One Year Out: Big Shifts and Bold Messages
The Center for American Progress Action Fund offers four pillars for a progressive future.

American politics is experiencing a fundamental philosophical realignment. Conservatives tried to build a governing majority based on the four pillars of unilateralism, less government, lower taxes for the wealthy, and “family values.” The Bush administration’s bankruptcy has made those pillars crumble. The political environment has shifted decisively toward progressives.
In the note that follows, we highlight each of these four issues—economy, health, climate change, and national security—frame the debate on each, describe the conservative failure, and advocate a progressive approach.
1. Economic Mobility
The economy has stopped working for
The subprime mortgage crisis has been sadly instructive. For most Americans, the principal pathway to wealth has been homeownership. The instability in this key sector set off rippling economic effects. It has also reminded Americans of the basic economic trends, such as stagnating wages and low mobility, that conservatives have failed to address.
One notable group in this election—unmarried women—is the fastest growing demographic and looking for economic change the most. According to Women’s Voices Women Vote, the average income of unmarried women is $40,000, and 36 percent of them move every two years. They need a government that is providing economic security and economic mobility.
Progressives can and must offer a fresh paradigm that accomplishes three things: improved broad-based economic growth; increased individual opportunities for those who work, not just those who invest; and a modernized social contract to enhance economic security.
Progressives need to take a series of actions to rebuild the ladder of individual opportunity: investing at the front and back end of our children’s education, restoring Americans’ ability to join unions, reforming the tax code to honor work and not just capital, promoting widespread retirement savings and sound home ownership, and lifting poor families out of poverty by building on proven policies. This means accelerating
2. Health Care
Our health care system continues to crumble: 47 million Americans are uninsured, up by 8 million from 2000; premiums have practically doubled over the last 7 years, growing at five times the inflation rate; half of bankruptcies are driven at least in part by health coverage; and businesses are struggling to compete globally under the burden of health care costs.
Although those trends have been building for decades, the political environment is new. Corporate groups and unions are coming together to demand broad reforms. And while conservatives continue to sell the tonic of laissez-faire, the public is no longer buying. In the recent debate over the State Children’s Health Care Program, or SCHIP, the public sided overwhelmingly with progressives.
Conservatives will try the tired cries of “socialized medicine” and misleading attacks on these approaches, but those attacks will fail. Progressive approaches will build on our current system, increase rather than reduce choices, and lower costs. This is what Americans want today.
Global warming has become an astonishing threat to the future of
What is encouraging is the change in the public perceptions. The 2008 election will be the first in which voters accept that global warming is a crisis requiring a major response. As The
The urgency of this issue demands a president willing to make the low-carbon energy challenge a top priority in the White House—a centerpiece not only of his or her energy policy, but also of his or her economic program—to produce broad-based growth and sustain American economic leadership in the 21st century.
The American voters will reward a presidential candidate that can lay out a vision and a program that will produce an economy in which highly efficient vehicles dominate the roadways; service stations pump large quantities of low carbon alternative fuels; and buildings employ day-lighting, solar heating and cooling, as well as highly efficient appliances and air conditioning. In this economy, utility companies will increase their profits when customers save energy and draw more than a quarter of their feed stock from renewable sources of energy. Coal-fired power plants will be built to capture CO2 and pump it through a national network of pipelines for geologic storage. And businesses of all kinds will have to factor the cost of carbon into their bottom-line calculations and aggressively pursue low-energy options.
Taking such action is not just good for our environment; it can provide a powerful charge to the economy.
4. National Security and
By the time the country settles into the general election debate, we will be five years into the
Our overwhelming engagement in
Public opinion has remained steady in its overwhelming view that we are in the middle of an Iraqi civil war and the troops should begin coming home. Public opinion is right. Conservatives have tied their strategy to a failed president and an outdated national security strategy that has undermined
After eight years of failed conservative leadership, the country is poised to move in a more progressive direction. Now is not the time for caution or mere modulation in approach. Progressives win when they offer changes equal to the challenges we face.
The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. A full list of supporters is available here. American Progress would like to acknowledge the many generous supporters who make our work possible.