Lanny Davis: Progressive group helps Trump

In the closing week of the Virginia gubernatorial campaign, a progressive Democratic political action and grassroots organization called Democracy for America (DFA) did its best to defeat the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Ralph Northam, because it disagreed with Northam’s position that Virginia should not be a “sanctuary state.”

DFA was founded in 2004 by Howard Dean, former DNC chairman and progressive governor of Vermont. It is now chaired by his brother, Jim.

{mosads}Let’s stipulate that Mr. Northam is wrong on opposing Virginia as a sanctuary state. (I support the concept of sanctuary states or cities under Trump’s cruel “mass deportation” policies.)

But the point is: Does it make sense for a progressive organization who cares about people impacted by Trump’s reactionary, often bigoted, and unjust policies to do something that could help elect his chosen candidate in Virginia, Ed Gillespie, who ran disgusting, Trump-like negative ads suggesting that Mr. Northam was soft on pedophiles and would assist murderous gangs? Would DFA have any regrets if they watched Donald Trump high-fiving Gillespie’s victory, declaring vindication for his politics of hate?

This is the statement that Charles Chamberlain, DFA’s executive director, issued on Nov. 2, less a week before the Virginia election:

“We’re announcing we will no longer do any work to directly aid Northam’s gubernatorial efforts. … We refuse to be … even remotely complicit in the disastrous, racist, and voter-turnout-depressing campaign Ralph Northam appears to be running.” “Racist” campaign? Any doubt why DFA loses credibility when its executive director uses language like this about Ralph Northam?

Put aside that Mr. Northam on most issues is progressive by any measure. On the question of how to treat undocumented individuals, Northam, like most Democrats, supported comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship. He also came out in favor of issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented individuals. His position opposing Virginia as a sanctuary state mirrored opposition to that legislation in the dark blue Democratic neighboring state of Maryland, whose Democratic state Senate president also opposed that legislation.

This is what CNN pundit Chris Cillizza posted on CNN.com at 6 p.m. on Nov. 7 — just one hour before the Virginia polls closed. He quoted a Republican pollster, Glen Bolger, saying: “It’s hard to imagine a statewide candidate who was in the lead with three weeks left who has had a worse close to their campaign.” Then referring to how Northam had “botched” his position on sanctuary cities, Cillizza wrote: “And, by any objective measure, it’s hard to argue with Bolger’s assessment.”

I am not making up Cillizza’s embarrassing take an hour before the polls closed.

Within a few hours of this post, Ralph Northam had won a landslide victory in Virginia by 9 points — 54 percent to 45 percent. He went from a small lead in the polls in the last week to this 9-point landslide. Hard to imagine a “worse close.”

The important issue is not the fury of a progressive organization on an issue they care about. The question is whether the larger cause for poor people, for working people, for those who are energized by opposition to the reckless and dangerous Donald Trump, will insist on ideological purity, by their definition, even if it means helping a Trump candidate and harming the progressive cause.

The key to achieving progressive goals in America is to believe in building coalitions — which, by definition include people who are not in full agreement on all issues. As Harold E. Hughes, the late Iowa Democratic governor and senator, once wrote in a foreword to a book I wrote:

“Coalition-building is the imperative of the American political process. America is a nation of widely diverse people from different backgrounds and perspectives. The political coalition is the best — perhaps the only — instrument available in a democracy to unite people who disagree on some issues but are willing to work together for the greater good on others where there is agreement.”

DFA and other progressive groups that do such important work for progressive causes need to remember that lesson rather than continue a vengeful search, filled with intolerance, to purge the Democratic Party of what they deem to be ideological impurity.

Only through coalition-building do Democrats have a chance to build an enduring center-left governing majority, beginning with the crucial congressional elections of 2018.

Davis, a weekly columnist for The Hill newspaper, is co-founder of both the Washington law firm Davis Goldberg Galper PLLC and Trident DMG, a strategic media firm specializing in crisis management. He served as special counsel to President Clinton in 1996-98 and a member of President Bush’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created on the recommendation of the “9/11 Commission.”  

Davis is co-founder of both the Washington law firm Davis Goldberg Galper PLLC and Trident DMG, a strategic media firm specializing in crisis management. Davis is the author of a forthcoming book to be published early next year: “The Unmaking of the President 2016: How FBI Director James Comey Cost Hillary Clinton the Presidency”.