Hopes and Dreams

The writer James Lee Burke has a framed letter from Franklin Roosevelt, to one of his ancestors that has the following in it:

“The Democratic Party organization is made more difficult by the fact that it is made up in chief part by men and women who are unwilling to stand still but who often differ as to method and lines of progress… Only by uniting can we win.”

It has always been thus in the progressive and Democratic movements. We have the big tent, not the big stick. Maybe we try too hard to see all sides of every problem, and that makes us vulnerable to partisan, monolithic power grabbers like Karl Rove or Adolph Hitler. But do we really want to be like them? No, we don’t.
That being said, I still would like to go all Michael Vick on the “Blue Dog” democrats. They might as well affiliate themselves with the Republican party and allow us to elect some real Democrats in their stead. With the details of the Larry Craig two-step coming out, I cannot imagine anyone who is undecided voting Republican this election.
Finally, we need to stop bashing the Democrats for not accomplishing everything we had hoped. They really only control the weakest house of Congress, not the Judicial, or Executive branches. They certainly don’t control the Senate, thanks to Lieberman, thus have difficulty doing all we would desire. The thing to keep in mind is, look what they have accomplished. It is the equivalent of tipping over a rock in a field and watching all the bugs go running. Or better yet, turning on the lights and watching the cockroaches run, for you city folks. For every House investigation a Bush administration official seems to resign.
I hope they keep up the good work, and maybe the bizarre primary clustering will bring back something missing from politics for many years. Instead of anointing someone the winner by winning a few well spaced primaries, maybe the cluster will result in three or more candidates hitting the convention with a pocketful of delegates and the convention will actually mean something again. Lets hope so.