Something new is growing in the grass-roots of American and state politics, and that includes Oregon. Until recently political activists on the left have usually represented groups that have been working on a specific issue such as reproductive rights, environmental conservation, workers’ rights, separation of church and state, consumer protection, gay rights, etc. In Oregon activists have had a plethora of choices between national and state groups such as the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Human Rights Campaign (HRC), AFL-CIO and 1000 Friends of Oregon, Basic Rights Oregon, etc.

Unfortunately for many who’ve been logging in long hours with such groups it feels as if everyone is treading water and the struggle for even the smallest of victories seems difficult. There are, of course, many reasons for these problems, one of which includes a lack of cohesion within a larger movement. Without cohesion everyone is left flailing around, struggling to get their single message out to the voters, which results in a lot of indistinguishable noise. Of course the above mentioned groups are fighting the good fight, but they’re looking at their own picture instead of examining the bigger one, the one that might actually help them.

A perfect example of this took place during the 2002 midterm elections when HRC, a national gay rights group, endorsed incumbent Senator Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) over his Democratic challenger Bill Bradbury. HRC claimed that Smith was friendly to their cause and that they needed support on both sides of the aisle. In the end it was a short-sighted endorsement because Smith supported President Bush’s call to amend the US Constitution to make same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Had he been a US Senator, Bradbury would never have endorsed such an amendment, let alone support it! Moreover, HRC failed to consider how Smith would vote on US Supreme Court nominees who may or may not consider gay rights constitutional rights. And most importantly, in endorsing Smith, HRC did damage to their brothers and sisters who were fighting for workers, the environment, choice, etc. due to their narrow focus on their own pet cause.

That’s not to say that these groups are fully responsible for the lack of vision among current liberal leaders, but they’re all stuck within their own struggle, their own single issue. As a result, liberal special interest groups fail to provide a big picture that Americans and Oregonians can look at and understand.

But times they are a changin’. Enter, on the Oregon front, Onward Oregon and the Bus Project. On the national front we’ve got groups like MoveOn and Democracy for America. These groups are multi-dimensional, yet they take a practical approach in tackling complicated issues and they have the ability to pull groups together in order to be more efficient and effective.

And what is the big picture these groups are looking at? It’s a picture that shows America and the state of Oregon as a more healthy, innovative, fair, productive, free and secure place to live.

I’ll bet my blog space on this site that America’s and Oregon’s future progressive leaders will emerge from these big picture groups as pragmatic visionaries and they’ll think, act and speak differently than today’s liberals in D.C., Salem and other state capitols.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2005 at 3:29 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.