This past week one of Rand Paul's supporters stomped on a Jack Conway supporter.
This past week a Rick Waugh supporter got pinned down and mistreated by the local police in Louisa, Virginia, during an Eric Cantor event.
In a spread of diaries up and down the rec list Kossacks are screaming about the violation of rights. The oppression! The nerve of those mean old Republicans!
In one diary, Kossacks began to organize to flood the Rand Paul campaign with phone calls in protest.
Really? Seriously? Come on, people. Focus. This is exactly why we're getting our asses kicked.
After seeing all this hand-waving, I've really hit rock-bottom. From Obama all the way down to the grass roots, we really are our own worst enemies. If I was a Republican strategist, I could hardly think of a more effective strategy to help the Democrats lose an election than to get them to focus on all the wrong things.
Our guy cut taxes for 90% of Americans, yet few people know this. Our guy has effectively ended combat operations in Iraq, just as promised. Our guy fought for and won the passage of landmark health care legislation, as promised.
And on and on. The list of accomplishments are endless.
And a few thugs stomp on a couple of activists and we get our panties in a bunch and start running around like headless chickens pointing and shouting.
In graduate school I took classes from a professor who sported a nasty scar across his head. One day I managed to ask him what had happened; where he got it. "The Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma." "Holy crap," I said. He told me a bit about the encounter, including getting beaten down. "What'd you do after?" "Got up, kept walking."
People, now is the time to keep walking.
Calling the Rand Paul campaign headquarters isn't going to do crap. Nobody there cares about what you have to say. Hell, most people in Kentucky aren't going to care--even the Conway supporters. They care about where they could find a job. They care about their health benefits. In the eastern part of the state, they care about not having running water, plumbing, and electricity in their former coal-company-town, and their sick little child who doesn't breathe right but nobody can figure out what's wrong because the circuit doctor won't be there for another few weeks. They care about the overwhelming prescription drug problem. In the central and western part of the state they want jobs, and they want to feel like the person in charge cares, and that they get a fair shake from the government.
You want to make a phone call? Here, do some phone banking.
You want to make a difference? ActBlue is up and running for Conway. Give $5, or $10, $20.10 for old-times sake.
You want to help out? Make a difference? Volunteer to drive people to polling places on Tuesday.
You want to wave hands? Go to your polling place on election day and wave a sign for your candidate.
Go vote.
We know what happened to those supporters. We know it's going to happen again. But let's focus here.
Get up, keep walking.