The Next Step on the Path

If you are a loyal supporter, what are you doing about this issue of campaign management? The fact that this post exists is alarming. Please explain.

Posted by: Alarmed

To which I responded:

I've got faith in Webb and Jarding. If there are changes to be made, I'm sure we'll see them soon.

In Virginia there's a great opportunity for change and victory. We've got the best candidate in the nation and a campaign with an opportunity to shore up support and effectiveness. This will be a very telling couple of weeks. If handled well, the campaign will emerge much stronger.

What am I doing? Everything I can.

Since long before "Day 1", I have done everything I can for the Webb Campaign.  Soon, I'll have the chance do to much, much more.
Finding the Path

Every night when I go to sleep, I try to make my last thought "Thank God."  Every morning when I wake my first thought is "With God's help, another day".  I don't shout it from the rooftops, my wife doesn't even know.  Aren't silent prayers the most powerful?

Take a walk back in time with me.

I had a lot of fun in High School.  I had a lot of friends.  My parents were supportive and allowed me a lot of freedom.  I did well.  I also annoyed a lot of my closest friends, because I was alway interested in talking about topics nobody wanted to hear about:  religion and politics.  Wound over-tight about academic success and driven too hard by a desire to pursue truth, I earned a reputation for being "intense".  When others quoted Van Halen or Jimmy Buffet in the yearbook, I quoted Sophocles: "Do not try to be master in all things.  What you once won and held did not stay with you all your life."  Intense, indeed.

I spent a number of very hard years seeking the wisdom traditions of the world for insight.  I hoped to find an explanation.  I hoped to find Truth.  Ultimately, I didn't find any answers, but I did find a path.  I've since lost it and found it again.  Ever, I have been strongest when I trod the straight and narrow.

The Political Path, and a Crossroads

When I found a new home in politics here at Raising Kaine about a year and a half ago, it was like coming home to myself.  The exchange of ideas, the effort to save the nation from the right, the chance to engage firsthand in rigorous, even violent, debate was like taking the abstract and transcendent and making it real, immanent.

After the 2005 election, with Tim Kaine elected and with Raising Kaine's position secure in the Virginia political blogsphere, we faced a crossroads.  What would become of us?  What would we do to continue delivering powerful fights for Democrats and Progressives in Virginia?  How could we continue to lead and contribute to the transformation and revitalization of American politics in the face of the jingoistic, corporatist, and dangerous dominance of the Conservatism that owns and threatens the foundations of security, liberty and opportunity in America?

As we searched around for direction, Lowell brought an interview to my attention and it was a wake-up call.  Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy was considering a run for the US Senate as a Democrat against the extreme right-wing Senator from Virginia, George Allen. 

In late December 2005, Lowell and Lee Diamond and I met with Jim Webb and found him refreshingly honest, thoughtful and strong.  Webb could be counted upon to protect Democratic values on libertarian and Jacksonian populist grounds.  He had a well-reasoned and deeply traditional economic philosophy that could return the Democratic party to its roots.  He had sterling character and a "regular guy" heritage that could win back for the Democratic party millions of former Republicans disillusioned by the dramatic and dangerous Republican lurch to the extreme right.

When we decided to champion the candidacy of Jim Webb and start the "Draft James Webb" movement, the debate among the leading contributors to Raising Kaine was heated.  One or two members even left. But we decided to take up the cause of this War Hero, Journalist, Author, Statesman, and Prescient Critic of the Iraq War.  We decided he was the best man to carry the banner for the Democrats in 2006.  We decided to do everything within our meager means to convert as many people as we could to our cause. 

We worked with great grassroots organizers.  We gathered petitions.  We wrote articles.  We talked to our neighbors.  We attended meetings. And through a contentious and dramatic primary battle, we stood up for Jim Webb, because we knew that Jim Webb would stand up for us.

The Wrong Path and the Pathway Back

When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis

There is a powerful faction within the Republican party that believes that the Antichrist is Among us, and that we are living in the End of Times.  They do not consider a need for fiscal responsibility or creation care, because we are nearing the Rapture and the Glorious Returning.  They are so powerful, that every credible candidate seeking the party nomination for the Presidency in 2008 must bend their knee.  Witness John McCain's recent graduation speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.  The Republican party is lost to this powerful block of absolutist voters.

Former Senator and Ambassador John Danforth is also a Minister.  He performed the mass for Ronald Reagan's funeral.  In 2005 he admonished his party with the following words:

People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda to do so.

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgment of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.

If I ever had any doubt that Jim Webb fully embodies the belief, shared by the vast majority of Americans that the spirit is paramount and that the merely political despoils the divine, it was dispelled when I heard the following story.  When most politicians visit a church, they will choose a particular passage, quote it, then sally forth to encourage the congregation to whatever political ends that politician desires.  As a candidate for the US Senate, Jim Webb was recently asked to address a congregation.  He stepped to the dais, then after explaining that he had no intention of lessening God's house with the merely political, asked permission to share a few of his most cherished biblical passages.

The Next Step on the Path for Me

I recently came to a crossroads in my path in life.  I have been talking since the primary with Jim Webb's campaign about taking a leadership role to continue the grassroots work so many of us began in the "Draft" and in the primary.  My wife supports me in the decision, but despite my avid, loyal, vocal, and forceful support of Jim Webb's candidacy, I was uncertain.  I was uncertain until I heard that story, and now there is no doubt in my mind.

Today, I resigned my job and signed on full-time to coordinate the activities of the grassroots volunteers for the Webb campaign.  I will work and devote every day to making Jim Webb the next Senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I will need your help.  I will need your time, your insight, your friendship, and your faith in order to fight this epochal battle for Commonwealth and Country.

The Webb Campaign understands the power of the grassroots.  They (soon we) are committed to supporting, organizing, and energizing this "ragtag band of rebels" to win this election and build our party for years to come.  This isn't "their" party, or "their" campaign, it's what WE make it.  Do what you can, and Jim Webb's victory in November will be yours.

Like Lowell, I will continue to blog here with requisite disclaimers on every post and comment. We're not trying to hide who we are or why we support this great American.  Our involvement with the Webb Campaign is an outgrowth of our long-standing, avid support of his candidacy and the powerful, populist, progressive politics he embodies.  With your help, we will elect a new Senator from Virginia in November, Jim Webb, and in so doing we will help put Virginia and the Nation back on the right path.

Josh Chernila is Grassroots Coordinator for the Jim Webb for US Senate Campaign.  The ideas expressed here belong to Josh Chernila alone, and do not necessarily represent those of Jim Webb, his advisors, staff, or supporters."

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