The impending victory of progressive Democrat Al Franken in Minnesotta, along with the defeat of Republican Ted Stevens in Alaska, has now put the Democrats just one vote shy of that elusive goal of 60 votes.
If only there were a special election that we could now all rally around, put our resources into, and continue our attempts to "leave everything on the road."
Oh, but wait. We had that chance with the Senate race in Georgia. We had an opportunity to try to rally our base, mobilize our troops and fill Georgia with an army of volunteers and awash in cash such in an effort to get to 60 votes.
But alas, that did not happen here. The four or five weeks between Nov. 4 and the special election in Georgia were a gigantic, collective yawn about our prospects in Georgia.
Regardless of the fact that we lost in Georgia, there is no denying that this site did not do enough to win that election.
I don't mean to sound like a scold here.
Wait. Scratch that. I do mean to sound like a scold. And I can hear all of the supersilious respsonses to my pointing out that this site didn't do enough to help Jim Martin get elected.
And all I have to say to those comments is:
#1. This primary mission of this site is to get more Democrats elected, and change the face of politics in this country via grassroots mobilization. Personally, I was initially skeptical of the netroots ability and power to transform national politics. But the last six years have made me a firm believer in the power of this medium.
#2. Kos called on all of us to "leave everything on the road" - a diary that has been linked to so many damn times that I am tired of linking to it. And right up until Nov. 4 - everyone seemed on board with that call to arms.
Then election day came. And Martin lost. And there was a special election. And a few of us here tried almost every damn day to keep that race front and center - to remind everyone here that in spite of our massive victory that we couldn't take our eye off the ball.
These pleas were met mostly with a collective yawn. Sometimes they were met with skepticism, and other times derision - as though we were somehow taking a turd in the punch bowl by pointing out to everyone that our work wasn't over.
So here is a rough outline of some of the responses that I/we received when trying to get the Kos community off its collective ass to help Jim Martin.
- There was no way that Martin could win the special election.
Response: see #1 & #2 above.
- Obama didn't go down there to fight for Martin, ergo we didn't really need to do anything either.
My response: see #1 & #2 above.
- Everyone was tired and burned out by the years of campaigning and the satisfying feeling of victory (or at least near victory).
My response: see #1 & #2 above.
- The 60 vote goal is either meaningless or irrelevant because some the arm chair quarterbacks here on Kos say so.
My response: there is no way to know that until each and every crucial vote has come before the Senate. Will we need 60 votes on National Health Care? Probably. Especially if we want to pass a really progressive version that is good for ordinary people.
Will we need 60 votes on EFCA? Almost certainly. And I am of the humble opinion that the Employee Free Choice Act is the people's bailout. If we want to see real change in this country, empower working people to form unions again - and that will go a long long way in solving many (but not all) problems.
Will we get some Democrats opposing cloture and some Republicans supporting it on specific bills? Yes. But the simple common sense answer is that having 60 Dems is way fucking better than having 59.
And maybe, in the end, there was nothing we could have done to win Georgia. But to me that sounds like so much defeatist hogwash bullshit that was used to oppose the 50 state strategy.
We could have done more. And we should have done more. Let's hope, that in the end, it doesn't actually matter that Martin lost. But let's not let ourselves off the hook either.