I read the poll on the front page asking people who they think they will win today's (Eastern Time) Senate race. My answer wasn't included: "I don't know." That's the only honest one I can give. In a special election in the dead of winter, in a political maelstrom with this much money flowing in, this many personalities weighing it, this much anger and depression, I would not be shocked if Brown won by 20 ("Democratic resolve collapsed, Independents throw tantrum!" or if Coakley won by 20 ("Dem intervention works! Independents wake up from sleepwalk!") or if it went to a long count, long into the night. (If that happened and Coakley won, at least it would drive home the point to conservatives that voting machines without records are dangerous.)
But mostly, I don't know because I don't care to guess. I don't want to try to game it out. NO ONE knows. Guessing just gets in the way of what needs to be done -- what needs to be done today.
I hate getting up early. But I'm getting up at 6 or so Pacific Time, and until tomorrow at 9 a.m., when I have to get off the phone and go to work, I'm at Martha Coakley's disposal. What happens tomorrow is easy, much easier than the past ten or however many days. It's not about persuasion; it's about mobilization.
Have you voted yet? Please be sure to vote. Please call your friends. Some people may think that they can stay home today. We need every vote. Please help our President.
I have my own thoughts about this whole phonebanking effort that will wait until the results come in (though people who have followed my "special election phonebanking" diaries over the years have already heard them), but this is a day when everyone from inside the area has to chip in getting people to the polls and everyone from outside has to do what they can through electronic means. If we're way up, if we're way down, is the effort wasted? No, I don't think so.
If we're way up, that's great. We want to get further up. We want a blowout. This isn't just about winning anymore. It's about, if we can manage it, discrediting, the breaking of spirits. We don't want them to come as close as we did with Paul Hackett in OH-02 against Jean Schmidt in 2005. We want them to come as close as Goldwater did to Johnson in 1964.
We may not discredit them today, but we will before long. We will this year, I think.
The idea of teabagging is to absorb the inevitable anti-government animus prevalent among independents into traditional conservatism. Don't call it populism or libertarianism, because it takes from populism only that which is right-wing and it takes from libertarianism only that which is conservative. You don't see the outline of the Grange movement or of the ACLU in the teabaggers, you just see conservatism that excuses itself from having to make rational sense.
The Teabagger movement is a bait-and-switch on the angry but politically unsophisticated:
"Channel your anger at the inefficacy of government into supporting traditional conservatism. To help you do so, we're going to trick you a little and make it easier for you not to think about what you're doing."
These people are dangerous -- not to be trusted with nuclear weapons, among other things -- and we will all be better off when the public gets it. This is the first big forum in which we will have that battle.
We don't just want to win, we want to discredit. We want to reclaim the public within the Thoughtful Majority. We want to wake up the public. This election will do it. Scott Brown is a weak reed on which to support a movement.
We've had a lot of people talking about the dark side of tomorrow. Here is the bright side.
We could win big, discrediting this years Rasmussen voter models.
If we don't win big, then at least we have a wake-up call. (Yes, we will have to beat the Evan Bayhs within the party to do so, but that can be accomplished.) No more taking these circus freaks on the opposition nicely. No more Mr. Nice Bipartisan Guy. We'll have seen where that leads us.
If Scott Brown does take office, we will follow him around like a hawk. The voters of Massachusetts will be sick of him within a matter of weeks. We will then hang him around the head of every Republican candidate, firing up Democrats everywhere by the mere thought of that man replacing Teddy Kennedy.
Tomorrow, win or lose, is not the end. It's the beginning of something else. But at least, come rain or shine, our party no longer slumbers. We are engaged again, and not a moment too soon.
Now let's crush them.
ACTION ITEMS:
For those in-state.
For those out of state.
For those who can only be motivated by exquisite agony.
(Oh, yes I did. That last one is The Shaggs!)