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Edited on Mon Oct-30-06 02:06 PM by Tom Rinaldo
This current meme is an attempted double put down, both of Ned Lamont and of the Netroots. In a wanting their cake and eating it too kind of reasoning, it simultaneously implies that Ned Lamont turned out not to be so special after all, because the netroots abandoned him, and that the netroots isn't so special after all, because it abandoned Ned Lamont.
First, to state the obvious, the Netroots continue to "be there" for Ned Lamont. We never stopped being there for Ned Lamont. The third ploy attempted by the above political meme is to shift attention away from a more obvious and relevant question, which of course is; Why hasn't more of the National Democratic Party been "there" for Ned Lamont? Good question but not the one I want to address here, here I'll return to the question in the subject header.
Why haven't the Netroots been more "there" for Ned Lamont? Because the Netroots are now "there" virtually anywhere a Democrat is fighting to turn a red seat blue. Because the Netroots understand the importance of retaking Congress from the Republicans this year, and we understand that doing so means electing a slew of new Democrats to seats that Republicans had counted on as their own. We understand that although we can't always get what we want, if we try this time, we expect to find, we'll get what we need; Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader and Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
It is no longer the Primary season, when "the netroots" could focus all of our attention on getting the best possible candidates selected to represent the Democratic Party in the Fall Elections. These are the Fall Elections. That means we are busting our butts to elect the candidates that the Democratic Party ultimately settled on to run in districts all across this vast nation of ours. We aren't only tuned into a few high profile major media event races, we are in all of the trenches, fighting for Democratic endorsed candidates up and down the tickets, in places large and small. Yesterday I was door knocking for Kirsten Gillibrand for Congress in North Hyde Park New York, on Friday I will be in Corning New York for Eric Massa. These are Democratic candidates in my own state who need my help while all of us work to retake Congress for the Democratic Party. If I could clone myself to also be in Connecticut campaigning for Ned Lamont, believe me I would be.
Right now we are not asking a whole lot from National Democrats in return for our hard work and hard earned dollars. We'll ask more of them after we retake Congress, but for now our request is simple. Do you like to see us out there doing everything we can to elect the Democrats you are running, even quite a few who we are decidedly less than wild about? That's nice. Now let's see you do the same.
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