Reply #5: it's actually a good piece

[asphalt.jungle]

I'm pragmatic and believe in taking your victories where you can get them, but progressives shouldn't be funding blue dogs who are going to end up trying to derail their objectives. I find the story of the Florida progressive that got 43% of the vote against the republican especially galling. the republican who won retires and instead of supporting the guy who got 43% of the vote, they back a new blue dog who is running against the democratic platform.

Anyway, back to being pragmatic and all that, this quote from Congressman Grijalva nails how I feel about the whole political process:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/08/power-struggle-inside-the_n_529884.html?page=8

Like the resident of the White House, Grijalva began as a community organizer, the type of experience that teaches much about how power operates and the art of a specific kind of compromise. "I'm very proud of being a progressive, but I'm also a pragmatist," Grijalva says. "I understand that you take your victory and you build on it. And I think sometimes we on the left tend to think an issue to death as opposed to do an issue. We learned that through the civil rights movement, the farm workers movement, how you get this contract and you work on it. Community organizing, OK, you get the street lights in the neighborhood, then you move to the bigger things: the schools, no health services. But you give everybody a taste of what a victory feels like, and then you get much more help after that."'