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Occupying a place near the top of the pantheon of great American political films is the 1972 Robert Redford movie, The Candidate, in which a very, very long-shot lawyer and, ahem, community organizer, Robert Redford pulls-off the impossible and wins a U.S. Senate seat.
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As the campaign was such a doomed, long-shot from the beginning, fighting the good fight and "getting the message out" was The Main Thing. In the famous final scene, as winning Candidate Bill McKay (Redford) is being mobbed and lovingly taken away by reporters and well-wishers, he says the magic line to his campaign manager, "What do we do now?" (Sorry about the spoiler)
This Diary's not about Barack Obama, he's got a pretty good idea about what he wants to do. This is about Daily Kos and Progressives and Democrats and what it is we need, ought to, do over the coming months and years.
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Of course, this blog, along with many others around the internet (I will from now on drop the superfluous "s" -- that guy's gone, now), is self-tasked with, well, here's what the founder of this site says Daily Kos is:
"...It's a Democratic blog with one goal in mind: electoral victory. And since we haven't gotten any of that from the current crew, we're one more thing: a reform blog. The battle for the party is not an ideological battle. It's one between establishment and anti-establishment factions. And as I've said a million times, the status quo is untenable."
Other sites are similarly purposed. And we're the ones who participate and make these sites what they are.
I believe that there've been other Diaries or Stories on this topic (have there been?), but here, on the eve of Democrat Barack Obama taking the oath of Office of President, and with a newly-sworn-in high-majority Democratic Senate and House about to get down to business, I wonder where this and other Left of Center blogs are going to go over the coming weeks, months and years.
Certainly, getting more and better Democrats elected into public office (from State Legislatures to Congress) needs to continue to be smack in the middle of the radar here. But we've been in the wilderness for so long now, and have gotten so used to pushing back against the Executive Branch (and other forces of political ignorance . . . and corruption/criminality . . . and Right Wingery that, like Bill McKay in The Candidate, I wonder how focused (if that's a proper word for thousands of progressives from thousands of backgrounds with thousands of views) this site will be and what it will be focused on (besides those elections mentioned above).
The main question is Progressives' (through blogs, and in general) relationship with President Obama and the Executive Branch. After our justified and earned period of celebration (I certainly intend to participate in that) for and with our new President and fellow citizens (of the country and the world), I think it will be interesting to see where events and our own propensities take us.
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Our Obama, Right or Wrong
Already we've seen a flap or two (healthy ones, I think) over Barack Obama's decisions in the run-up to his being sworn-in tomorrow. From the perception and image-making, to (re: the imminent Economic Stimulus Package) his "reaching out" to the GOP. There is the school of thought that says, "Trust Obama, he knows what he's doing." Where are you and where will you be on such things?
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With Ya, Man. But We're Gonna Hold Your Feet to the Fire
Then there's this school of Progressive thought. Is this where Daily Kos will go? Or, will no consensus form (as it did regarding the serial crimes and blunders of and surrounding George W. Bunnypants?) and this site will be very fragmented. Since this site never existed pre-Bush, it will be very interesting to see where things go during 2009.
Things to come? Already we've seen a little taste of the fragmentation. Daily Kos founder, Markos MZ, has for weeks now been hammering, obsessively, against Caroline Kennedy for very-soon-to-be-vacated Junior Senator Seat from New York, and many -- if not most -- of the participants in Daily Kos believe he's, well, the diplomatic word would be "wrong".
And, of course, given the nature of sites like this, Pie Fights are inevitable. But, again, we've never had a Democrat in the White House during this, may we conceitedly call it the... "Golden Age"? of bloggerdom.
What do you think? Where will we go? What's to come? Predictions?
What do we do now?
BenGoshi
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