Why is it important to vigorously support Democrats this fall -- even if your heart is broken because Obama and the Democrats did not do everything we hoped for?
You never know when your call or knock on the door will make a crucial difference … and imagine what could happen to our small gains if the Republicans take office.
Paul Loeb reminds us of the high stakes (The Election Needs You, Broken Heart and All):
For all our frustrations with the Democrats, at least we've been fighting about how to move the country forward, out of the hole of the disastrous Bush years. Productive change will be far more difficult if our inaction helps hand the Senate over to those who deny climate change, scapegoat immigrants, blame the unemployed for their fate, and strive to privatize Social Security, make permanent Bush's regressive tax cuts, and block every conceivable environmental and consumer protection regulation. Equally troubling, they seem to have no shame in campaigning on gross distortions and lies...
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Here are some reasons we need to take action - please add your own:
We lefties have caused Democrats to lose the White House and Congress in the past. In 1968, we were furious at Hubert Humphrey for ignoring the peace marchers in Chicago - and Nixon took the White House. In 1994, angry at Clinton's support for NAFTA, Democrats did not get out the vote and lost critical races.
When civil rights activists created a political force, they moved Congress and presidents to action.
We can push Obama to deal with unemployment -- join the October 2 March for Jobs in D.C.
Our modest gains are under threat. Think what a Republican Congress could do to roll back
• green energy funding
• health care gains
• stimulus funding
• the Obama appointment of a labor-friendly National Labor Relations Board and Labor Secretary
• Supreme Court appointments (imagine another Clarence Thomas to come)
What if Nancy Pelosi is replaced as House Speaker by right-wing Republican John Boehner, who plans investigations against all of Obama's agencies and programs.
AsPaul Loeb reminds us:
Pelosi would also have passed a climate change bill, a far larger stimulus package, and a health care public option.
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For all the Democrats' failure to adequately reverse their inherited crises, [Democrats'] flaws don't compare to those of a party determined to turn everything over to the most predatory forces in America.
PLEASE…. VOTE, GET OUT THE VOTE, SAVE DEMOCRATIC SEATS!