Or: The John Edwards Supporters Not-So-Anonymous Rally Redoubt
My name is Ken, and I am a John Edwards supporter. No, make that believer. It has been 3 days since I voted for John Edwards in the Minnesota Caucus Presidential Preference vote. So for my precinct that made me, my 19-year old son, and one other guy, God bless his soul. I have been told by many that it was a wasted vote, mainly by Obama supporters (for which I forgive them and chalk it up to passion). I’m not sure why. Perhaps they think so poorly of their chosen candidate’s chances that they feel I could have "thrown" the election to Hillary Clinton. (Obama easily won Minnesota, by the way!) Shit, it’s not like George W. Bush could have won because of my vote. But "Whatevah!". That was yesterday, this is today. I come before you today for another purpose. Leap with me...
Yes, it is a fact. John Edwards has not endorsed a specific candidate. I have no doubt, however, that he will put as much time, energy and passion into supporting whomever does become the Democratic nominee. Since I don’t know the man personally, I hold that belief as a matter of faith. But that is my decision, so please respect it. If you can’t, I really don’t care, because even though this is a community, of sorts, I don’t know any of you personally, will more than likely never meet any of you in the flesh, and if I ever do, I’m sure we that have way more in common than I do with many of the people with whom I interact on a daily basis...
But I digress. What I want to say is this: A Democrat will be the next President of The United States of America. I know this because I put on my tinfoil hat, jumped in my time machine, and went ahead to December 18, 2008 to see the results (yes, it was another close one). Actually, I didn’t really do that. I would have, but I couldn’t find my tinfoil hat. Maybe another time, though. The point is, the Republican Party is "in its last throes, if you will." But where Dick Cheney was horribly wrong with regards to the Iraqi insurgency, things really are that bad on The Dark Side. We here in the Party That Shall Not Lose are fighting over split hairs, while Republicans are fighting over the very soul of their party. We can pretty much agree that, despite their differences, either of our remaining candidates would make a far better president than Chimpy McDipshit. They, on the other hand, are in an outright war against each other, despite what teh Tweety says on the TeeVee. Sure, maybe John "Joe Lieberman Loves Me!" McCain is the presumptive nominee. But he will but beaten to a bloody pulp by the time he limps into the general election, having spent the previous 6 or so months on his knees, fellating the Religious "Right", the Money Men of Wall Street, and the rest of the over-the-edge factions that make up what is left of some once mighty coalition of very strange bedfellows (and they have a problem with two guys sleeping together! HA!). As for Karl Rove, forget about him. There will be no rabbits pulled from his bulbous ass this time. His career is ovah. Americans no longer enjoy the economic security that is a prerequisite for frat boy-level pranks to be successful. Nope! They are too busy worrying about whether or not they will have money left over for gasoline after paying their first, second and third mortgage payments...
Which brings me to John Edwards. Many people seem to feel that he must endorse one of the remaining candidates, and that if he doesn’t he will throw the nomination to (fill-in-the-blank); thereby ensuring eventual victory for John "The Bush Hugger" McCain, making Edwards, in their minds, akin to Ralph Nader, circa 2000. What these people fail to understand is that the Edwards movement is much bigger than just one man. I think John understands that his believers are thinking adults and can make up their own minds regarding which they will support going forward. He understands that we are not waiting for Godot, that he doesn’t need to tell us whom to support, and that he doesn’t need to deliver us from our miserable and meaningless existence, because we understand that we have had that power all along...
It is up to us, the once thriving, once dominant Edwards Community on Daily Kos to carry on with the movement. John was the face of that movement, but for a time only. We are now that face, and we are now that voice, and we are the ones that need to continue the struggle to bring back the values that once made our party great and good. This is our redoubt, our fall-back position, our sanctuary from which we will regroup, reengage and reignite the fight for social justice, economic justice and legal justice for all Americans, not just the elite and privileged few...
Finally, I will leave you with this: As Tracy Bonham sings, You Can't Always Not Get What You Don't Want. Sure, we weren’t left with a candidate who is completely committed to Universal Healthcare. We didn’t end up with a candidate completely pure from the influence of big-money influence. We don’t have a candidate who has made ending poverty the centerpiece of his or her campaign. But as Thom Hartmann has said many times on his radio program, FDR, architect and implementer of The New Deal, did NOT run as a raging populist in 1932. He ran more as a corporate, DLC-style Democrat. His platform consisted of minor modifications to the Smoot Hawley tariff laws. That was it! What happened next was the result of people, American people, pushing, prodding and persuading him to achieve the greatness that became his destiny, and a Congress with enough Democrats to turn it into legislation. We have the power! We can influence what happens next! We can change the course of the nation! We can drive that change, but only if we remain committed to the movement we say we believe in. And we can only do that with a Democrat in the White House, and enough Democrats in Congress to make "men" like Joe Lieberman, and Dan Lipinski, and Al Wynn irrelevant. So I want you all to look in the mirror every single morning between now and November 4, 2008, straighten your back, puff out your chest, look yourself in the eyes and say, "Democrats WILL win the election!" Say it over and over and over again until you and everyone around you believe that fact to be true! "Act as if", and "fake it ‘til you make it" if you have too. But do it! Now drop and give me 20!