Out in the blogosphere, discussion rages over what happened in the recent election. Bloggers are blaming the candidate, the party, dirty tricks, Diebold, Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, Terry McAuliffe, the vice-presidential candidate, the so-called liberal media (SCLM), and even other bloggers - I've seen accusations that optimism expressed by bloggers JINXED the election.
Suggestions for fixing this problem in the future range from getting a more mainstream, probably Southern, candidate, to saying "screw the move to the center" and trying to run a genuine progressive leader. Some are clamoring for a new face, like Illinois' charmismatic young senator Barack Obama, and others nostalgically yearn for the Clinton years to return, this time with Hillary as the candidate. Some want Kerry to survive to run again, some urge Edwards, and others want the good doctor, Governer Howard Dean, MD.
I have no idea what the DNC is going to do, but I'll tell you this: I think it doesn't matter. Oh, of course it matters LATER, but it doesn't matter NOW. Or if it does, let the party insiders hash it out. There's not much we can do about it anyway. But there is something we can do. And I know we can do it, because we DID do it.
We raised so much money we scared the crap out of the right wing. We drove voters to the polls in huge, record-breaking numbers - the ones we wanted to drive, in hope, and the ones we didn't want to drive, in fear. I live in California, where there wasn't much to do locally, but dozens of my friends and family members took time off from their jobs to go to swing states and walk door to door for Kerry. We phone banked and wrote letters and begged and pleaded with friends and family in swing states to vote for our guy, or if they couldn't, to at least not vote for Bush. Despite the lies told by the liars at Faux News and the SCLM that echoed the story, the youth vote increased enormously and went overwhelmingly for Kerry. In numerous small, local races, progressive candidates and those championed by progressive groups like Democracy for America did extremely well. Groups worked together in harmony and unity, sharing contacts and strategies, office space and coffee. We might have felt it was all useless on November 3, but damn, it was a beautiful thing. And it was real.
So why waste time thinking about the presidential race of 2008? There will be local elections in 2005. Why not do what the right wing did , and focus on getting progressive candidates into office in every little niche they might fill? Onto school boards and water districts and town councils? Into our state assemblies and senates and governor's mansions? Let's keep our skills honed for 2006 and the next national election, and 2008, and 2012, and all the years and decades to come. Let's build a strong, SMART progressive movement, from the ground up, instead of trying to win it from the top down.
The top down strategy sucks, if you think about it - what on earth could Kerry have gotten done, with the Congress that was elected? This country is heading for social and economic disaster and there's little he could have done to avert it (although I do think he would have averted a lot of human suffering). Since we don't have the chance to see if that's an overly pessimistic projection, let's make a virtue of necessity and try a bottom-up approach this time. We have the experience, the organizations, the mechanisms, the mailing lists, the bodies on the ground. Do we have the will?
I have been thinking the same thing. And in fact, I just dropped a long-time committment to make room in my life for the work that has to be done.
In 2000, they caught us by surprise. In 2004, we did all we could -- a still lost. But I'm happy that I took time off to volunteer in Colorado, and take small consolation in the fact that the county in which I volunteered went to Kerry and that Colorado chose to send a decent man to the Senate -- sending Pete Coors home to Golden.
I will not wait until 2008. The work starts now.
Posted by: Gina | 05 November 2004 at 12:01 PM
You know, Gina, I actually think that the evangelical groundswell caught the REPUBLICANS by surprise too. I don't mean they didn't put it in motion and do things to support it, but I think that on Monday and Tuesday morning, the Republicans thought they were going to lose this election. I think they were STUNNED at what happened. And now of course, they are gleeful and acting like it was their plan all along. But I don't think so - I think they truly believed (and their ad dollars support this) that terrorism and security were their big issues. Look at how Bush started waffling on the issue of civil unions a week before the election... look at how he said he would NOT make choice a litmus test for a Supreme Court justice in the debate! They DID NOT KNOW this was coming any more than we did.
I know they hoped for some help in this quarter, and that's why they supported these goddamned state gay marriage bans, to activate this base in those states, but I don't think they had any idea it had worked, nor that it would be what pushed them over the top.
So I don't fault us for not knowing, either.
And I agree with you completely, we have to get going NOW, not later, not for 2008, but for 2005! We need to join groups, run for office, and change the way progressives think and speak and interact but NOT sacrifice our core values. If we do that in the name of winning, then the terrorists have won. Er... I mean the REPUBLICANS have won.
Posted by: Christie | 05 November 2004 at 12:16 PM
Incredible article here along this theme....
Hello, Uranus? Got Any Room? Must. Move. Away. Cannot endure more Bush. Soul about to implode. Right? Not so fast
by Mark Morford
Excerpt:
"After all, most all of us on the progressive Left feel we truly faced the dragon this election, and we put up a valiant fight and marshaled as potent an army of dissenters and intellectuals and moderates and liberal crusaders and feminists and enlightened activists as possible, considering.
"And we supposedly had more of the youth vote and the disenfranchised single-female vote and the "Daily Show" vote and the Eminem vote and the celebrity vote and the humanitarian vote and the antiwar vote and the gay vote and the pro-choice vote and the Howard Stern vote and the immigrant vote, and still the dragon just sneered and hacked up another fireball of bogus fear and evangelical Christian self-righteousness and torched our glimmering sword of juicy hope into a smoking cinder.
"And now, this. The nation has officially, stupefyingly handed the world's worst president a blank check to do whatever he and his cronies like, without fear of major repercussions or voter disillusionment or damage to an imminent re-election campaign, because there won't be one... . Hell, why stick around for more of that?
"But here's the catch. Here's the tough part to accept. Here's what everyone who's right now on the brink of packing their bags and checking the real estate prices in Vancouver has to know and has to have drilled into their disconsolate hope-crushed souls right this minute, before it's too late:
"You cannot leave. You cannot drop the armor now. Why? Because you are needed, more than ever. You are mandatory to keep the energy flowing, the karmic vibrator buzzing, to keep the progressive and lucid half of the nation breathing and healthy and awake and ever reaching out to the half that's wallowing in fear and violence and homophobia and sexual dread, hoping to find harmony instead of cacophony, common ground instead of civil war, some sort of a shared love of a country so messy and internationally disrespected and openly confused its own president can't even speak the language.
"After all, you don't hand over all your children the first time the flying monkeys bang on your door."
Read it here
You go, Mark!
Posted by: Christie | 05 November 2004 at 12:47 PM
I bet Mark's getting a lot of hits this morning. I blogged that piece, too:
http://spadafori.typepad.com/woof/2004/11/hell_no_we_wont.html
Posted by: Gina | 05 November 2004 at 01:06 PM
To use one of GWB's favorite lines.... if we give up now, the terrorists win! Unless we fight for the REAL America, then the terrorists (GWB among them) have truly scared us into a regressive bunch of Bible fundamentalists. (Soooo different than those heathen Muslims, no?)
Posted by: c | 05 November 2004 at 05:22 PM