(Crossposted at One Million Strong.)
"There’s a new book, and we’re gonna write it.
You can win if you run a smart, disciplined campaign, if you studiously say nothing — nothing that causes you trouble, nothing that’s a gaffe, nothing that shows you might think the wrong thing, nothing that shows you think.
But it just isn’t worthy of us [...] It isn’t worthy of us, it isn’t worthy of America, it isn’t worthy of a great nation. We’re gonna write a new book, right here, right now. This very moment. Today."
--Jed Bartlett, "Manchester, Part II," The West Wing
We stand at a crossroads in the Democratic Party. On the path behind us, we see most near to us loss after loss in the past thirty years, punctuated by only moments of victory. We see Democrats being timid about their beliefs, Democrats choosing to retreat rather than stand firm, Democrats forgetting the passion for justice, equality, and opportunity that first engulfed them when they entered public service. We see that where we have won, it has been despite, not because of, our ideals - it has been because the other side was incompetent, amoral, or uninspiring, or a combination of all three. But we should not confuse those wins for victories - they were only losses for our opponents.
We stand at a crossroads in the Democratic Party. We look to the path on the right and we see another generation as the Party of 51% - another generation of being the lesser of two evils, of making ourselves as small a target as possible for Republican attacks, of triangulating and maneuvering and pandering. We see another generation of textbook, disciplined campaigning, another generation of cynicism and distrust of the people whose cause we supposedly champion, another generation of 24-hour War Rooms, process stories, and endless disconnection from the people we supposedly represent.
But as we look back, we see how that tactic has failed. We tried it in 2000 and 2004. Those elections demonstrated that the Republicans know exactly how to beat a candidate who runs a "textbook" campaign where you don't really say anything you mean and don't provide the voters something to vote FOR. It wasn't Al Gore or John Kerry being bad candidates per se - it was the campaigns they ran, which became months-long process stories instead of campaigns to win the hearts of voters. They spent so much time thinking about "how can I fight the Republicans?" that they didn't think about "what am I really fighting FOR?"
The danger for our Party is that this tactic might work in 2008 as it did in 2006 - again, not because of its own merits, but because choosing the lesser of two evils is really easy when the greater of two evils is so completely evil. Eight years of Bushism, eight years of people with Rs after their name making us into the laughingstock or the terror of the world, eight years of utter incompetence and amoral cynicism, have made it easy for almost all Americans to see that the lesser of two evils will probably come with a D after her name. We might be able to win that way THIS YEAR, simply because of the myriad ways in which Bushco has completely trashed this nation.
But if history shows us nothing else, it shows us that opinions ebb and flow, they wane and wax. And what worked in 2006 and could work in 2008 simply by dumb luck in Republican overreaching and incompetence, isn't necessarily going to work in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016, when we don't have George W. Bush and his cronies to run against, when the Republicans have spent another few years in the minority. What then? We have seen that when their record isn't as terrible as it is, they know how to beat us in a textbook campaign. They know how to muddy the waters, how to kick up dust and pretend it's smoke, how to create just enough confusion and just enough trouble to sneak by. They know how to beat us when we're running the lesser of two evils - and if we choose the rightward path, mark my words, they will beat us again.
But we stand at a crossroads - not a dead-end. The path to our left leads to a better place - a place where Americans don't have to choose the lesser of two evils but can choose good versus evil, can choose someone they believe in, someone who will change the way American politics works. We can start building a generational majority by electing someone who is already convincing people in the elusive center not that he already agrees with them, but that they should join him - and us - in remaking this nation, into building a new, united America.
This is the bolder path - a path that shows greater uncertainty because it isn't business-as-usual, but that shows even greater promise for our Party and for our nation. This path brings us straight into enemy territory, where we can start taking back our nation from the ideologies and the tempting platitudes of the Right and convince people to stand with us. But this path, so fraught with risk, so clouded in uncertainty, so charged with daring, is the only way to a newer and better America - an America whose leaders aren't members of the Party of 51%, always looking to bleed that next special-interest contingency out of a divided nation, but whose leaders are part of a generational majority, forging the way forward with an eager and united nation at their backs.
This is the choice we have today: we can stand with Hillary Clinton and the Party of 51%, or we can stand with Barack Obama and a generational majority. We can accept the lesser of two evils, or we can encourage America to unite behind one of the most inspiring, most intelligent, most wise leaders of our generation.
The choice is ours. Let us choose wisely.