National progressives are attempting to pick themselves up, and brush themselves off and move on with their lives after last night’s win by Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the Arkansas Democratic Senate runoff. In an email to its members sent out this afternoon, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee told liberals to cheer up — at least, the PCCC said, the left still has Washington, D.C. to kick around.
“Today in news reports, the political insiders are gloating. They’re proud that they beat thousands of people fighting for change,” the PCCC’s leaders write. “But what the political establishment doesn’t realize is that the progressive movement built power in this election.”
Progressives across the country and their allies in the national labor movement had hoped to turn the Arkansas Democratic primary into a sort of Waterloo for moderate Democrats like Lincoln, whom activists on the left see as largely responsible for a slow (or, as they often say, nonexistent) pace of change since President Obama was elected. But their insurgency stopped just short of victory last night when Lt. Gov. Bill Halter — upon which the left had pinned its hopes and dreams in Arkansas — lost in a close race.
The PCCC leaders said the left can take some comfort in how close they came to knocking Lincoln out of the Senate. “Halter started nearly 20 points down,” the write in the email. “He wasn’t taken seriously by most insiders. But he gave Blanche Lincoln the scare of a lifetime with the help of a vibrant progressive movement — thousands of people who committed time, talent, and small-dollar donations in the fight for change.”
That fight included raising millions of dollars for Halter online (PCCC says its members alone sent $250,000 to Halter) and pouring hundreds of volunteers into Arkansas to help Halter take on Lincoln. The PCCC leaders say they learned valuable lessons about coordinating progressive efforts on the ground in a campaign, and will use the Halter effort as a model for future efforts.
Overall, the PCCC leaders say progressives have a lot to be happy about in Arkansas, even if Lincoln will remain the Democratic party’s standard-bearer in the state.
“You have so much to be proud of,” the PCCC leaders write, “And this experience will help us to win big fights ahead.”
