“We’re tired of people rigging the game. That’s the message of this movement,” Jones said in an interview on MSNBC, commenting on OWS’s “day of action” that it now “it’s time to turn the anger into answers.”

The progressive movement “needs a focal point the way the tea party has provided a focal point for the movement,” said Gloria Totten, president of Progressive Majority, an advocacy organization for the left. “That’s happening. Things have moved in that direction, and Van deserves a lot of credit for that.”

In an interview with POLITICO, Jones rattled off statistics he says shows “Rebuild” has passed its right-wing model in measurable categories of organizing: nearly twice the number of organizing house parties that the tea party had; almost triple the number of participants in drafting its online manifesto, “even without the Koch brothers, even without Fox News blowing it all up.”…

“He’s a good face for this effort,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “He was in [the White House] until the scandalous attacks of the right. … He was politically pushed out. Because of that experience, he brings medals that others don’t” to the movement.