OK - I don't post diaries very often but I need to make a point about Maria Cantwell and other vulnerable Dem candidates that we progressives love to hate.
Vote for her. Do your part to make sure she wins. I don't care if you feel (as I do) betrayed by her positions on Iraq and on the Alito cloture vote. I don't care if she has adopted "centrist" positions that seem to pander to the middle-right. It is important that she win this election and here's why after the break
In case you haven't noticed, the Rs control both houses right now. They lead the Senate 55-44. We need to pick up 6 - 7 seats and can't afford to lose any. If Maria loses, that's one more we need to get back - what are the odds?
Understand that this election is not about your issues - it's not whether this or that candidate supports ending the war in Iraq, or reproductive rights, or any single issue that is near and dear to your hearts and mine. It's about who gets to control the legislative agenda. If there are more Ds that Rs elected in November, then the Dems get to do that.
So if you stay home or piss away your vote to support some Greenie based on your conscience, then you are part of the problem. Your no-vote for Cantwell equals a vote for McGavick. This equals a vote for Frist as Majority Leader. This equals a vote for the continuation of a Republican-controlled rubber-stamp congress that will squash any attempts at sane legislation for the next two years. You want Bush impeached? Or even an investigation of the last six years of malfeasance? You want any of this brought into the open? Forget it. You want school prayer, abstinence only and intelligent design as National Policy? You want to see your 1st and 4th Amendment and God-know-what-other rights to go bye-bye? That's what you are voting for.
So get off your little whiny baby high horse and take a look at the big picture. Politicians - all politicians - pander. That's what they have to do to get elected. Maria and those of her ilk pander to the "moderate base" because that's who they think votes for them. If progressives turn out in big numbers to get Dems elected to Congress, then guess what? Progressives start to be seen as a political force. How do you think the religious right managed to hijack the Republicans? They started turning out in big numbers for R candidates. That's when the Rs started pandering to them.
Do you want Dems to pander to you? Do you want to be able to hold your D candidates accountable? Then turn out in big numbers to get them elected. These people are slow to catch on - they don't see trends until they have become trends. They don't see progressives as a significant force until they prove that they are a significsnt force. Then watch them start kissing your ass.
I am serious about this - every cry-baby lefty who thinks they are too cool or too hip to vote for the "lesser of two evils" or go Green to "vote their conscience" needs to go back only 6 years for a history lesson. How many people said they couldn't see any difference between Bush and Gore? If you voted for Nader or stayed home in 2000, you only need to look in the mirror when looking for someone to blame for the current fucked-up state of the world. If you lived in Florida and did this, you deserve to be bitch-slapped. Hard.
Win first, then you can start dictating your terms.