Posted on 11/22/2004 8:33:30 AM PST by Publius
There was a dose of commiseration and some quiet lamenting about a presidential election lost, but the focus of the people crowded into a Beacon Hill home last night was what they can do now.
Or, as Seattle lawyer Randy Gordon put it: "How to take the positive energy of engagement and enragement and move forward."
The "house party" was one of dozens in the Seattle area and thousands held simultaneously across the country that were organized by MoveOn, a fast-growing political-action group aimed at getting "moderate to progressive" candidates into office.
Key issues, from the Iraq war to same-sex marriage, brought out the political activists in people who'd been perfectly content to sit quietly in the background before.
So the idea last night, less than three weeks after voters put President Bush in the White House for another four years, was to keep the momentum going.
Attendee Paul Loeb said it was important "to have people recognize this is a long-haul fight."
"A lot of people are demoralized by the election," said Loeb, editor of a collection of social-issue essays titled "The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear."
"The most important thing," he said, "is to keep all these new people who have come in involved."
Jeanne Legault said she opened her Beacon Hill home for the political gathering -- drawing mostly Democrats -- because she hopes to get a local MoveOn organization up and running.
Some hosts gave their parties catchy names such as "Where do we go from here," "Blue America strikes back" and "Bush beat Kerry, but he didn't beat me."
The parties -- which took place in living rooms on Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, Mercer Island, Edmonds and other local places -- began with a national conference call linking all of them. Officials asked participants to decide which issues were the most important, then discuss how to go about accomplishing their goals.
In three different discussion groups at Legault's house, some said they were most concerned about ending the war in Iraq, protecting abortion rights or income-tax reform. Others were worried about erosion of civil liberties, the ballooning national deficit or discrimination against gays.
They debated strategies to pursue over the next two to four years, including whether MoveOn should move its views toward the political center to attract more support -- or whether it should work to transform the Democratic Party "to offer a more viable and inspiring alternative to the Republicans."
Phil Bereano said he wanted to see the latter, noting that he would like to have seen a presidential candidate who stood strongly against the war in Iraq.
"We have a party that has become a 'lite' shadow of the Republican Party," said Bereano, a University of Washington professor of technology and public policy. "The center of gravity needs to be pushed all the way to the left again."
Others said getting support for their message should involve media reform, a focus on organizing or an effort to champion presidential candidates who could connect well with the American people.
After the Nov. 2 election, Emma Bartholomew said, she needed to spend a full week in mourning.
She said she used to be a Republican, until she began feeling that religious views had taken over. She's not entirely happy with the Democrats these days, either.
"We keep moving to the center, and it keeps shifting to the right," said the 45-year-old software tester.
Bartholomew said the timing of the house parties was key -- it offered a chance for a post-election strategy session while people are still "fired up."
"It's important to get people together now," she said, "before they just fade away."
If they wish to set a course---set it into the local pond!
this is part the shadow party.
Crawl back into the holes you came from, you stinking, commie, traitorous scumbags.
Note to self: Send the good prof an e-mail urging him ever-leftward....
Someone should tell them to lead by example and take their own advice and JUST MOVE ON!! Move on out of this country would be my choice for them.
the course for the future better be raffles and back sales...I doubt that terrorist George Soros will part with another $10-mill on these pieces of crap.
They are so far left they are about to fall off the political playing field.
How can somebody be de-moralized if they weren't moral to begin with?
I think that's what that Hmong sniper was feeling.
"Engagement and enragement"? Where did this guy learn to speak English? From Jesse Jackson?
Are those jokers going back to being a gun grabbing org?
CUCK-koo, CUCK-koo....
You don't have to encourage him. After years of trying to understand the Vietnam-era left, a wise newspaper editor who works with them explained to me how their brains work: they try to shoehorn just about every situation into one of three precedents: Vietnam, the civil-rights battle and/or Watergate. That's why so many of them supported the Kosovo intervention - any Vietnam-type squeamishness about the military action was overcome by their perception of the civil rights struggle involved: the Serbs became the Southern bigots, Milosevice became Bull Connor and the Kosovar Albanians were the repressed blacks.
And this cranial hard-wiring is apparently incurable. Which is why they can't adjust to modern times and futher marginalize themselves with every passing election.
my guess is they are close to commiting sedition .... and if their not carefull attract a lot of attention from the terrorists who will use them.... much like VN used Kerry then and now.....
Support this effort to move left and also ...get Whoopi and Barbra,Michael and Baldwin,Susan and Tim involved!
However, I fear that in the end, they will remake themselves into the image of Hillary. She will become someone we won't even recognize over the next 3 years - physically and politically. It worries me very much. Remember, the electorate voted for her wretched husband.....twice. We must be vigilant.
We FReepers owe it to them to sign up for their parties, just for the gigglefest and muted gloating we all deserve.
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