I'll admit it I was steamed when I found out the Dem's were going to cave to Lieberman, but the diaries around here the last few night have just been painful to read. I want to punish the corporate whores as much as the next guy but giving up and letting the Republicans retake control of anything is just insane. I just want to bring some reality back!
I live in Cambridge MA, a bastion of liberalism, I work in a lab where the closest thing we have to a conservative is our professor who sends around the polls we need to freep eg. the PBS poll of infamy last year.
I say this because most people around here have little understanding of what is going on with the debate, they simply do not care as much as we here on this site do. They see the democrats as not doing anything, they don't care about how many votes and senate procedure. They just want something done, they just want a job when they graduate.
This is the most reliable set of Democratic voters you are gonna find outside of us netroots, and they could careless whether Lieberman is holding out or if it was Jesus himself descended from heaven with a decree to scrap the public option. They simply want something done anything done. I am guessing there are a lot of people out there just like these people who aren't going to withhold support come the next election cycle just because the Dem's gave into Joe Lieberman.
We have every right to stop volunteering and donating and I have said as much to Reid and Pelosi (Unfortunately/fortunately my congressmen are on the right side of the fight).
So lets fight for this bill and push for some form of reconciliation for the budget parts to make this better, lets not just give up on the process. Not everyone cares as much as you, and just because the DC and online echo chambers seem to think the Republicans are going to rise to power doesn't mean its true. The base may not be as energized and deservedly so, hell I am not. I am not donating another dime to anyone but a candidate I like, and I won't make calls on behalf of any one I don't agree with just because he has a D next to his/her name, but to just give up and try to kill the bill because Joe Lieberman watered it down is ludicrous