I have worked since 1990 for the local democratic party here in the northwestern mountains of NC--"God's Country," in more ways than one. Heavily republican; very few, if any, democrats ever elected to anything. And that's not to say that we haven't been swinging hard at wins, trying everything in the book now for over 15 years. Major voter registration drives, spending huge sums of money to get our message out, you know the drill.
The republicans have been successful by simply sitting on their fannies and letting the preachers do all the work for them. We keep working 24/7, and they keep winning.
This year, the republicans played the same old game, but we didn't.
Amidst the usual fire-and-brimstone pulpit shouting against Rosie O'Donnell and the murder of innocent fetuses, the republicans' largest (as far as I could tell--only) strategy was an i-vote-values rally at the largest of the 40 some odd Baptist Churches here in our small county of 35,000 registered voters.
Well, we weren't about to be "out-Christianed" this year.
First, we recruited local Baptist candidates for county commissioner seats to run (all three VERY progressive candidates, I might add). We sent all three to that i-vote-vlaues rally. Our candidates talked about how they were sinners, about how important true religious principles were to our country's future, and about how funding education and taking care of the envrionment (God's gracious gift) were true Christian values.
Guess what. We won all three commissioner seats here in our republican county, kicking out two incumbents (one a 14 year incumbent) and taking one open seat. Kerry lost our county.
Where there's a will, folks, there's a way. And where there's a door open, we've just got to have the good sense, willingness, and courage to walk through it.