A coalition of progressive local elected officials and activists will launch national campaigns, one against Wal-Mart and its impact on the economy, a second advocating universal health care and a third to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.

The campaigns, unveiled June 1 at the Take Back America conference in Washington, will be spearheaded by a new website, www.citiesforprogress.org allowing the officials and activists to exchange information and strategies nationwide, conference organizers said.

The meeting also featured addresses by dozens of activists, including pollster Celinda Lake, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, Political Director Karen Ackerman and Organizing Director Stewart Acuff, new Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and activist/organizer Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.

It was designed for 1,000-plus participants to discuss how to reclaim the political high ground from the Bush administration and its business and Radical Right backers.

Organizers said the three campaigns, by letting state and local activists exchange information and strategies nationwide via the Internet, would be one way progressive forces could retake the initiative in a sharply polarized nation.

That's because local efforts round up support not just from themselves and their allies, but from surrounding communities, groups, city councils and elsewhere, producing bottom-up pressure for change that politicians of both parties in currently unresponsive Washington must eventually heed.

"Decisions made in Washington directly affect and diminish the quality of life in our cities," said Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, author of both a city council resolution -- which passed 47-1 -- blasting the Iraq War and of a proposed living-wage-for-big-box-store ordinance that effectively keeps Wal-Mart out of Chicago.

"Where is the movement for progress? It's not in the White House and Congress. It's city councils coming up with resolutions to stand up to Wal-Mart, to provide housing. So it's incumbent upon those of us who are the closest to our voters, where the rubber meets the road, to stand up and to share ideas." The Internet drive, Moore added, would let activists elsewhere copy his Wal-Mart ordinance, for example.

Conference delegates were buoyed by Lake's poll data showing that on issue after issue -- Iraq, the economy, Social Security privatization, jobs -- Bush and the ruling Republicans have lost public confidence.

Numbers for Bush's policies, in a sample taken in June, ranged from a 41 percent positive-55 percent negative score on his "overall direction" to 38-57 against the Iraq War to 36-62 on the economy.

But speakers also warned the progressives that while Bush has stumbled and while polls show voters do not agree with an extreme Right Wing agenda, the Democrats do not have a coherent alternative message to take to the electorate yet. They also said progressives must appeal to voters' hearts -- converting the idea of family values into values that help families, such as a living wage -- as well as their heads.

"They know corporate, Republican and conservative economics -- cut taxes for the rich -- but they don't know ours. We need to create one and get it out," Lake said.

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.

For more information
Visit the Cities for Progress website, www.citiesforprogress.org