I'm feelin a little fired up today and I wanted to use this space to take some people to task. Over at TNR, Noam Scheiber has a post up about how Obama should refuse Mccain's offer for open debates and joint town halls. Noam's main line of reasoning is that unmoderated debates before a large audience will undermine the effort to tie Mccain to Bush by allowing him to showcase his more moderate side. While I can understand his concern, I think what Noam is missing here is that to the extent the debates will show that Mccain is not a crazy, senile chicken-hawk, they will also show that Obama is not a scary, socialist crypto-muslim. It works both ways.
But on a bigger note
We've just come off one of the most extraordinary presidential primaries of the last 40-50 years. You have an underdog, minority candidate who just took down what many considered to be the face of the modern Democratic party. I don't think anyone would deny that is something big. Nor would they deny that we are facing one of the most important elections of the last 40-50 years.
At this moment, in this election, we can no longer afford a strategy first approach to campaigning.
For me, that's what this has been about from the beginning. We could have nominated the fighter, the scorched earth candidate. We could have chosen to run at the Republicans with every bit of slime at our disposal and fight them for every inch of ground. But for better or worse, we have our nominee - and our nominee is not that kind of guy. Does this mean he is weak? Does it mean he's brought his sword while the other side have brought tanks? No.
It means that it's time to pony up
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Who are we? Why are we wasting precious minutes of our weekends writing on a blog with gaudy color scheme? Is it because we feel inferior to the right and are trying to balance our lack of spine with strength in numbers?
Or is it because we really believe in all the ideas that pass through here minute by minute, day by day.
My bet's on the latter. And so I ask you a question: Do you believe that in a head to head debate with no moderators, no rules, and no commercial breaks that John Mccain's ideas will beat Barack Obama's? Do you really believe that at the end of the day, when all the talking heads are swept away, and all the racist radio noise is silenced that Americans sit in the dark of their bedrooms and think -- "I'm alone in this life and I like it that way. John Mccain's right."
In other words, do you think we're on the wrong side?
For years, all I've been hearing from the left is whining about how the cards were stacked against us. About how if there were no voting irregularities or fear bombs or less media conglomeration that we would have a progressive majority. Well folks, this is it. This is our chance. Our guy is preparing to go toe to toe with their guy in front of millions of impressionable voters.
Sure there'll be a shadow campaign. Sure the surrogates and the media will be pushing some stupid gaffe, or a picture of Barack with a pink My Little Pony doll. It doesn't matter. Voters won't need the media in this election. They're gonna have the candidates on their doorstep. You wanna build a movement? Get out there and join them.
This seems to me a great opportunity to expand voter registration and build support down-ticket. You got a candidate running for city council? Great. Set him up a table outside the forum. You got a pet issue? You wanna help people in Burma, push for a new GI bill, fight back against ethanol subsidies? Great. Get out there and canvass while you've got an impressionable audience with their minds already open to talk politics.
We have been waiting for this for so long that if these debates get canned because a few centrists start calling on him to back off and play smart just because they've got cold feet then I don't think we deserve to win. This is all about what we represent and what we want our country to be. None of our candidates should ever fear standing side by side with a Republican and losing, and if they do they shouldn't be running, least of all not for president.
I'm in. I hope Barack is too. How about you?