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I think I need to take some of my own advice about understanding the different roles that various folks are going to play. Or perhaps I should, in the words of the classic line from Desperately Seeking Susan, "Just take a valium like a normal person."
I get very worked up in Presidential election years. Once every four years, the country makes a determination as to whether I have hope (not a sure thing, not a done deal, not an easy ride, but at least some hope) for moving forward and making progress on the burning issues I care about, or whether for the next four years I have to spend all my time in defense mode, hoping that the next Republican President won't succeed at utterly shredding the Constitution, won't get us into WWIII, and won't let another four dangerous years pass by with no real progress on the climate change that is cooking the planet. And I know all too well that even if we stave off utter disaster under a Republican President for another four years, that there is no hope that anything positive will happen on making the economy healthier, or getting universal health care, or bringing more people out of poverty, or any of the other issues I care the most about.
Because I get so worked up, I go very much into war mode, and get obsessed about winning the election. I generally spend the other 43 out of every 48 months focused on a wide variety of fronts- media work, organization building, grassroots organizing, Senate/House/state leg races, etc.- that I think will help build the broader progressive infrastructure, but in these last five months I tend to get very, very focused.
In that kind of war mode, I am very focused on the whole winning and losing thing. I never assume that any lead is safe (I've seen plenty of them slip away over the years), and never want anything to happen that helps the Republican or hurts the Democrat. I consider myself on the Democratic candidate's team, whether I'm on their campaign staff directly or not, and I'm ready to go to war with anyone attacking my team, from whatever angle, for whatever reason. That's why I have been getting so testy at progressives attacking Obama and his campaign team right now.
It's also why I don't get too worked up about Obama tacking right as a campaign strategy. As I've written, I don't think it's necessarily the best strategy, but it's not surprising to me and I don't think it's disastrous. It's the conventional strategy in a Presidential - the strategy that the overwhelming majority of general election candidates of both parties in American history have done throughout the years. Frankly, for them to do anything else would have been pretty surprising.
So if I get testy between now and Election Day with my fellow OpenLefties, forgive me. My first instinct is always going to be to attack anyone who attacks my team. I will try to remain philosophical, understanding that people have different roles to play (unless of course I think someone is actually doing real damage to Obama's chances- then watch out...).
I know that we are all going to get irritated with each other these next few months. I will try to stay calm, and hope that those with a different mindset will be understanding of where I am coming from as well.
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