Erica's Adventures in Leftist Land

[LittleClarkie]

I went to our local peace organization today, and found the experience somewhat depressing. I always thought, in my younger days, that I would be one of these people. Now I stand to the right of them. How strange.

I'd heard from a Wisc. DUer that the group, the Peace Action Coalition, had a nice selection of buttons and bumperstickers and such for anti-war and other political messages. And so they did. Quite nice. I picked up seven buttons and a magnetic sticker for my car that is both a yellow ribbon and a message for peace. I'm esp. proud of the buttons, because a couple of them are both supportive of the troops but not supportive of the war, one says "Jesus is a liberal," another is a quote from W that talks about dictatorships being easier as long as he was in charge, one that says "Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, End the War", another that says "Osama bin Who?!", and my personal favorite, "No, you can't have my rights -- I'm still using them."

And elderly gentleman came in looking for a bumpersticker with a Margaret Mead quote on is about getting active. He spoke fondly of our former Socialist mayor, Zeidler, who's still kickin' at 93 years of age, and about going to a Socialist gathering in Chicago that only had about 200 people in attendance. But everyone had heard of our Socialist mayor. Apparently the old guy still comes down to the Peace Coalition once a week.

I grabbed some of their newsletters and literature to take home and read, and then paid for the buttons and magnet. I decided to ask the woman who was taking care of me what she thought about the last election and our last candidate. She said he'd been about her 5th choice. No surprise.

I encouraged her to continue. (Stooopid monkey). She talked about how lame the local campaign was in that, for one thing, they never had any bumper stickers or yard signs for people. I mentioned that I'd worked for that campaign and the thinking was that we should spend the money on GOTV because "signs don' vote." But people do like them, I agreed.

We didn't have enough bilingual stuff. Yeah, that was true too. But I did a comparison of our HQ and the Bush HQ. They had a nice painted space, t-shirts, buttons, bumperstickers, yard signs, window signs, bilingual newspapers and the lamest brochure on Bush's policies that I've ever seen in my life. No info, just Bush looking presidential.

They had more money than we did, plain and simple. They had it sooner than we did. We kept up, but more towards the end. They had a head start.

She continued, saying that the GOTV that did happen in the area was mostly them, and that the bulk of the votes were ABB. I've heard the ABB claim before, but having worked for that campaign, I thought we did a pretty good job of GOTVing. She said "Oh, you probably just did what you were told to do." What the heck is that supposed to mean. We canvassed, we called, we drove people to the polls. But no, she thought they'd gotten out most of the vote.

I countered with pointing out that we'd gone blue in Wisconsin. She made the "tinsy weensy" sign with her hand in reference to the margin. But we doubled the margin from Gore's vote. She said something about percentages I didn't listen to. I was about ready to leave.

To her two claims about ABB and that they got out most of the vote for the "pathetic" Kerry campaign, I say "Prove it" and "Prove it." Wish I'd said that to her face, but I didn't.

When I mentioned to her that the Dem Party in the area was trying to organize and improve their grassroots organization, she just made a face at me, a sort of "Yeah right" but too polite to say it look. When I told her that though the campaign could have been better, Kerry would still make a good prez, she made "that" face again.

She brought up the "gobs" of money he had left over. I mentioned the million for Dean as DNC. She talked about those who'd given money who couldn't afford it. Yeah, I was one of those. I mentioned Gore having almost as much left over and not coughing it up until it became obviousl I started to mention that he'd be giving money to the 05 and 06 candidates, but she wasn't really listening.

I should say that the Peace Action Coalition is non-partisan. They have to be, as they are a non-profit org. So she was just expressing her own opinions.

You know, it's one thing to encounter such folk at DU, but quite another to deal with one face to face. I like the buttons that the group sells. But I had such a feeling that they were among that group of ideologically pure folk that makes our collective teeth itch.

I can't decide which attitude bugged me more. Oh, I guess I'm used to the Kerry crap. We get that all the time here. Making little comments about our "lame" campaign was kind of personal, since I worked it. The "sheeple" comment about me just doing what I was told was uncalled for.

But I guess it was the general derision of the local Dem Party in general that got me. She was not impressed when I mentioned that the party was working on getting organized NOW rather than waiting for the next election. She probably held her nose to vote for Kerry, and if I had to guess I'd say she was either a Green, or a Kusitizen. She liked Sharpton, and thought Dean was interesting, but she wasn't a Deaniac.

I just got this general smug factor from her, and the comments that they did more good than the Dem Party in getting folks to vote.

Don't get me wrong. There were some things wrong with the Kerry campaign we MUST address before we try again. So to say it had flaws is not out of line. But I still think that folks who tried to help this time around by calling Bush Hitler scared the crap out of the Average Joe who didn't know all the wonky tidbits that made that a deserved label. I think the push on the far left activated alot of voters on the far right. That and the big evangelical wedge that we're watching self-destruct even as we speak (Yes, my little pro-life pretties, you were indeed being played for politics. How does it feel?)

It's that old "Kerry did everything wrong, and try as we might, we couldn't overcome it" routine that bugs the stuffins out of me. We ALL need to look at what went wrong in the last election, and be willing to shoulder part of the blame. And, God help me, there is a segment of Kerry voters that I dearly hope votes Green or Socialist next time. Do NOT support a candidate you do not support.

And of course there is a segment of the population that doesn't believe he DID lose, but that's a different story (Karen Hughes was RIGHT!) And of course it's bizarrely possible to believe both that Kerry ran a lousy campaign and that he won. It either sucked, or it was flawed and yet effective. Ya gotta pick one people. You can't have both. Even the "I liked Kerry until he caved" people are more logical than that.

Eh, rant mode off. Hope you didn't mind. I had to get that off my chest.

[JI7]

1. that's the problem with them, when you show them evidence against

what they claim they blow you off. it's ONLY THEM who did the work. what you did wasn't really much. FUCK THEM.

[ginnyinWI]

2. It's okay, LC, rant away

People just need to have it all make sense. If Kerry lost, he must have run a bad campaign. If he had won, then it would be, "oh what a brilliant campaign it was, and how hard we all worked to help him win." etc., etc.

Also she was one of those "liberally pure" people who will never get a candidate in the White House, unfortunately. Most people are just not willing to go that far left. Or she was one of those people who are never willing to be happy about anything!


edit: by the way, is that your name? Nice--my son's name is Eric.

[LittleClarkie]

3. Yep, I'm Erica

I'm trying to make it make sense too. Kerry says he's proud of his campaign, but I hope he sees that there were flaws. I think he does. He's still not happy with his advisers, esp. when they kept him from going after the Smear Vets. I tried to make that point with her too about not reinventing the wheel each time. Why can we never use the experience to improve the next time.

But I do agree with Kerry that the lose had alot to do with the war. And the far left can't claim ALL of the grassroots. He can still be proud. I do hope we can hold on to alot of those people for next time. And alot depends on how he and the rest of the presumptive candidates of 2008 conduct themselves between now and then.

Is it telling that some of them are not in the news at all? I don't hear a peep in the press about Clark, for instance, though I know he's active. Clinton's in the news, but that's because the RW wants her to win the nom. Kerry makes it in every once in a blue moon. Edwards I've only seen on CSpan. And there's that bit about Feingold going back down south to repair some damage he did with some comments. But that's about it. Not even much of a peep outta Gore, but I don't know if he's really running or not.

Hmm.

[politicasista]

4. There has been a lot of talk about Feingold of late

I agree I haven't heard a peep about the General in the news, except here at DU. Hilliary definitely in the news.

[TayTay]

5. So much to comment on

I am of the opinion that the Democratic Party cannot 'outsource' GOTV efforts to 527 and non-profit groups. These groups are not LEGALLY allowed to endorse a candidate. America Coming Together registered tons of new voters and tried to get those voters to the polls last November. But they couldn't LEGALLY tell them who to vote for or why this was such an important election. (ACT could speak in platitudes about how great voting is. They could not tell voters how great John Kerry was. Sigh!)

The Kerry campaign made mistakes. All campaigns make mistakes. All candidates are human and make mistakes. The Idiot King made tons of mistakes last year. But he won. (Maybe. There is sufficient statistical evidence to suspect fraud in this election. We may never know if it was enough fraud to throw the election results to *.)

The Newsweek series (and book) on the election actually had a few good points in it (mixed in with the gossip about Teresa.) It said that Kerry is famously open to 'self-improvement' and will actively seek out commentary from his army of advisers, friends, old college buddies and so forth. (You accumulate a lot of these folks after a lifetime in politics.) Kerry was getting back almost entirely negative commentary. Even his daughters were critical. Everybody meant well, but the effect was to depress the hell out of the candidate and the campaign. Kerry got better and the campaign perked up when John Sasso took his cell phone away, banned negative comments entirely and made Kerry's own family swear to act as 'up' as possible to get the candidates spirits up. Then came the debates and the comeback.

Sometimes the lefty wing of the party is like those negatives souls in the campaign. They mean well. They are earnest and only want to help. But their cumulative effect is to convince people that the effort is so fraught with potholes and hardship that it is barely worth undertaking. I wonder if they know this?