Just Saying

I’m just back from the “Take Back America” gala, part of the annual Take Back America conference put on by two great groups: The Campaign for America’s Future and the related Institute for America’s Future. I gave a lot of ink in “The First Campaign” to the Campaign’s Apollo Alliance project to build a new green-focused economy.
Anyway I digress.
At my table tonight, we were discussing how the conference is poorly named (I was, in the interest of full disclosure, a guest of the Sunlight Foundation tonight). “Take Back America” might have been a great name in 2003-2004 when the conference started and Democrats were angry and unfocused. However today progressives are in the middle of a historic election where their party will choose either a woman or a black to be the party’s nominee for president. Democrats today hold both houses of Congress and the electoral map for November looks promising for further gains. It seems like the conference should really be about taking America forward, especially given the campaign for America’s future’s projects like the Apollo Alliance.
In 2003, Howard Dean frequently used on the campaign trail as her frame “I want my country back.” There’s a subtle but important difference between “take back America” and “I want my country back.” The campaign made a point never to say “take America back.”
I hope this is the last year where the progressives focus on taking back the country. We’ve got enough challenges just looking ahead to the future.