Now that the long, drawn out primary battle, (or as Jon Stewart called it - "The Long, Flat, Seemingly Endless, Bataan Death March to the White House"), is over, we need to remain vigilant.
It is fantastic that our candidate, Barack Obama, has won the nomination after this hard-fought primary season however, we must not forget that the battle has been won but the war rages onward - that is the battle for the White House against John McCain and the Republican Party.
Not only do we need to actively recruit and unconditionally welcome the Clinton Campaign's supporters to the fold, but we also need to focus intently on John McCain and the GOP.
Let's face it folks, it has truly been exhausting! While it has been an exciting time for many of us and historically significant world-wide, it also has been emotionally draining. After such a long and drawn-out fight, it would be easy for many to say "the hard part is over and now we can relax". Polls show our man is leading nationwide and we all know he is the better candidate to be President. Our knowing this is not enough however. We cannot be complacent or lulled into believing Obama's election is "inevitible". The last candidate who thought that was beaten by a virtual unknown so the lesson should be all too clear to any Obama supporter, or any Democrat for that matter.
It is becoming apparent that the GOP is going to use every nasty smear trick in their playbook (which is formidible to say the least). We've known all along that they would do this, but now that the primary race is over, we need to pay diligent attention to it. They will attempt to (and, in some cases, already have begun to) portray Obama as naive, inexperienced, elitist, out-of-touch, soft on national security and a "classic tax-and-spend liberal". They have already begun this in earnest with John McCain himself taking some of the shots and even Karl Rove mocking one of Obama's signature lines, "We are the ones we have been waiting for."
This will not stop and - this cannot be stressed enough - we cannot become complacent. Any time an attack is launched, we need to be immediate, direct and forceful in our response! Let us not forget that this campaign belongs to every single one of us and, if we lose in November, it will effect each and every one of us for years to come. Senator Obama said it best himself last night in St. Paul, MN - You did not stand in long lines to vote for any candidate, you did it for yourselves. We cannot afford to back down now before the prize has been won.
Last night's McCain speech in NOLA (yes, the lime-green Jello one) is a perfect example of what to expect - most likely on a near-daily basis. That smarmy, condecending, just-swallowed-two-tablespoons-of-castor-oil smile; that Beavis & Butthead giggle and the repeated sarcastic "That's not change you can believe in". In it he lays out what will (hopefully) be the Republican Attack Plan - paint Obama as everything evil in the world. I say "hopefully" because, as I see it, this plan will be the easiest to defeat in the fall but only if we are vigilant in our defense of Barack Obama! McCain is doing everything in his power to distance himself from George W. Bush and why not? Bush is hands-down the worst President in the history of the United States. We cannot and must not allow him to successfully do that. The fact that McCain last year voted 95% of the time with Bush's policies cannot be understated. Bush needs to be tied to McCain like a boat anchor.
Fortunately, the punditry seems to agree with last night's McCain speech being terrible. From The Huffington Post:
The most biting of the criticisms came from CNN's Jeffrey Toobin, who intoned, moments after its conclusion: "That was awful! That was pathetic!"
Josh Marshall, over at TPM, noted: "Here's how bad it is. All the Fox commentators are giving competing explanation for why McCain's speech sucked."
But if you think this was strictly a liberal prerogative, here is a sampling of the Republican response to McCain's general election launch.
Here's Mark Levin over at National Review's The Corner: "Not to offend those who might be offended, but this speech is a mash and tough to digest. You have to get through the self-congratulatory praise of independence and commander-in-chief pose from the Senate, then you have to try to follow the inconsistency of some of his big-government ideas vs. his anti-big-government rhetoric, and his inconsistency even on his supposed strength -- the surge in Iraq vs. closing GITMO and conferring additional rights on the detainees."
Summing up GOP sentiment was prominent Republican media consultant, Alex Castellanos, speaking on CNN: "Last I checked this was not a speech-making contest, thank God."
The bottom line here is that, while John McCain's NOLA speech was widely panned by Democrat and Republican alike, don't expect that to be the norm and look for other, more progressive and smarter Republicans (if there truly is such a thing) to step in and fill the gap for him in the coming weeks and months. Again, we must remain vigilant and diligent in our support of Barack Obama - and the down-ticket Democrats as well - if we expect to achieve success for our party, our country, our world and our futures.
As comedian Tim Allen's character, Commander Taggert in the movie "Galaxy Quest" said over and over: "Never give up; never surrender!"