”Failure to stop Alito is not Maria Cantwell’s — it’s ours. Cantwell, like every other Democratic senator, really only heard from anti-Alito constituents in great numbers for two or three days before the final vote. That level of frenzy should have started on Halloween, the (appropriate) day Alito was nominated, and never let up for an hour until Alito withdrew his nomination. Nothing of the kind happened, and that’s our failure. Not Cantwell’s. Ours.
Progressives like to piss and moan a lot about being unrepresented in the political process, and that’s true. It’s also true that the deck is stacked against our participation in many different ways. But difficult is not impossible. It’s up to us to build the coalitions, energize the constituents, and field the campaigns that will win us respect and influence when it comes to impacting public policy. That means more than laying out critiques and alternatives and mounting protests and position papers and expecting the world to salute. It means organizing, and it means listening to others and incorporating their concerns and ideas, and it means packaging our issues and candidates attractively and organizing more, and then organizing again, and again, until the world is forced not to salute but to get the hell out of the way of the fast-moving train.”-from Geov Parrish’s post today on WorkingforChange.
I like the way Parrish gives us the power to achieve our political goals, rather than relying on beseeching or pleading with others to follow our suggestions.
Update [2006-2-7 8:53:1 by howieinseattle]: Goldy from Horsesass.org has Geov’s back on this one:
“If we want to start electing more progressive candidates to Congress, then we’re going to have to follow the lead of organizations like Progressive Majority of Washington, who are out there recruiting, training, and supporting progressive candidates at the local level, so we can build the farm team from which future political superstars will rise.
80 percent of first-time congressional candidates who win, have previously won elected office. So if we want a better shot at electing a strongly progressive US senator, then we’re going to have to elect more strongly progressive council members, commissioners, and state legislators.
The reality in 2006 is that we desperately need to put more Democrats in the Senate… any Democrats. And any dissension in our ranks this late in the game only serves to help the Republicans.”
Cross-posted at www.seattlefordean.com and www.howieinseattle.com.
either though because tampopo brought up Alito long before those final days and we began to do what we could here to organize and and mail and email and fax. See how right on course with what is really needed the Booman Tribune is! Leading the pack on the real answers!
I know I was signing petitions from NARAL, Planned Parenthood and god know who all, the day after Alito’s name was brought up.
MoveOn.org collected 500,000 signatures and 100,000 letters protesting Alito — and hand constituents hand deliver them to senators.
Cantwell and the rest of the quislings need to get their values straight — do they support their base, and the the needs of their base, or don’t they?
Boy, Cantwell must really be feeling the heat, as she well should. I am getting a bit sick of all this pandering to her. She made a disasterous decision and now she needs to live with her actions. If I lived in WA, I would vote against her in the primaries because of her vote against joining the Dems in a filibuster against Alito. There is nothing she, nor you, nor any other Cantwell supporter can say that will negate the fact that Cantwell refused to stand by the Dems. Why people are falling over backwards to justify her actions is beyond me. The people gave her a chance and she let them down, knowing full well that this was the single most important vote of her career. Now it is up to the people to remove her by supporting another Dem in the primaries.
Just as I will no longer support DiFi in my home state because of her outrageous votes on important bills, I hope the Dems of Washington give Cantwell the boot. It is time the Progressives and Liberals stop supporting these DINOs and put their time, money, and efforts to people who will not betray the Party. The DINOs need to get the message that if you do not stand with us, you will be history.
bit of skin.
family, we called it the church pinch.
I’m sorry to rant, it’s just that when I got on this morning and saw the third frontpage posting trying to justify Cantwell, I got a bit annoyed. I kept out of it in the past because I do not live in WA, but this one went over the top. It’s blaming us for her failure. Ugh. Whoops, there I go again! :>)
What I wonder is, why would Maria need all this prodding starting back in October, when Alito was so demonstrably bad and antithetical to everything any principled American (not just Dems, but ANY American) stands for? We shouldn’t have to poke our reps with sticks when a clear and present danger rears itself.
That’s like apologizing to the pope for praying!
for your patience in being able to wait for this diary before you said, “Okay, that’s enough!”
This was not a vote on some issue. Lobbying by the people and grass roots is for issues.
This vote was for posession of the Court and Constitution for the coming two generations.
The American system is a Republic, the premise of which is that elected reps are trustable to vote the best interests of the people.
The concept of our system, as we have it in the times we now live in, is now proven a failure by the elected reps’ oblivion to the nature of the choice that was their duty to make.
This is at least the third apology/explanation/rationalization/justification for Cantwell’s vote that has been front paged here. Why?
If you respect Cantwell as much as you seem to, respect that she made a decision and that she has to accept the consequences of that decision. I hope she does better in the future and I know that she did good in the past.
I think Russ Feingold erred by voting for Roberts. Niether his explanation nor that of any of supporters has changed my mind about that. But, in total, I think he is a great progressive legislator.
I don’t think your attempts to whitewash what Cantwell did is really helping her cause.
If anything, it makes me wish I were living in Washington just so I could vote against her.
When all else fails, blame the victims.
No, this isn’t correct.
The voters are not responsible for creating and maintaining a “frenzy” for a long period of time. Each voter who voices an opinion should only have to do so once and it’s the officeholder’s responsibility to recognize and consider that voter’s request.
For more important issues, like Alito, it might take a little more than that but nothing like what is suggested by…That level of frenzy should have started on Halloween, the (appropriate) day Alito was nominated, and never let up for an hour until Alito withdrew his nomination. in order to have a request acknowledged.
Sorry, totally and completely wrong. It was Cantwell’s responsibility to know what she was voting for. There are only two possibilities here:
There is no possible justification for her vote. She voted for unlimited Presidential power, for the oppression of women, and for the destruction of economic and environmental protections. So either she’s an enemy, or she’s an idiot. Which is it?
that our other Senator, Patty Murray, didn’t need a frenzy of constituent noise to know how to do the right thing.
gretel
To all you folks who want to move to Washington in order to “vote against Cantwell,”–she now has two opponents. One, a Republican, is the former CEO of the SAFECO Insurance Company, a Slade Gorton clone. The other is a guy who ran against Congressman Jay Insleee as a Green in 2002 and against Senator Patty Murray in 2004 as a Libertarian. My point is there is no perfect candidate out there in this race. I do not try to white-wash or make exuses for Cantwell’s bad votes. Based on their records, I believe Cantwell is most likely to provide some good votes in the US Senate. That is if she can defeat her Republican opponent in November.
Ms. Cantwell wanted to have her cake and eat it too. Now that she’s got indigestion, she’d like to blame the very people who asked her not to do it.
Since when does a U.S. Senator need the voices of the grassroots people to hector and shame her into doing the right thing? Is her moral compass so weak? Are her principles so flexible?
Ms. Cantwell chose not to stand with the working men and women of this great land, chose not to stand for what is right and decent.
She’ll not receive one cent from me. Ever. I, too, can make a choice, the choice to stand with those who choose to stand with me.