November 2, 2010: Votez-Vous, Already!

Hope Nameless Cynic won't mind my posting this extra call in addition to his impassioned and well-written plea -- but the more, the merrier on such an occasion, right? So here goes:

Well, today's the day. I know all y'all on this site will be casting a ballot, and I'm equally certain everyone I know is going to do the same. But if there's any "damn liberal" out there desultorily reading this blog and planning to practice the fine art of not bothering -- you, that's right, you! Winston Smith in Apartment 22B! Buck up, comrade! Just think of what our boys are going through every day on the Malabar Front! -- if you even dream of not voting, you had better wake up and apologize. From what I've been able to gather, AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS, DEMOCRATS LEAD; AMONG LIKELY VOTERS, THEY DON'T.

Ay, there's the rub -- so move your mind and spirit in the direction of the damn-well-gonna voters. If you don't, may some mean English teacher from your grade-school days return in your dreams and compel you to write, "Speaker Boehner," "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell" and "B. Hussein Obama is a Kenyan Moozlum Socialist" on the nearest blackboard five hundred times or until you say Uncle, whichever comes first.

"Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner"
"Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner"

Now write! I mean it, dammit!

I thought Rachel Maddow's show Monday offered an excellent and mature analysis of the mid-term prospects. Rather than blaming the Dems for not doing enough, she chose to highlight the things they HAD done – plenty of it and pretty good stuff, at that. The list is one that any soon-to-be-outgoing congresspeople can be proud to have moved along. Yes, some of it has been only partial, or frustratingly incremental in its implementation. But that's the way these things often go -- people extend you almost unlimited credit for jabbering and posturing. When you actually do something, half -- or more than half -- of them get madder than a wet hornet and call you a commie pinko. RM reminded us that LBJ took quite a hit in Congressional Dem numbers enacting the Great Society (he gave himself six months to get it on the books, before everyone started to turn against him) and that that's just the nature of political capital -- you've got to use it sometime, and when you do, you're going to get into trouble. It would have been cowardice to hide under the Oval Office desk and do nothing, to plead the necessity of delay, etc.

Hey, if we don't do well today as a party, so be it – if you look at it from the Maddovian and properly historicized perspective, a partial loss may best be construed as something like "noblesse oblige." No good deed goes unpunished, but woe unto you if you hide your talents and your heads in the sand.

Again, please vote and encourage like-minded friends and colleagues to do the same -- don't make the "enthusiasm gap" an unfortunate reality for progressive causes in 2010. Do your part, and whatever happens, you will be able to say you did what you could.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stroll down to my local church and vote, just as I've done for years. Somehow, they never seem to question the fact that a large extinct reptile is standing in line waiting to cast his ballot, so I'm hoping my luck will hold again this time around. Or maybe a horde of infuriated teabaggers will stomp on my tail, throw rocks at me and drive me from the polling station in fear for my socialist khaki hide…. We shall see.