Let's face it. The Republican party lacks leadership, strategy, and has no effective message or enough political organization to win this election. Even if by the grace of Gawd they connect on a hail mary pass, they will be unable to govern or to advance an agenda, because they have no agenda to advance -- they have been reduced to 100% negative, and are unable to present any sort of vision for America. If they are elected to the presidency this toxic negative destruction is the only thing that they will be able to achieve.
But let's not get caught up in what they will do. They are not going to win because we are not going to take our foot off of their throats long enough for them to get back up and regroup. We have leadership and vision, we are the party of ideas, and we have the technology, knowledge, and money to be the dominant party not just until the next midterm election, but for the foreseeable future.
The Republican party faces a long winter, while we are just entering our Spring. We are expanding, taking on new demographics, new people -- we have won the middle already. Hell, we have not only won the middle but we are starting to take on people the likes of Colin Powell, David Brooks -- even Peggy Noonan is not sure of her vote this year. This points to one fact: power is coalescing around us, and draining from them.
We have set the agenda in this campaign thanks to our strengths and the strengths of our leaders. Yes, I know it is cool to be cynical -- and for good reason -- about "Democratic leadership." They have failed to stand by principles many times over under Bush, and any anger we have is justified. But it is people like Hillary Clinton who have moved the electorate in this country forward, who have changed the discussion about Can a woman be President to When will a woman be President It is Clinton who made the colossal mistake of Sarah Palin -- the "cancer" on the Republican Party --even possible.
It was Democratic leadership, Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi, who brilliantly danced around and destroyed McCain's Maverick Express suspending-my-camapign BS, playing the game to make him like a total fool, a disruptive force -- the destroyer of process not the advancer of process.
It is through the recruitment of new Leaders, like Barack Obama, Jim Webb, Claire McCaskill, (a process shored up by the netroots, no doubt) that the image of Democrats has been completely remade, neutralizing the tried and true Republican attacks lines. You cannot call these Men and Women wimps. Once again we have leaders who demonstrate courage and vision not through a photo op in tank, or by saluting at their convention (sorry Kerry), but by speaking with confidence and showing us new ideas, new visions.
We should not change anything that we are doing now, but we must go forwards doing what we are doing with a new sense of the responsibility that comes with the power that we now have. We are no longer the party of opposition; no longer the dissenters to the people in power. We have the power now, and that comes with greater responsibility. It is much easier to rebel against authority that to be authority -- and there is nothing wrong with authority when it is use to guide the culture and the people towards a more just society.
What you say here, on this website matters. This is not the wall of a men's bathroom where things can be scribbled without care. This site and the netroots in general are becoming a powerful tool for the shaping of mainstream thought. Yes, I said mainstream though -- not radical lefty thought. And the greatest part of it is that what we are building is not just a democracy where you can place a vote, but a democracy where you can partake, contribute, and help shape the very ideas that constitute it.
But most importantly, we must recognize the importance of being able to self-doubt, while at the same time learning how to shed the self-doubt that has characterized us. We must do this one thing if we are to successfully govern and lead, and that is to learn confidence, to trust in ourselves more than we doubt in ourselves.
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Outside my window, at my high Northern latitude, the streets are already becoming cluttered with brown leaves, and a chill can be felt creeping in. The warmth of the morning shower now gives the first proofs that winter will again come, and soon. But despite the signs of winter, I feel like we are standing at the birth of a new spring.
Maya Angelou, in all her prescient wisdom, was 16 years too early when she spoke at the inauguration of Bill Clinton about the Pulse of This New Morning. That day, that moment, is now.