It's time

[dampscribbler]

It's time to abolish voter registration by party.

It's time for a viable alternative to the electoral college.

It's time for "Liberal" to stop being a bad word.

It's time that candidates of any party stopped being ashamed of their intelligence, their education, their experience.

It's time Democratic candidates stood up for something besides "I'm not that guy."

It's time for real campaign reform.

It's time for liberals to get as active as conservatives. In schools, churches, communities, and, yeah, even workplaces.

It's time to put an end to divisive media. (As Jon Stewart told Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on "Crossfire" last month -- "You're hurting America. Stop hurting America. You're part of their strategy -- your partisan attacks.")

Calling yesterday a failure of the democratic process is the easy way out. NOTHING is going to be easy in the coming years. Buck up.

Yeah, you can have today to mourn and whine and complain. But tomorrow, dammit, we all have to roll out of bed and cobble together the pieces of our dashed hopes and forge something new. Because 40 million other Americans are feeling just as crappy as you are right now. And if all of us give up, then everybody loses.

We've got work to do.

Comments

Re: "It's time to abolish voter registration by party" -- why?

[qnetter]

As for the registration issue -- the process, not the check-box itself -- paid registration troops that are not oath-bound government employees should be forbidden, just as paid signature-collectors for initiative petitions should be forbidden.

If you want to change how a party behaves, you have to become active in them. Make them take a stand. Otherwise, the likely-voter myth takes over, and the drive to center-right accelerates.

I am a registered and active Democrat; that earns me the right to participate in the process of determining whose name appears on a ballot with a "(D)" next to it. It should not be possible for some unaffiliated or Republican walk-up to participate in that process.

Re: "It's time to abolish voter registration by party" -- why?

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

paid registration troops that are not oath-bound government employees should be forbidden, just as paid signature-collectors for initiative petitions should be forbidden.
Amen!

Re: becoming active in the party -- I'm just not so sure. It seems like many of the most active Democrats I know are left-of-center, yet they seem to be having little influence on the party at the national level. I'm disenchanted with parties altogether.