Discipline in the Democratic world.

So I just watched the Vice Presidential date the other day with my sister, who called me the night before to tell me that she had gotten tickets to a Debate Viewing Party at some Movie Studio people suare. I put on a suit, got some smellm' in ma hair and was pumped because she also told me that a famous raconteur was going to be at this event to give a peptalk to these Hollywood folks. Unfortunately, the guy flaked, and we were at the event to watch the debate and schmooze with the n0uveau-riche.

I learned a lot that night, the debate went well, I felt that while Cheney was on top of his game, as he usually is, he did leave some major openings for our man John to come in and kick some rhetorical ass. Edwards was not fantastic, but he proceeded to furiously punch holes into every policy, foreign and domestic of the Bush campaign and he succeeded to a lesser extent in clearing up some perceptions of Kerry/Edwards policy. I still think the debate was close to a draw, though I give Edwards the nod dude to his stylistic advantage. However, what I got most from the event was my distaste for many Democrats who are not disciplined about analyzing the antagonist more. Every time Edwards would make an argument, they would cheer and snicker... and while they were funny in the way they did it, it grew tiring. I felt like I was in a Pink Floyd video where everyone looks and acts the same, they just have different fashion and ego statements that all result in a conclusive, cohesive crowd.

My sister is not one of these people, she and I were talking the entire time about our likes and dislikes throughout the debate, and how both sides could help or hurt eachother. It comes from the way we grew up, the way our parents taught us to analyze situations such as these, and own natures as people... she was a debate/forensics champion in high school and one of the best I have ever seen in person, and I have met many good politicians and operatives in my day. We both have strong vested interests in helping elect Kerry and Edwards and ending the reign of the Bush/Cheney Administration.

Kerry and Edwards seek to reverse the trends of cutting taxes and spending vasts amounts of money the federal government doesn't have to fund a war that has no end in site and distracts from the focus of the war on terror and on terrible policy failures like the Medicare bill, and pork-loaded Farm and Energy Bills. We need to address all of these issues, but not at the detriment of another. As we gave seen with No Child Left Behind and Medicare, the Republicans are all talk and no play, because what matters most to them is retaining power. I think the Democrats hurt themselves by not risking things and at least standing up to some of this bullshit legislation that the Republicans sell to the public as Chicken Salad, but in reality is political Chicken shit. It may hurt us in the short term to be principled people, but better to be principled about trying to make government policy helpful to all Americans then trying to get a majority in congress. Its been 10 years since the Republican takeover, we have controlled the Senate for 1 1/2 years in that time, and the house, none. Let's face it, it is going to take us Dems to get our shit in order and come up with a philosophical underpinning that we can sell to the American people, just as the Republicans did, but it takes discipline and patience, which as we saw in that debate party, very few Dems have.

We need more exchange like the stuff my sister and I had... but it is gonna take discipline, and maybe we should look to the other side to see where our future must take us.

Y'all need to get your stuff in order.