Whoa (emphasis added):

From: ONE East Neighborhood Forum neighbors@frontporchforum.com

Date: 23 Dec 2008 03:48:06

To: members@frontporchforum.com

Subject: ONE East Neighborhood Forum No. 597

(snip)

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WARD 2 PROGRESSIVE PARTY CAUCUS JAN. 3

By Jane Knodell, City Councilor – Ward 2, Charles St, jknodell@uvm.edu

Mon, 22 December 2008

Ward 2 Progressive Party Caucus to Endorse Candidates

There will be a Ward 2 caucus of the Progressive Party to endorse candidates for city council, school commissioner and inspector of elections. The caucus is open to voters of ward 2 who wish to be members of the Progressive Party. Since the Progressive Party is a party of principles, membership requires subscribing to the Statement of Principles in the Party Charter, which can be read at: http://www.progressiveparty.or…

The Ward 2 caucus will be held:

Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. at the home of Wendy Coe and Gene Bergman at (snip).

For more information contact Terry Bouricius at terryb@burlingtontelecom.net or (snip).

Posted by Jane Knodell, City Councilor, Ward 2

Yowch. I prefer my principles defined bottom up, rather than top down – as messy as inefficient as that obviously is.

 Make no mistake this is a great and kind thing.  Thanks to the joint efforts of The Vermont Caring Foundation and a Northfield sock manufacturer, Monday morning 10,000 pairs of navy blue merino socks in three children’s sizes left Cabot Hosiery Mills to be distributed by the state’s community action agencies and seven homeless shelters.

But ,look who showed up at the party to pack socks himself,Governor Jim Douglas .He took a short break from helping tighten our belts to turn his attention to another part of our clothing ,our socks.Here is a fun challenge and perhaps the birth of a new game similar to ‘find seven things wrong with this image’ or ‘Where’s Waldo’ or ‘Where’s our Lt.Governor’.

In the following remarks by the Governor find what could arguably be his contribution to any of these charitable efforts in which he so happily shares ?

“I think the first day of winter is the appropriate time to kick this off,” said Gov. James Douglas, who pitched in to load socks Monday. He noted that the state has seen “a tremendous increase” in the number of families eligible for LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) support. He added that new Food Stamp guidelines to take effect in January will make thousands more families eligible for that program.

Douglas observed that when Oregon held a summit on poverty and economic security – a similar summit will soon take place in Vermont – participants “came up with two high-priority needs for the low-income residents of that state: medical care and socks. So we know that this is important to families and children. I’m really pleased that the Vermont ethic of neighbor helping neighbor is coming together in this exciting program today. I think that’s the real value of the intimacy of our small state.”

Douglas added, with a light-hearted pun that surprised those attending the event, “We’re a close-knit community,” he quipped.

http://www.timesargus.com/arti…

In polls, the public continually supports progressive priorities, or at least they do in the broadest senses. For example, in a recent Washington Post poll, 77% want to see the new administration make fundamental changes to the health care system. That’s amazing.

And yet, so often progressive candidates lose elections.

Part of that is the candidates themselves – for decades, lefties from coast to coast have allowed some of the biggest weenies to become our nominal “leaders.”

And yet, the current polls are tied into the Obama Administration, and Obama was not the policy-reform-oriented lefty in the primary. So what gives?

I was just mulling the possibility that Americans as a whole may want to see progressive policies enacted (whether or not they call them that), but they just don’t trust progressives themselves – or at least progressive candidates – to accomplish it.

Maybe that speaks to liberals’ styles as candidates, the individual candidates themselves, or maybe it’s just an “only Nixon could go to China” thing, whereby voters want to see someone approach these changes from a cautious, even dubious perspective.

Or maybe I’m way off. I decided to go ahead and post this without thinking it through, just to generate discussion. I may change my mind completely in a few minutes.

Consider this an open thread.