Well it looks like Mike Mathews, Nancy Willing and some anon commenters at DWA are fixing to drag a group that I belong to through the mud. That’s fine. It is a free country.
But on the way to the beating that I will no doubt soon endure over at DWA at the hands of a few people who think everyone who disagrees with them “hates democracy” I thought I’d get a few facts out about Progressive Democrats for Delaware (PDD).
1) PDD grew out of the Delaware for Howard Dean Meetup. Once Howard Dean was defeated by Karl Rove, we decided a few things about keeping the group together and trying to have some small impact at a time when the President was collecting king-like powers for himself without a peep of protest issuing from the Democratic Party. Here are the main things we decided:
a. Progressive Democrats for Delaware is for Democrats. We are liberals, but we don’t want to join the Green Party. This rubs some people the wrong way, but our philosophical home is the Democratic Party. We think that the best way to get to the kind of government and society we deserve is by working through the Democratic Party. Hence our name.
b. We realize that the Democratic Party needs reforming and we are dedicated to reforming it from the inside. This really rubs some people the wrong way. By taking part in party politics we are less pure than some ivory tower liberals. We sully ourselves by dealing with unsavory characters like John Daniello and Tom Carper. We even endorsed (and some of us worked for) Dennis Spivack who won the Democratic Party’s primary soundly defeating the multi-party candidate Karen Hartley Nagle. That really really, rubbed some people the wrong way – because they thought Nagel was more liberal that Spivack. And why would a “progressive organization” endorse the less liberal person? (I don’t concede the point that Nagel is more liberal than Spivack, but see point a)
2) There is no 2. That is basically it. I think every thinking person who has lived through the Bush years decided at some point that they had to “do something.” For some, that something was moving to Canada. For a few, Bush’s reign of evil stupidity drove them to help Mike Castle by constantly beating up on Dennis Spivack. (I happen to regard that choice as misguided – but like I said it is a free country).
Anyway, for some others and me it was forming PDD. Do we still have a lot of work to do? Yes. Are we a front organization for regressive elements in the Democratic Party who want to keep the party “republican lite”?
If you believe that you are irredeemable.