Florida certifies victory for House newcomer (Patrick Murphy over Allen West)

[bread_and_roses]

36. Nor is 90% of the electorate

Some posters* around here like to sneer at the electorate but what are people - people who have jobs (often 2 or 3 jobs), kids, school, aging parents to care for - in other words, no time to research issues and read entire Congressional Bills (as I have seen posters here exhort others to do) - what is the ordinary person to think when even NPR spouts nothing but the Beltway groupspeak and neoliberal economics?

It wasn't just "Democrats and Progressives" who put Obama over the top in '08 - it was union members - many of whom I know for a fact are neither Democrats nor progressive - it was young people and first time voters with no history by which we could judge them part of the Dem "base" or progressive. It was Greens and even some Rs voting against their own candidate. They voted for a vision. And they voted for accountability. And for two years nothing much happened, and most of all the calls - the yells, the rallies and signs in the streets and petitions and more rallies and and and to "make the Banks pay" - were ignored. For just once, people had a pretty clear understanding of just who had screwed them, and they wanted (figurative) blood. They wanted the Banksters to pay, and the people to get something back.

We all know what happened on that front. So no, the people who voted in (or by whatever omissions allowed to be voted in) the Teabaggers were not lazy and complacent, and disappointed is too weak a word. They were savagely angry, and had a right to be. That their anger was manipulated by the right does not vitiate that.

I worked on a losing Congressional campaign in '10 - one of the winners in the '08 sweep, a "moderate" Blue-doggish Dem who disappointed even those of us who knew in '08 (I worked that campaign for him too) that he was no Dennis K. and would have to be ridden and herded hard. None the less, and despite my own disgust with the lot of the Dems, I worked to keep the Teabagger out. We lost - like so many others.

We lost because we have a system that works to make sure that people think that the only road to change is to change the letter behind the critter in DC., that if you're unhappy with the state of affairs, vote the other way next time.

The Dems have no one but themselves to blame for '10. I just fervently hope they learned something from it.

*that does not necessarily refer to the poster to who's quote I am responding. The quote to which I am responding sneers at those of us who felt that Obama had not lived up to his '08 campaign - not necessarily the entire electorate. I went off on a tangent, as I so often do.