This began as a comment to el duderino’s post calling for us to move away from Democrats and toward other parties. It got so long it morphed into a post of its own.

There is a simple truth that the healthcare debate revealed and that is there is not a single Democrat in Congress or in this Administration who was willing to stand up for the compromise progressive position of the public option. Not one. Not Kucinich, Grijalva, Woolsey, Bennett, not even the independent Bernie Sanders. Not one. And let’s be clear. The public option in so far as it was ever defined at all had by the time of its demise become a small uncompetitive program, a highly dubious stepping stone to future reform. And the reason it became so weak was precisely because these same Democrats dodged like crazy putting forward, defining, and fighting for a real "robust" public option.

So when some say they would think about voting for a strong non-Democratic progressive, unless a progressive Democrat is in the race, know this: there are no such Democrats. There are some who will call themselves this. They will come here, engage in a little cheerleading, take a few checks, but when it comes to the vote, they never heard of us. We have seen this again and again.

But the failures of Democratic "progressives" go far beyond this. I am reminded of Sherlock Holmes’ observation about the dog that didn’t bark. If the so-called progressives in the House had stuck together on healthcare they could have made a difference. We could argue about how often such opposition would work and produce a change. But when you think about all the disasters, criminality, and constitutional excesses of the Bush years and how Obama has shown again and again his firm intention to continue and expand them, where is the progressive outrage? I hear no barking. Even if they can’t win on a single vote, we should still hear their voices, but we don’t. Oh sure, we get sporadic speeches in the House and Senate from time to time but where are the members willing to lead a protest outside the White House or down Wall Street? How many will march to the Pentagon to demand that Gates explain the folly of Obama’s wars or put on a street trial of the banksters in front of the Treasury. Timothy Geithner come on down! Explain why you are in bed with the crooks.

Democrats neither bark nor bite. The question that everyone here has to ask himself or herself is do the Democrats represent you. Not that they might represent you or could represent you but are they representing you. My view is that they are not. Not on healthcare, jobs, financial reform, foreclosures, not on Medicare or Social Security, not on the wars, the Constitution, or the rule of law. Put simply, Democrats have shown exactly zero interest in representing us, so it is about time we begin to look for those who will. That is the logic of the situation. You can reply with voting for the lesser of two evils and more and better Democrats, but we have tried these, and they haven’t worked. And I do not mean they haven’t worked a little. They haven’t worked at all. Just look at healthcare. That was the Democratic party and its "progressive" Democrats in action.

Parties don’t come ready made. They have to be built. Remember how we used to excoriate the pols who told us they would do nothing to impeach Bush because they didn’t have the votes? This is the same. We aren’t doing this simply to win. We are doing it because it is right. And if not us, then who will begin this process? Nor do we need to pursue a single strategy. If we can find a progressive to run in a Democratic primary, we should use the Democratic party’s own machinery for getting on the ballot and run against it. The key here is to find not a Democrat willing to run as a progressive but rather a progressive who is willing to run as a Democrat. If our candidate doesn’t win, then we can go with a Green or other candidate in the general.

The basic takeaway here is that We. Do. Not. Have. To. Win. to be effective. In swing districts, even 5% can be the difference between victory and defeat for a candidate. Even in a deeply blue area, district or state, running a candidate in either the primary or general can force the incumbent and party to spend resources they could use against us elsewhere. Some would say this is just acting as spoilers. Yes, it is. What’s your point? We win where we can, and if we can’t, we spoil. If Democrats want to buy us off, fine. I have no problem with that. We shouldn’t give a fig for what they promise us though. Promises aren’t worth the air they consume in being made. If a Democratic incumbent wants our support or does not want us running against them, then they better have the track record to back it up. Cosmetic votes and the occasional speech won’t cut it. Now as I said above, I don’t see Democrats doing this, at least until we show we mean business. But we should keep our options open and remain flexible. We should be willing to run both inside and outside the Democratic party. We should be ready to cut deals, but only on our terms. We need to learn to walk before we run. We should not expect to win races right away but we can begin to influence them. And we need to be ready to be in this for the long haul. We need to be ready for how our current crop of politicians are going to treat us. They will ignore us, then disparage and seek to discredit us, then they will try to split us. But as unions used to know but have now forgotten, our strength will be in our solidarity. And as we are a contentious bunch, we better have a damn solid program we can all understand and sign off on.

Two related points. For now, incumbents and mainline party candidates will be able to outspend us. They will have access to corporate and party coffers. But there is a huge populist anger in the country looking for an outlet and an expression. I think most of what progressivism, real progressivism, is speaks directly to that discontent. We have real solutions to the real problems of this country, and that is what that populism is looking for. We should be, we are, a natural combination. That is what we need to counter the big bucks and deep pockets of the parties and corporations. And in this regard, we should not write off the red states. Populism cuts across traditional party lines and loyalties. Jobs, foreclosures, holding the banksters to account, these are not red/blue issues. They are American ones. And a good progressive/populist can hit a corporate Republican as easily as a corporate Democrat.