The Ideas Primary Comes To YearlyKos

Back in March, Campaign for America's Future Co-Director Robert Borosage lamented the state of the presidential campaign in his piece for The Nation, "When's the Idea Primary?" He concluded:

Activists, particularly in the early primary states, should continue to demand more. We need a debate on fundamentals: on our global strategy, our imperial commitments, our trade and investment policies, on how to make this economy work for working people, on how to meet threats, from Al Qaeda to climate change. We need that debate now, in 2007, during what should be the "idea primary." We need the next President to win not just a majority but a mandate.

Fortunately, there's a reason why the progressive blogger community was honored with the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award at Take Back America 2007.

In two weeks, the largest gathering of the "netroots" will convene at the YearlyKos Convention, and one of the highlights will be the Presidential Leadership Forum featuring most of the Democratic field. Questions are being solicited from the public online in three different categories, Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy and Philosophy & Experience.

Nothing about haircuts or necklines or other trivial matters that campaign beat reporters regularly prioritize over issues.

As forum organizers noted in The Nation this week, "Nine out of ten campaign stories ignore policy and focus instead on electoral tactics and the horse race" and in turn, YearlyKos aims to "transcend politics as usual by pushing candidates and reporters to focus on the issues."

Already, we've had more substantive citizen engagement with the candidates through MoveOn.org's Virtual Town Halls (co-sponsored by Campaign for America's Future and others). But the traditional media generally ignored the in-depth policy discussion generated by the events.

We'll soon see if fresh serving of substance at YearlyKos, from those that many in the Beltway press ironically blame for degrading public discourse, will change the tenor of the campaign.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future