Electable?
Halley comments this morning that most Democrats are waiting
on the sidelines but are committed to voting for someone who is "electable."
"Electable
Is it even a word?
I hear it everywhere I go from every undecided Democrat I meet.
"We'll
go with whoever's the most electable."
Isn't it
time to stop holding back, and by stepping up to it, MAKE one of
these guys electable?
I'm on both sides of Halley's fence. One of the reasons I
pitched my tent in the Dean camp is precisely because he's so electable.
However,
my suggestion last June was
the one Halley makes:
Sleepers Awake!
Tomorrow afternoon will be election
day 2004. What will we have done to end the madness in Washington?...
Kingmakers
Awake!
This is a time for leadership and not waffling, a time
to pick a horse and not worry about picking the wrong one. This may also
prove
to
be the time when Internet opinion leaders became the kingmakers in
our
society in the same sense that past kingmakers have been, by turns,
the robber barons, the Hearsts, the Sarnoffs and currently the
Murdochs.
The question is, will we collectively act or shall we
keep discussing best practices?
It continues to be clear to me. Pick the candidate who's not unelectable and
with whom you have the most influence. Do we need a long conversation to
determine which candidate is most open to blogger/bloggee
input?
If there's a secret to building this alliance, it would be
confidence–we could just do it. We need to feel as confident in an imminent
blog-based White House as Jeff Bezos
was
in selling books on line. This delicious sense of burying the kleptocracy
under a blizzard of votes and small contributions is the most democratic
upheaval we can imagine. But who is we?
We have met the Enemy and He is Us*
"Herein can be found that rare native tree,
the Presidential Timber, struck down in mid-sprout by the jawbone
of a politician. "Pogo
returns
to the
swamp from a couple of political conventions to find his unfinished business
being rapidly finished, once and for all, by rough and ready hands."
–From the foreword to
The Pogo Papers, 1952-53
*One of my father's favorite quotes. He worked hard for
Dwight Eisenhower, who almost ran as a Democrat. My father felt
that Ike saved the Republicans from staying in the pocket
of the ultra-conservative Robert Taft of Ohio. |
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"In the time of Joseph McCarthyism, celebrated
in the Pogo strip by a character named Simple J. Malarkey, I attempted
to explain
each
individual is wholly involved in the democratic process, work at it or
no. The
results of the process fall on the head of the public and he who
is recalcitrant or procrastinates in raising his voice can blame no one
but
himself."
—Walt
Kelley, 1982
No one would argue against the point that, if a couple of
million people put up $100 each, Dean's coattails would carry a lot
of congressional
seats. With 2 million contributors, the total would probably be more like
half a billion bucks.
Reaching Critical Mass
Few of us are persuaded by Mr. Kelley's argument. In our oversaturated
age, it's impossible to separate the mass of compelling but fraudulent messages
from the truly stunning truth when it unexpectedly shows up. You'd think
that by now I would have had all my friends sign up at the Dean site and
put up their $10-100.
Until I do that, maybe I'll quit bitching about how passive
others are.
10:38:04 PM 
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