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This being the season of giving, it’s worth looking back at some special gifts from November’s election that received little acknowledgement at the time.

These victories came in campaigns that had no candidates – no Democrats, Republicans or other party designations. Rather, they were ballot initiatives – policy ideas put to a vote of people themselves. This is an exercise in direct democracy that was first proposed by the historic Populist movement of the 1870s. It’s presently available to citizens in 26 states and hundreds of cities – and in this past year, it produced some serious progressive wins.

Unfortunately, corporations and super-wealthy individuals have now glommed onto this democratic innovation with deep-pocket vengeance, using their silos of money and expertise in PR deceit to pass some awful proposals and kill some great ones. Still, though, progressives are making good use of the initiative alternative to build winning coalitions around many big issues that the power structure refuses to address. They achieved several important public policy victories in November, even in red and purple states, showing again that populist issues can open minds, shove aside right-wing orthodoxy and overcome corporate money.

Many of these came in grassroots efforts to overturn Citizens United. This Supreme Court-sanctioned daylight robbery of the people’s democratic authority should have been at the center of Barack Obama’s campaign against Mr. “Corporations-Are-People” Romney. It certainly warranted a presidential push, and it would have been a winning issue, even among rank-and-file tea partiers – but, zilch.