I received a fundraising letter from the Greens in today's mail. I had donated to their recount effort in OH last fall, so I'm on their list. While I'm not donating this time, their solicitation made a valid point.
While the Greens (and the Libs) were out there fighting for the fundamental right of the franchise, the Dems basically stayed on the sidelines. Kerry sat on his $15 million pile while the Greens passed the hat. Their attys filed the litigation and did the digging, the Dems didn't.
The Greens had nothing to gain as a party by fighting in OH. The Dems had everything to gain by fighting. The Greens were willing to fight for a basic principle, but the Dems were not willing to fight for basic self-interest.
I'm not advocating that we all go and join the Greens. The 2 party system will not be dislodged any time soon, so we have no choice but to fight w/i the Dems. That doesn't mean, however, that we should delude ourselves as to how badly things were allowed to deteriorate w/i the party.
The Dean candidacy and his taking over as DNC Chair were welcome events, but they're merely a start. To quote Churchill, they were "the end of the beginning." Just this week, HRC did her little lovefest w/ Newt. The woman who many people consider to be the heir apparent for the 2008 nomination publicly proclaimed her common ground w/ the man who taught Tom DeLay almost everything he knows about politics. This wasn't Bradley making common cause w/ McCain on campaign finance in the 2000 campaign. This was naked political opportunism of the worst kind.
Seeing Reid hold his ground thus far on the filibuster is encouraging, but it is entirely possible that members of his caucus will be the ones who ultimately blink first in this battle of the wills. It would not surprise me to see a "compromise" worked out in which, say 5 of the 7 nominees go through, and the fate of the filibuster is deferred until Rehnquist retires in a few weeks.
It's nice to see the Dems start to get a long-overdue spinal transplant, but the process is still only in its early stages.