Looks like a bug was causing the progress js file not to be added.
i changed:
<script src="../webassist/progress_bar/jquery-blockui-formprocessing.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
to:
<script src="../webassist/progress_bar/jquery-blockui-formprocessing.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="../webassist/progress_bar/emailCandidates_Universal_Email_1_Progress.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
i'll log a bug that it is not being added and causing the progress bar to fail.