THE LAST STAND AT THE ALAMO - A BLAZE OF GLORY
Readers will recall that I promised a while back that I was not going to do more of this, but here's another look.
For whatever reasons, the Clinton campaign has been reluctant to attack Obama's "Hope message" head on, preferring instead to try to reframe the discussion as a choice between "speeches" and "solutions". (The GOP, of course, have already taken their first shots across the bow ...).
Here's what they can do, with only a few punches pulled.
- 1. If you need extra inspiration, go to church. In Washington, we roll up our sleeves, we don't pray to our leader(s). In other words, re-articulate that progressivism, true progressivism, isn't captive to "the urgency of now", however that phrase is being used currently.
- 2. The page, the page is already turned, and we don't need a fancy page turner. Washington is going to change, with a Democratic President, because it is highly likely that the Democrats will retain majorities, or build on them, in the Congress. What is most needed is someone with reach and breadth who can seize that opportunity and turn it into big change, not the small, calculated changes of mini-healthcare reform.
- 3. Hope, concrete hope, needs a partner and there is no partner for hope across the isle. The idea that we are playing for some grand Reagan-like governing coalition is going to leave a lot of people bitter, when it doesn't work out that way. (It's a tough sell, but it could be made to stick). Change doesn't come from the bottom-up, it comes from the spirit that moves us to do the right thing, to accept and follow those leaders who insist on it and to fight those who do not.
Last, they can change their rhetoric from "reality" and "reality-check" and "get real", to "real people".
Example:
"Men cannot live on dreams alone. Don't confuse what you already have within yourselves with what you need from your government and from your next President. Some look out and see a world in need of hope. I look out and see millions of people already brimming with hope and ready to roll up their sleeves, too.
- If you lose half your pension and you are holding on for medicare for yourself and your spouse, do you need more hope, or do you need action to cover the cracks in the system?
- When you come home at the end of the day and face your children knowing that they will have greater national debt than any prior generation, do you want hope, or do you want action?
- When your country's interests are threatened from abroad, do you want hope or do you want someone ready enough to not be fooled and to deal with it?
- When you have cancer, do you want hope or do you want a government who has new ideas to speed the pace of technological discovery in the 21st century?
- When you file for bankruptcy, do you want hope or do you want a legislative body that is going to work with you to get you past a tight period?"
- When you see that even poorer nations than the US provide quality healthcare to everyone, do you want more hope or do you want to get upset?
- When the US falls behind in equal rights - for gays and lesbians and women and transgendered - and attacks science, do you want more hope or do you want a President ready to deal on day one?
- [you get the picture: When your car won't start, do you want hope or do you want someone to help you get it fixed]
Forgive me, Obama supporters...
The rest is "re-introducing" Hillary, as a person, who has a biography outside of "the Clinton years" and "endorsed by the New York Times". It seems silly at the end of the campaign, but it's never too late to do the right thing. Plenty of time, still, in fact.
