Training the Left to Win

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Since framing has become a frequent talking point among progressives on the frontlines, and there is less sheepishness today about playing practical issues for political advantage, Williams returned from her reconnaissance mission hopeful that activists on the left are well positioned to match the right's strategic sophistication. The institute's sheer capacity, financially and in terms of class size, remain a concern, however. And competing on that front promises to remain a struggle.

?'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.

Over the past 30 years, one of the major reasons for this financial imbalance has been the right's willingness (and the left's unwillingness) to dive headlong into partisan politics. (It helps as well that big business is on their side.) At the Campaign School, for instance, the main focus is on getting Republicans elected. That's why 'all of the trainers,' according to Williams, 'are Republican political consultants. All of the case studies are from Republican campaigns.' And most of the students are Republican candidates or campaign staffers, she says.

Democrats raised record amounts in 2004, from both wealthy donors like billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis, and hundreds of thousands of small individual contributors. Still, considering the right wing's ideological support for smaller government, lower taxes, and a large military budget, progressives may never match conservatives' fund-raising prowess.

What the left lacks in access to money it may be able to make up for in people. Significantly more voters are registered Democrats than Republicans, and polls consistently show that a solid majority of Americans support progressive policies-from energy to education, foreign policy to the environment. Still, if progressives want to win at the polls they have to take their gloves off. 'When you fight it makes you stronger,' said MoveOn.org president Wes Boyd in 2004, urging Democratic candidates to campaign more aggressively. There are signs that this message is finally sinking in, and an outfit in Minnesota is leading the way.

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