Last week I spoke about some tactical reasons why the protracted nominating contest is a good thing. Today, I want to talk about the quality of excitement in this contest, and why it means we're doing good for ourselves as a party.
I noticed this afternoon that DHinMI is in his front-page pulpit again, going on once more about how this prolonged Democratic primary is somehow a bad thing. He couldn't be more wrong.
I was an Obama delegate at the 43rd Legislative District caucus in Washington State this past Saturday. The turnout was huge--historically huge. Like US Representative Jim McDermott said when he spoke to us there, our participation is revitalizing the Democratic Party. Anybody who is calling this prolonged primary battle a liability for the Party and for our chances in November is either not paying attention, or isn't being sincere.
It was a beautiful day in Seattle, with spring clouds and a bit of a breeze.
Inside a high school gymnasium, over one thousand of us gathered to do our bit for American democracy. We were the delegates and alternates elected at the precinct round of caucuses in Washington State. We were an amazing group of people. The diversity. The passion. The commitment. It was the kind of Saturday that makes even political cynics wonder if something is changing in America, right now: a groundswell of populist zeal, a hunger for change. Like Rep. McDermott said, the fact that we got a thousand Democrats to show up in a high school gymnasium for an entire Saturday in April to do their civic duty and participate in the political process (with the NCAA tournament going on, no less), was proof in and of itself that this long-lasting contest is a great thing for Dems and for the United States.
More plainly, it was a pretty damn fine sight for this Democrat to see.
I saw people there young and old, male and female, queer and straight, every color of the human rainbow, ultraliberal and centrist. When we did our elections for Obama delegates to the state level of voting, the several hundred people who spoke (including me) represented just about every faction of the Democratic Party, notwithstanding the Lieberman wing. There were people who'd been marching for the Democrats for sixty years, and people who had never been involved in politics before this year.
Few of us would have been there at all, were it not that our participation matters this year. And you know how it is: Getting involved for the first time makes a person much more likely to be involved in the future. How many people in that gym began their political careers that day? How many began a lifetime of social activism?
It's true that caucusgoers, especially at the higher rounds of voting, are more passionate than the American public in general, and thus less susceptible to being worn out by the prolonged nomination contest. However, these caucuses draw their huge turnouts from that same public. In that way, they're like opinion polls for the Democratic Party, where greater attendance represents greater excitement this year among Democrats.
Primary and caucus turnouts are historic across the Union. The candidates are visiting every state. Their campaigns have organized thousands of people and built huge apparatuses across the nation, which will be largely available for the Party to utilize in the future.
We're stirring the pot. We're getting involved. We're doing more for Democratic energy and machinery than has been done since the 1970s. All because two popular Democratic candidates are still, in April, vying for their party's presidential nomination.
Like most people here, I think Obama has got this thing won. But if it carries on a little longer, well, then, good.
Let me be honest with you: The only folks who want this thing to be finished are the ones who aren't paying attention to the huge turnouts and the sheer excitement among voters...them, and the Republicans and the Beltway insiders. The Republicans want it finished so they know who to concentrate their smears on. The Beltway insiders want it done because...ah, who the hell knows how their minds work? And the people who aren't paying attention, they want to see this get done because they have bought into the talking points from the other two groups: that somehow the democratic process is a bad thing, and an extended campaign for the votes of the American people is harmful to democracy. That's a pretty stupid claim, but one that carries a lot of weight when it gets packaged and sold as a "Democratic civil war."
Me? I want this contest to continue for as long as these huge, historic turnouts last. After the final voting in June, or if Clinton concedes beforehand, then we can talk about wrapping things up.
~~~
Epilogue:
At the 43rd LD caucus on Saturday, Obama got an extra delegate to the state convention. That's a small but welcome victory. As for the one thousand Democrats who gathered in a gym in April to have their say...that's a much larger victory. One that we'll be enjoying immediately, and for a long time. Darcy Burner (WA-08) and Chris Gregoire (WA-Gov) have tough contests this year. Their work will be that much easier because Obama and Clinton are still rousing liberals and progressives across Washington from a long and uneasy slumber.