When progressives attack Super PACs, are we saying average voters are too stupid to make up their own minds when faced with these ads? So what are progressives to do? Think about the campaign against smoking.

Welcome to episode 9 of Progressive Way

The opening clip is from a 1970’s era PSA by the American Lung Association. An anti-smoking meme to frame this podcast, and one that betrays your age if you remember the spot.

It has been a while since I’ve posted on Progressive Way. The road to hell is paved with podcast intentions, at least for me.

But for elections, progressives see Hell’s road as paved with Citizens United and Super PACs, a biblical locust plague of money moving through our primaries and soon general elections, eating democracy in its path. Corporate money is the villain, bending public opinion and election results to its will.

My problem with this view is that it betrays bias and ineffectiveness in progressive thought as much as it critiques our elections. The question progressives never answer is –how does this money do anything bad? Is Super PAC spending really moving anyone to think or vote differently?

When progressives attack Super PACs, are we saying average voters are too stupid to make up their own minds when faced with these ads? The wider electorate, I fear, sense condescension more than genuine concern in what we say, if they hear our concerns at all. According to Pew Research Center, only half of voters are aware of Citizens United.

So what are progressives to do?

William Klein, my co-conspirator campaign manager behind the Murray Hill Incorporated for Congress campaign pointed out the only sustained public opinion campaign that truly changed behavior in the United States was the campaign against smoking. This notion has stuck with me for a few weeks. Think about the campaign against smoking. It started the details about what smoking did to smokers, the lung cancer and heart disease. But the real change in opinion, and laws against smoking in public, really took off with the notion of second-hand smoke.

You can choose to kill yourself with smoking, but don’t kill me.

Progressives would benefit from mediating on Citizens United, not as a public policy problem, but as a public health problem. How does this money and the resulting ads effect political health? How do these ads create second-hand smoke-filled rooms that injure democracy? Then, we can form an approach that interferes with the consumption of SuperPac ads and minimizes their influence.

Voters do not like being told that any speech is bad for them, which is what progressives have done attacking the wealth behind the speech, and not crediting voters with the intelligence to make their own decisions   But progressives know this money is inherently damaging to the democratic process. So how can we move voters to doubt these ads and fight their existence? Here are some second hand smoke perspectives on this problem.

Super PAC ads are overwhelmingly negative. It is a fact that negative ads do not change minds, so much as they discourage people from voting. A Super PAC ad targeting Obama or Romney is really meant to decrease the likelihood of supporters turning out to vote. So, Mr. Voter, you are smart enough to see through these ads, but they do keep people–voters who would vote for your candidate–away from voting.

Another direction, one of equal access. The rush of huge sums of money, no matter how genuine the speech is, crowds out other voices. It literally drives up the cost of reaching voters when advertising prices are inflated by such a large demand. How can the average candidate compete with adverting budgets the size of Walmart’s?

Now, no matter the direction, Progressives need to make a better case that respects voters if we are to change attitudes towards corporate spending in politics.

The campaign against smoking would not have worked if it had simply talked about bad tobacco  corporations. A case had to be ma[...]

Terry begins the interview with a description of her family and why she started, stopped, then resumed her political activism after a 20 year break,  She then talks about how she found a home with NOW, the similarities and relationship between the women’s and progressive movements, and ends with what progressive means to her.

More information about Terry is at http://www.now.org/officers/to.html.

Paul Lemmon is the classic labor organizer, the mix of agitator and educator key to the success of unions in America. Through a decades-long career with the United Mine Workers to his recent retirement from the AFL-CIO as assistant to its President Rich Trumka, Paul has labored to ensure the message of economic equality is heard on the job and at the ballot box.

Paul starts with his family and early experiences that shaped his views. He then moves to the central role economic equality has for his progressive ideals. He concludes with how labor has worked with other social movements and what unions bring to the struggle for progressive values in America.

Listening to the American political conversation is not a clear flip through digital channels, it is more like tuning in a radio. You need to pay attention and hear where the signal breaks through the noise.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press recently released new political typology research describing eight places on the American political dial according to our attitudes towards public policies today. Doctor Michael Dimock describes where we fall on a right to left range of political frequencies, then moves to unexpected attitudes concerning wall street and closes with what being independent really means in America today.

After the interview, Michael shared with me recent research on political rhetoric, showing that that over two-thirds of us have positive attitudes towards the term progressive. To be exact, 59% of republicans, 81% of democrats and 64% of independents found the term favorable.

The Pew typology shows a complicated landscape, but I say it points a way to building coalitions, if we step away from the red and blue color wheel of politics and listen to what people care about.

John Halpin is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the American Progress where he is the co-director and creator of its Progressive Studies Program. The progressive era is the topic of the podcast–the time from 1890’s to the 1920s where progressivism as a political party and movement reached a high water mark.

John talks first about the history of the progressive movement. Then the difference between progressive and liberalism and how progressives identify and find solutions to problems of the day. Finally he moves to the ultimate goals of the progressive movement and how its work 100 years ago is relevant to political life today.

Celinda Lake is a leading pollster for the Progressive Democratic community in America. With over three decades in the field, she has learned a great deal about American voters and how we respond to progressive ideals.

Our conversation with Celinda starts as we have before, with her history– from her growing up as a Montana republican to the democrat we know today. Then we talk about the common mistakes the progressive community makes in campaigns. Finally we close with where the public is today and how receptive many people are to the progressive message.

For mainlanders, islands are about getting away. But there is another lesson about island life–one of community and having to find ways to work together with neighbors to identify priorities and do what needs to be done to ensure a community thrives.

Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, a vice-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, spent her adult life on an island of just 350 people.

She uses the story of living on an island to explain her approach to politics and to illustrate a practical perspective on progressive issues. For this conversation, you will hear her definition of progressive, thoughts on her life from a teen in Minneapolis to a congresswoman from Maine, a story about the importance of health care to islanders and final comments on what values are important to progressives in America.

In a series about being progressive in America, it made sense to start our interviews with Representative Raul Grijalva, co-chair of the 75 member Progressive Caucus in the U.S. Congress.

We are the history we’ve lived through. Our life experiences, particularly work experiences, introduce us to the world, give us our guideposts for how to live a political life.  So our conversation starts with his first jobs and the people he met along the way who were important to his political development. Then the conversation turns to progressive values.

For more information about Representative Grijalva, follow this link.