This is the hardest step. Some people on the left deny the need for a national party. Just let each state and locality do its own thing and communicate informally with each other, and, they say, willy nilly, a national consensus and coordination will spontaneously emerge. I've been hearing that since the 1960s, and what I've seen is that without a national organization to facilitate the flow of information, personal contacts, joint actions, and the development of a common identity, local efforts usually do not survive the first downturn in local fortunes because they feel isolated and helpless. It is absolutely necessary to develop a national organization because to have systemic impact, we need to pool our resources and coordinate our actions in order to project a clear alternative analysis of what is wrong and a program of what to do about it.
Democracy is crucial.
The collapse of the Rainbow Coalition as a potentially independent party is worth remembering. Jackson didn't want to be accountable to its membership, so he shut the membership out of decision-making by centralizing control after the 1988 election. An independent presidential campaign in 1996 would be a means of massive popular education, a stimulus to local organizing, and a vehicle for building unity on the left. If we start now in early 1995, we could do this. But the movement must control the candidate, not the other way around.