San Francisco’s district elections provide a perfect opportunity for progressives to join hands across campaigns and issues, to share resources and trade endorsements, to present a united front and a progressive agenda to the City’s electorate. Unfortunately, having spent some time working in and around various campaigns in this election cycle, it appears that a certain narrowness of thinking, if not of mind, still dominates the inner workings of certain so-called “progressive” campaigns.
It has been said that the greatest challenge confronting the progressive community is to meld together the diverse personalities, groups, and organizations at work on the various issues spawned by the globalization of capital and the neoliberal socioeconomic model into a cohesive movement capable of challenging the powers that be. While there is strength in numbers, without proper organization and coordination across campaigns and candidates, that strength will invariably be spent or dissipated on repeated attempts to remobilize and reeducate people at the grass roots level.
Specifically, the field coordinator of a certain supervisorial campaign that has been receiving its fair share of negative advertising, recently took the position that its phone bankers should adhere exclusively to the pre-approved script that has been provided to volunteers and not attempt to engage the voter’s mind by talking about any of the other issues and campaigns that will impact progressives at the locals, state, and national level.
“This is an MTV-type of message we’re trying to send out here,” the field coordinator said. “We want to get in and get out as quickly as possible. We don’t want the voter to think too much.”
As the job of any self-respecting field coordinator is to get their candidate elected, this resistance to exposing prospective voters to progressive candidates and issues beyond that of their immediate candidate is understandable. It is ultimately shortsighted, though. What good will it do, if this one so-called “progressive,” so-called liberal candidate manages to win a seat on the Board of Supervisors only to find that voters have failed to support progressive candidates in the other citywide and district races? How much good can one so-called “progressive,” so-called liberal supervisor do on his/her own against a board packed with representatives of the downtown business community?
Furthermore, if voters don’t grasp the full spectrum of economic and social issues at stake in every election, how can they be expected to distinguish between and correctly vote for those issues that are supportive of the progressive cause and those that are not?
If progressives are to continue following the currently myopic approach that is en vogue, it is entirely possible and more than likely that individual progressive candidates may win the day, while legislative policies that effectively handcuff said candidates and set the entire movement back go unopposed at the ballot box.
If a progressive movement is ever to emerge, progressives and their liberal allies must adopt a wider agenda and a larger view of the forces that oppose them. They must develop a holistic understanding of the various economic, social, and political issues at play at the local, state, and national level and the linkages that exist between them. For example, tax cuts and other forms of deregulation are economic policies that are enacted by politicians in the interest of capital. The consequences of such policies directly affect society at the local, state, and national level and impact everything from healthcare, affordable housing, public education, unemployment, and the environment. To ignore these linkages, to excuse them, to choose not to talk about them in the interests of time and market research is to cut the progressive movement off at its knees.
Capitalists, neoliberalists, freemarketeers, etc. routinely extend cooperation to each other to promote their mutual interests. This is why many times individuals, companies, and organizations from seemingly unrelated fields will pour money into negative advertising campaigns designed to defeat so-called “progressive,” so-called liberal candidates. This is why they will also sponsor seemingly innocuous ballot measures that average, uninformed voters will support at the cost of their own socioeconomic and political self-interest.
It is a fact that the jobs of most campaign officials are invariably tied to the victory or defeat of their candidate, and decisions made in the heat of the race may be influenced by such considerations. This completely misses the point of getting involved in politics in the first place; assuming, of course, that one’s purpose for getting involved in the first place is to help make the world a better place.
Accordingly, if it is possible to convince one voter to support so-called “progressive,” so-called liberal candidate A, is it not also logical to take the time to convince that same voter to support progressive candidates B, C, and D and to help that voter arrive at a crucial yes/no vote on certain progressive and unprogressive propositions? Should such opportunities not be seized?
Progressives must avoid being too narrowly focused on simply getting one person into office at a time. Although one person can make a difference, how much more powerful would that one person representing progressive interests be if he/she were surrounded by elected representatives of like mind? That is a movement. Anything else is a waste of time.
