Grow a backbone.
Your lack of confidence speaks volumes. It is time to grow up. So Francis Busby did not get the 50% that she was never supposed to get, never polled at, and didn't herself plan on getting. So Paul Hackett only came within 2% in the Ohio-2nd. So, Ciro didn't win his primary. So what? So you're unlikely to see immediate dividends when you pick longshot cases, as the netroots is wont to do. We're still kicking ass and taking names.
And I don't have time for the Hamlet act. We're on the winning team, folks.
And here's why:From Chuck Todd:
The Democrats are still stuck in "I think I can" mode -- optimistic but realistic. The Republicans continue to find just enough optimism to survive, which is what keeps their caucus from complete meltdown. In terms of 2006, "complete meltdown" is defined as massive retirements and incumbents running for their lives.It has to be somewhat frustrating to the blue team, who must know how Charlie Brown feels every time Lucy pulls the football away at the very last minute.
In fact, it points to the one big disadvantage Democrats are facing this cycle that Republicans didn't have in 1994 -- an opponent aware that they have a problem.
Ultimately, the Democrats biggest problem is confidence. They should be able to win at least one chamber of Congress back under these current conditions. Yet, there's lingering doubt among many of the folks charged with trying to win back Congress, because there are so many infrastructure advantages favoring the Republicans (such as the makeup of a district like Calif.-50).
I'm tired of people saying my despondency is well-placed, my despair appropriate. Yes, you have reason to doubt. Yes, you have reason to despair, but the thing that separates winners from losers is whether or not they choose to crack under the pressure, whether they choose to wallow in their suffering, or simply brush themselves off, try again, and present a face to the world that doesn't show a scent of doubt in their own abilities.
It occurs to me that there is simply no way I will escape from this entry without sports metaphors, so pardon my Allen impersonation, but the difference between teams that win and teams that lose is whether or not you give up when you're behind late in the game. I'm a Redskins fan, and while I cannot defend our lack of a second wide-out, I can say that you can never say that our boys didn't play till the end of the game. And while we lost some games we might've won, we also won the last five games of the season on sheer guts alone.
Walk into the room and own it and say, I am a Democrat, which translates roughly to, I am a badass. When someone says you stand for nothing, rhetorically puch them in the gut so hard they can't breathe. You can do it, because what you believe is the best of humanity. You are embodiment of all the good this country has done in the last century. You stand for the New Deal. You stand for the Marshall Plan. You stand for the Great Society. You stand for the Balanced Budget. And anyone who questions that deserves to be reamed out for it, because they are standing in opposition to the City on the Hill that has made our country a superpower. They are the ones who feel entitled to greatness. We EARN it. So start earning.
Your leaders are the best leaders in the world, because they are Democrats, and any leader that is not a Democrat is a backwards thinking person who does not understand true greatness and lacks the vision required to care, not for a political party, but for a nation. Politics, wedge issues, this is weakness. If you have to use Orwellian names for your policies it is because they lack merit. And I don't have to be frustrated at how they've gotten away with it, because I'm a superhero, and superheros never say, but it is too hard. Nobody said saving the world would be easy. But I'd rather be the one doing the saving than the one waiting to be saved.
It's not terribly clever to use wedge issues and dump $300,000 into a race that you weren't planning on spending before. It's not genius to use gay marriage and terrorism and make people fear the boogiemen. It's a blunt object that they've beaten over head again and again. So stop fearing it like it was some sort of diabolical omniscient force when in actuality they are a very large hammer.
Our leaders are not perfect, but they've sure done a good job at letting their leaders twist in the wind for a year now. A year ago was Terri Schiavo. Remember that? Good times. And now you're impatient for the results? Well, it's not that I don't understand, it's that I don't care. Because I like to read stories about how remarkably unified and upbeat Democrats are rather than about their self-doubt. People don't show up to the polls if they think we're helpless little fools who don't have their act together.
How many times have you heard, if only Democrats could get it together? Well, in Virginia we have it together. Maybe you don't a Mark Warner to unite under, but the banner is all the same. We're Democrats. Whose says we can't win here?
What you are experiencing is learned helplessness. What you need to do is knock is off and remember that you are totally better than them. And if you don't believe it, bluff, because nobody ever wins at poker by showing everyone else their cards. Cross Posted to VirginiaBelle.Net