Keeping it short and simple:
We Democrats need more than to win this next election. We need to get our ideological act together and play as a team. We need to get on the same page, run the plays in the play book, and out hustle the opposition.
Doing this allows us to make the case not just to win...but to prove that our ideas our better than theirs, that we can govern better than them...that we can stand up to their hype...and, further, that we can take our coalition as it stands now, the team that we've got, and outplay them when it counts.
Doing this will prove that we are True Americans, committed, patriotic, who never, ever quit...
Hats off to the Detroit Pistons.
I know it's superstitious, but if anything in these insane times ever made me feel we Democrats could just win it this year....it's the Detroit Pistons stomping the Lakers in the Finals. AMEN!! ;That was sweet...and well earned. Sometimes, the best team wins.
OK...so for the body of this diary, a slight change of pace from the basketball analogy.
Here are three extended debates I had here recently on dKos. I didn't alway keep my temper, but I tried to play fair and debate hard, and just keep debating till the bitter end...
I think we need to cultivate that the best we can here. That's how we Democrats are going to get our act together....hard fought debates where we stick to the issues the best we can....and make progress.
You don't have to click on any of the links below, in fact do so only if you're curious (if you do, of course, let me know what you think). For anyone who doesn't, just know they were extended debates that continued after the threads died, sometimes acrimoniously...well, often acrimoniously...but reflect my attempt to get past the games and get to the issues, if possible. None of them reflect what I think is best of dKos...when debates reflect a coming together of two or more minds instead of a divergance.
The principle, however, is that we have to hammer out our differences here as Democrats the best we can. We have to aspire, if not always live up to, the principle that debate with mutual respect is how we will get our act together and take back the Presidency and Congress in 2004.
I am convinced that the only way we will succeed in governance is by executing our ideas as Democrats. We have a framework here on dKos to work on those ideas, and further, work on how we deal with our differences.
Let's do it.
Debate 1: Core Liberal Values
Debate 2: Tolerance and Democrats
Debate 3: Reagan and Apartheid
Update: I just reread these links and realized that I should have tipped my hat as well to folks like tlaura, musing85 and joejoejoe who kept the fight going often more civilly and persuasively than I had. salute.