Ruminate This on supporting the Democratic Party:
From a personal perspective, I am more inclined to support individual candidates than I am the national organization at this point. I come from the What Has the DNC Done For Me Lately School of Thought, and I’m not able to recall much in the way of serious activism – at least not that which could be instantly identified. Unlike their Right wing counterparts, our national party seems to have avoided taking hard, loud and public positions on important issues at a time when hard, loud and public positions are so desperately needed from the Left. Another issue is my want for the Democratic Party to bring together…to coalesce all it’s various factions. A broken party will do us no good come 2004. While it’s true that the DNC’s presidential candidate is for all intents and purposes the only game in town in terms of beating Bush next go round, I tend to think that direct giving to that likeminded candidate or through a progressive policy organization like Moveon.org makes better use of my limited resources. At the last mid-terms, Moveon really pushed the envelope for online soliciting, and when visiting their website, you could see which races your money was headed to…which candidates were most in need and how they were faring. I was favorably impressed by the organization’s reach and influence.
Another reason for my going the Moveon.org route v DNC: I’m not able to wrap my head around the idea of supporting a Lieberman, should he be the Democratic choice. If all I were being offered was a Republican- Republican or a Democratic-Republican, I’d rather not enable that particular DNC adventure. My hope is that the party will instead provide us with a real choice. Bush v a Democrat. Time will tell. For the time being, I’m waiting for the national party to offer me that choice before writing any checks.