You, my friend, are very well meaning but with all due respect, I don't think you get it.
You remind me of Barack Obama. He posted here many eons ago.
I read his diary and was struck by the fact that like yours, it lacked passion. Isn't public service about leadership? Isn't leadership about taking courageous stands? Doesn't one take a courageous stand when one literally stands up for, and champions the most vulnerable among us? Isn't this the true test of leadership?
Like yours, Senator Obama's diary was well intentioned, earnest, but, IMO devoid of emotion, compassion and an understanding of what it means to be a leader.
You appear isolated, removed, almost exempt from all the catastrophes bearing down on your fellow citizens.
DemHillStaffer, Americans are dying. Americans are hurting. Americans are desperate.
Americans are desperate for a leader with a voice and with courage.
The most significant part of your diary was almost an
afterthought. It came in the second to last paragraph. I'm not playing word games here either.
You wrote in the second to last paragraph:
Fourth, we need to recognize that there are policy wonks and there are politicians and we need both. We need some Democrats to engage on these under-the-radar issues so that things can get done that will actually make peoples lives better. We also need members who want to yell about the big political issues and expose Republican wrong-doing. Members can't do both and as long as we preserve a balance, we should cut a break to those Democrats who would rather get something done than go down fighting on a suicide mission.
No, it was not almost an afterthought, it was an afterthought.
Your diary, was well meaning but read like a civics text. The days for civics texts are over. Ask senior citizens who cannot get their presciption drugs. The NY Times is reporting that seniors are going to kick ass on election day because of the Medicare D scam.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
You have things backwards. First we begin by addressing the needs of the American people. Then we win elections. This is a winning strategy. What should be the well articulated agenda of the Democratic Party, is a platform that will cut across party lines.
The problems tax-paying, voting American citizens are encountering in their day-to-day lives are not under-the-radar issues. They are also not Democratic issues. They are American issues.
The fact that you perceive them in this way, or even use such an inelegant metaphor to describe the staggering crises endured by many of our fellow citizens, is indicative of the enormous chasm between Americans and those we elect to serve us.
You didn't answer the very question you posed, "Why Congress has no spine?" You excused them. You apologized for them.
You give the impression of being out-of touch with the realities on the ground. Dare I say in a bubble like Mr. Bush. Maybe this is because as a congressional staffer, you can make the system work by invoking the name of your employer. I don't know.
But hear me well, the system is broken. It is rotten to the core and explanations don't put food on the table; get the troops body armor; get Americans affordable health care or win elections.
This takes leadership. Where in God's name is the leadership?
The problem remains, the status quo is not working. The status quo must be changed. To say, it's just the way things are, is not working.
If we fail to change the status quo, then we will not win elections.
So though you gave us a nice look at why things are so fucked up, that is but the first sentence, in the first chapter in a book we have not even begun to write.
*UPDATE* Here's a link to the diary I have referenced:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/19/01542/9703