I have been reading a number of comments on this site where people claim to have given up on the political process. I hear that Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats are no better than the Republicans. I hear doomsayers claim that the evils of the Bush Administration are irreversable. I share some of these concerns, I think the effects of global warming my well exceed what the IPCC predicts (~1m sea-level rise in 100 years). Remaking the federal judiciary will take many years. I have no idea what it will take to rebuild our image in the world (probably decades at least). One thing that the other side seems to have over us is faith. Not just faith in the goodness of human beings, or faith in the power of good government, but irrational faith untethered to the normal laws of nature.
How do we compete with that. When confronted with very real problems our side gets depressed at the long odds and numerous barriers in our way. It must be easy to be a pro-lifer that never gets anything but lip service from the other side and after years of unwavering support what do you get, Rudy Giuliani (I am actually quite upset at the anti-choice legislation that has gone through in the last 27 years, but they were promised a reversal of Roe v Wade). I heard Mike Huckabee on C-SPAN yesterday, I thought it was interesting that he claimed his christian beliefs would guide him in the whitehouse - but I detected no love of our enemies from him. I was recently surprised to see what kind of approval ratings some racist Republican senators (Lott, and Sessions) got from African Americans in thier states. Our president has claimed that the war on terrorism is the most difficult conflict this nation has ever faced. The number of Americans killed in the civil war was something like 500,000; how anyone could compare the current conflict to that is beyond me. W claims that S-CHIP is too expensive, but he has no problem with 2.4 Trillion dollars for war in Iraq. We all knew Bush was nuts, but I'm worried about the millions of Americans who are drinking the GOP kool-aid. Can we really compete against them, if so few on thier side do any fact checking, and so many on our side are willing to abandon good Democrats who aren't "pure enough"?