*People Power* Beat Big Money in Chicago - Lessons for Progressives

[RiverLover]

People Power Beat Big Money in Chicago


Rahm Emanuel, with his $30 million war chest, may have been the headline in the build-up to Chicago's municipal election, but the real story in Chicago on Tuesday happened in neighborhoods.

Here are the top lessons for populist progressives across the country:

Lesson 1: People power can beat big money.

Big-monied interests spent $8,168,898 to try and re-elect the Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the aldermen that routinely rubber stamp his agenda. Even flush with all that cash to spend on mailers and TV ads, they failed to defeat a single sitting progressive alderman....

Lesson 2: Organizing works.

When neighbors talk to neighbors, progressives win. Reclaim Chicago volunteers put in more than 4,980 hours and reached out to 58,773 voters over the last four months. These volunteers didn't just give voters a canned pitch on the candidates. They started by asking voters what issues they cared about....

Lesson 3: Progressives with a bold platform can win.

....Each and every Reclaim Chicago candidate pledged: "With your support and agitation, I will fight for our shared vision." Then they ran on that vision, and won.

Lesson 4: A new candidate pipeline is in motion.

Coming out of the 2014 midterms, progressive populists bemoaned the tepid and unambitious agenda of many Democratic candidates. The good news is that a new pipeline of candidates is being built -- candidates who will stand up to abusive corporations and fight for racial and gender justice....

*****************

...A new movement to put everyday people first is rising across the country.

Cynics said Rahm and his cronies on the City Council could not be beat.

Plutocrats spent millions trying to make sure they were right.

A group of dedicated grassroots activists just proved that they were wrong.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-goehl/people-power-beat-big-mon_b_6764394.html

If we organize like Chicago, all across the country, we can bring Democrats back to being Democrats!!!

I love this story. Thank you Chicago Progressives!!!

(Xposted in Populist Reform of the Democratic Party Group.)

[CanonRay]

1. If we just get people off their asses

and to the polls, we could change this country in two election cycles.

[RiverLover]

2. The people in Chicago got off their asses & voted for a "Democrat"...and got Rahm

A Democrat in name but not actions.

[Faux pas]

3. Kickin'

[RiverLover]

7. Thanks! nt

[aspirant]

4. The Daley dynasty

handing over to the Rahm dynasty, not looking to good.

[RiverLover]

8. No, it isn't. And more info from today's Salon article~

by Bill Curry

...In 1995 I came to work in the Clinton White House and for a time dealt with Rahm on a daily basis. For a White House staffer he seemed strangely inarticulate. (It may explain some, though obviously not all, of the profanity.) When he spoke it was almost always about tactics; almost never about policy.

Two things about him stood out. One was the contempt he heaped on unions and liberals. I thought if he were ever caught on tape it would seriously damage the president and be the end of Rahm. Some later claimed to regard these rants as performance art but even at close range they seemed real enough to me. In any case I never heard him say an unkind word about the rich.

Most striking was the viciousness of his personal attacks, often over trivial things. He famously sent a pollster a dead fish wrapped in a newspaper— in lore a mafia death notice— for being late with a report.

...In Congress he hewed right on economic and fiscal policy and was a hawk on defense. As Obama’s chief of staff he purged Clinton-era liberals, which resulted in a team of economic advisers more conservative than that of any Democratic president since Grover Cleveland. Whether following their advice or his own instincts, Obama ditched ethics reform, aid to homeowners with bad mortgages, a minimum wage hike and the public option; a disastrous set of choices from which he never fully recovered.

Through it all Rahm cultivated his image as a ruthless operative. By the time he got to be mayor of Chicago he was the Keyser Soze of the Democratic Party, shrouded in legend, a guy who if you crossed him would slit your throat as you slept. It was a reputation he relished....

...The race confuses Washington. It’s a colorless town and for years Rahm was its most colorful figure, a source not just of news but of dark comic relief. Reporters imbibe the views of politicians who think the rules of the game immutable. This week even the astute E.J. Dionne compared Rahm to Bill de Blasio, “a hero to progressives,” calling it “mildly ironic” that “left of center voters” would give Rahm such a hard time.

Many progressives don’t get it either. If you put them all on Sodium Pentothal and asked if grass-roots politics can still beat big money, my hunch is they’d say no. Many pray the party will reform itself. Obama’s late awakening fans that flame. But if you want to know how likely that is, peruse the numbingly vacant report the DNC issued last week allegedly laying out its vision. Frederick Douglass said it best. Power concedes nothing without a demand.

On April 7 pay-to-play politics goes on trial in Chicago. The voters will be the judges. Crowell says holding Rahm accountable was a victory in itself, but she knows now it’s a fight they can win. For sure it’s an uphill climb, but then just last week it was impossible.

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/01/rahm_emanuels_moment_of_reckoning_how_he_ended_up_in_a_fight_for_his_political_life/

We have to kick this dirty rethug to the curb. Then follow it with kicking the rest of the rethugs who've infiltrated the Democratic party OUT. We just have to demand it.

[Quantess]

5. K & R

[RiverLover]

6. Thanks for the kick! nt

[WillyT]

9. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!