leadership

Ari Matusiak is co-founder of Young Invincibles, a national campaign engaging young Americans between the ages of 18 to 34 in the health care reform debate and advocating on their behalf. www.YoungInvincibles.org.

Before Senator Kennedy passed away, he penned a letter to President Obama. It was a reflection on health care reform, “that great unfinished business of our society” and the cause of his life. He concluded that providing every American with quality and affordable health care was nothing less than a moral issue, one that spoke to the very “character of our country.”

Today, the question is whether the election in Massachusetts to replace Senator Kennedy penned the end of health care reform, or whether a Presidential summit will mark the beginning of a renewed push to pass the bill. If you believe the pundits and some elected officials, America has spoken: it is time to slow down, scale back or move on entirely.

But that is not what America is saying.

One year ago, two million people came to Washington to witness President Obama’s inauguration. They traveled from all over America and represented every color, creed and station in life. They were there to ratify a new direction for our country, one that recalled our better history, aspired to our full promise and laid the foundation for long-term prosperity. They were there aware of the challenges ahead, but filled with hope, expectation and a belief in change nonetheless.

Many of the people on the Mall were young Americans, a generation that embraced that spirit and conviction and made Barack Obama President. When there were setbacks during the campaign, we did not quit. We did not lower our sights. We doubled down, gave more and fought harder. There was too much to gain.

One special election in Massachusetts did not change all of that. Yes, some things are different from one year ago. The Democrats, who began this Congress with 58 seats in the Senate, not 60, now have 59, the largest majority either party has had in the upper chamber since 1979. The mood of the country is anxious. A bipartisan summit on reform looms.

But more things have stayed the same. There are still over 50 million Americans who do not have health insurance, living in fear of getting sick or living in pain because they already are. There are still 14,000 Americans who lose their coverage every day, many of them because they have lost their jobs in this recession. There are still millions of Americans who cannot get insurance in the first place because of a so-called “pre-existing condition.” It is still a broken system that determines access to care based on what job you hold or what income you have. It is still one that disproportionately impacts young Americans, the largest group of uninsured in the country.

The election in Massachusetts was not a referendum on health care reform. How could it have been? Massachusetts is the one state that provides universal coverage. It is a system that 68 percent of its residents support and is the model for the current reform efforts in Washington. No. The election in Massachusetts was a referendum on the status quo: an expression of frustration one year later with the pace of change. That is why independents and some Democrats went the other direction. That is why 85 percent of young voters stayed home.

Change is not easy. It comes only as a result of persistent struggle, unwavering conviction and a willingness to take risk. That is its character. In 2008, young Americans fought for this moment – this chance to make change. We believed we were sending leadership to Washington with the character to persist, stand strong and deliver for us all.

We are still waiting. What happens now on health care reform will determine whether that belief was justified. The next step cannot be incrementalism. It certainly cannot be the deathly silence that has pervaded the issue the past few weeks. The process – be it a summit, a bipartisan negotiation or reconciliation – is the means, not the end. We want results.

This is not the time to slow down or scale back. This is the time to double down, give more and fight harder. This is the time for leadership. Open discussion and debate must come with urgency and commitment. What we do now will define the character of our country. It will determine whether we have the character to deliver on change. One year ago, young Americans believed we had it. Now is the time for Washington to prove us right.

OUCH! This morning's new swanked up GOP website launched. But Ben Smith at Politico notes the the "Future Leaders" page has an unfortunate omission.

Leadership is key, not that the Democratic Party is much better... a little better... but not by much. Their saving grace is the many non-partisan progressive groups and indeed the Young Democrats doing everything they can to develop youth leadership. Hopefully, some day, that will translate into the DNC reaching out to these youth to take leading positions in legislative offices and campaigns, and eventually run for office.

cross posted on the CDNY blog: http://collegedemsny.com/...

As a Political Science major in college, I have taken several campaigns and elections courses as well as voting behavior seminars. Yet few have helped me with leadership skills as the President of the College Democrats of NY as Taking on the System by Kos. I realize that many of you have read his book I'm sure, but call me a late bloomer if you will, I didnt buy his book until 2 weeks ago, although I was so mesmerized by the reading that i finished it in 2 days. About 2 months ago, I finished reading Netroots Rising, another great read by Lowell Feld which contained many passages from Kos.

I have based much of my leadership off of the ideas I learned from Kos and it has truly helped make a difference here in NY. The blogging community has inspired us to post blog entries every day on liberal blogs such Kos, The Albany Project (NY), Future Majority, and our our website blog. We now average almost 100 hits a day on our blog which is quite an achievement for our once small movement.

From Kos, I learned to go after your enemy and hit em' hard and not to take anything for granted. It was after all, the Drudge report that cracked the Lewinsky scandal and it has been the netroots which has broke many other scandals or released information damaging to Republican candidates. Several of our hardest hitting blog posts bashing the National College Republicans got our enemies' attention, forcing them to respond to our attacks while their very own membership posted comments on their blog agreeing with us.

Kos preaches that there is nothing wrong with being liberal and to refuse to let Republicans frame the debate and not to give in to anything.

Some of our organization's best ideas have come from the netroots like texting the vote and we have been able to give a voice to college students who have historically been apathetic.

The final idea that I love is the notion that we need to get the right Democrats elected into office- ones that will stand up to the hardliners in the conservative base and that will bring the progressive values we need to our country. For too long, American politics have been to the right of center and we need to move that back to the left.

The netroots will lead the way moving into Obama's presidency.

Well, one day after putting forth his health care plan, which I thought was pretty bold despite its "wishy-washy" tone, John Edwards took a gun and shot himself in the foot... multiple times. Apparently, in response to criticism from the most extremist Right-Wing nutjobs, like the Fascist Ignorant Asshole Catholic League's Bill Donahue and uber-winger/idiot Michelle Malkin, Edwards fired the two bloggers whom he just hired a week or so ago. Chris Bowers has a great rundown of why we should be mad as hell about this.

For the record, here are some good quotes from Donahue, from the above linked Media Matters piece, to give you an idea of who Edwards is looking to for support:

Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style.
***
Well, first they said it [The Passion of the Christ] was anti-Semitic. That didn't work. Then they said it was too violent. That didn't work. Then they said it was S & M. That didn't work. Then they said it was pornography. That didn't work. Now they're saying it's fascistic queer-bashing. That kind of language would ordinarily get somebody taken away in a straitjacket and -- put you in the asylum. I don't know what about -- the queer-bashing is all about. I'm pretty good about picking out who queers are and I didn't see any in the movie. I'm usually pretty good at that.
(Ed note: It takes one to know one, Mary)
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Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions
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There's nobody in the United States Senate who has a more radical voting record on abortion than John Kerry. He's never found an abortion that he couldn't justify. ...

And that's just a small taste of Donahue's ignorant idiocy.

Unlike Bowers, I will not reconsider the following: As of today I will not vote for John Edwards under ANY circumstances in the Democratic Primary.Edwards has shown himself to be both an idiot and a coward, and if I wanted a stupid chicken-shit in the white house I'd vote Republican. [I'll revise this last statement. If Edwards comes out and apologizes profusely for this screwup, states that he supports the bloggers unequivocally, and maybe fires the person who made this fantastically stupid move, than I might consider supporting him again....]

I just received an e-mail blast from John Edwards that is a good example of a candidate taking a strong stance on an issue of great importance to many Americans, and especially young Americans: Health Care. My favorite part is that he wasn't afraid to use the term that many beltway folks seem deathly afraid of: Universal Health Care. From the e-mail:

As you well know, the American health care system is broken for far too many of our families. Today, 47 million people are uninsured, while uncertainty grows and costs spiral for nearly everyone else. To fix this crisis, we don't need an incremental shift, we need a fundamental change.

So today, I'm proud to announce my plan to guarantee top quality health care to every man, woman and child in this great country.

Now, I do think that the plan sounds a little wishy washy, but hell, this is a complicated issue. But as someone who has been dealing with the fear and general unease of living without health care, I can say that this will be the #2 issue that I vote upon in the upcoming election (the environment, that system upon which all other systems depend, will always be numero uno), and the fact that Edwards has come out in front of this issue greatly increases the chances that I'll vote for him (unless Gore jumps in or someone comes out with a less wishy-washy plan), and I assume that many other active politicos might feel the same way.

The full e-mail, including the usual pitch for volunteers, is after the jump...

In their July/August issue, Utne explores the differences between how Conservatives and Progressives build their bench. It's an OK primer on how the Republicans fund/foster leadership programs for their young prospects, and how Progressives are playing catch-up (the real article to read here is My Right Wing Degree), but I'm not wild about some of the examples they used to depict young progressives. Particularly their focus on GreenCorps. Whether that says more about the depth of reporting or the state of young progressive leadership programs and those who attend them is debatable. And it probably should be debated.

But in writing this, I wanted to highlight one particularly troubling fact (emphasis mine):

"We do have more people [than the right] to draw from as raw material on college campuses," says David Halperin. But the Leadership Institute has a $9.4 million budget, and its Campus Leadership Program is expanding rapidly. Between September 2004 and May 2006 the number of conservative student groups it helped start grew from 216 to 731. This fall Blackwell will dispatch 60 field staff members across the country and expects to push that total to 1,000 groups by the end of the year. By contrast, Green Corps and Campus Progress each have fewer than 20 staffers and budgets of about $1.5 million.

To put it bluntly, this is bullshit. In 2004, over $200 million was poured into building progressive infrastructure for the election. Many of those groups, like America Coming Together, were mothballed after the election. Some are reemerging now that the election cycle is heating up, others disapeared for good. The amount of that money directed to "young voter programs" during that same period was probably somewhere around the vicinity of $6-8 million.

Despite the fact that many of these groups (Music for America, PunkVoter, Indyvoter, Young Voter Alliance, MoveOn Student Action) were started from scratch in late 2003 and early 2004, and most of the staff were political newbies, we were still able to increase turnout to record levels and young people were the only voting block in the country to swing for Kerry. That $6-8 million was clearly the best investment progressive funders made in the 2004 election cycle. So why are our "youth" groups struggling to find funding in these off years, and why aren't progressive funders working to correct the imbalance between the Right and the Left in building our respective benches? More after the jump.