A Call for Democrats to Close Ranks
As a contributor to Democratic causes, this cycle I gave to the "netroots" candidates, to the DSCC, to the DNC, to a few candidates direct and made calls for MoveOn. I'm gay, and while I'm happy the gay marriage wars might be dead for a while, I'm not personally excited that some of the new more conservative Dems are not in favor of gay marriage.
HOWEVER, now it is time we close ranks. This is the only part of governing that the republicans got right. Keep our disagreements behind closed doors. Instead of picking at Rahm for his bad decisions, or at Dean for his fumbles, or at we progressives for being too "liberal" or whatever, we MUST act as one and move forward on the issues that are most important to all of us: progress on resolving the war realistically. Raise the minimum wage. Cut the corruption crap. Fix FEMA. Address healthcare. Stop wasting time on fake social issues (e.g. flag-burning). Address global warming. And for godsake fix the election process so it is transparent and fair!
Let's take a message from something that is underreported: Arnold saved himself from a Republican tide by doing just this. California voters, predisposed to vote Democratic, re-elected him in a landslide. Why? Because he had admitted he was out of touch with the electorate in the beating he took with his ballot measures last year, and he moderated to govern WITH the Democrats in the Legislature. Californians are proud of what has been accomplished leading the way to address global warming, as one example.
If Democrats in 18 months can show that we can pull together and GOVERN, and minimize our differences, we won't need to spend a gazillion dollars to win in 2008. I for one am willing to wait to get married, if we can stop the killing of our troops in Iraq, and can dig this country out of the hole that the Republicans led us into.