If we’re serious about
Winning in November
There are 80 days until the general election and the level of excitement around the Democratic Presidential ticket and many of the down ballot candidates and initiatives is greater than I’ve seen in the politically aware part of my life. The convention, beginning Tuesday, should provide an additional boost and make the last 74 days of Campaign 2024 an almost unbearable stretch of adrenaline driven activity and opportunity. The Democrats have a chance, if they can take advantage of it, to lay to rest finally the ghosts of 1968, 2016, and the last 8 years of MAGA engendered division and discord. For that to happen, we have to do some very un-Democrat things:
1) Every candidate, local, county, state, and national, must work together to present a unified and positive picture of how the Party functions. This means that all the folks who lost primaries have to now make nice with the candidates in the general election and get their supporters to work just as hard as they ever have – and donate, because money has become almost as important as votes in winning elections.
2) Without becoming obsessive about it, we must be prepared to monitor every election, not just on election day, but until final certification. Stealing an election is almost insurmountably difficult, but that doesn’t mean that someone won’t try and there will need to be people prepared to stand athwart those efforts and say, loudly, NO, YOU WON’T
.
3) Avoid the pitfall of overconfidence. We have a wealth of quality candidates led by the national ticket and an outstanding incumbent President and cheerleader but they still have to get more votes than their opponents; in some cases, a lot more. The chances of a Johnson-Goldwater blowout are small, but if Harris-Walz can come up with 61% of the votes on a turnout of 69% of eligible voters they’d end up with 98 milllion votes, more than enough to both soundly defeat the other candidates, and to drive victory in virtually every contest being decided. Although the chances of such a result are small, it’s not impossible and that should be the goal. We dare not set ourselves a lesser standard, because if we lower our sights, we risk an unacceptable failure.
Yes, yes and yes!
We have the issues on our side.
Dobbs is a perverted but powerful gift.
Trump is a horrible candidate. He is imploding.
And now we have the attention of younger generations.
It's going to a grind. But I am optimistic.
Cheers Dave!
Dave,
Thank you
You have laid it out bold and clear
point by powerful point
exactly what we must do.
Thank you for your sober realism.
This IS what it will take
if we're serious about winning.
Nothing less will get us there.
We can DO this.