for steve and everyone else

August 15, 2006

steve's got a response up to my post. it's worth a read, and i'm going to quote it liberally here and elaborate because i have a feeling that i am soon going to be the recipient of some very nasty comments and responses.

first, i want to thank steve, because he responded very civilly. i imagine that might have been hard to do after i expressed so much anger and frustration in my original post.

steve and i have had a great report in email and i met him in 2004 when i went to nyc to protest the gop convention. put simply, i adore the guy and we agree on just about everything. i have a ton of respect for him. with that said... here goes.

I know Joe Barton is an asshole, but the easiest way to strip him of power is to change who runs the House. Now that may suck when you see a campaign up close, but the only people who hate Barton are the people who run against him and the people in his district.

But Lieberman is what we call a force multiplier. He is on TV every week, undermining the Democratic party. Lieberman is the roadblock to party unity. Because he loves to attack fellow democrats to look better. He provides cover for Bush in a way no House member could and helps define the national party as weak and feckless.

yes steve, i know. i'm not disagreeing with your points, but you just have to understand where i'm coming from with all this. you're on a mailing list with me; you're well aware of the fact that i supported ned lamont in the primary. this is something that all the folks reading my diary at dkos don't know. i support ned lamont. i did a whole sore loserman page on myspace. i am on the youtube nedheads group, i participated in the friends and family program and got everyone i know in connecticut to vote for ned. i donated. i did that because i know lieberman is a bush enabler. i know he's a pox on the party. i just want to make it crystal clear to everyone that i realise how bad joe is for the party, since some people on the dkos diary have already accused me of being a lieberman plant (nice groupthink there, folks). i was hoping that lieberman would have the fortitude to accept the decision of the good people of connecticut and bow out gracefully after he got his ass whupped. but he didn't. more on that in a moment.

You aren't going to take back the Congress without getting our house in order, and Joe Lieberman is that house. As long as he's claiming to be a Dem, he is a bright, shining example of how the Dems don't stand for anything or anyone. He is the front man for the DLC, the Beltway crowd, the whole rotten lot of them. There is no point in taking the Senate and having Lieberman snipe at the leadership.

The issue wasn't the seat, but the man who held it, and how he was more important than the party or even elections. Lieberman was the pet Dem for the GOP and the damage he did doing that was amazing.

again, i am well aware of all that, and because of those factors, i supported lamont's primary run. but speaking of getting our house in order - because that's really where i am concerned here - how are we going to do that if we don't get a democratic majority? my concerns are that this race will continue to suck media wind. good candidates - not just my guy dave - are being ignored, neglected, and underfunded because of the amount of resources that were put into the lieberman race. i think about all that energy that was put into lamont's campaign, and while i cheer it and think it's a great example of people power, i wonder how many people burned vacation days and dollars to travel there when they could have been putting resources into their local campaigns and races.

i just wonder about that. i wonder if we've made a grave miscalculation here. and my doubts are seeded in the fact that lieberman - unless he drops - has a good chance to win. i guess i'm not supposed to voice these doubts out loud - that i'm supposed to be a good team player - but i cannot help but worry what effect this is going to have nationally. if lieberman doesn't drop, he is going to be the number one media narrative between now and november. it plays right into the rovian narrative of dems being weak on national security. and that damages our candidates, especially the ones running in reddish and purpleish states.

i know that there are a lot of national dems - especially rahm (god i never thought i'd type that) and wes clark - who are kicking ass and taking names right now, and many people (especially on the liberal blogs) are weaving a "we ain't skeeered" narrative. but listen yall, that may work in some places, but it doesn't work everywhere. my district is a prime example. last night i met so many people who were mad at barton, but who expressed a deep regret about what happened to lieberman. one guy - bob - told me he was a JFK dem, and that booting lieberman was the worst thing that has happened to the dems in ages. you gotta understand the type of voters i'm trying to woo down here, folks. it isn't true blue liberal types. it's conservative to moderate dems who appreciate people like lieberman. and honestly, until last night i didn't realise that the FAUX news narrative was working on these folks. i didn't realise until i got out and talked to ordinary voters in this district how strongly they felt about the lieberman race. i haven't canvassed (or actively blogged) in over 5 weeks because i went back to college, and last night was like a kick in the face. what happened in connecticut was great for connecticut, but it just made my job so much harder.

But even in Texas, who do you help? Nick Lampson? His race is going to suck up light and money as well. But there's a chance to make real change in TX-22. So it's about choices, hard choices.

yea, but only because tom delay resigned. had delay still been there - as corrupt as he was - he would have been reelected. it doesn't matter how much money lampson's raised, or how much noise we made, delay would have won. period. that is not up for debate. that may seem outrageous to non-texans, but it is what it is.

so who do you help? well, you help your local races, first and foremost. i have been busting my ass for dave. so have the local dem activists. i've also been supporting david pillow, the candidate for my state house district. in a place like texas - where the slog is sooo damned hard - you have to work in your backyard first. that's why i haven't piped up about too many national races. that's why my blog took a local focus. i gotta start here.

there's also another option. the texas bloggers banded together and created a mailing list. it's no secret that we're working together to try and get attention to all our folks. we've got our own texroots page. we're doing what we can. but it's a different playing field down here, and i don't think that folks who don't live here (or have never lived here) understand the kind of fight we have on our hands.

it's not like we're not trying to change things down here. it's just a much harder fight.

i say all this because today i have also been accused of not doing anything (not by steve, but by some other people who are just getting exposed to me). people (especially those who don't know me), listen up. i have been a democratic activist since 1992 and i don't appreciate my credentials being questioned. my first campaign experience was gathering signatures for al gore in 1991/92 when i was 18. sure, i spent the latter half of the 90s taking the good times for granted, but i got even more heavily involved after the 2000 elections. i jumped on the dean bandwagon in august of 2002, and along with aziz and jerome, wrote at the very first dean blog. i spent hundreds of man hours working for dean and then kerry. i worked for morris meyer - barton's last challenger - and now dave. i have donated thousands of dollars to democrats and spent my blood, sweat, and tears trying to take this country back. i am an elected official. it makes me so sick to think that by voicing a doubt, all of a sudden people are questioning my credentials. why don't you just go ahead and brand me with a scarlet A and be done with it?

We could have let Lieberman slide, be happy with most of his votes, but that would have been a mistake. While the Lamont campaign got attention, it didn't really suck up all that much money, and the techniques learned there will pay immediate dividends. It's all a matter of resource allocation on trying to win in places where that can happen. You take away his committee chairmanship and see how long he stays in the House?

steve, i'm not disagreeing that lieberman is bad for us in some ways. that seems to have gotten lost in the debate here. so here is how i'm looking at it. lamont could have self funded, and he did to a large extent. but looking at the netroots page, he took in $308,973.97. what i'm thinking is that money could have funded a few small-dollar races where we had a good shot at taking back a house seat from a few rubberstamps. instead of taking down one bad guy, we could take down several. it pains me to no end to say this publicly, but it's just how i feel.

i didn't pipe up and voice any doubts when the lieberman idea was floated because it seemed like a done deal and i'm just one voice. but i sincerely wonder if we should have first concentrated on regaining a majority before cutting the deadwood.

I know it's frustrating, but you can't do everything and be everywhere. You pick your shots, hope for the best and elect a House where Barton has much less power, if you can't beat him outright

yes steve, it is indeed frustrating, and that's putting it mildly. i am literally in tears here because i am feeling extremely hopeless and helpless. yall just don't understand how bad it is down here at times. it's so easy to get beat down, depressed, and disgusted after what i went through last night. i sat in a room with a bunch of fucking racist, close minded useful idiots, and realised that they were clearly the majority. how do you think that made me feel? so alone... but even among them, there was discontent, and i could not help but think that if some of those people were exposed to a different option in this race - if they were given a chance to see and hear dave speak and realise that he's a goddamned decorated war veteran who will truly represent them - that some of them would have changed their minds. i would say the same of every single candidate in texas at both the state and local level. i see it in david van os and fred head and hank gilbert and all the wonderful candidates who are out there putting their lives on hold and their asses on the line to fight right here in the belly of the beast. and you know what? other than the bloggers and grassroots in texas, they aren't getting much help. it's not like we have a well oiled machine here (although we are working on that).

and what is completely disheartening is to know that nobody is going to help us. not the national party, not the state party, not the national liberal blogger noise machine, not the dtrip - NOBODY. i don't think that many people realise how it feels to be completely written off as hopeless and a waste of time, because honestly, that's how people see this entire state. they see it as a waste of time. "fuck the south" you know. and for the past few months i have felt like i'm just supposed to sit here and accept that status quo - that i'm supposed to be the good team player and just help everyone else. well i'm sorry, i just can't keep quiet about this anymore.

my priority is my own backyard. that's where i have to work on changing hearts and minds and votes. for the past few years, i have worked the ground in my district, i have served as a precinct chair, i have won elections within the party, i have gotten involved with the tarrant dems and been a good team player for them. and it's opened my eyes in ways that have pretty much devastated me. i know i am waaaay left compared to the folks here. and i have to moderate when i talk to people. i have to learn to speak the language of "values" and faith, and i'm a goddamned atheist! imagine carrying that weight every day, knowing that most of the people you canvass would slam the door in your face if they knew you didn't believe in god. and these are the people i have to deal with - the most conservative democrats of all.

imagine my disgust after the state party convention this summer (conveniently held on the same weekend as yearlykos, so i couldn't even go there and get my batteries recharged by being among my brothers and sisters) when my candidate for state party chair was derailed by a whisper campaign about his sexuality. this is not a personal knock on our chairman, but when boyd richie was elected i cried. the last time i shed tears like that was when kerry lost, and before that, when dean got taken down. i am just sick and fuckin' tired of losing and i'm sick and tired of feeling like nobody gives a shit about texas.

i hoisted a beer to lamont's victory, but it was bittersweet. i am so happy that the good people of connecticut made the decision they did, and i do not begrudge them one bit. i want to make that crystal clear so that there is no question. but i think that i have a real fear here - one that everyone else for some reason seems hesitant to write about - and that is that holy joe won't drop out and that he'll win. it seems to me that some folks who commented on my thread at the big orange blog shared my concerns. they're worried about the race sucking resources as well. and when we are at such a crucial turning point - shit yall, the elections are like 85 days away - we need everyone on board in every district where there is a challenger. i think it's a legitimate fear to worry about whether our other candidates will get a fair shot with the lieberganda being broadcast on all the networks. and i'm being treated (again, not by steve) like judas for even mentioning that. why? we're not republicans. we're allowed to disagree with each other, aren't we?

now listen, i know that my post on the big orange blog was written with in anger. for those who don't know me, anger is usually what generates my most controversial and popular posts. don't ask me why. i have no fucking idea. i have been busting my blogging ass for nearly five years and nothing gets traffic like me being pissed off. but i didn't write it to get traffic or get recommended. i wrote it because the emotion was raw and i needed to get it off my chest. i wrote it because these things are very real to me.

i don't apologise for anything i wrote in the post. i do admit that the "fuck yall" was a bit harsh, but as i said, the emotions are very real and raw right now, and to be quite honest yea, i do feel that way at the moment. maybe that's hard for people to understand, and that's fine. but try living in red red texas or oklahoma or mississippi or alabama or georgia or anywhere else in the deep south. live there for a while among the people, and realise that your party institutions are broken, and people are beaten down and there's very little hope, that nobody's got your back, and see if you don't want to tell everyone to fuck off once in a while. this environment is very demoralising.

that's why i believe in the 50 state strategy. howard gets it. he knows that a large chunk of his support came from texas, and we need him and we need the national party institutions to be rebuilt. and if we're not going to fully commit to that, why the fuck am i here busting my ass?

i imagine that some people won't get what i'm trying to say here and that's fine. i don't begrudge anyone for hating me or being pissed off about what i wrote. but there is one standard i have always held myself to for these past five years, and that's that i will not hold back. i will not write from fear. i will not pretend everything's ok when it isn't. i will be honest with my emotions, regardless of who i might piss off. i will say what's on my mind and not be scared of reprisals. if you don't get it, then fine. i'm not here to please you. i am just me, the only active liberal blogger in the 6th district, and i can't paint a picture that isn't real to me.

Comments:

AnnaT, I understand exactly where you're coming from. I don't necessarily come to the same conclusion, but I understand. I live in a historically Republican district in NJ. My rep. is the worst kind of DeLay lackey/Christofascist zombie you can imagine (Scott Garrett). But what do you do when you have a county Democratic organization that DOES NOT WANT TO WIN?

They are running a guy from outside the district who's the WORST kind of DLC whore. He won't take a stand on anything, he lies about his position on the Iraq war, he's a staunch corporatist who sells himself as a man of the people.

I worked in the primary campaign of his primary challenger, a woman whose message resonated with Republicans and Democrats alike -- because she had staunch opinions and backed them up. But here in NJ you simply CANNOT buck the party hacks, because they will crush you. And still, she got 33% of the primary vote with 1/6 the money. Her opponent spent over $200K to beat her -- and went into the fall campaign season with $93,000.

So who's to blame? Is my candidate to blame for giving voters a choice? Should we have just sat back and accepted the party organization's guy? And should I be expected to vote for a corporatist who is perfectly OK with Big Pharma and HMOs writing healthcare legislation -- simply because he's a Democrat?

Howard Dean came down a few weeks ago and accompanied this guy on his gimmicky "walk the district" tour, which consists of walking up one out-of-the-way street in each town, in the middle of the afternoon when he knows no one is home, and knocking on doors. I can't imagine why Dean did this in a district where no one thinks this dweeb can win.

I know how important it is to gain these seats. But I also think we have to send Democrats a message, and if we don't do it now, when will we do it?

The Lamont/Lieberman race is not going to suck resources out of other races, because those other races would be ignored anyway. I'm not blogging about Lieberman anymore because I don't want to shine light on him. But the media would find something else to cover anyway. Unless your guy has the kind of mediagenic star quality that Paul Hackett has, the media don't care about these races.

The blogs are another story. Daily Kos diarists are focusing far too much on Lieberman. I agree with you that the blogs need to focus on races like yours, because the mainstream media won't.

But the reality is that in MOST races, the parties don't care. The money guys don't care. They are not even about winning, they are about who can bring in the cash. What you need to do is in your district. Have bake sales if you have to in order to raise money. Once you realize that for all that we adore Howard Dean, the national party ultimately is run by the hacks, then you can start taking your destiny into your own hands.

Posted by: Jill at August 16, 2006 08:14 AM

Hi.

I was one of the ones that questioned what you are doing to help defeat Barton on the DailyKos thread. I see you are doing all you can and apologize for that remark.

There was only one person who accused you of being a Lieberman fan by my count, which was extrodinarily stupid and please don't castigate the Daily Kos community for that.

I stand by my assertion that you haven't given us much reason to believe Barton is vulnerable. I hope you can understand we don't want to tilt at windmills. Sometimes seemingly hopeless races turn out to miraculous victories, and I guess Lamont seems like one such. But there were reasons to believe he could win far ahead. Lieberman's support took a dive early in Lamont's candidacy. These things tend to start small and snowball larger.

As to the voters down there that are turned off the Democrats by Lieberman's defeat - it just goes to show our narritive is not getting out there. The "Liberman is a reasonable moderate Dem" line obviously has adherents. It's a warning to us, but I'm leery of accepting the proposition that we should not do something becuase of how the right wing will spin it. We can't run from what they say anymore. That strategy is a failure because it cuts off too many options, and to those that see it for what it is (more people than we think) it appears cowardly. Certainly the right wing doesn't seem to avoid doing things over fears of how we'll spin it.

We just have to do the right things as we see them, and risk the consequences. The Right wants to call us extremists on a pogrom for taking down Lieberman? Fine. We'll just have to work harder to show the nation what was wrong with Lieberman (D-CT).

It's going to be a long fight to fix all this. For all you complain about us writing Texas off, I'd point out we don't just write off every Red state. I'm seeing a lot of progress in Colorado. Where did it come from? From the state level. Once the state starts electing state level democratic majorities, and Democratic governors, you'll see the national activists working harder to flip the federal house and senate seats. Perhaps that's where it has to start in Texas. Take back the state house, ungerrymand the state and it will be a whole new ballgame. Just a thought.

You're a contrarian voice, and I notice your diary hit the top of the rec list, so you clearly tapped into some nascent dissatisfaction with the whole Lieberman thing. So you're having an impact, and clearly Daily Kos is big enough to take a "fuck y'all" on the chin now and again from its friends.

That's an encouraging thought in our supposed echo chamber.

Posted by: Scientician at August 16, 2006 08:21 AM

scientician: thanks for the comment. i sincerely appreciate it. as to the judas remark i made in the post, man, you should see my email box!

to elaborate a bit more on the lieberman thing in texas... i was thinking this morning about the ciro/cuellar matchup. that's a prime example of how things that resonate in really blue states don't resonate down here. cuellar was never going to lose. folks are just a lot more conservative down here. it's hard to explain how it is - you just kinda have to come here and feel it to get a real sense of the atmosphere.

as to the windmills comment, yea i know we don't wanna be don quixote. i just wonder, though, how long we're going to accept the status quo in places like texas. jill upthread hit on something, which was that her state party essentially didn't give a crap about her district. well, it's pretty much the same here. our state party - god, i could complain about them forever but i'll just save it. we tried really hard to take it back this year at the convention and we came close, but we could not overcome the extremely conservative wing of our state party. i was not kidding about that whisper campaign. it doesn't mean we are going to stop trying, quite the opposite. but it just gets demoralising. i'm sick of losing, you know?

i want that feeling that the CT bloggers had when they beat lieberman in the primary. i want it badly. i just don't know if i have the mental strength to hold on for much longer, quite honestly.

also, jill's last paragraph is so damned relevant. jill, you hit on the thing that upsets me most about the problems with our democratic party institutions. the barriers to entry are so difficult to overcome. they are set too high for most regular people. we need public financing of campaigns in order to destroy those barriers.

Posted by: anna at August 16, 2006 09:06 AM

At the risk of sounding callous or cynical... get used to it, Anna. It's always been this way. It was this way when my grandmother was agitating for equality in the 1920s in Hardeman County, it was this way when Allen Shivers abandoned Adlai for Ike in '52, it was this way when conservative Dems abandoned John Hill for Bill Clements in '78... nothing has changed for progressives in this state but the party ID of our opponents. We have to be desert flowers, we have to do what we do because fighting for right is all we know how to do, and realize that our victories are rarely tangible. Fort Worth desegregated quietly overnight because people like us had spent years making the case that segregation was both morally wrong and holding us back economically -- when the time came for black leaders to approach the 7th Street Gang, that establishment already knew the score thanks to people like us. That's what we do. There are very few thanks along the way and far too many brickbats.

That said, I know it will be impossible for the national party to make the case that progressives down here are mainstream as long as similar candidates in frigging CONNECTICUT are smeared as Leninist radicals by OTHER (NOMINAL) DEMOCRATS. If the 50-state strategy is to get real traction, it has to be given time to redefine the political center in places like Connecticut where conditions are more hospitable. In the meantime, though, we remain here deep behind enemy lines fighting rearguard guerrilla battles. It's all we've got.

Posted by: chris at August 16, 2006 10:40 AM

i know chris, and coming from you, i don't take any offense.

Posted by: anna at August 16, 2006 12:39 PM

I'm glad you're ok with it, Anna, because nobody thinks more highly of you and what you do than I do. Well, maybe Monkey does. :)

BTW, if you would like to make a friendly wager on the Lieberman/Lamont rematch, I'm game. At this point, I would wager against it even happening... I think Holy Joe will withdraw when his numbers crater. And his defeat will send an urgent message to the Joe Bidens of the party that they can't vote with MBNA anymore and expect to get away with it. In fact, that already has happened. That bankruptcy bill abomination could never have happened without the political cover extended by assholes like Lieberman and Biden.

As for what we do locally... I'm not sure. Racial identity politics are so hardwired into Texas that I have no idea how to dismantle them. Finding real common cause between working people of all races and harping on those themes may be the only way. I just don't know.

Posted by: chris at August 16, 2006 07:39 PM

Anna,

I was thinking about this very same thing this morning, "I could not help but think that if some of those people were exposed to a different option in this race - if they were given a chance to see and hear dave speak and realise that he's a goddamned decorated war veteran who will truly represent them - that some of them would have changed their minds"

I would love to talk with you about how this might be accomplished. Please email me.

Posted by: Tom at August 16, 2006 09:41 PM

Anna,

I was thinking about this very same thing this morning, "I could not help but think that if some of those people were exposed to a different option in this race - if they were given a chance to see and hear dave speak and realise that he's a goddamned decorated war veteran who will truly represent them - that some of them would have changed their minds"

I would love to talk with you about how this might be accomplished. Please email me.

Posted by: Tom at August 16, 2006 09:41 PM

First, I remember when Barton was first elected to replace Gramm. I thought, geez, even Aggies are going to wise up to this guy. :)

Second, as for this being quixotic race, remember that DeLay was considered nearly impossible to defeat. Even without his legal imbroglio, he would have faced a stiff challenge based on the groundwork from the previous election.

Third, I think Dave is a strong candidate for the district if folks bother to look. I mean, come on. Would it be that hard for the party to draw some attention and to help force a debate? I mean how expensive is it to have Dems in tv and press interviews refer to the Republican too afraid to debate a decorated war hero?

Fourth, Barton is beyond being a moron (who can't imagine that CO2 is a pollutant). He puts money before children's health. He doesn't give a rat's ass about those in need and is fighting to put people's lives in danger by opposing clean air. We know he's criminal.

Posted by: Tx bubba at August 16, 2006 10:10 PM

I recently moved out of Arlington, and I still work there. What I see among Republican friends and co-workers is an attitude that I can only conclude is the result of two decades of relentless and highly successful demonization of Democrats and liberals by the right wing. Most rational and intelligent Republicans I know will absolutely agree with very nearly everything I have to say about the disaster that has been Republican rule in this country, and yet getting them to say that voting Democratic is therefore a good idea is akin to trying to get them to renounce Christ and embrace Satan. I am only slightly overstating things. I don't consider myself a Democrat, much less a Democratic activist, and even so it is despair-inducing to see otherwise rational people admit that their government is dangerous and deranged, and yet not be able to overcome the "but the Democrats are worse" programming they are infected with. We got two parties, and one is running the country into the ground. The choice is obvious, and yet it is an emotionally impossible choice for far too many.

Posted by: Jeff in Texas at August 17, 2006 10:42 AM

Hi, pal. Took me awhile to get back to this discussion. I just left a note in the thread on Steve's site, and then followed the trail of breadcrumbs here [smile].

You and I live in what seem like hopeless-red districts. I'm in PA-05. There are a slew of Pennsylvania Congressional districts in real contention this cycle, but PA-05 is not one of them. We have a well-meaning duffer filed, in case lightning strikes the invisible incumbent, but.

And that's the difference in our situation. Because you have, in your uphill district, by whatever gift of god or fortune and his supportive spouse, one of the four or five solid gold candidates of the year, in TX-06.

He's worth fighting for. You go, girl.

warmest e-hugs... apply as needed.

Posted by: Christopher Walker at August 17, 2006 03:59 PM

oh, ps -

kossacks donated $160.02 to David's campaign via my page, while that thread was active. Plus a few dollars for other good folks on that page.

http://www.actblue.com/page/defeat-exxon-pac-incumbents

You write good!

Posted by: Christopher Walker at August 17, 2006 04:07 PM

thanks christopher! i really appreciate all you're doing to help us out and defeat the candidates that are beholden to big oil.

hey jeff - what, there's jobs in arlington???? um, where can i get one of those?

Posted by: anna at August 18, 2006 09:34 AM