While there is much hand-wringing in the wake of Tuesday’s elections, the SC Progressive Network is not mourning; we are celebrating a job well done. After a year dedicated to educating and mobilizing voters on health care, we capped the campaign with a 10-day 10-city blitz. We started at the Governor’s Mansion with a press conference, and ended with a rally at the County Square in Greenville.

It was a long haul. But that’s what the Network is about. We are working year-round to promote progressive values, not cranking a cold motor every two years when elections roll around. If we have a chance to pull this state out of the ideological ditch that’s drowning our most vulnerable citizens, more of us need to move beyond outrage to action. It can be gratifying.

On the road we got to see parts of South Carolina too often neglected, we met dedicated community and political activists at every stop, we made friends and allies across the state, we nurtured a growing solidarity among our staff and volunteers, we generated some great press and, best of all, we changed the conversation on Medicaid expansion. It was an issue the pundits and pooh-bahs had declared dead. We insisted that the only thing dead about this issue are the people paying the price for petty, partisan foolishness.

In related news, because our staff has been busier than expected with the Road Show, the Network’s fall retreat Nov. 15 at Penn Center has been moved to Columbia. We’ll be meeting at the Lake House at Sandhill Research Education Center, 900 Clemson Rd. It is a nifty facility, built in 1932 by WPA workers. Details to come.

Thanks again to our Road Show crew for a campaign to remember. Warning: watch this video, and the song may loop in your brain for days.