Skip to the End
David Sirota, author and rapid-response strategist for the Ned Lamont campaign, has a piece in In These Times. I skipped to the end:
The hope is that the huge number of ordinary people who stepped up and supported Lamont and other progressives this year will see the campaign for what it was: a major formative step in a growing movement that has a very real opportunity to profoundly change America for the better.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I skimmed the piece, and chose to quote the end. I may be alone in this, but I think there’s a race after every election to define its impact on the universe–and I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing. There’s probably a big picture that we won’t quite see for some time.
If we harness the power of that last paragraph from Sirota’s piece, and keep the ordinary people engaged, then we’ll create the big picture we want to see.
Am I the only wondering how many of those Liebervotes were bought and paid for by the old man himself? Your comment, Spazeboy, brought it to mind when you pointed out that it will take some time before the larger picture is seen. Might fill in some answers about that $387,00 slush fund too…I put n o t h i n g past these people, NOTHING.
Let’s not forget where we started with this months ago.
Joe Lieberman had long been the strongest Republican voice among registered Democrats. He was the leader of the corporate lobbyisted funded conservative “Democratic Leadership Council”. Then, at exactly the moment that national Democratic leaders were beginning to have the courage to take a stand again the Republican war in Iraq, Joe Lieberman chose to defend George Bush and the Republicans.
Back those months ago, many of us asked the real question, if the Democrats were to take back Congress, just what would change? What we realized is, not much – with Joe Lieberman and the other Democrats-In-Name-Only replacing the (other) Republicans.
But all that started to change when Lieberman was primaried. And the world shifted when we beat him in his own party in his own state. Then, he was only able to hold his seat with the help of national and state Republicans and, even then, by a minority vote. This – in his own state – from the guy who wanted to be president.
In the place of Lieberman and the other Demopublicans, we have a Congress that, hopefully, will follow through with its promise to take on the key issues for average Americans.
Now, it would have always been a gross mistake to view the Lamont campaign as the end of our our work – by the way, win or lose in the U.S. Senate election. There would have always been and, now is, a lot more work to do in building a movement for a better America and a better world.
And, if we succeed, we will be able to know that the Lamont campaign of 2006 was the turning point – the moment that the movement began.