The Case for a Neo-Rainbow Electoral Strategy

Abstract

The frustrations of the 2004 election results, and the disappointment with the Kerry presidential campaign, led many left-wing and progressive activists to seek new solutions to the quandary of the struggle for power in the United States. It is within this context that a new or revised approach to electoral politics must be considered—in this case, an approach that derives to a great extent from the Rainbow insurgency of the 1980s, including the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns of Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, as well as the initial building of the National Rainbow Coalition, a progressive, mass-based organization formed under Jackson’s leadership, with the stated purpose of developing an independent presence in the electoral arena. The approach that Jackson offered—building an organization and campaign both inside and outside the Democratic Party—points progressives in the direction we should be advancing. In suggesting this approach, we recognize the failure of the Rainbow Coalition movement of the 1980s to live up to its potential.