A new progressive party forming in NC?

[mmonk]

North Carolina First is billed as a progressive alternative for voters upset with the status quo in Washington. About 100 canvassers are circulating petitions to get the party on the ballot.

Spokesman Greg Rideout said they have about 10,000 of the 80,000 or so required signatures. He described the effort as an alternative for disgruntled progressives.

"We're going to have a place to go if they don't think they're getting their voice heard by either major party," he said. "(Washington) seems to only work for lobbyists and special interests, and in the meantime folks who want to be heard are not being heard."

The effort is backed by labor groups including the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).



Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/04/11/1369680/the-source-inside-carolina-politics.html#ixzz0kqwV9RVi

Wonder if this will start registering with elected Democrats that maybe they need to move a little left?

[RKP5637]

1. I sure wish we had the old dem party back from a long time ago. Sometimes

trying to be all things to all people gets you nowhere IMO.

[mmonk]

3. Me too.

People that even tend to be conservative don't respect someone that tries to please everyone. I think people respect convictions on informed postions more.

[LakeSamish706]

2. I so agree with this and I hope that other States follow the lead. The current

DNC is moving to center at best and to the right at the worst. We need something that takes us back to the Left where we should be as Democrats.

[Gman]

4. Just in time to run the train off the track and into the canyon

just like "progressives" did in 2000 and gave us Bush.

[mmonk]

5. You can still believe that if you want.

I think it was about bullying and shenanigans in Florida with the recount myself.

[Greyhound]

16. And Raygun save the nation...

:eyes:
This asinine meme has been shown as the complete lie that it is hundreds of times here and thousands of times elsewhere, yet you persist in repeating this bald-faced lie over and over. So how are you any different than the Backzis or the teabaggers?

[ccharles000]

6. I don't think this will help anything.

NC dems need all the votes they can get. If this goes anywhere they will do nothing but take votes from North Carolina Democrats and help put repubs into office.

[salguine]

27. It doesn't matter if "NC dems need all the votes they can get". Voters have seen that

when they vote for Democrats, they get fucked over. They're fed up with it. What this shows is that people are finally starting to come around to the fact that, a few heroic principled individuals notwithstanding, the Democratic Party has utterly abandoned the People and is no more interested in their concerns than the Republicans are. The People are doing something about it. Who can blame them? I think it's great. Hemorrhaging voters to the point where they can't win elections is the only thing that will get the Democratic Party's attention.

And let's stop once and for all with this stupid "take votes from North Carolina Democrats and help put repubs into office" crap. We've been through this for years with Nader. What could be more arrogant than just assuming that those votes somehow belong to Democrats? The sense of unearned entitlement is just breathtaking. News flash: THEY DON'T OWN THOSE VOTES. The Democrats have to work for, and earn, those votes just like anyone else. If they want people to vote for them, they'd better start giving people reasons to vote for them. For quite some time now all they've given people are reasons to STOP voting for them.

Right now progressive voters—hell, even plain old liberal voters—have spent too much time, in this relationship with the Democratic Party, like long-abused spouses who are simply unable to get up and leave. This dysfunctional relationship has finally reached the point where a lot of those spouses are finally starting to walk out. It's really kind of hard for me to get upset about that, because I can't help but feel happy for anyone who finally stands up for themselves and decides they're tired of being used and taken advantage of, only to be betrayed at every turn.

Good for North Carolina. If it costs the Democrats a few elections, maybe they'll wake the fuck up. If they don't start to do some soul-searching soon and purge the corporatists and DLCers from the Party, I really don't care if they go the way of the Whigs and Know-Nothings, for all the good they do anymore.

[JI7]

7. yeah, Democrats can only win in North Carolina if they move left

[LakeSamish706]

8. They better move left because many progressives are getting fed up

with the kiss ass toward the Repugs. I have not tolerance for the Repugs. , period. Obama needs to start ignoring these Aholes.

[mmonk]

10. NC went Democratic for the presidency for the first time since

Carter. It went for Obama. I don't think it went that way because everyone thought Obama was conservative. The legislature and Governor have been Democratic for a long time. So I think Democratic voters are getting fed up, even in NC.

[onehandle]

9. Nader 2012!

Yeah. Go hard left here in the South.

Make President Bachmann happy.

[katanalori]

12. That's VICE-President Bachman to you!

wink wink from scarah palin.

[mitchtv]

11. who's funding this?

that's a republic trick

[mmonk]

13. Yeah, the SEANC and the SEIU are Republicans.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. The SEIU is a Republican front?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[struggle4progress]

15. We don't need another party: we need people taking grassroots activisjm seriously

Work on some local issues. Build some phone trees and mailing lists. Find out who can do the work and push those folks onto city councils. Rinse and repeat. Now push some of your city council friends into the General Assembly. Rinse and repeat. Put some of your legislative heroes in the Council of State. Rinse and repeat. Shove some Council of State folk into Congress

Get in the process early and work for the long haul. Work hard to push smart progressive from a local community up to DC over a few years and like as not they'll remember who their friends are

[mmonk]

17. I've been doing that for years.

I've voted on the state's party platforms at the various conventions also only to, in many cases, see the platform be ignored when they get into office (pressure from the top down I guess). What I'm wondering is if this effort currently underway will sway elected party members to remember.

[Jim Lane]

18. And, yet again, none of the third-party enthusiasts wants to acknowledge that ugly word "primaries"

If you have enough votes to elect a North Carolina First party candidate, then you have enough votes to run that candidate in the Democratic primary and win the Democratic nomination. It doesn't work the other way, though. Given the millions of voters who have an institutional loyalty to the Democratic Party, and who will strongly tend to vote Democratic, it's eminently possible that a progressive running on a third-party line would lose, but would have won if running as the Democrat.

Please don't tell me that IRV will cure this problem. We will not have IRV on a major scale anytime soon (nor am I sure that we should -- it has its own problems).

Primaries came from the push for democratization. Reformers fought hard for decades to have candidates selected by the voters, in primaries, rather than by party bosses in a smoke-filled room. Why are some progressives today so willing to toss that aside?

[mmonk]

19. Probably because the party has tossed aside the coalition

that held it together. After awhile, people get the picture.

[Jim Lane]

31. If "people get the picture" as you say, then they can CHANGE the picture.

The current Democratic Party public officials, candidates, and party leaders aren't ensconced for life. Any and all of them can be removed if the votes are there.

And if the votes aren't there, then the third party won't elect anyone (except, of course, Republicans).

[WeDidIt]

20. I wonder how much money the RNC is giving them.

That's par for the course when the GOP feels threatened in one of their strongholds. They split the Democratic vote.

[mmonk]

21. As much as the DNC is giving the Tea Party.

[NNN0LHI]

22. Do you do even the minimal amount of research before you post this kind of crap monk?

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/04/09/seiu-launches-a-third-party-to-challenge-the-democrats-except-of-course-that-they-didnt

SEIU Launches A Third Party To Challenge the Democrats! Except of Course That They Didn't.

Posted by Jake Blumgart on Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 1:22 PM
Those Sloggers keeping tabs on Talking Points Memo over the last couple days, may have seen a potentially exciting news blurb: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation’s largest, most powerful labor union, is forming a third party (yay!), in North Carolina (um, what?). Over at Greg Sargent blog Plum Line, a headline entry trumpets “It’s War: SEIU Launches Third Party in North Carolina”. TPM speculates that the nascent North Carolina First Party may be an attempt to unseat recalcitrant House Dems who voted against healthcare reform (NC is home to three of them).

This struck me as a little strange for a number of reasons. First, SEIU isn’t exactly in the habit of attacking Democrats. Their president, Andy Stern, is closer to the Obama Administration than any one else in the movement, not a guy who is trying to mess with the Dems’ game. Second, if SEIU was to start an alternative left-wing party, why on earth would they form a labor party in the state with the lowest unionization rate in the country (3.1 percent)?

The answer is: they didn’t. Or the international union didn’t anyway. (I have called SEIU’s international offices in DC multiple times to no avail.) I called around to a couple of my old North Carolina contacts, who told me that this isn’t alternative party isn't going anywhere. According to one North Carolina labor activist, who prefers to remain anonymous, the North Carolina First party is a simple publicity stunt by a local union leader who wants to stir up some shit.

I won’t go into too much detail, as I doubt that NC union politics are of much interest to Slog readers, but the details are beneath the jump.

Until two years ago SEIU didn’t have much of a presence in North Carolina. Then they affiliated with the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC), a 50,000 member quasi-union (NC state employees can’t collectively bargain), thus giving SEIU a foothold in the state and a nice bump in the international’s membership numbers. (But the NC state employees aren’t union members in the traditional sense—they still can’t collectively bargain, they pay minimal dues, and get minimal benefits.) Other than giving SEIU larger membership rolls, the deal’s primary result was giving the SEANC president, Dana Cope, a bigger platform and a chance to use the SEIU brand. (SEANC also did not respond to my phone calls.)

[mmonk]

23. No, I never do.

http://ncfirstparty.org/

[NNN0LHI]

24. Probably be a good idea if you did

Any idiot can start a website.

Don

[mmonk]

25. While that's true, there are a lot of folks out there that don't "research" including

the Huffington Post, Blue NC, Alternet, etc. The group in question is looking to primary Blue Dogs. They are also looking at ballot access in case primarying doesn't work.

[mmonk]

29. You need to set WRAL TV and the associated press straight as well.

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/7391519/

[Odin2005]

26. Good. The DLC scumbags need their rears kicked!

[NorthCarolina]

28. Any truly Liberal/Progressive candidates presented to me on a ballot

will get my vote.

[Echo In Light]

30. k/r