The ground game matters: it matters in elections and it matters when fighting on issues

[struggle4progress]

We'll always be dollar-poor in the struggles that matter to us, and the Citizens United decision means we'll be dollar-poor for ballot-fights too, into the foreseeable future. That doesn't mean we can't win: it does mean we have to use what we have to full advantage -- and the one thing we really can bring to issues and elections is people-power, if we choose to use it

The next election season will start in about a year and a half. We can sit on our hands for that year and a half; we can waste time creating dissension or attacking people at the top; we can tell ourselves that posting on the internet is a form of activism. Meanwhile, there will be legislative and regulatory issues that should matter to us and that we really should work on. We may not win all the coming fights in the immediate future, but we ought to pick some and try hard anyway. Success will not be handed to us, wrapped up in nice paper with a pretty bow on it: we will progress only through intelligent analysis of actual conditions and genuine struggle to advance our goals. The tools are the tools we know from electoral campaigns -- mailings, phone calls, door-to-door contacts -- and the November election results ought to tell us that we need to practice and hone these skills now, and in the coming year, to limit the damage and to prepare for the next ballot fights

Lots of us have been observing the wingnuts for decades, and none of the things they do next should surprise us much: we ought to be ready to respond, not merely with our usual verbal outrage but with intelligent pushback

"Don't waste any time mourning: organize!"

[struggle4progress]

1. Dems typically won here 70-30. Just sayin.

[w8liftinglady]

2. I agree..organize and educate...on who really helps the majority