Reply #50: A metaphor that always stuck with me (sort of anyway)...

[Tom Rinaldo]

How far an Aircraft Carrier will travel mostly straight ahead before it executes a sharp turn after the rudder is fully turned. Of course I don't actually remember how far it is, but I do remember that it does take miles.

Things are happening, activists are pulling at the wheel, but the Democratic Party is a very big ship. And it is the only one afloat in the troubled waters we are in that has the capacity of actually delivering the goods in a time span short enough to effect several real crises we are in the midst of.

Someone above wrote about the winner take all Political System that we have in America which makes third party votes risky at best. We need an instant run off system of voting, where one's vote shifts to one's second choice etc if one's first choice is eliminated. But we don't have it.

Meanwhile the NeoCon version of the Republican Party that currently is in power is a deadly mutant strain from previous Conservative Republicans. It's S.A.R.S and A.I.D.S and the Bird Flu combined attacking the American body politic. It has to be beaten back, it just has to. We have no choice. Stalin and Roosevelt and Churchill made a pact in the face of Hitler.

I think we have to multi task. We have to keep this leaky old bulky Democratic ship steaming ahead through the 2006 Elections, because we desperately need people like John Conyers to become Committee Chairs, but in order for that to happen we have to elect a few Blue Dog Democrats in Red parts of the country also, or we won't "be in the majority". But I am thrilled to have Dean as DNC Chair, that is a real advance. He is working from within which comes with real limits, but termites work from within also, and they don't act quick, but they do ultimately bring tangible results.

Air America is new, but it is growing rapidly. Our connections through the web are growing also. We are learning how to fund our own candidates, and if we get enough of them elected to local offices they can run for higher offices as proven winners and incumbents, which can attract non ideological money to their side. I support Primary challenges within the Democratic Party. The far right used them to take over the Republican Party, but notice that they won't run anyone against Lincoln Chafee, or run him out of the Republican Party. Still they kept honing their message until it started to sound normal to a lot of people. Progressives have a message also, but it won't be fully heard over night.

If the answer was simple we wouldn't need to have discussions like this, but I guess the answer will never be simple...