The number of phone calls I’ve gotten urging me to support Chris Owens for Congress because he is the most “progressive” candidate, has gotten me thinking (always a dangerous activity). The term “progressive” is obviously meant as a shorthand, but shorthand for what? Earlier this year, WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor said Eliot Spitzer would be the most progressive Democratic governor since FDR, ignoring the fact that Roosevelt’s immediate successor, Herbert Lehman, was clearly more progressive than FDR. Moreover, depending upon how the word is defined, Spitzer might also be said to be less “Progressive” than Charles Poletti, Averill Harriman, Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. Mario’s WORDS were certainly more progressive than Spitzer’s; Mario’s DEEDS (to the extent he ever did anything but blame his complete lack of accomplishments on a Republican Senate he refused to expend any of his political capital, monetary or otherwise, on trying to alter for the better) may not so qualify.
The word “Progressive” actually derives from a Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, and it describes middle-class oriented process reforms, used to differentiate himself from big-business oriented Republicans and sell himself in opposition to “Populists” like William Jennings Bryan, as well Socialists like Eugene Debs. It was the original version of the triangulation popularized in the 1990s by Bill Clinton. The use of the term by Clinton type Democratic triangulators, as well as by more liberal Democrats, infuriated many on both the left and right. Those on the left were outraged that Democrats were afraid to calls themselves liberal, and said such pandering just played into enemy hands. Conservatives apparently disagreed, condemning the use of the word as an attempt by liberals to deceive voters by hiding their true agenda (when they weren’t claiming it proved the death of liberalism). Critics on both the left and right said the proud liberals of old would never have used such a term to describe themselves. Actually though, FDR did everything he could to remind folks of his Teddy connection, including publicly embracing old Bull Moosers like Harold Ickes Sr. I’m sure he dropped the word "progressive" now and then. Definitely a subject for further research.
It’s actually quite interesting how two separate groups have embraced the word "progressive" in recent times.
The first manifestation is really a "neo-liberal" phenomena, as when Tip O’Neill explained to a TV journalist that he couldn’t always push for liberal goals because a good portion of his party’s conference was "conservative, moderate or progressive". The DLC’s think-tank is called "The Progressive Policy Institute". In that vein, Mario Cuomo, a more paleo-liberal (at least rhetorically), called himself a "Progressive pragmatist". Spitzer may qualify as a Progressive in this sense, although I think he actually is more in the original TR mode.
However, Cantor’s used the word to imply something quite different. His use of the word is the more predominate these days, although it is also longstanding. It used to describe those who are left of liberal. In 1948, the Communist Party USA was at the forefront of a movement headed by former Vice President Henry Wallace, which objected to Harry Truman’s cold war liberalism. At the time, the Communists were very much into flag-wrapping. Their slogan was "Communism is 20th Century Americanism". They embraced Lincoln and American roots music as their own. And, with an eye on being seen as embracing the mantle of Teddy Roosevelt (and, to a lesser extent, Bob La Follette) they called themselves "Progressives". The adoption of the name was not an accident. It had the ring of Roosevelt in it, and Wallace himself was a former Republican of the TR variety who joined the Democrats at the same time as Harold Ickes. (Yes, I am aware that the majority of those who supported the 1948 “Progressive” movement were not Communists, but as Wallace himself later bemoaned, the Communist Party dominated the movement’s structure and controlled its operations).
These days, once again, the majority of those using the term progressive are generally describing something to the left of the conventional liberal agenda. In everyday usage "progressive" is mostly used as shorthand for the politically correct left catechism of the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party. As such, while, as Conservatives charge, someone may be hiding their agenda by using the word, it is not necessarily the liberals.
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