Bill Clinton came out recently in an interview and said there’d be no repeat of 1994 in 2010 as far as the Republicans kicking the Democrats out of power in Congress, because the Republicans are much “weaker” now. I presume it’s really saying that the Republicans can’t stand on a soapbox and say that the Democrats had 40 years of control over Congress, and had become corrupt…since the Democrats have only held it for about 4 years when 2010 rolls around. That’s just one Presidential term (took FDR 3.6 terms, by the way, to get the New Deal through…and that’s with a system that was infinitely less bureaucratic, lobbyist controlled, contentious, and media corrupted than today’s government). Not a lot of high ground to stand on yet for the GOP.
The twist is that the Democrats will do anything and everything they can think of to lose in the process. You need to understand that there is an entire generation or two of Democrats that are used to being the minority party. When you’re in the minority and the country is going down the drain, you are allowed to be self-righteous. When you’re in the majority and you’re dependent on being self-righteous, you do silly things like start third parties to protest your old party, decide to stay home on election day in disgust, and do many other things that end up putting you right back in the minority, where you can be comfortable feeling self-righteous while the country slips down the tubes. That’s precisely how the Democrats can lose…because both parties are full of crazy people. Unfortunately, the type of crazy that pervades the left is the type of crazy that causes people to become passive-aggressive and check out of the system. It’s good crazy, mainly, but it’s not that great in terms of getting things done.
Now the right, that’s scary bad crazy. That’s marching in line, violent, uncomfortable, repressive crazy. But that IS crazy that gets things done. They use hate and fear to get united and motivated, instead of self-righteousness and idealism. Self-righteousness and idealism might be annoying to most folks, but hate and fear is far worse to surround yourself with.
While the influentials on the right will lie, cheat, steal, and scare their way into getting their sad, damaged people in line, the left wing influentials will, if they do not get what they want or do not feel good enough about what they’re getting, will intentionally demotivate theirs. They know what they’re doing…they’ll rationalize is any way they can, but then they will undoubtedly flog themselves and curse when they let the organized mass of fear driven righties run them over and run ramshod over the system in a thinly veiled smash and grab by people would couldn’t care less about the people who follow them or the country they live in. The bottom line is, if the left wants this experiment in Democracy to succeed, it’s got to do a whole lot better job of keeping their people motivated, marching, and voting.
People have been blogging repeatedly about “what happened to the Obama online campaign machine” that was so effective in 2008…it’s not gone. The organizers are still out there, still sending emails, still holding phone bankings, still trying to get good policy that helps everyone in place. Unfortunately, the left wing influentials have pushed a message of discontent that has deflated so many supporters of the Obama presidential campaign from last year that the online organization just doesn’t have enough people to remain effective. Every time you read a comment, hear a caller on some talk show, or hear someone on the street say “I don’t know about this Obama. I think I’m giving up. I don’t think he’s going to do what he promised. I don’t think he’s going to deliver good health care policy, I don’t think he’s going to end the wars, I don’t think he’s going to end extreme renditions…”, you’re hearing another person who probably has heard so much negative opinion that they’re going to give up, back down, stay at home, and let their chance that they voted for last year pass them by. They might figure “we’ll have another chance in 3 years, it’ll be fine.” Then they discover that they won’t have another chance for 16 years…but that whole time, they’re sure pissed at and self-righteous about the right wing government as it perpetuates a smash-and-grab by a handful of wealthy corporate slobs who just want to take the money and run before the whole thing falls apart.