I know what's missing this primary...a sense of empowerment I felt in 2003.

[madfloridian]

In 2003 I felt like I was empowered, that I could make a difference. I had the spirit to fight.

I had been trying to put it into words what has changed, but it is all so vague and jumbled. We have good candidates, that's not the problem.

The problem is that I see the TV talking heads getting more extreme since the election last year. I hear the right wing radio hosts and Fox News making stuff up, just spouting lies and spin. I see the Republicans in congress are just as ugly in their rhetoric as they ever were...worse at times.

Bush has declared himself once and for all the Unitary Executive. Anything can happen now.

Things were pretty bad in 2003, so I was trying to figure why I feel the way I do now. I don't make many phone calls to Congress now, I get too angry at them. They act like they don't know what is going on. I seldom send emails anymore.

I feel hopeless about Iraq, because I realize we will be leaving troops there probably forever like we did in all the other Iraqs through the years. I knew we killed civilians in Vietnam and other wars, but now I am more aware of it because Little Boots lies about it on TV all the time.

I did not feel this way in 2003, I had a fighting spirit then.

My husband and worked our butts off because we thought we could make a difference. We supported someone who caused us to think we, the people of the party, could bring change.

Maybe we will someday. I don't know. There is no one anymore telling us that it is about us...they are telling us what they will do if elected. So maybe that is the danger of giving people a sense of empowerment...because it may be too late to make a difference.

Then that sense of empowerment was for naught.

I thought today I would get inspired and get some things done, go to our anti-war weekly rally...do something. Then I saw a Democratic leader on CNN being lead around by Wolf without really arguing back to him....and he said they were going to get tough and censure the president. I thought, yeh, that'll really work.

I had some interesting correspondence with a WP reporter this week, actually a nice guy, just unaware. It was related to the article that said the supporters of Howard Dean were a "narrow band of Democratic elites".

Narrow band of Democratic elites

The gist was that those supporters were called elite because the Pew Poll in 2004 showed high levels of education. Ok, fine, why would a WP reporter make that sound the way he did? Why not celebrate the fact that educated people overall got involved in politics and cared about their country.

We don't hear his voice on TV anymore, but why can't others say it? Why are they so afraid to speak in the media and say what needs to be done? I hear words but they are wrapped in proper talk that is necessary for an election year. I don't hear anything about the Iraqi civilians being displaced in the millions. I write about it, but that is all I can do.

I see the huge unbelievable amounts of money shifting to our side in the congressional committees and the candidates. Influences are shifting. The money people are just changing who they will influence. I realize now we probably really don't have the power or the influence, not even the little bit I thought we had.

But then maybe next week will seem different. Maybe that week I will see that the leaders know best, that we as the activists and people of the party are just uninformed.

Encouraging people to think they can make a difference can be a painful thing if it is not true.