(Tired of seeing yesterday’s election results misinterpreted? John’s piece makes it clear that with IRV in place, they won’t be. Essential reading. – promoted by michael horan)

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON TUESDAY?

Thanks to greenmassgroup for providing a counter to the spin that the defeat of Martha Coakley represents a sudden turn to the right by Massachusetts voters.  The reality is this:  The progressive voters who turned out in 2008 to endorse Barack Obama’s message of hope stayed home, or cast votes for Brown to protest the health care monstrosity that Congress is on the verge of passing.  Coakley’s defeat was a long overdue revolt of progressives against Democrats, not a sign of conversion to Republicanism.

This  view is backed up by a poll taken by Research 2000 which showed that 18 percent of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, supported Scott Brown in the Senate race.  Of that group an overwhelming majority – 82 percent – favored a public option health plan, while just 14 percent oppose it.  Of those who stayed home, 86 percent support a public option, while just seven percent oppose it.   They didn’t turn conservative.  They just turned against the Democrats.

WHY PROGRESSIVES ABANDONED THE DEMOCRATS

You can’t really blame progressives for being uninspired by the Coakley/Obama team. To see why, let’s do a roll call of key progressive issues:

Progressives who were against the war supported Obama in 2008, only to see Obama retain Bush’s Secretary of Defense,  launch a troop surge in Afghanistan, and go to Stockholm to sing the praises of preventive war.

Health care advocates who were working for single-payer health care had the door slammed in their face by the President when he brought his health care bill to Congress.  They saw him give ground at every opportunity, finally abandoning the “public option” and producing a health reform bill that locks in place the current failing system.  In an open letter to Obama, physicians advocating reform stated that “We have concluded that the Senate bill’s passage would bring more harm than good.”

Progressives who were for economic justice supported Obama in 2008, only to see him put Wall Street insiders in charge of his economic policies which consist mainly of bailouts and business-as-usual for the charlatans in the big banks.  Democrats watered down regulatory reforms, and as columnist Robert Kuttner observed “to the extent that the Treasury and the White House was working that bill, at all, they were working the wrong side.”

Environmentalists who see the need for urgent action on climate change saw Obama push a dangerously inadequate climate bill through Congress, loaded with gifts for the coal industry and major polluters.  James Hansen, the most prominent scientific voice on climate, said that the bill was “worse for the environment than doing nothing”.

Women who believe in reproductive rights were cheered by Coakley’s vow to get the anti-choice attachments out of the health care bill.  But after the primary, Coakley had a change of heart and said she could accept the offending sections after all.

The list could go on because  Obama has demonstrated a confounding disinterest in following through on a host of campaign promises, such as ending Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell,  passing the Employee Free Trade Act,  stopping mountaintop removals in Appalachia, and renegotiating NAFTA.

And after all this, Democrats fell back on the argument that progressives should vote for Coakley because the Republican was even worse.  That’s a form of political blackmail that has been used for too long.  And its just not working anymore.

So what are progressives to do?  Don’t expect a turnaround (Haven’t we had enough of this “hope” thing?)  As a result of Brown’s victory, we can expect the Democrats to lurch even further to the right in order to compete with the Republicans.  They are already talking about weakening health reform even further.  This is the deadly dance they’ve been acting out for the past twenty years. Progressives can expect to endure an unending series of insults from the Democratic Party’s “centrists” while the center drifts steadily right.

THE SOLUTION IS SIMPLE:  BE YOURSELF

Fortunately, there is a way out for progressives.

It’s time for progressives to show some backbone by kicking their addiction to a Democratic Party that has turned its back on them.  Progressives need to establish an independent progressive political party that stands to the left of the Democrats and counteracts their strategy of drifting to the right.  Progressive values need to be articulated by clean-money candidates, independent of the lobbyists and insiders, who are articulate in their arguments for peace, justice, a clean environment, and worker empowerment. Voters who are upset and angry at the many setbacks they are experiencing under a Democratic regime need to be offered something other than a right-wing alternative.  They need a green alternative.

And here’s a key part of the green strategy:  Once we can establish a strong green force in Massachusetts that begins to routinely take even 15%-20% of the vote, then the Democratic majority on Beacon Hill will be forced to enact instant runoff voting (IRV).  And that is the ultimate preventive medicine for the rightwing voter manipulation that elected Scott Brown.  Here’s why:

Imagine that a third party, the Green-Rainbow Party , had been active in the special senate election and that their clearly progressive candidate had succeeded in bringing to the polls the 15% or so of progressive voters who were uninspired by Coakley/Obama.  If the Green-Rainbow candidate had failed to be elected, their second-place votes would have gone mostly to Coakley.  Scott Brown would have been defeated handily, and the pundits would be saying that progressive politics was alive and well in Massachusetts.

The rebirth of progressivism requires only that progressives stop accepting excuses from a party that has sold them out and start supporting a party that they can trust.  In Massachusetts,  the Green-Rainbow Party is poised to be the vehicle for giving progressives their voice.  Forget the despair – a new day for progressives is about to dawn.