The progressive ground game for an Obama second term

>>> we're back talking about the politics of holding the president accountable from the left. all right, lester.

>> i had to get warmed up. that's my first time in the joint. i talked about that state issue. we've got people already organizing at local issues, doing real organizing, not mobilizing, come vote for my boy, doing real grassroots organizing. what we have to do is create more space for that organizing. in a state like maryland , maryland wanted to create a jail, a $104 million jail for youth charged as adults. it was a coalition of black youth and the white left that occupied baltimore that stopped that or at least kept it from taking place. it's that type of organizing is the type of things we have to create. then, that creates a moral incentive for the president and other legislatures to do it.

>> not the moral incentive but political pressure too. if we are talking about organizing from the ground. we have to remember, the president still has to deal with the house. the house is stealth led by john boehner and the republicans.

>> who will keep saying he is not compromising even when he is. it is like the upside down world. on the one hand, you have the left saying, you are caving, you are caving. on the right, you have him saying, he is a brick wall who won't cooperate. that makes that capacity really tough.

>> this idea of negotiating and compromising is nothing is working because it is really the president pumping heads with the house. i think until we can get that ground swell like you are talking about happening in maryland to put pressure on the sitting members of the house, that's the only thing that's going to help the president be able to get things done. we have to work from the ground to put pressure on the other elected officials.

>> what i love about that it says, the job here isn't yelling at the president but yelling at those house members. the accountability is in part about saying, mr. bain ner, last week you said a.c.a. was the law of the land . this week, you are putting it on the table during the physical cliff. we need help during this country. the supreme court has said it is legal. there is an account ability question for the president particularly on things that presidents do, like drones. on the domestic policy side, it can't be just presidential.

>> if we look at the success that the lgbt movement had and the immigration had, it wasn't president obama sitting in his oval office deciding he was going to wave a wand and do things that substantially supported those communities. it was the communities organizing on the ground trying to move policy and working from the ground up that then created an environment and a climate where the president could move the ball down the road. i think for other issues, whether we are talking about climate change and economic justice . otherwise, it has to come from the ground up.

>> what needs to be done still, there is a long way to go. president obama did have this coalition, a majority of minorities, that came together to put him back in office. everybody on this second term does expect to see some type of movement for them.

>> exactly.

>> as you point out, there needs to be something for everybody. president obama likes to make the phrase that he is the president of all. so all need to feel that way. all need to feel that they have his eyes and attention on what is of krn to them.

>> yes. i think the most important thing now, the biggest thing is 2014 . it is time to get some of these folks out. obstruction is going to continue. if we are going to have a chance to do something from 2014 to 2016 , people have to mobilize to begin to push these representatives out. those 95 guys that wrote the letter about susan rice and everything else, it is time to get these clowns out of office, period, end of story.

>> you are thinking that the shoes would not show back up in washington, d.c. the cement shoes are still there.

>> thank you so much, aishia, for joining us today. the rest are coming back. there is another obama also having a second term. first lady,my will show obama. we are going to talk about what her second termite look like