Disclaimer time: the diary is ranting, yes I am aware. My point is that you can use your frustrations to something more positive, and I imagine there has to be SOMETHING you can do. If you can't get that out of what I'm saying, then honestly you need to calm down and try again. I am NOT insinuating that none of the more concerned (non-troll) Kossacks are doing anything else constructive today or before/after. Just stating the hand-wringing isn't the best way in my opinion to vent, and why. Rhetoric may be sharp, just my style of offense, so sorry.
What are YOU doing that's constructive and actually benefits us? No I'm serious, what exactly are you doing about it? Crying over what the majority of us expected with the understanding that it'll taper off like always? Posting useless arm-flailing diaries--perhaps with all caps on the title or even a full diary with single-statement paragraphs--that do nothing but distract us while we tell you all to calm the f**k down?
I don't mean this to be belittling or confrontational at all. However, if that does become the case, then perhaps it'll be useful to hear the frustrations from the side that actually has remained calm.
Are you looking at the useless national polls that always go up and down with the independents swinging back and forth from things like conventions and other "big news", especially since the last week was ALL about McSame/Scary-Palin (you'd think you'd know by now that it's simply the mere exposure effect)? What about all those state-by-state thingies that all suggest Obama has at least 235 E.V.s all but in the bag while the GOP hasn't even mustered 190 (with McCain's highest number correlating with Obama's 260)? I mean seriously, do you really think that now the red states who wouldn't go blue for anything being pumped up spells disaster? If swing states go red or further red then maybe we should worry (and then do something about it), but I'm still not seeing the evidence to suggest that we're doomed. Just seems that after a slow summer and a GOP-dominated week (wall-to-wall convention coverage does that) it's time to get into official GE mode, that's all.
So let me go back to my original question: what are YOU doing that's so constructive? I mean, you're obviously so concerned about these expected results--oh wait, I'm sorry, allegedly our numbers "should be higher" due to the unpopularity of Bush and without consideration of possible racism mixed with people still thinking McSame is such a Maverick-independent. So what are you doing, besides these pointless flailing diaries that do nothing but upset everyone who are forced to spend the entire day bringing you back to earth?
My guess is that if you're spending your time writing those diaries, then you're not doing anything constructive. Not only do I find such diaries non-constructive in their own right, but the time you waste writing them and the time wasted trying to respond to people who are trying to calm you down (not to mention the time we therefore waste on you) can be spent doing something like, oh I don't know, canvassing or registering voters, fund raising, writing to editors, or maybe even just talking to family and friends who are either leaning for McCain (but not in the tank totally) or are undecided and trying to convince them to think more about voting for Obama. Or maybe, if you as of yet haven't been involved, how about maybe actually getting involved, perhaps using this weekend to research who to contact and how you can be useful.
That's what I did today. I am a first-time voter (only 21) from Illinois--a state I sincerely doubt is going red, unless some of you want to think that us somehow being only slightly behind in Indiana when Bush took it by 20 points means that Obama's home-state is in trouble when it is always heavily blue. This week I finally made the decision to get involved, so I contacted my university's "Students for Barack Obama" affiliate and today I went to the information meeting. I will be involved with phone-banking local people and getting fellow students together to go canvassing and registering voters in Indiana every Saturday and eventually doing the persuasion and GOTV thing. I even found someone living in the same dorm as myself there with whom we can work together to help facilitate our efforts.
So while some of you spent your Sunday morning and afternoon yelling at us to somehow work harder in a belittling manner as if we somehow "stopped showing up to work" while ironically distracting us from doing just that and upsetting everyone in the process, others actually are doing something about it. Oh and I did it all without your hand-wringing and armageddon-talk, so thanks for your concern, but I think many of us are intelligent enough to a) know the stakes, and b) be able to motivate ourselves without your "help".
By the way, this may be a novel concept for you but I won't assume you're aware of it: people in general--believe it or not--actually work harder and better with POSITIVE reinforcement as opposed to negative reinforcement (NOT the same as punishment!). For those of you who don't know what that means people react stronger to incentives and words of encouragement, like "hey you're doing good, keep it up, Gobama!" than to the idea that doing what you want will take away something that bugs us such as pain, nagging or the annoyance of having to deal with chicken-littles and having to get riled up over every bad poll that matters a lot less than you think because some people find a need to type in all caps. So yeah, you really want us to get motivated and do something? Words to the wise: you'll have more success when you're more encouraging than discouraging and annoying/whining.
That said, go out and do something instead of getting upset over everything. This may be a little rude, but I think I speak for many of us when I say this: if you can't do anything except flail about hysterically, then maybe you should tune out from the polls and perhaps even steer clear of websites like Daily Kos until you can either calm down or contribute more positively to our cause. I am actually serious, a 3-day vacation from here will help regain your composure and perhaps clear the whole Palin-deluge we were all subject to and actually facilitate motivation here for the rest of us. Worked right after the primaries, can't see why it won't work here. Unless you think I'm the one who ought to take the break, in that case I'll oblige if you think it's best.