After the deluge

I have to admit, in retrospect, the fifty state strategy championed by Howard Dean when he was the chair of the DNC turned out to be a bust. It seemed good in theory: better to have a Democrat with you fifty percent of the time on congressional votes than zero from a republican. In reality, the conservative wing of the Democratic party succeeded only in watering down legislation, and in the end, torpedoing our chances in the just completed midterms.

Ari Berman has written a good piece for The New York Times in which he says the Democrats should boot the Blue Dogs--and he's exactly right. They have added nothing to the party except grief, don't champion the poor and the middle class, and frankly, stand for nothing the Democratic party is supposed to stand for. We could get a lot more done with a smaller but cohesive caucus.

A good start would be to elect Nancy Pelosi as minority leader. She is the one Democratic leader who stood up for our principles, and actually accomplished quite a bit. Should Heath Shuler decide to oppose her, crushing his candidacy would be a big help.

Tim Kaine needs to be out as chair of the DNC--his reign has been a disaster from the get go (the Governor races in Virginia and New Jersey in 2009 should have been a rather obvious warning sign). Fuck the moderates--they always lead us to defeat and half-assed legislation. We need a party champion--would love to see someone like either Alan Grayson or Russ Feingold take on the job, but I doubt we'll see either.

On the bright side, for as big of an ass kicking as we took last Tuesday, it appears we have 190 seats in the House (and a generally more supportive 190 seats for the progressive agenda) which means we only need 28 seats to take back the majority next election. Not likely, but not impossible either.

Further, for all the talk about returning to the blue/red political map of 2004, remember this: liberals didn't turn out, minorities didn't turn out, and young voters didn't turn out. My guess is after two years of republican "investigations," gridlock, and nothing accomplished to help the economy, they all turn out again in 2012. Will the traditional media be telling us in 2012 that we've returned to the 2008 map?

We can only hope....

Peace,
emaycee