"It takes a long time to change the course of the Ship of State," Senator Barbara Boxer said to our audience in 2005. I was still reeling from the devastating effects of vote-tampering in Ohio in the 2004 Presidential election. Watching the Democratic Convention this week, I heard her wise words again in my head. And something else, too.
I feel I'm watching what democracy is so wonderfully fit to do -- a response to a long-overdue call of "All hands on deck!" Yes, of course, I've been disappointed by what has not happened since the Democrats became the majority party in Congress in 2006, and...
The speaker whose great line -- this election is not about "right and left", it's about "right and wrong" -- is almost right. We must also have the appropriate humility to remember that "we" may or may not always BE right. And even in the face of genuine "wrong", there is no "they" in a democracy. We're all in this soup together. It's the job of government -- and the government is our agent, praise be -- to appropriately limit individuals and groups who do not have the common good in mind, not to demonize them.
Senator Boxer said something else I've worked to remember, burdened as I am by Georgia's Bush-follower, particularly Senator Saxby Chambliss who misrepresented Senator Max Cleland in Georgia's Senate campaign 6 years ago and has mis-represented me ever since (i.e., consistently, reliably and predictably supported Bush's failed and failing policies).
Said Senator Boxer, "Think of ME as your Senator. And then work like the dickens to elect a better one." Works for presidents, too.
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