The Rally to Restore Sanity: Nonpartisan, but political

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/10/30/jon_stewart_sanity_rally/index.html

The Rally to Restore Sanity: Nonpartisan, but political
Why Democrats shouldn't be worried about Jon Stewart's "nonpartisan" election-eve event
By Alex Pareene

Reuters

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart during the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or/Fear" in Washington


Jon Stewart didn't lie. His "Rally to Restore Sanity" was aggressively non-partisan. But while none of the participants had anything to say about the upcoming midterm elections (besides a brief shout of "vote!" by American treasure and '60s civil rights marcher Tony Bennett), there was a quiet political message. And, honestly, it's a message that Democrats should be happy with.

An endorsement of civility and reason is basically an endorsement of Barack Obama. "Reason and civility" are practically the Democratic party's platform. The rally was a call to keep fighting for the things that make educated young liberals support Democrats in the first place.

The Republican midterm strategy is based on anger and resentment. A celebration of the idea that basically everyone's pretty OK at heart is a pretty liberal message. Some of the comedy (most of it involving Stephen Colbert) was explicitly against Republican midterm fear-mongering campaigns involving the demonization of Islam -- like bringing on Yusef Islam and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to drive home the apparently controversial point that Muslims are nice, pleasant people.

snip//

As a piece of politicking, the Rally to Restore Sanity got a couple hundred thousand young liberals excited about sincerity and inspired about their nation on the eve of the midterm elections. I can't really see a downside, unless you think tepid criticisms of MSNBC's tone will convince liberals not to vote this Tuesday.

[Top Cat]

1. K&R

[gateley]

2. Huh? Why would Democrats be "worried"? nt

[rusty charly]

3. Exactly my thought.

There's ALWAYS a negative spin for The Democrats and I'm so sick of it. And, yes, the tepid coverage from what's supposed to be our FOX News, MSNBC. When will that meme just DIE?

[babylonsister]

4. Stewart and Colbert have gotten a lot of ink criticizing this

undertaking. In the article it states that some people think all these folks at the rally would have/should have been phonebanking.

While there will be plenty of (completely reasonable) disagreement about this rally's goals and whether it helped or hurt the progressive cause (and whether or not anyone involved even had a responsibility to help the progressive cause), there's already been a bit of aggressive point-missing by a couple liberal critics. (One recurring topic among disgruntled progressives on Twitter: MoveOn's urgent need for phone-bankers. As if, if it weren't for this annoying rally, these hundreds of thousands of people would've spent the weekend before Halloween canvassing.)

[gateley]

5. Perhaps the disgruntled progressives should have been phone banking and

canvassing rather than posting on Twitter and passing judgment. :eyes:

The people who are going to phone bank are doing it -- let others show their support however they want.

Thanks -- should have read the article but I'm too bizzy zipping around looking for more pics! :7

:pals:

[Webster Green]

6. There were dem groups there signing up volunteers for phonebanking..

..and canvassing.

They're on it!

[gkhouston]

7. Okay, if "reason and civility" is the Dem party platform, what does that say about Republicans?

:rofl: "Vote for us, we're unreasonable and rude."

[OHdem10]

8. Reason is foundation Of Liberalism.