The Hill

DENVER -- If Democrats are looking for clues on how to recover from their Election Day debacle, Colorado and Montana would appear, at first glance, to be among the most unlikely places to find them.

But Democratic successes in both of these Rocky Mountain states may hold some answers for party chieftains as they try to dig out from under the wreckage of Nov. 2…

[John Andrews, president of the Colorado Senate,] concluded that it “was motivation above all” that gave Democrats the edge. “Democrats were hungry from decades in the political wilderness. Republicans were complacent and soft ...   more »

(But David Sirota was a campaign aide for Schweitzer, and he disagrees that his candidate campaigned as a centrist—he campaigned as a populist.)

There aren't too many states in the union redder than Montana…

But in November, a Democrat, Brian Schweitzer, won the state's race for governor. Schweitzer not only won, but he also won decisively, beating his opponent Bob Brown, the Republican secretary of state and a two-decade fixture in Montana politics, by a solid four points. His victory was so resounding and provided down-ballot party members such strong coattails that Montana Democrats took the state senate and ...   more »

The ongoing debate in the AFL-CIO about the future direction of labor and how it is going to survive will be limited unless it includes the issue of a labor media strategy that involves all forms of media and how to use it in the battles against union busting multi-nationals and the governments they control.

After spending over $200 million dollar on the this year's election cycle, the AFL-CIO and its affiliates have nothing concrete to show for it. It has no labor tv channel, no labor radio station, no national labor newspaper and no plan on how to challenge ...   more »

Until a majority of progressive activists and intellectual opinion-makers drop the delusions and cop to the fact that we are playing in a game intentionally and adroitly rigged against us, we will not win, we will not govern, we will not be prepared to govern, because we will not deserve to govern.

As the Bush Machine rolls on -- through Orwellian "Patriot" Acts, Intelligence "Reforms" and "Clear Skies" Initiatives, adding treason to treason, felony to felony, unconstitutional domestic acts to violations of international law, "crimes against all humankind" to crimes against the biosphere; as it authorizes torture, domestic surveillance, and ...   more »

… If the Ohio situation shows anything, it is how lazy, harried, dilettantish, variable, confusing, and sometimes even arbitrary election administration can be in the United States of America… The confusion advantages the more ruthless party, the Republicans: They are willing, as in Florida in 2000, to proclaim victory before all the votes have been counted—taking advantage of the American need for the election to be done with on election night—and to make those who protest sound like whiners, wreckers, or extremists…

If everyone in the country voted under the same rules of residency and eligibility, their votes counted ...   more »

The mobilization to defeat George W. Bush was innovative, passionate ... and ultimately insufficient. But its fusion of movement and machine could yet transform the political landscape.

Todd Gitlin
Mother Jones

A hundred years ago Scranton was not only a steel center, but the hard-coal capital of the world. But the county had been hemorrhaging jobs long before "outsourcing" became a cliché, and it still is -- 2,300 people were thrown out of work in just one month last year, according to one estimate. Scranton is now a city of old people, a place that's lost one-sixth of its population ...   more »