The old joke about organizing Democrats being like herding cats is usually meant as a put-down, even if it's in an affectionate way. Democrats are good at critical thinking. Unfortunately, that often turns in to being critical of each other. In contrast, the Republicans seem to gain strength from their ability to stay on message and silence dissenting voices.
I don't have any problem with borrowing from the enemy play book to further our own political ends, and I've seen plenty of people, both here at dKos and in my daily interactions, who tout the Republican penchant for towing the party line as one of their strengths.
The trouble is, right now might not be the best time to be emulating that particular Republican tactic. I think now is the time that acting like so many unmanageable, independent, bad-tempered cats will be our greatest asset.
Elections make for uneasy times. Especially now, when so much is at stake. I am cautiously hopeful that, finally, we have a candidate who has turned Democrat herding into an art. Barack Obama gets that our very diversity is what makes us strong. And, against all odds, he has managed to add to our motley assortment.
He adds religious voters: I cannot think of any other candidate who would relate to religious groups as he does. Who would have ever guessed that the Democratic nominee for president would have any chance making a dent in the long-term alliance between Christians and Republicans?
Hispanic voters: The main stream media continues to push the meme that McCain's stand on illegal immigration is supposed to endear him to Hispanic voters, yet recent polls have Obama winning this segment of the population 2:1.
Young voters: The young are notoriously apathetic about politics. Yet, against all odds (and keg parties and mid-term study sessions and adolescent navel-gazing), Obama gets them excited and turns out their votes.
Obama's solution to the uncertainty of elections is not to enforce the party line, or even to expect his supporters to embrace everything in his own record or platform, but rather to bring us together as so many cranky cats who have become used to turning on each other, claws out, for far too long. Getting millions of Democrats work together in the best of times takes a great leader. Getting Democrats to work together while we are fighting each other as hard as we fight our political opponents AND allowing us to retain our differences (insert your "purity issue" here) takes some seriously genius leadership.
When I started writing this, I had the vague idea that it would be a diary along the lines of, "Can't we all just get along?" But it didn't turn out that way at all. Progressives and Democrats, let's not get along. Let's continue to fight together for the best candidate for president. And lets fight individually for the issues each of us has deemed important. It's division of labor. And that's the kind of effort it will take to get our country back on track.