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Report from the Trenches
by Tim Copeland
November 22, 2006

There's a lot of post-election analysis going around. Mostly, it's self-serving damage control on the part of pundits who didn't have a clue this was coming and Washington politicians who, as recently as May, were opposing Howard Dean's “50 State Strategy”. One of those was Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

We in the trenches just received a message from Nancy Pelosi, on behalf of that same DCCC. It was a thank you note that listed six noncontroversial, meaningless goals for the 2006 Congress, cooked up for the consumption of the gullible faithful. Being faithful but less gullible, I am sending my own agenda back to Washington. It only has one item: “We're still not happy. We did not return you to power so you can have photo-ops in the White House with the most dangerous lame-duck president in American history. We elected you to fight him. If you are not doing that, you are wasting our time.”

What happened across the nation November 7th was exactly what happened in my hometown of Biddeford, Maine. A newly born political machine flexed its muscles. It was composed of concerned and patriotic citizens who took in hand the raw power offered to them by our Constitution. They sat in the polls, checked off voters and passed lists to couriers who took them to volunteers manning the phones. Voters were reminded to vote and were provided with rides. Volunteer lawyers kept watch for vote suppression. Young activists coordinated everything. Democrats voted in numbers not seen in generations for a midterm election.

The election was a great victory, but victory can be a fleeting thing. The only victory that will matter is one lasting for decades. To achieve that, we need to get younger and we need to get mean.

I worked the polls that Tuesday. My unscientific survey placed the average age of voters at 55. A lot of the Democratic faithful were over 70. If we don't recruit the young, in 10 years we will be starting all over.

Getting mean is a lot easier. Republicans will do anything to win elections and this election was no different. They made calls disguised as Democrats to smear our candidates or annoy our supporters; they passed out flyers to trick Democratic voters into supporting Republican candidates; they intimidated Latino voters in Arizona with handguns; they sprayed Democratic headquarters with skunk smell; they sent messages threatening arrest at the polls. We must watch them every time, shore up election laws and expose every trick, every fraud, every denial of a voter's sacred right to speak at the ballot box.

The second part of getting mean is gerrymandering. It is not time to rise above it; it is time to do it with a vengeance. Republicans recently changed congressional districts in Texas to create a six seat advantage for Republicans. Their conservatives on the Supreme Court gave it their blessing. Sounds fair to me. It's time to repair the damage, nationwide.

The last part of getting mean is to state clearly what it means to be a Democrat. It means supporting the party and its ideals (if you can find them) or changing it to represent those ideals (if you cannot). It is not a perfect party, but it's the only one that is going to have the muscle to do anything to stop conservatives. This is about exercising political power, not saving the whales or stopping mercury pollution or gay rights. If people don't want to play politics, they should play else where.

The power is ours. Howard Dean said so, and he helped us get it. Our ultimate victory is not assured, but it is attainable and, if it is ours, every single activist, volunteer, contributor, writer, blogger, supporter and politician will be able to say, “I helped bring the Democratic Party back from death because I love this country, it's mine and I want it to be great again.”

Tim Copeland is a radical liberal writer who worked during the 2006 campaign as a driver for his state senate candidate, Nancy Sullivan, and as a poll watcher. He serves on the communications committee of the York County Democratic Party in Maine.