No one said achieving a progressive agenda would be easy. Last count, there were 420 bills sent from the U.S. House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate where they languish in inaction, a.k.a. gridlock. Let's hope President Obama is right when he says Democrats should retain control of both legislative chambers.

Elections matter and my frame of reference is a small precinct in rural Johnson County where we can win in November. Of the roughly 1,240 registered voters here, 475 are Democrats, 365 are Republicans and the remaining 400 are green or no preference. At this writing, about 15% of our Democrats have early voted and there remain a number of outstanding absentee ballots. With hard work, we may be able to cast 20% of our votes by the November 1 postmark deadline for absentee ballots. This leaves us with roughly 275 doors to knock or phone calls to make to get out our vote during the final push. Clearly doable and when people say the Democratic ground game is better, this is why: we know the number of votes needed to win, and will work to get them cast. This is true not just here, but in many precincts across Iowa.

The question in Iowa is what will the no-preference voters do? There is a false perception that no-preference voters are “independent.” In some households, there is a mix of Democratic and Republican registered voters and they can mostly be expected to follow their party. However, in more cases than not, one household resident is registered with a major party and the other is registered no-preference. One assumes that the household where one person is registered Democratic and the other no-preference, there will be an effect of turning out no preference voters for Democrats. This holds true for Republicans, but because of the Democratic registration advantage, the net benefit is Democratic, especially when the Democratic ground game advantage is considered.

Progressives can make a difference and prove pundits and pollsters wrong by becoming a part of the ground game, talking to friends, neighbors and people you may not know to persuade them that the opposition wants to take the country back. When they say “back,” they mean back in time. That time was the time of off-shoring jobs, breaking unions, reduction of public services, unregulated excesses on Wall Street and the assault on the middle class that started during the Reagan administration.

No, we can't afford to go back, we should do everything we can to move our agenda forward.