After test driving myself as a potential congressional and/or presidential candidate on how I would respond to a certain question, I found something intriguing about the attitude I held which spawned this question: is it time for the angry candidates to emerge in 2006 and 2008?
I can't help but feel that with the destruction of the Kerry Campaign, we saw the destruction of the civil politician. All that hopeful, positive, optimistic rhetoric didn't give us the victory, whereas the negative, fearful, vengeful rhetoric gave Bush and the Republicans firmer control of the government.
Most of us believe that life is going to be worse in under two years than it has been lately. So why shouldn't we have candidates who are angry, angry at the way things are going, angry at the lack of accountability and responsibility, angry at how the world and fellow Americans are being treated by today's government, angry at the government stealing our money for rich fat cats, angry at the Right calling us evil while they pursue evil policies of their own, angry enough to demand real change?
I applaud Kerry for trying to sustain a positive campaign, but in the end, negativism and fear won out. If people approved of a hopeful, positive message, either Kerry would be in the White House today or Democrats would have possibly secured a house in Congress. But they didn't. So, if what we feel will happen or perceive to happen comes to pass in the next year or two, why should we hide anymore our anger that I know lies deep within our hearts?
I caught an old episode of The West Wing when President Bartlett, after the MS scandal, took his first step toward reelection. He spoke of doing a smart campaign, but to do such a campaign meant going against who they were and fought for, and that should not be us. As much as people today value the surface over the substance, when it comes to possible life and death decisions, if the right projection is done people will choose those whose values are embodied in their actions and statements over those they perceive to be fake. Instead, Bartlett chose to win rather than play smart, and be who he was not what others wanted him to be.
Bush and his cronies keep saying that everything is alright when we know damn well that not only is everything NOT alright, but they seem determined to make life hell for everyone else that isn't a close friend or fundamentalist republican. So why should we not get angry and support angry candidates who are willing to not let politics dictate what they say but rather what their heart and mind want to say? I would love to see a candidate make the revolutionary stand of say something like this:
I no longer call them the Republican Party because they do not represent the party of Lincoln - instead, I'm call them the Fundamentalist Party, for their association with the moral values of the radical Christian Right and the corporate ideologues they love to pander. If folks like McCain and Collins don't like that or being associated with that, they can choose to turn independent, but I will not cower in labeling them, like they have labeled me and my colleagues for so many years, what I and many of my fellow colleagues believe they are."
Of course the Right can make accusations calling us "crazy lefties," but if we truly are the opposition party knowing that as long as these guys remain in power our country will continue down its worthless path, what do we have to lose? Speaking bluntly and forcefully with the truth is what is needed now more than ever if this party is ever going to find its spine again. All moderate Democrats (of which I called myself one years ago) can say this is not the way to victory, that we need to be polite and civil and understanding, and yet that is exactly the way we have conducted ourselves for the last 4 years, and look where it has gotten us.
Did the Founding Fathers play nice with the King of England when he oppressed the colonies with massive taxation? Was the Boston Tea Party an act of politeness? The Founding Fathers, angry at the oppression, fought back hard against the king to the point of declaring their independence. We shouldn't literally go that far, but you get the point - if our Founding Fathers were content on playing nice and understanding to the King of England even though his policies were wildly oppressing, we would probably still be a British colony.
If we truly care about this country and the direction its heading, being nice and polite won't make a difference with a party hell bent on eliminating the competition, which is Rove's big plan for this second term. We are angry and mad at what Bush and the Republicans in Congress have done and threaten to do to us, this country and the rest of the world, and we need to show, without hesitation and remorse, that they are wrong, we are right, and not let up!
South Park's Canadian Christmas episode speaks volumes on this. A foul-mouthed, hateful, wanna-kick-your-ass Eric Cartman, angry at being in Canada for Christmas, gets lightly tapped on the arm by Kyle, whom he dared to fight; that light tap was enough to get Eric crying, no, screaming for mommy. We can take their medicine, they can't, and that is our advantage. We need to turn the tables on the Republicans and Radical Right, and quite possibly, the way to do that may be by fielding candidates who are not afraid to express their anger and frustration at what the Fundamentalist Party is doing to this country and all who inhabit it. They may cry out that we are being too mean, while we can fire back that we'll stop being "mean" once they stop picking on Grandma and her social security and health coverage.
I personally think that's what's we need to do. For those of you who don't, wait until 2006, and see if you feel the same way.