When the final totals are finished early next month, Obama will win the White House, Democrats will number in the high 250's in the House, and the high 50's in the Senate. Given these numbers, we should be able to pass a helluva lotta legislation. As such, while I know the urge to savor victory and give Obama the benefit of the doubt is massive, right now is actually the time to make requests and / or demands on what sort of legislation we want passed, not the time to sit back and smile.
They are not being quiet. They are not sitting back and smiling. They are not taking a hands-off approach and hoping it will turn out for the best. They are not giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. In Congress, corporate PACs will start to pour money into the empty coffers of new Democratic members of Congress They are making demands on the new Democratic trifecta right now, and they expect those demands to be met.
If we are quiet, and make no requests on legislation or administration appointments, then the only voices who will be heard are the corporate, neocon and media elites who are currently pressing Obama. If we pass on making requests to the largest non-Dixiecrat Democratic majority since the 1930's, then what the hell were we engaging in all of our activism for during this past decade? Is the only thing that really bothered about us about Bush and Republicans in Congress that they had R's in front of their names? Was it really as petty as just feeling the sting of losing a game of some sort? Surely, we didn't like the policy they passed and the way they administered the government.
Now, at long last, we have a government that should, at least in theory, be receptive to our legislative and administrative requests. So, let's start making some. What I most want are the positive progressive feedback loops, because not only are they good policy but because they will consolidate our gains and make the country more progressive in the future.
Nothing we want to see happen will actually happen unless we ask for it, first. So, let's start governing just by getting used to asking. I've started the ball rolling with my request. And, if I am not enough for you, Al Gore is doing the same thing:
Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection has some environmental advice for the incoming Obama administration: focus on energy efficiency and renewable resources, and create a unified U.S. power grid.
On Thursday, the group Gore founded rolled out a new media campaign to push for immediate investments in three energy areas it maintains would help meet Gore's previously announced challenge to produce 100 percent clean electricity in the United States in a decade.
Pegged to Obama's election victory on Tuesday, the Gore group's ads on television, in newspapers and online, pose the question, "Now what?
The time to ask for stuff is now. What sort of legislation do you most want to see from the new Democratic trifecta?
