The re-invention of progressive politics

There is so much energy and passion on the progressive side of politics these days.   I think this period will be seen as a time of dramatic reinvention of the progressive movement.  A time when entrepreneurs, bloggers, regular old people and elected leaders re-imagined what progressive politics could become, and went out and made it happen.  It is as if a whole industry is being born right in front of our eyes.   

Consider for a moment that our largest think tank, CAP, our most influential advocacy organzation, MoveOn, our most influential and widely read blog, DailyKos and our most exciting new candidate, Barack Obama all are very new to the scene.  And in each case these new players are not just influential but are reinventing the very form and space in which they are operating, making them all very 21st century versions of what had come before.   

And the list keeps going.  Huffington Post.  Media Matters.  America Votes.  Air America. Dozens of other blogs.  Brave New Films.  PoliticsTV.  Drinking Liberally.  Democracy Journal.  The Blue Fund...

Remarkably, it feels as if this pace of innovation, the velocity if you will, is accelerating.  Look at MoveOn's Presidential TownHall.  The way the Presidentials are using internet videos, the explosion of politics on social networking sites and YouTube.  Hillary's innovative Hillcasts. That the Democratic Presidential candidates outraised their Republican opponents by 50% - 50%!!!!! - in the first quarter.  The way all the states are moving up their primaries.  All of this is being driven by this incredible rise of energy and passion in our politics right now.  People see this as a consequential time, a time to stand and be counted.  They want to get in the game - give, blog or read a blog, sign up on Facebook, watch a video on YouTube, volunteer locally, vote. 

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this new era of passion on our side is what is happening with Barack Obama's campaign.  It took Howard Dean, using the new tools of his day, 6 months to sign up 160,000 people on his web site.   Obama had 100,000 donate to his campaign in just ten weeks, and perhaps as many as another 500,000 people sign up on various social networking sites.  It is reasonable to assume that by the end of the 2nd quarter he will have a million people in his network, and perhaps 2-3 million by year's end.   Having this many people participating in a political campaign requires a re-imagining of what a political campaign is.  These folks are looking for assignments.  They aren't content with sitting on the sidelines.  How do you run a campaign every day where you have millions of people on your team and not just 200 people in a headquarters?

We are about to find out. 

As we are living in the moment it may be hard to see the transformation that is happening all around us.  But there should be no question any longer that progressives are undergoing a period of dramatic and powerful reinvention, one fueled by the new politics of the early 21st century, but more than anything else one fueled by this powerful sense in the American people that this is a time to stand up and be counted, a time to fight for the country we love and the values we hold dear.  I for one am happy to have so many people joining this battle to create an America of the 21st century as great, and good, as the America of the 20th.