Loyal Opposition

[AmyStrange]

Loyal Opposition
by Geov Parrish

FROM: http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0424/040616_news_geovparrish.php
On the eve of Ronald Reagan’s death, something remarkable in the world of political progressives was taking place in Washington, D.C.: They were all talking to one another. The event was the three-day, 2,000-strong “Take Back America” conference, featuring nearly every imaginable leading light of left-leaning politics in America: Arianna Huffington, Jim Hightower, David Corn, Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org.

Meanwhile, that weekend, in the other Washington, state Democrats were holding an annual convention at which the hit of the event was a giant puppet of a backbone—courtesy of “The Backbone Campaign,” a grassroots effort to ensure Democrats have one in 2004.

And later this month comes the most anticipated movie opening of the summer, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, a documentary carefully calculated to have as much anti-Bush impact as its filmmaker can manage.

Polls, media coverage, anecdotes, and common sense tell us that a lot more people dislike George Bush than like John Kerry and that an enormous surge of populist energy is going into the effort to defeat Bush in November. But for Democrats, it might be a mixed blessing.

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