This is not what I should be doing on this Thursday night in Japan. I should not be sitting here at the computer writing semi-meta diaries and waiting for Kossacks to wake up and smell their Thursday morning coffee back home in the USA.
I should be scanning newspaper classifieds for a new job, as I was downsized this week. I should be helping my girlfriend look for her new job, as she is out of work at the end of the month. But this one time, as a Democrat who happens to be an Obama supporter, and even as one who has grown to strongly dislike the Clinton campaign, I think something needs to be said.
We need to stop harping on the deep flaws in Hillary's campaign and get back to progressive politics.
A large majority of the current commentators at DailyKos have made their way to the Obama camp. The pitched battle between Clinton and Obama has been the source of bad blood between the two sides here, which is both regrettable and understandable.
In particular, we continue to see a large volume of diaries discussing unfair attacks on Obama by the staff and surrogates of the Clinton campaign. That's fine. Let's call a spade a spade, be angry with Geraldine Ferraro (once or twice), make Mark Penn out to be the devil (as necessary), and all the rest.
But then let's get back to real progressive, grassroots politics, because complaining about the Clinton camp is not going to make it go away. Six recommended diaries about the Ferraro fiasco, even six well-written recommended diaries on the Ferraro fiasco, are four or five too many. We could be discussing the effects of the weak dollar and inflation in food prices on the pocketbooks of average Americans. We could be talking about how Bush is fighting to defend his Saddam-Al Qaida link, in the face of the results of an exhaustive investigation. We could be talking about the newest incident in the mortgage crisis, the default of a large hedge fund in the Netherlands. These issues are being pushed off the recommended diaries list because of unmitigated complaining about something we all know is bad.
No, you say. I want to help Obama. I want to talk about Obama.
Great. Let's really help Obama.
Give money to the Obama campaign.
Help get voters registered before the March 24 deadline in Pennsylvania.
Make sure your state and local Democratic representatives know who you, as a concerned constituent, would like them to support as superdelegates in August.
E-mail your friends and family to explain to them why you support the Obama campaign.
Make sure you "concern" your Republican friends about McCain's hypocritical support of lobbyists, his warmongering, his age and frailty... these are issues that all reasonable Americans can agree upon, and those Republican friends of yours just may jump on the Obama bandwagon.
But do not complain about antics from the Clinton campaign any more than is absolutely necesary. If our signal-to-noise ratio goes any lower, we will end up an echo chamber. And every second we spend talking about Hillary's noise rather than real issues is a second we are not helping elect Democrats in November.