BooMan’s post yesterday — “On Kos and Special Interest Groups” — speaks to a grand strategy that I favor.
My grand strategy ain’t so grand. It’s plain and simple. Take back the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Then take any contrarian conservative Democrats to the woodshed.
The horses — them be us spirited wild ones, whinnying loudly all the way (just cuz we’re noisy by nature) — will move the cart (which holds all Democratic party candidates) into the House, the Senate, and the White House. Thereafter, we can bitch, lobby, run primary candidates against, make the life miserable of any Democrat who fails to live up to the basic standards of the Democratic party.
Why? Take a look at this morning’s sad and sobering news stories:
GOP Blocks Investigations Over Katrina & Downing St. Memo
On Capitol Hill, Republicans have blocked several efforts by Democrats to seek investigations or information on Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war and the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
- In the Senate, Republicans killed a proposal by Hillary Clinton for an independent investigation of the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Her proposal was rejected on a party line vote of 54 to 44. A new CNN/USA Today Gallup poll shows that 70 percent of the country supports an independent investigation.
- In the House, Republicans rejected attempts by Democrats to force the Bush administration to surrender documents on pre-war intelligence about Iraq connected to the Downing Street Memo. The memo revealed …
- Also on Wednesday, Republicans on the Judiciary and International Relations Committees rejected attempts by Democrats to compel the Bush administration to turn over information and records related to the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
How much more powerless can we get? Not much.
How about we take back the jobs that we, and the American people (as they’re coming to realize), deserve and desperately need?
Politics is an art. Let’s be artful about it.
Postscript:
Those are the reflections of an Eastern Washington-raised farm girl who was the token hick accepted at Stanford on a Board of Trustees scholarship so many moons ago that I’m embarrassed to say (particularly since my current resume hardly reflects such a journey).
There’s something about walking through the pear orchard and Concord grape rows in the twilight, hearing the steers bellow and the pigs snort … looking up at the desert, sage-brush-strewn Horse Heaven Hills bridling the Yakima Valley — that stays in the blood of a girl who otherwise escaped into books and politics.
It was so elemental that it is in my bones. The plain hills with a romantic name. The bright stars at night (because then there was no light pollution), and my big bold handsome father proudly pointing out every constellation to my brother and me. And, some nights, the stunning Aurora Borealis, which made my father leap to his feet in excitement, dragging us outside to see its light show, its light fantastic.
And so it is how I mostly approach everything, including politics. Simply, sparsely, soulfully.
(Part of this was posted as a comment at Daily Kos.)
