Guys...I respect you all...but isn't this getting a little bit ridiculous?

[nashuaadvocate]

The forum used to be called "Election 2004 Results and Discussion."

The forum is now called "Election Reform Advocacy and Reform."

I think we can all agree that the new board "topic" is VASTLY broader in scope than the old one, and indeed COMPLETELY encompasses the old one.

So if we want to focus on the "title" of the board, this forum just got a whole lot BIGGER.

How big?

Well, most of the folks here, going back to November of 2004, seem to think -- as I do, by the way -- that election reform is the single BIGGEST issue in American right now. (Not, incidentally, the seventh biggest -- as Sen. Harry Reid recently ranked it). Bigger than who gets nominated to what position in the Administration, bigger than who gets on the Supreme Court, bigger than any single one of Bush's lies -- or even all of them taken together. Why? BECAUSE WITHOUT ELECTION REFORM WE WILL NEVER WIN ANOTHER ELECTION AGAIN. EVER.

That means we'll never get to nominate *anyone* -- qualified or not -- to be the Secretary of State for a Democratic Administration.

That means no Supreme Court Justices who respect the evolving standards of decency acknowledged by all the other nations of the world -- and half of this one.

That means no opportunity to show the world a Democratic Administration of integrity, which *doesn't* lie, *doesn't* deceive, *doesn't* say one thing and do another.

My feeling? The issue of election reform is so big -- including the 2004 election (fraud, irregularities, results, data, issues, all of it); civil rights issues; a thousand legislative avenues toward meaningful and timely election reform; plans for the Democratic Party for 2006 and 2008 -- that we could fill this board up with ONE POST PER MINUTE every minute of the day and still not exhaust the topic.

Now, the fact is, when the change in board title was made, other folks thought -- and still do thnk -- that the issue of election reform was and is SMALLER than other issues. That BUSH was the one big issue, and everything else was secondary: election reform was a "part" of the issue -- a symptom of the problem -- and was no greater or lesser in importance than, say, who the next Secretary of State is, or what the Bush Administration does in Iraq, or whether a talk-radio DJ criticizes progressives, and so on. These folks were and are WELL-MEANING and smart and committed and articulate and passionate -- and what they were looking for was just a place to converse with other progressives who hate Bush and neo-conservatism. They weren't strictly or even marginally committed to the OLD topic for this board, and they aren't singularly committed to the NEW topic, either.

But I ask you -- at what cost?

Aren't the Republicans beating us -- haven't they been beating us for the past TEN YEARS -- because we're divided?

And if we spin our wheels on a hundred different issues every day, all the while neglecting the ONE WHICH ENGULFS THEM ALL, what have we accomplished? What does railing against Bush or Rice or Gonzalez accomplish if we don't FIX an electoral system which is right now FIXED so that we progressives will never win another election and get all these b*stards out of office?

This forum is BIGGER than ever.

And if folks don't see that, they're missing -- I fear -- the forest for the trees.

The News Editor
The Nashua Advocate

P.S. My analysis suggests there has been precisely NO change in board activity since the board was re-titled (i.e. broadened in scope).