Bill Moyer's speech to the Take Back America Conference (PDF)
Take Back America Conference
June 4, 2003
"You are the heirs of one of the country's great traditions -- the progressive movement... Progressives exalted and extended the original American revolution. They spelled out new terms of partnership between the people and their rulers. And they kindled a flame that lit some of the most prosperous decades in modern history, not only here, but in aspiring democracies everywhere, especially those of Western Europe... This is your story, the progressive story of America. Pass it on."
Robert Reich -
The Dead Center (PDF)
The New York Times
January 29, 2004
"Democrats have seen what the Republicans have been able to accomplish over the years. The conservative movement has developed dedicated sources of money, and legions of ground troops who not only get out the vote, but also spend the time between elections persuading others to join their ranks... In contrast, the Democratic Party has had no analogous movement to animate it... Self-styled Democratic centrists, like those who inhabit the Democratic Leadership Council, attribute the party's difficulties to a failure to respond to an electorate grown more conservative, upscale and suburban. This is nonsense."
Joel Rogers - Devolve This!
The Nation
August 12, 2004
In American politics, who controls the states controls the nation. The right understands this, and for a generation has waged an unrelenting war to take over state government in America. It has substantially succeeded, in large part because it hasn't faced any serious progressive countereffort. Despite the visibility of the right's advance, and the decades of devolution and economic decentralization that have made states hugely important sites of politics, progressives haven't made one.
Frederick Clarkson - Takin' It to the States: the Rise of Conservative State-Level Think Tanks (PDF)
The Public Eye
Summer/Fall 1999
Epitomizing the hidden strength of the Right, are a growing number of well funded state level think tanks. Two networks of these think tanks have been growing for a decade, far from the glare of national media attention. Acting largely as arms of the Republican Party, they are advancing policies at the state level, that the Right has been unable to achieve in Washington.
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