Today wasn't the best day for the Progressive movement in Virginia or in America.Today, we lost any chance to oppose Sam Alito's confirmation on the Supreme court, and in Virginia we lost a James Webb candidacy for the US Senate.
Excuse me while I mangle a quote from Sun Tzu: "When a great general unleashes his forces they crush his enemy as a boulder crushing a straw hut". It sucks to be the hut.
I would like to say to all Virginia Progressives, that in both these efforts, we did what we needed to do. Grassroots organization is the real power of American Democracy, and now is the time to take up the calling. Whenever candidates stand up to champion Progressive principles, let us be there with money, volunteers and votes. When legislators close government or remove checks and balances, let us be there with calls, letters, faxes and more.
A principled, organized, Progressive movement in Virginia is not only possible but inevitible if we make it so.
The New York Times has a brilliant article today (requires login):
"Last February, as rumors swirled about the failing health of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a team of conservative grass-roots organizers, public relations specialists and legal strategists met to prepare a battle plan to ensure any vacancies were filled by like-minded jurists.""Now, on the eve of what is expected to be the Senate confirmation of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court, coming four months after Chief Justice Roberts was installed, those planners stand on the brink of a watershed for the conservative movement.
In 1982, the year after Mr. Alito first joined the Reagan administration, that movement was little more than the handful of legal scholars who gathered at Yale for the first meeting of the Federalist Society, a newly formed conservative legal group."
Today, we witness the culmination of one of the most remarkable grassroots organizations of all time. Don't lament and don't worry. Get together, plan, organize and fight.
We have a lot to learn from the organizers of the right.
Fear not, victory is much closer for us than it ever was for the founders of the Federalist Society.