Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Starting the good fight

Am currently on vacation but want to start my to do list for the coming term of our Democratic presidency. Last election, the cohort of Obama supporters, the Democratic-led Congress and the Obama administration itself was blind-sided by Dick Armey's astroturfed Tea Party insurrection at the mid-terms. I will do my damnedest to make sure that doesn't happen again.

There are some critical preparations that must be attended to in advance of the 2014 mid-term elections:
  1. The drive to register new voters and convince inactive Democrats to get to the voting booth; there can not be another off-year election in which the New Democratic Coalition is outnumbered at the polls by the aging, predominantly white Republicans.
  2. Activists must work at the state and local levels to right all previous efforts to disenfranchise minority voters both fraudulently and strategically. We need to get ahead of efforts that, even in defeat, are regenerating new efforts to further cage out identifiable Democratic voting blocs.
  3.  At the national level, we must be aware of initiatives being undertaken by the Obama Administration and remain in touch with the grassroots Dashboard tools and other partisan organizations such as MoveOn, Occupy Wall Street and congressional Democrats' messaging.
  4. We must identify & prioritize the issues about which we care most deeply and form coalitions to get Congress on board with our agenda. We must be insistent without disparaging. Clear with proposed legislative ideas that can be enacted with proper push.
Among my personal goals are addressing such issues as improving Veterans' services, economic fairness, combating climate change, drug enforcement equity and prison reform. I'm sure there are many others and depending on input both on Twitter and in the comments here, they may change depending on the way our coalitions shape up.

I will update this blog after I return from a much needed rest but wanted to jot down some basics while they are on my mind.

Welcome to the good fight and I look forward to working with you stalwarts. MKSinSA


1 comment:

Norbrook said...

We must also remind people that not voting only sends one message "I don't care." In 2010, a number of people tried that as a strategy, and the results put us in a hole we're still trying to get out of.

Enjoy your vacation!