Now that adored ex-president Jimmy Carter is cancer free, I sure wish he were spry enough to be in Iowa to cast his moral magnetism into every corner of the caucus. The optimist in me says We are all on the same team, wanting an outcome without taint. The realist in me knows that optimism is little more than quaint. The truly liberal act ethically even when no one is watching. Be that person. If temptation tires to find you, act as if the world were watching, because it is.
Still, I wish to end this last night on a hopeful, yet pleading note. Here at the Daily Kos, We are a big part of the liberal voice of the citizenry. We are more than just the political heirs of great American liberalism, We must be its caretakers. But, due to the idiosyncrasies of American democracy, our fellow liberals and progressives in modest Iowa are given special influence. A state more often derided by the elite as “flyover country,” for one moment becomes for a moment the epicenter of political gravity. Enjoy that irony. But also remember, we are a nation of plenty, yet look around you -- that plenty is being hoarded, piled up in the palaces and vaults of the plutocrats. Meanwhile, children in forgotten places, devastated by disastrous trade deals, are poisoned with lead, choked on fracked air, and gunned down at their desks and in their parks.
So do your duty with great care.
Finally, We — your fellow citizens and those who hope to be -- thank you, each and everyone, for being active participants in American democracy, for being our front line in this year’s first battle in the long war being waged against We the People. Let’s be real, there’s precious little democracy left for Us to influence anymore and the issues We face today are, without hyperbole, existential. Please choose wisely, because yours is the first choice, and if it is the right choice, We may yet regain control of the People’s government.