organization running.’”

Deval Patrick got a big boost in his insurgent campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor today. In a Labor Day op-ed in The Boston Globe, Patrick received the endorsement of the last two Democratic secretaries of labor: Robert Reich and Alexis Herman. The article, titled “Patrick works for workers” is heartfelt, compelling and enthusiastic.

Here are a few excerpts:

“On Labor Day, Americans honor the contributions of labor to American life. Today the two of us, former secretaries of labor in the Clinton administration, honor and endorse the candidacy of someone we believe has demonstrated a commitment to improving the conditions of working people — Deval Patrick.

We know Patrick from his work in the Clinton administration as the Justice Department’s chief civil rights prosecutor. He took on crimes such as attacks on churches and synagogues, gave life to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and inspired a groundbreaking fair lending program that helped focus lenders on risk rather than race and gave thousands of people a chance to own their first homes….

Having worked as a janitor, lathe operator, and snow-cone vendor, Patrick also knows how important a living wage is. And he appreciates how much we have all benefited from the hard-fought gains of the American labor movement….

This is a man whose life spans the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and who is ideally suited for the position of governor. On this Labor Day, knowing how important jobs and labor issues are, we enthusiastically support his candidacy and honor his service to workers and their families. Patrick is no ordinary leader.

Read the whole article.

One of the most remarkable political documents you will see this year was recently sent to the statewide membership of Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts (PDM).

“We are,” writes state chair Peter Dolan in his cover letter, “nearing a decision to endorse Deval Patrick for Governor. Before we make our final decision, we want to share with you the process and the thinking that are leading us to this decision, and hear your thoughts.”

“Over the summer, the SCC [State Coordinating Committee] developed a set of PDM endorsement criteria,” Dolan continued. “We wouldn’t expect any candidate or campaign to measure up perfectly on all these criteria, but a statewide candidate endorsed by PDM should strongly exhibit a majority of these characteristics and positions, and not actively oppose or reject any of them.”

What follows Dolan’s letter is a ten-pager on why Patrick is a compelling, principled and viable democratic candidate for governor. I can’t think of any other organization that has produced such a thoughtful and detailed rationale for supporting a candidate for any office. As a member of the PDM State Coordinating Committee, I suppose it figures I would say something like that. But I would not go to the trouble of telling you about it if I didn’t think it was really good stuff. You can read some excerpts below, and you’ll have a chance to check out the whole document for yourself when it is posted on the PDM web site in about a week.

One of the distinctives of PDM’s approach was to develop a set of criteria for endorsement that was not merely a checklist of issues:

1. Does the candidate support the basic tenets and spirit of the Democratic
Party platform — especially on critical, in-play issues?
2. What is the endorsement benefit to PDM?
3. Is the candidate an agent for changes PDM is working for?
4. Does the candidate’s vision support PDM’s strategic vision?
5. Is the candidate viable (i.e. has a clear strategy for winning and a compelling and well articulated message)?
6. Is the candidate making an effort to reframe issues in a progressive context?
7. Does the candidate embody the value of fairness?
8. Is the candidate a person of principle?

The PDM evaluation was based on discussions with Deval Patrick and his senior campaign staff, as well as a review of the campaign’s website and the texts of Patrick’s recent speeches.

When PDM leaders went to interview Patrick, they selected Health Care, Education, Economic Issues, and Labor to zero in on. It is worth underscoring on this Labor Day weekend that in his interview, Patrick supported, among other things, the right of workers to organize; and he opposed the “dirty tricks” sometimes employed by management, among other unfair impediments labor organizing.

Here are some excerpts from PDM’s evaluation and rationale for endorsing Devel Patrick for governor:

“I respect the right of workers to choose third-party representation, and it makes good business sense for companies to negotiate in good faith. Dirty tricks to undermine the unions are never a good idea.”

“I have always worked to create more inclusive, more effective work environments. I believe that the right to organize must be respected. That is a judgment and chance that workers get to make…. that workers have to be able to make openly and freely.”

“I am in favor of a simplified card check process.” He favors expedited union representation elections without employer interference. If a majority of employees in a given work site sign cards clearly expressing their desire to join a union (not just to hold an election) he feels the employer must honor those wishes.

“I am in favor of increasing the minimum wage although I don’t yet have a point of view on indexing.” He shared a concern that indexing (i.e. automatic cost of living adjustments) may mask the underlying issue that the minimum wage is not a “living wage”. “The ‘living wage’ concept is closer to what I’m interested in — for everyone, [union and non-union].” He noted that while some of these issues are questions of legislation, some really are issues of leadership. It’s about using the bully pulpit of the governor to create an environment in which these issues are raised and become part of the political discourse. He said: “Opportunities for public leadership are broader than a Governor’s enumerated powers.”

Patrick resigned from Coca Cola when the company decided not to support an independent investigation of the deaths of several union leaders in Columbia. He agreed to return to the company as a legal consultant only after new company leadership agreed to support the independent investigation. This is a compelling story that indicates at a deep level his commitment to fair treatment of workers and unions.

Patrick knows that he cannot run a traditional Democratic campaign. He will be running a very deep grassroots campaign, bringing in large numbers of people to actively participate in their democracy, and the Democratic Party. This supports one of PDM’s goals: a revitalized Democratic Party that takes its lead from the broad party membership.

His willingness to draw in people who hold divergent views on critical issues will also go a long way to changing the nature of the political dialogue in Massachusetts — a specific goal of PDM. In his speech on August 3rd marking the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act he said: “Why have we worked so hard to make voting easier and failed so miserably at making voting more meaningful? Fewer citizens care. And I think that has much to do with politics itself.”

“Increasingly, the political class is insular. We have perfected a conversation with ourselves about how elections get won, while everyone else wants to know why it matters…. while insiders and political ‘wags’ focus on who votes, where they live, how the hot-button issues move that vote, what time of day they vote, etc., most people see that the game is not about principle but power and too many just check out.”

Patrick supports PDM’s strategic vision in several ways: he is bringing many new people into the political dialogue and process, he expresses in many contexts a progressive view of the role of government, his commitment to civil rights and non-discrimination, and his very candidacy (bringing new leaders into the public arena)….

“I like Barney Frank’s definition of government — It is the name we give to the things we choose to do together. And I emphasize ‘together’. It’s about community. Government is not a bad thing. It’s an essential for any successful society. I have lived in the Sudan where there was no government. There was rampant poverty, no safety, no services….” He lamented that people don’t connect up what they get, to what they have to give. Government is both the basis of society and the means of achieving the dreams of society.

His campaign manager, John Walsh, also spoke of the campaign’s inclusive approach — “bringing people back into the system — people who don’t think politics has something to do with their lives.”

“People want to talk about why Democrats lose elections. I think it is because we spend too much time focusing on how to win elections and not enough time talking about why we should.”

Patrick’s whole career shows evidence of having successfully integrated acting on principle and effectively getting the job done. His reputation is that of a problem solver and as someone who is always part of the solution. His career with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and as head of the Civil Rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice in the Clinton administration (in charge of among other things, enforcing the [Americans with Disabilities Act], his reputation as a creative problem-solver as well as his resignation in protest from Coke indicate his ability to marry principles with getting things done.

“I have helped lead two of the largest companies in the world, and I am just as proud of that as I am of my service in the Clinton Administration, the NAACP LDF and in private law practice. Because I get hired to be a change agent, and in every one of those jobs I’ve done my level best to leave the organization better than when I arrived. I have never been willing to check my conscience at the door, and never had to.”

————————-

To read the whole thing, you will have to wait a few more days. (It may be tweaked a bit before we publish a final version.) But in the meantime, I just want to say few words about PDM:

PDM is a statewide organization founded in the wake of Robert Reich’s 2002 Democratic primary campaign for governor. We have, among other things, sought to build a network of dedicated, knowledgeable and capable electoral activists to provide a base of support for a progressive, democratic reform candidate in the 2006 gubernatorial race. So far, we have developed seven chapters and chapters-in-formation, and a network of smaller organizing committees and individual activists. We have been involved in a number of state and local races, including the special elections for state representative and state senate this year. We have greatly increased our knowledge about electoral politics, built lasting political relationships, and honed our skills. The PDM network is in place — and it is growing — and now it looks like we have a candidate.