Progressive Majority Comes to Ohio

Progressive Majority is a Washington-based political action committee officially launched in 2001 to recruit, train, and elect progressives. It was founded by its president, Gloria Totten, who was formerly the political director for NARAL. The board of trustees includes Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future, Tom Mattzie of MoveOn.org, and Karen Ackerman, political director of the AFL/CIO.

Since 2003 the focus of Progressive Majority has been state and local races, seeking to form the 'farm team' for the progressive movement. Starting in Washington, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in the 2004 election cycle, and then expanding to Arizona and Colorado in 2005 and California in 2006, the organization claims to have helped elect 270 progressive local and state candidates, which in turn helped flip over a dozen city, county, and state legislative bodies (including the state senates of Washington and Wisconsin and the Pennsylvania State House) from Republican to Democratic control.

Ohio has been on the organizations agenda for a while, and toward that end Progressive Majority donated money to the campaign of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (D) in 2006. Today, the organization has sent out a fund-raising email announcing that it has appointed David Dettman as its new Ohio State Director.

Dettman brings 25 years of political experience to the job. In 2002 he ran for the Ohio House of Representatives in the 10th District, losing a five-way primary to current state senator Shirley Smith (D-Cleveland). More biographical data from the email:

He has worked on Democratic presidential, congressional, and local campaigns and as a consultant on the application of political technology in campaign tactics. Most recently, he has worked at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) for International Affairs, where he served as the Resident Director and political party officer in the NDI Ukraine office until 2006. From 2006-2007, David was the NDI Middle East and North Africa regional political advisor with responsibility for democracy promotion in Egypt, West-Bank/Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

The email message goes on to state that the organization is "making candidate recruitment a priority in key battleground states," with "bellwether Ohio" as the next key step. It concludes with a request for donations of $35 or more, which can be made online.

This is potentially a very important development in Ohio. This organization has the capacity to bring welcome resources to key races all over the state as the Democratic Party tries to wrest control of the Ohio House of Representatives (as well as local bodies like county commissions, school boards, and city councils) from the Republicans. I was unable to drum up contact information for David Dettman before posting this item, but I will continue trying to contact him to get more information about the organizations plans for Ohio.