We Blew It

Post-mortem:

It’s all over in my mind. The people have spoken. So far, the most poignant comment was from Jeff Greenfield on CNN. Greenfield says that the Democratic message just does not resonate with Rural America. They should be voting for Democrats, but there is somehow a miscommunication in place. My take is that the Republicans deliver messages of fear and that change is bad and THAT MESSAGE resonates with rural Americans.

What puzzles me is that it’s these rural Americans whose sons are dying in a senseless war in Iraq. It’s not the sons of bankers and stockbrokers and IT managers—it’s the sons from West Virginia, Ohio, Georgia and Alabama. How the party in power is able to convince these patriotic families that our mission in Iraq is justified is well beyond my understanding. Ralph Reed, a major player in the Christian right, stood outside of churches on Sunday and pleaded with people to keep Bush in the White House. How do you counter that?

I’d say the country got what it deserves, but I am part of this country and we deserve better. The Democratic Party needs to nearly implode its image and start over. In six years, I hope to be part of that “new” Democratic Party here in Arizona. I am willing to take part in that re-write and use powerful media tools to shape the future. Rural and urban, we are all in this together; it pains me that more innocent lives will die in Iraq. We had the chance to right the ship. We blew it.