Getting progressive voters to the polls

[Catchawave]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-30-minimum-wage_x.htm

from the article:

Polls show that minimum wage increases are popular. In a Pew Research Center Poll in December, 86% supported raising the federal minimum to $6.45.

Liberal activists say they're using the minimum wage to put Republicans on the defensive. They hope to put minimum wage initiatives on the ballots next year in nine states, including Ohio, Michigan and Arizona, says Kristina Wilfore, head of the liberal Ballot Strategy Initiative Center.

"This is going to take off like wildfire," she says. "It will pull progressive voters to the polls. The way the gay marriage amendment lured conservative voters to the polls (in November) was a wake-up call for us."

Efforts to raise the minimum wage have had most success in states that voted for 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Florida and Alaska are the only states that voted for President Bush last year to have minimum wages above the federal rate.

*******
Unfortunately, those who would vote for these initiatives, work for min.wage and can't afford to take time off to vote.

[Hidden Stillness]

1. The Issues are Already There for Us

This kind of legislation, helping the middle class and poor, once was so commonplace and popular (even during Gerald Ford's short term in office, Ford raised the minimum wage twice), that no one voiced an opinion against it; it would've been "un-American." Then the "D"LC comes along, the complete corporate takeover of the Republican Party, etc., and all of a sudden this is "controversial," will "hurt" the economy, etc.

If the Democrats will just get back to what used to be ordinary common sense--fighting for the employees and not their bosses--then we will be back. Among the real American people, as these votes have shown, this is still hugely popular and desperately needed. As people have shown on threads on this site, people's actual spending ability has dropped severely since the '70s. The minimum wage actually relates to people.

[Catchawave]

4. John Edwards is already involved with minimum wage

initiatives:

======(from his website)

http://www.oneamericacommittee.com/minimumwage /

The One America Committee is partnering with grassroots allies, labor unions, and others to organize and pass minimum wage ballot initiatives in targeted states in 2006.

A job should be a bridge out of poverty - an opportunity to achieve the American Dream. But for America's minimum wage workers, especially those with families, it is not. Today, a minimum wage worker earns just under $11,000 annually - about $5,000 less than the amount needed to lift a family of three out of poverty.

Although Americans overwhelmingly support raising the federal minimum wage, the Bush Administration and Republican Congressional leaders have repeatedly blocked attempts to raise the current federal rate of $5.15 per hour - even though it was established almost a decade ago. This current minimum represents only 33% of the average hourly wage of American workers, the worst ratio since 1949.

Recognizing that the value of the federal minimum wage has declined dramatically since 1996, seventeen states and the District of Columbia have enacted their own higher minimum wage rates. Most recently, 72% of voters in Florida and 68% of voters in Nevada voted to increase their state minimum wage rates in 2004. Several cities have also enacted minimum wage rates higher than the federal rate over the last few years.

Since the Bush Administration and the Republican-led Congress have continued to block attempts to increase the minimum wage at the federal level, we are working with grassroots coalitions to organize and pass minimum wage ballot initiatives in targeted states in 2006.

=====(end)

OK, this is BIG, and we need to rally with those Dems who address the important issues for the 79 million people "who didn't vote" in 2004.

Voter apathy is what loses elections, and most apathetic votes can't tell the difference between the two major parties, so what's the use!

Your DU user name is very appropriate, Apathy = Hidden Stillness :)

:hi:

[Hidden Stillness]

5. This is a Topic Most People Already are Progressive On

I have also been very impressed with Edwards (and Elizabeth Edwards) the past couple of years, and hope this emphasis on poverty and the majority of the American people will keep going, and will be returned to as a real part of the Party platform. There has been no reference to helping the middle class and poor since the "D"LC got here and kicked us out of our own Party. This, I believe, is why we lost the mainstream voter, not any supposed Republican "brilliant strategy" about anything.

My user name refers to the fact that I became a Christian again after some years as an atheist. I am a liberal, feminist, anti-capitalist, etc., and during my years when I hated religion, I was able to clear all the crap that masqueraded as theology out of my mind, and approach it all anew, with my own mind, searching for what was really there. This made it a more mystical search, as I do not presume I already know. "Hidden Stillness" is my way of trying to refer to the ethereal center at the heart of all material, and beyond material, yet still stating that I don't know what it is, and so can only give this not very specific reference to it. By the way, I loved your "Do You Support Animal Rights?" thread a while ago.

[Catchawave]

6. Thank you for remembering me :)

Animal Rights is a very progressive issue also, and as I recall, we had about 80+ % in support of that poll. I knew it would work on DU because DU Polls can be a safety area for those who are tired of defending their progressive positions. IMHO, AR is a barometer of tolerance among Democrats, well, at least those who register with DU!

As a recovering Catholic, I too, left the church in the 60's, but have recovered my faith within my soul and just try to live by the Golden Rule, so I don't label myself anymore, in or out of religious beliefs.

All I know is that GWB is forcing "democracy" on a region that wishes to remain religious. Yet, he doesn't understand that his administration is forcing religion on his country that wishes to remain democratic.

Hidden Stillness speaks for me!

[abluelady]

2. Absentee Ballots

In my opinion, absentee ballots need to be pushed. They are good for people unable to get to the polls and they provide a paper trail. If we could stess the need for "no excuse" absentee ballots in the US, we would all benefit.

[ComerPerro]

3. Its hard to mobilize people for issues that don't affect them directly

That's how the Republicans were able to pass anti-gay legislation in several states.

[Catchawave]

7. I agree...so how do we mobilize them ?

If not for minimum wage initiatives, then what?

[ComerPerro]

8. Good question

and if I knew, I would be a highly paid consultant.

[omega minimo]

9. Huge block of non-voter app. 25-35ish who think that

corrupt global corporatations run the world and why bother voting when Dems and Repugs are equally complicit?

Smart and smug and very politically aware and totally jaded.

How do you convince them to vote? Even the ABBB argument in 2004 didn't work... even Bush War II and the threat of a draft of their age group....

HUGE :kick:

[Hidden Stillness]

10. All Economic Issues Affecting the Poor and Middle Class are Winners

Democrats have to stop pretending that any of this was new, or that they need studies, or "framing," or consultants or anything else to get it across to people. There are several issues that have become very important, and they all revolve around the fact that there are no laws anymore constraining capitalists or capitalism. We are being price-gouged to death--by gas and oil prices, cable bills that keep reducing the number of channels, credit card interest rates and gouging added-fees, repairs of anything, on and on and on, worse and worse--until people at minimum wage or near are at the breaking point. This makes a whole constellation of ideal issues that the majority has been crying for help on, and it will return the Democratic Party to its rightful place as the Party of good government, that actually solves problems. It is so obvious, that we as a Nation are being totally destroyed by the complete deregulation of capitalism itself. Now there is nothing to stop their greed or their crimes.

We as a Party got so derailed during the '80s and '90s by the "anti-liberal attack" conspiracy of Republicans, their media, and even opportunist corporate-climbing "D"LCers, with their only chant to Democrats--"Everything you do is wrong; Everything you do is wrong"--that eventually they learned the lesson, which was to hide and deny everything they are, do only what the "abuser" wants, and get along. Recall that when Clinton was President, and had a chance to crack down on vulgar and violent media exploitation, (and maybe even bring back the Fairness Doctrine?), instead gave us the "V-chip," so rich people could buy this commercial product from the same capitalists who are doing all the rest of it, to block things from your TV set and leave the real world of media abuse untouched. Lovely.

Democrats should learn to get off this "superior" attitude of criticzing everyone who watches TV and struggles with cable bills, etc., as "sheeple" and the rest of these terms, and instead recognize an opening here. This is corporate corruption caused by a complete dismantling of laws--the same kind that allow them now to bust unions, outsource our jobs, cheat their way out of taxes, which we will then have to make up for, etc.--and if we ever want to get the American people to be strongly Democratic again, then we have to help them as they need it, fight where they can't (which is just about everywhere, in the corporate world), and actually make a difference in their lives that they will know was due to us fighting for them. If they are nearly poor because of corporate price-gouging that once was illegal and is not anymore, and you give them disconnected slogans, then they will be right to wonder what the hell you are, and turn away. Of course, first Democrats will have to stop voting "D"LC, and voting for credit card and drug-making price-gougers.