Five Before Chaos

Ok, going to make that rare excursion into VT politics again. I’ve just returned from a ‘house party’ for Peter Welch, who is running to fill Bernie Sanders’ seat. Now, for those of you not in the know, in Vermont, due to our smallness factor, we have ‘house parties’ for candidates at the local and statewide level (I’m sure other states do this too, I just don’t know). Anyways, sometimes they’re publicly advertised, sometimes private invite. Since I’ve gotten more involved in VT politics working on the Osman senate campaign, and have gotten to know many more of the ‘movers and shakers’ (god, I hate that term), I seem to get invited to a lot of these house parties, or ‘coffees’ as they’re called. They are kinda cool, because they give one the opportunity to meet the candidate one-on-one, look them in the eye, and question them… and give them follow-ups if they give you the typical politician non-answer. Lots of schmoozing. And, of course, the opportunity to raise cash.

So, anyways, Jenni and I went to the coffee in Marshfield. There were lots of people I knew there. When Welch showed up, I approached him, and thanked him for acknowedging my Rainville bash letter to the Times Argus. He remembered it and thanked me again.

Anyways, after lots of good cheese, pastry and almost too much wine, I went into the big room to hear him speak. His speech was heavy on the Bush-bashing, but more importantly laying out some of the things he wants to do in Congress, such as bringing the troops home, fixing the Medicare D donut hole, protecting Social Security, and repealing the tax breaks for the wealthy and the oil companies. Welch is a very personable guy, not slick at all, and that was a plus in my book. He’s quite soft-spoken, not the Bernie firebrand type.

After the speech, he took some Q&A, and I asked him that basically, time and time again, whether it be torture, war, wiretapping, 9-11, whatever, the Dems drop the ball and roll over, time and time again. I asked him what his thoughts were on that, and considering how unpopular Bush is in VT (the 20’s), it would be politically quite safe to take on Bush, and how agressive would he be in regards to holding Bush and co. accountable?At first he was treading dangerously close to being a bit evasive, repeating his plans to fix things. So I followed up, “Peter, that’s great, but what about accountability? What about investigations and such?” He brought up a good point that often investigations and such can derail other initiatives and be turned against the party (while they are important, they cannot be the only focus), but also talked about the power of committees, in that they can stop a lot of things from seeing the light of day in the first place. He agreed that the Dems have been too timid in taking on Bush and that he would not back down from agressively fighting the president. So he sounds like he would be an obstructionist to the Bush agenda, which is what I was looking for. Every other question from the audience was pretty in-depth and intelligent, and he answered everything straight on, not giving the stock answer. He’s not the pandering type.

Peter’s an intelligent, thoughtful down-to-earth kind of guy, with none of the slickness(such as Bernie), which is a plus in my book. Of course, he’s not as leftie as I would like but I can be quite far to the left of the spectrum, but he needs to get elected, and I don’t think statewide that kind of radical leftism will sell. I donated some to the campaign and also volunteered to drive him around if he needs it. I’ll vote for him, and won’t feel bad about it, unlike when I voted for Kerry. I encourage you to do the same. I think he’d make a great congressman.

Several people approached me afterwards and thanked me for ‘putting his feet to the fire’. Other conversations I had with some of them there agreed that we need to take the gloves off and start getting agressive. Many liberals, for some reason, find this hard to do, whether it be because of political correctness, or the idea that agressiveness is never good, it’s too masculine, whatever. Bullshit. I was having some beers on Friday with my longtime friend Wes and spent a lot of time talking about this liberal hypersensitivity, and how it’s crippling us. That, as well as an overreliance on magical thinking. Libs often offer up these silly, hippie-dippie answers, with no basis in reality and we get mocked by the right-wing even more, because we feed into the stereotypes. Or we offer answers that are hopelessly idealistic, and don’t take into account the political and social realities of America (like the Bible Belt). Enough. I’ve had it.

That is the big difference between the lib/progressives of today and the 60’s radicals. Backbone. For whatever reason, whether because of political correctness or whatever, it’s been lacking, and we get our asses kicked on the political stage constantly since Reagan.

These people fighting us don’t want to compromise; they want to destroy us, and that seems lost on many on our side. Whining and playing defense while worrying about offending people is not a winning strategy, it’s a recipe for disaster, and certainly not a way to win anything.

Wes and I half-joked about starting up a think-tank for rational, proactive liberalism, unburdened by magical thinking, naivite and hypersensitivity, and that plays offense as well as defense. We then realized how few people we knew that we could ask to join. But it’s time for a realignment in the liberal movement that is aggressive, fights back, and commands the dialogue. In some ways , yes, be more like the GOP, except tell the truth and not make shit up like they do. And no, I’m not talking about self-described ‘anarchists’ who go to rallies and throw trash cans through windows - they make themselves feel better about themselves and the futility of their movement, and alienate lots of people who might otherwise agree, but I fail to see how they’re helping the cause progress in any way. Now, I’m not saying the Black Panthers, Weathermen, SDS, or the Yippies did everything right. But dammit, at least they knew how to fight. It’s time we did , too.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Trackback URI | Comments RSS