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    Bring Me the Head of Chris Matthews

    There's a new group called The New Agenda, and they're coming for you, Chris Matthews. The LA Times reports that the group considers Matthews a good start:
    The nonpartisan group, called the New Agenda, held its first meeting this week and established as one of several goals getting Matthews yanked from his long-running show, "Hardball with Chris Matthews."

    Amy Siskind of Westchester, N.Y., a founder and Clinton supporter, said the group was urging that Matthews' contract not be renewed because "the kind of language he uses and the kind of behavior he exhibits in the public domain toward women objectifies them and leads to bad things for our society and to domestic violence."

    Siskind would not reveal what tactics the group would use to get Matthews off the air. She likened the organization to the Navy Seals, saying their methods would be covert.
    The group's press release goes into more detail about The New Agenda's agenda, which is indeed new. The group has a set of issues that they are shopping, but I guess Matthews was the "grabber." I talked with Amy Siskind on Thursday, and she said I should talk to Cynthia Ruccia about The New Agenda, that it's a much more interesting story.

    So, I did. It turns out there are lots of "grabbers" to this story.
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    We talked for hours, and I found her to be very compelling. It would be tough to be fair to her without relaying our conversations in their entirety, because these are tough issues that belie reduction to soundbites. I will write a more comprehensive piece on our interview in the next day or so. Think of this as a primer.

    Grabber #1: The New Agenda is pushing a slate of women's issues "beyond Roe v Wade," as Cynthia put it. Amy Siskind summed it up in stronger terms:
    "One women's rights issue conspicuously missing from our list: abortion," Siskind points out, adding, "It's not that The New Agenda doesn't view choice as a central women's issue, it's that Roe v. Wade has been used a single defining issue to hold women voters hostage in the past. There are many other issues that are important and relevant to a broad spectrum of women."

    The premise is intriguing. In my view, this is sort of a "free market" approach to women's issues. Taking Roe out of the mix essentially breaks the Democratic Party's monopoly on female voters, and allows for competition between the parties for the group's support.

    Grabber #2: The group is getting traction with the McCain campaign. Many of the founding members were also founders of various PUMA groups, and attended a meeting with McCain senior policy adviser Carly Fiorina last month to assess the candidate's ability to deliver on important issues.

    I contacted Carly Fiorina the week before last to see if they were close to delivering a proposal to that group, and was told by her rep that she would be following up with the group directly.

    Again, this is my characterization, but I think The New Agenda is an attempt to step away from the increasingly negative PUMA movement, and harness that energy more productively. They have already made inroads with the McCain campaign, and have a meeting with the Obama campaign this week.

    Grabber #3: Cynthia Ruccia supports John McCain. (Her group is non-partisan.) She is a lifelong Democrat, who even ran for congress as a Democrat, but she is supporting John McCain in this election.

    I spoke about this on blogtalkradio last night with Christina from Yes to Democracy, and she immediately expressed skepticism about Cynthia's Democratic bona fides, but I have no doubt that she's on the level. There is nothing to indicate that The New Agenda is just a PUMA offshoot. Agree or disagree with them, The New Agenda is a marked improvement on PUMA, whose mission is increasingly about smearing Barack Obama rather than reforming or improving anything.

    As I also said last night, the proof in the New Agenda's pudding will be in the tasting. Will they give the Obama campaign an equal shot at their list of issues?

    Grabber #4: The New Agenda is a top-down organization, composed now of 30 leaders in business and various professional fields, a "best and brightest" group that seeks to spread into a grassroots movement. Their level of success in doing so will tell the tale of whether ordinary women share their priorities.

    Both Cynthia and Amy have touted to me the McCain campaign's promise of appointing more women to his cabinet than any administration in history, pointing to that as something that can definitely be delivered on. Is that worth aligning oneself with a party that is anathema to most women's issues? Cynthia says there is 75-80% common ground on women's issues between Republicans and Democrats.

    Grabber #5: Because this is a story about Chris Matthews, I will include a quote from my talk with Cynthia that bears on that. I asked if the group had any plans to seek accountability from McCain and the Republicans for their own sexism and misogyny.

    "We, right now, are talking about accountability in the media, and it's one thing at a time," she replied.

    I have to say that I am skeptical, to put it mildly, that McCain or the Republicans are going to deliver on the meat of New Agenda's issues, i.e. Fair Pay, domestic violence, accountability for sexism, and paid maternity leave. Having said that, I am at a loss to think of another way to get the Democratic Party to stop taking women's votes for granted.

    I'm anxious to hear how the Obama campaign responds, and to see how broad the grassroots support for this group becomes. I hope the Democrats don't go into this thinking they can call New Agenda's bluff. Whatever the strength of their hand, they ain't bluffing.

    Much more on this to follow. Here's the audio from Blog Talk Radio:




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    Tommy Christopher

    Tommy Christopher is a freelance writer, blogger, and online journalist based out of New Jersey and Washington, DC...more

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