MoveOn Staying Where It Is

MoveOn’s Communications Director emailed me with an important followup point about Politico’s article this morning on MoveOn’s agenda largely aligning with Barack Obama’s:

But one key piece of information missing from Politico’s article that I wanted to flag is this: our members’ top priorities have remained largely unchanged since our last agenda setting process in 2005. The economy has risen in the rankings, due to obvious conditions, but ending the war, universal health care, and creating a green economy/tackling the climate crisis have been primary points of focus for MoveOn for three years running.

Rather than blind followers, as Politico portrays, our members have been determined and persevering in their pursuit of these progressive goals. The only thing that’s changed is now they have an Administration who is friendly to these aims — at least in rhetoric. In practice, we have yet to see how the Administration will perform, but we do know for the most part who our friends and foes in Congress are and can engage accordingly from the outset.

Yes. In part, there’s a lot of agreement simply because people agree about a lot of stuff.