As we head into summer, politicians and pundits are gearing up for the 2014 midterm elections. Already, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has unleashed an outrageous negative campaign ad, while CNN’s Julian Zelizer forays into the topic of “Why 2014 is the year to watch” by stating the obvious:

The midterm elections will be extraordinarily important for the composition of Congress. If Republicans can expand their numbers in the House and Senate, they might develop enough muscle to stifle Obama from accomplishing anything else. It could also be enough to put pressure on moderate Democrats to further undercut the legislative gains of the first term by enacting spending cuts and weakening the regulatory apparatus of programs like Dodd-Frank. On the other hand, if Democrats do well they can improve their standing in the House and place more pressure on Republicans to make compromises.

In 2012, progressives despaired of retaking the House of Representatives; wrung their hands about the GOP’s rigging elections with gerrymandering and tough voter ID laws; and focused on keeping the Senate and re-electing Barack Obama. Winning the 17 seats we need to take the House in 2014, and secure Obama’s legacy, also seems like a long shot. But it’s still possible, and looks even more possible with each passing day. Recent Gallup polls indicate that not only are Americans getting fed up with Republicans, but the country’s moving further left, politically. Even Obama sounded optimistic last week at a fundraiser in Chicago, and assured supporters that “we’ve got a great chance to take back the House.”

We do have a great chance to take back the House in 2014. Democratic strategist Mike Lux reminds us in The Huffington Post that we’ve triumphed against long odds before: In 1998, Democrats thought they’d lose 30 seats but instead gained five. 2006 looked equally bleak, but thanks to a surge in ‘Net Roots activist groups like MoveOn, the Democrats gained 31 seats and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) became Speaker of the House.

So, “Yes, we CAN” take back our government, as long as we: (1) Focus relentlessly on fairness; (2) Help voters get their IDs; and (3) Give every, single race everything we’ve got.

(1) Focus On Fairness

Despite all our faults as a nation, the ideal of fairness remains a deeply-held, core American value that strongly resonates with most of us. We can’t prevent conservatives from attacking our progressive positions on core issues as impractical, elitist, anti-business, anti-Christian, anti-freedom, or anti-rich. But we can stay on message and keep the public debate focussed on fairness … or lack thereof.

Even back in 2011, Princeton History and Public Affairs Professor Julian Zelizer believed Democrats could win the House this way. In his CNN commentary, he urged a “fairness campaign,” and wrote:

The most potent theme that the party has to offer is the issue of fairness. Democrats can claim that as Americans struggle to survive in this economy, the party has championed policies that aim to soften the blows voters are suffering and to provide support for the middle class in hard times.

Zeliger’s advice still holds true for 2014. The issues we face are complex and hard to fully understand — let alone explain in quotalicious 10-second soundbytes. But — as anyone who has ever spent time with a toddler realizes — most folks do “get” fairness from a very young age. The Democratic Party has a much better record on fairness than the GOP.

For example, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and her demands that we hold banks accountable for the 2008 economic melt-down seems to be playing well with the public. According to Rasmussen Reports, 56% of Americans believe bank bailouts were bad for the United States. The fact that both the Tea Party and Occupy movements villified the bailouts shows that most of us care about fairness. We just disagree on how to get there.

We need to get out there and convince our fellow Americans that all we value and hold dear — including family, freedom, religion, inventiveness, upward mobility, a strong work ethic, and the ol’ can-do entrepreneurial spirit — cannot exist without an underlying commitment to fairness.

(2) Help Voters Get Their ID’s

Ugh. The recent wave of voter ID laws are a huge blow to voter’s rights … and to the Democratic party. The majority of folks affected — low-income young adults, minorities, and senior citizens — tend to vote Democratic. Those of us who routinely flash our drivers’ license to write checks, use credit cards, and buy booze have no idea how hard it is for many folks to obtain this Holy Grail of personal identification. A significant number of people don’t even have birth certificates — the cornerstone to getting other forms of ID.

Corey Dade from NPR explains why many elderly folks lack birth certificates (things were different back then) and low income people of all ages often lack driver’s licenses (if your family and neighbors can’t afford to own cars, who’s going to teach you to drive and get you to the DMV?). Scott Keyes reports for Salon that three million people in Photo ID states lack the required identification, and 20 million lack photo IDs nation-wide. Yikes.

We SERIOUSLY need to get people, resources, and boots on the ground towards helping our fellow citizens get their voter ID’s squared away. Which means progressives who’ve been Living Blue in a Red State will need to step in. Keyes reports that concerned officials and individuals from affected states have already launched modestly successful efforts, but we have a long way to go.

The sort of widespread voter identification drive Keyes suggests would require the following steps:

Find out which states require voter IDs, and whether they require paper or photo IDs (Alas, the number seems to keep increasing). So far, it’s Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. Look up the “Voter ID Toolkit” for your state from the folks at 866OurVote.org. Here, you’ll find all sorts of resources, including links to PDF files for each voter ID state, with information on what IDs are required and how you can get them. Getting the newer and more stringent forms of ID’s will usually require first getting a birth certificate, a social security card, and proof of residence (a bank statement or utility bill usually suffices for the latter). Find out who needs voter IDs that meet the new requirements (through word-of-mouth, social media, houses of worship, and community groups), and then help them with the required research, logistics, paperwork, fees, and transportation. The biggest challenge will be addressing the needs of people for whom no birth certificate can be found (they’ll need an official letter of no record, which may require gathering other legal evidence of their existence), and those who are unable to obtain or renew their drivers’ license to fulfill the photo ID requirement (a passport, student ID, or state-issued ID can often suffice).

This all sounds daunting, but it’s totally doable … if we really want to win.

(3) Give Every Single Winnable Race Everything We’ve Got

Back to Michael Lux’s article in Huffington Post … he believed that we could take back the House back in 2014, and still believes the same is true in 2014. According to Lux, the Democratic Party did surprisingly well in 2012:

As many Democratic activists have pointed out, we actually won the overall votes in House races by the same 2 percent plus margin that Obama did, so redistricting dominated by Republican gerrymandering clearly played a big role in them holding on to the House. Democrats, though, are making a big mistake in attributing our failure solely to gerrymandering and essentially giving up on retaking the House the rest of this decade, as many pundits are suggesting. I remember the same points being made after the 2002 and 2004 failures to retake the House, and in 2006 and 2008 we not only retook the House but added considerably to the margin in 2008.

But we could have done a lot better, if we’d put a LOT more resources into winning congressional races. Instead, our efforts won Obama the presidency, but didn’t win enough House races to promote his agenda — or even encourage some compromise. Lux urges us to do better in 2014:

Most people and groups had given up on winning the House months ago and were spending their time, money, and brainpower on the presidential race and those marquee Senate races like Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, and Sherrod Brown. We need to create a Manhattan project for retaking the House with the best thinkers, biggest groups, and most influential donors in the party involved.

and;

Finally, we are going to need Team Obama to get involved in a major way. One of the few things I am critical about with the Obama campaign this time around was that they utterly ignored the House. Especially with Ryan on the ticket, they had a chance to run against not only Romney but against the Tea Party crazies controlling the House, which is the most unpopular brand in American politics. Had they done that, we might have been able to pick up a bunch more House seats. Obama needs to suit up and get into the game in House races this time around, raising money, using his vaunted field operation.

In concrete terms, this also means:

Staying on message: Don’t let the GOP shift the terms of public debate from important issues like the economy to time-wasting B.S. like more fake Obama “scandals.” Always use the most flattering terms for our positions, instead of the unflattering language GOP strategists have created (see “12 Phrases Progressives Need To Ditch – And What We Can Say Instead”). Keep spreading the word via social media and word of mouth, write letters to your local newspaper’s editor, and sign up with MoveOn to learn about more ways to get involved and help.

Don’t let the GOP shift the terms of public debate from important issues like the economy to time-wasting B.S. like more fake Obama “scandals.” Always use the most flattering terms for our positions, instead of the unflattering language GOP strategists have created (see “12 Phrases Progressives Need To Ditch – And What We Can Say Instead”). Keep spreading the word via social media and word of mouth, write letters to your local newspaper’s editor, and sign up with MoveOn to learn about more ways to get involved and help. Calling the media out on the B.S.: This doesn’t just mean ranting every time a Fox News “on-air personality” opens its mouth. Even media outlets like CNN and NPR — in their efforts to come across as fair and objective — engage in a practice called “false equivalence” which gives their audiences the inaccurate impression that both the Democrats and the Republicans are behaving unreasonably and refuse to compromise. In truth, it’s the Republicans who’ve been systematically abusing democratic processes to hold the government hostage, strangle our economic recovery, and repeatedly attempt to override the wishes and votes of the majority of Americans (see “The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Political Extremism”). The next time you hear supposed journalists talking that way, call them on it with a letter, email, phone call, or tweet. The next time someone gives you that “both parties suck” crap, you don’t need to argue with them: Just mention a policy or program they’re likely to support (meals on wheels for grandma and grandpa? Local military jobs? Benefits for veterans? HeadStart? Food stamps for kids?), and ask how these programs could have possibly been cut without the full support of a GOP-led house. Everyone knows danged well Democrats wouldn’t cut those programs.

This doesn’t just mean ranting every time a Fox News “on-air personality” opens its mouth. Even media outlets like CNN and NPR — in their efforts to come across as fair and objective — engage in a practice called “false equivalence” which gives their audiences the inaccurate impression that both the Democrats and the Republicans are behaving unreasonably and refuse to compromise. In truth, it’s the Republicans who’ve been systematically abusing democratic processes to hold the government hostage, strangle our economic recovery, and repeatedly attempt to override the wishes and votes of the majority of Americans (see “The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Political Extremism”). The next time you hear supposed journalists talking that way, call them on it with a letter, email, phone call, or tweet. The next time someone gives you that “both parties suck” crap, you don’t need to argue with them: Just mention a policy or program they’re likely to support (meals on wheels for grandma and grandpa? Local military jobs? Benefits for veterans? HeadStart? Food stamps for kids?), and ask how these programs could have possibly been cut without the full support of a GOP-led house. Everyone knows danged well Democrats wouldn’t cut those programs. Choosing candidates wisely: Committing fully to winning starts with choosing candidates wisely in the first place. In July, 2012, Molly Ball from The Atlantic acknowledged that winning the 25 seats we needed to take back the House was a long shot, but pointed out that the Democratic Party would have fared better if the Democratic National Committee had done a better job with selecting candidates. Amongst the DNC’s picks, one got called out for lying about serving in the Green Berets; three didn’t even get through the primaries; one quit; one had no connection with the newly-created district he sought to represent; another was being investigated for illicit campaign contributions; and even a supposed shoo-in stood accused of mismanaging his city during a term as mayor. As Ball so aptly puts it, in 2014, the DNC had better learn to play “error-free ball.”

And now, my dear progressive — dare I say liberal? — friends, it’s time to get to work.

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