Democrats Need More Progressive Candidates for Congress
It would be great for the American electorate if the Senate and the House had more members in the mold of one of the candidates for Rahm Emanuel's district seat from the Chicago, Thomas Geoghgan, a fighter for working people.
Unfortunately, many unions plan to cut off their nose to spite their face.
As David Moberg writes at In These Times: "Illinois politics has produced its fair share of progressive intellectual leaders, including Barack Obama, former Sen. Paul Douglas, Adlai Stevenson, Rep. Abner Mikva, and bookish Mayor Harold Washington. But it’s best known for tough, often shady operators with strong organizational loyalties and few ideas, such as the two Mayor Daleys, former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, and a host of minor, forgettable organizational hacks, whose success was dictated by the old Democratic machine maxim: 'Don’t send nobody, nobody sent.'
"On Tuesday, Democratic primary voters face a choice for a new U.S. Representative in Rostenkowski’s old district—recently vacated by Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel—between a brilliant independent progressive intellectual and a handful of legislators with strong organizational links, a veneer of independence, and little indication of profound progressive commitment or intellectual imagination.
"The intellectual in the race is Tom Geoghegan (pronounced “gay-gun”), a crusading lawyer for working people and ordinary citizens, a quirkily independent thinker, and a brilliant writer (a contributor to many publications, including In These Times, but also author of several acclaimed books, including Which Side Are You On? Trying to Be For Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back).
"The leading organizational candidates in the district that stretches westward from Chicago’s north lakefront through mixed ethnic working-class neighborhoods to middle-income suburbs are state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, state Sen. John Fritchey, and Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley.
"Geoghegan, on the other hand, is a bold thinker, inspired by what European social democratic parties and unions have accomplished and unapologetic about the role of government in promoting social solidarity and protecting ordinary citizens. To take only one example: At a time when even some Democrats talk about “entitlement reform” that involves cutting Social Security benefits, Geoghegan argues for increasing them. He points out that public pensions in most western European countries provide, on average, between 65-70 percent of working income, while Social Security provides not even 40 percent.
"For a novice candidate, Geoghegan has done surprisingly well raising money. He has raised about $250,000 compared to $650,000 (plus a $100,000 loan) for front-runner Feigenholtz.
"Can a brainy, creative, progressive candidate parlay volunteer workers and a web-fueled campaign into victory over better-known, better-funded, organizationally based conventional Chicago Democrats? The odds are definitely against him, but the odds were also against Obama in his Senate race four years ago."
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