in other words: Dean is progressive.

i agree. your paragraph "A progressives believes in..." sums up my feelings pretty well. i have felt your frustration for a number of years now; thanks for sharing your thoughts.

JIM HIGHTOWER: "The difference between a liberal and a progressive is that liberals want to assuage the problems that we have from corporate power. Populists want to get rid of corporate power. An example is what's happening, right now, with the Wall Street reform that's in Washington."

Sadly I think more people ascribe the term progressive toward auto insurance than politics.

While anecdotal as a response, perhaps its fair to say that progressive democrats continue to struggle in branding themselves as a particularly unique cut of the Democratic party - which has its own struggles when it comes to branding.

Progressive makes me think of words like inclusive, compassionate, diverse and clever.

Not much of a motto, true. Still a start I should hope.

At the risk on you smacking me, Elizabeth, what is wrong with "grassroots"? Isn't that getting people involved from the bottom up? Multnomah County Democrats engage with many volunteers to drop slate cards each election cycle---it's a great program with good results and to me epitomizes grassroots.

And while we're defining things, please define "Open Source Democracy" for me, as I've never heard the phrase before.

Frankly, I don't care what we call ourselves as long as we get the work done to elect good people to office and build our party. As Democrats, we're inclusive. I don't care what you call yourself---just show up and do the work.

It's a good discussion to have. The American people need to know what Progressive means, and that it's not the flavor of the month or the latest political marketing scheme. It has roots in American history and politics going back to Robert LaFollette and the Progressive Party in the early 20th century, and Teddy Roosevelt. One branch of the Republic party carried the Progressive mantle until Robert Taft and the conservative corporate wing won out and purged the progressives. Progressive does not equate to populism, contrary to what Jim Hightower says.

And just because you say you are a "progressive" doesn't mean your views are that. As a developmental movement it is a belief in human progress and that government has a positive role in asserting the primacy of the public good and public resources over private interest in that progress. Hence the historical progressive policy of conservation of natural resources and "trust busting" policy of breaking the power of corporate monopolies. It is also participatory egalitarian democracy and breaking the power of big business in the political process.

I have to say that every leftist who comes along as a self-defined progressive ain't one. But it's time to define the brand of the Democratic party along the lines of progressive values in broad enough terms, rooted in American values and history, so that it becomes a viable brand with a big enough tent to include a big tent.

values are tricky. getting to a definition, for example, of "labor rights" that fits in Oregon, Ohio and Alabama would take a lot of work. "labor rights" is essential to liberal politics, and i don't think many Dems and left-learning indies want to throw away the New Deal, so we need to figure out how to deal with labor in the 21st Century -- in an incredibly diverse nation.

that's why, for me, progressivism is not about the goals but how we seek to achieve them. i find the goals of the New Deal (and thru the 60s and early 70s: extensions of legal rights, environmental protection, etc) to be fully supportable today (yes, i am a liberal; i won't run from the word).

but unlike in the 20th Century, where our liberalism placed political leadership in elites, leaders, central govt, etc -- ie, top-down -- we now see that a bottom-up approach is needed. that, to me, is the essence of progressive politics: citizens, in their own communities, deciding what and how they will work on. national leadership has its place, but we in Portland have to figure out what's right for us here -- and progressives in Mississippi have to figure out the same thing for themselves. we are likely to see signficant differences.

i've coined the phrase "Progressive is a verb". how we define values changes over time. how we interpret our values changes. what we can make timeless and universal is how we act on those values, here and now. this is what i think we can share in common across a city, state nation. even when we find ourselves unable to agree on definitions of values.

I view being a progressive as being someone who advocates that government needs to evolve and address the needs of the members in our society so as to make government effective in helping make lives and society as a whole, better.

It is about not being wedded to a rigid, dogmatic set of policy prescriptions, but rather a rational, reality-based approach to defining polices and solutions that reach the goal of making people's lives better through a more effective, and responsive government in an equitable way.

It should be noted that in American politics, the word "liberal" as in "Liberal Democrat" as it is presently used, emerged in the FDR administration. Historically "liberal" came to us from Europe and to this day is used to define laissez-faire economics and the absence of a strong central governing authority in the affairs of individuals. Liberalism in Europe was equivalent to many factors we would attribute to traditional Republicanism. (Although today's GOP is really more radical than conservative). When FDR introduced the policies of the New Deal he didn't want to be labeled a European socialist so he defined is program in terms of "Liberal Democratic" principles. "Liberal" has become so tainted that it has come to mean a combination of "libertine" in social issues and "big intrusive government" in other policies. I like "Progressive" because at its core it is a belief in progress in human society, continual improvement and movement forward.