Submitted by pda_ill_admin on Wed, 06/04/2008 - 10:17

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"Progressives Need to Think Strategically"

At the 2nd annual Progressive Festival of Illinois held at the Marvel-Davis Farm in Kendall county, heart of Dennis Hastert's 14th IL congressional district, John Laesch talked about how to grow the progressive movement in Northern Illinois. After noting some modest successes in local elections, John identified three strategic issues for growing the progressive movement:

1. Building alliances among progressives. Too often progressives groups are not moving together on issues or in elections. We need to build better alliances among partners so progressives can speak with one voice on issues and get behind one candidate in an election.
2. Vetting candidates. Labor continues to support DCCC candidates who don't support labor or support it in weak ways. Progressive candidates probably cannot count on labor support. Will have court individual labor leaders.
3. Defining ourselves. John advocates that progressive candidates should think hard about how to frame issues. For example:
   • Politics of Hope Vs Republican politics of fear
   • Health care for people instead of healthcare for profits.

During the Q and A period following, Christine Cegelis said that she believes she could have won her primary battle against Tammy Duckworth if she had better organization in the Cook County area of her district. In Cook County the regular Democratic party worked against Cegelis and for Duckworth.

Also debated was the role of money vs Grassroots organizing. The consensus was that strong grassroots organization and moderate amounts of money will beat a lot of money and weak grassroots.