Back to the drawing board

Hi all,

Looks like its time to lick the wounds. In this period, its important to note a few things: First off, the "red states" were not reciprocated here in WA, and we still have two great senators: Murray and Cantwell. Murray won a strong victory against Nethercutt despite Nethercutt's heavy use of the terror card. He lost. Also remember that here in Seattle, our man McDermott defeated his opponent (a far right, anti-choice christian conservative) with 80%... No, I did not get the decimal point wrong, thats EIGHTY PERCENT. That my friends, is a MANDATE! (duplicated by Barack Obama in Illinois - beat far-right nut bag Keyes with a 70% mandate).

I would encourage all you to send on this message: Take your angers, passions, & fears and put them into ink - Write to our Senators Murray and Cantwell. Tell them to make strong use of the filibuster, and dont let up. Bush tries to push through permanent Tax Breaks? Filibuster. GOP tries to stop it? They cant - they need 2/3rds majority and dont have that. Conservative Supreme Court Appointments? FILIBUSTER LIKE HELL! In my letter to Murray, I told her to filibuster reading "Lord of the Rings", and replace the Dark Lord Sauron with George W Bush, and Gollum with Karl Rove (or perhaps that should be the reverse).

In the meantime, whilst arming the heavy defences, we must pull over to the side of the road, take a pitstop, and tune the engine... This is a process, and the GOP has had their dry-spells too (see the entire 1930s and most of the 60s).

My suggestion? Build a movement similar to the Conservative church connection network. Meet with your Neighbors, friends, associates that are like-minded on a regular basis (weekly if you can). Remember that this is not just a political movement, but also a social, cultural, charity, and collective values movement. Your goal is to access the masses that dont vote, didnt vote, and have given up - primarily the 18-34 group (the youth were supposed to turn out en masse this year, and they did not - This is why we lost). This should not be limited to a "get out the vote" movement headed by P Diddy, where you register people and never have contact with them again . No mass email, telephone bank, or Political Action committee can compete with meeting face-to-face once a week for coffee. The Meet-up campaigns of Dean and Kerry must continue on and grow stronger. Add to this sense of community a continuous and persistant contact with our immediate leaders (starting with Murray, Cantwell, and McDermott), and you have a movement in the making

~Nate

PS, Just wanted to add that along with Murray, Obama, Cantwell, and McDermott, Seattle now has a liberal talk network - Air America Radio. But more importantly, 6 months ago Air America had 2 markets and were bleeding $$$... now they've expanded into 36 markets!