Call to the Colors
This post actually got inspired by a comment reply in a friend's journal that I thought was worth expanding into a post of it's own.
It's been less than eight years since just two thousand votes turned the entire American President election. Two thousand votes in one state which made the difference between the American President we have now, and the President we got instead. It could have been Albert Gore who decided whether we should have invaded Iraq. Organized Katrina relief. Set oil and global warming policy. Appointed the men who now sit in Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts' seats. Appointed the undersecretaries who set federal regulations on reproductive rights, civil liberties, and a host of other issues.
Maybe you're someone who thanks fate and fortune that George W Bush, and not Gore, was in charge of all of the above. Or bitterly wonders what might have been. Either way, I'm pretty sure most people here have a definite opinion. It could certainly have been a different America -- a different world -- that we live in now. Just off of two thousand damn votes. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is, of course, personal opinion.
We elect a President in kind of a screwy way in this country. Leaving aside the whole Electoral College business, we're stuck with this whole "winner- by- one- vote- takes- all" system that makes us functionally a two-party system. The whole situation where if you have four conservative candidates and one liberal one, and each conservative candidate takes 19.75% of the vote and the one liberal candidate takes 21%, conservative votes can out number liberals by nearly four to one and yet the *liberal* wins. Or vice versa. The whole situation where functionally the only thing you really get to choose is which of the two major party candidates you like *less*, and support his opponent simply to keep the other out of power. Maybe someday we'll have Preference Voting or something like that, but we're stuck with what we've got for now. And what we've got for now is what we've always got: two major party candidates, one of which will, once the dust settles, gain control of the White House. And a fight to decide which it will be. Or if nothing else, which one it will *not* be.
As most folks have noticed by now, it's a very tight election. After the conventions to begin shortly, after both sides *really* start opening fire, it's going to be even tighter. Two thousand damn votes turned the entire fate of this country -- the entire world -- just eight short years ago. This time around, state after state consistently fluctuates around the toss-up range. For both sides, state after state which was once considered safe is now being heavily contested. It's going to be down to the wire. It's going to be down to every last precinct. Every last vote. It's going to come down to every last dollar that can be spent, every last volunteer and warm body thrown into the breech to try to stop the other guy. Just as it was, eight years ago.
For those of us who can get involved, for those of us who are *allowed* to get involved, it's become so easy *to* get involved. Donating money takes just a few mouse clicks. Volunteering time, not much harder than that. The campaign web sites list myriad opportunities, things you can do from your own desk and your own computer, or just by dropping by the local campaign office. Hell, just walk into your local campaign headquarters on Election Day. They'll have tons for you to do. They'll be lots of us out there. Like the last time, I'll be out there on the streets on Election Day after I sign out from the Cardiac ICU. We could use every one of you who can help. Money. Time. Whatever. Any little bit -- every little bit -- counts.
There are some among our friends who *can't* get involved. Who have too many committments, or not enough money, or for whom it would be a Very Bad Idea, especially in this day and age, to get involved. In many ways, for the rest of us, it is for them we'll be fighting. For those of us who *can* be involved, it's up to us. It's our damn future. Just think what America -- what the world -- could have been with just two thousand damn votes the other way eight years ago. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing is not the point of this post. A call to the colors is.
You don't have to drop everything and go join a campaign full time. Some friends of mine are in fact doing just that, but that's obviously not practical for most folks. Hell, we're not even talking about a sustained, multi-weekend committment, like other friends -- other friends right here on the LJ -- put in the last time. Donate one afternoon. A few bucks. Put up a campaign sign in front of the house. A bumper sticker. A few phone calls. *Anything*. Every little bit is going to count in what is likely to become a fight for every last vote. Just like eight years ago. We could use every last person and dollar we can get.
So much has already been irrevocably decided. So much has already been set and can not really be taken back. But if nothing else, there still remains how we will choose, as a nation, to face the fate and the consequences we set for ourselves in 2000 and 2004. Maybe it's just the cancer doc in me talking, but no matter how grim and how hopeless -- how terminal -- the situation; no matter how many times your heart gets beaten and battered and broken; there is always still *something* left to fight for. Something worth fighting for.
It still matters who takes the reins this coming November. Who will appoint Ginsberg and Breyer's successors. Who will decide where we go from this place we have taken ourselves. It's the future at stake, as it always is. And even if so much has already been settled, so many courses already irrevocably set; even if this is not the same America that it could have been when we stood at crossroads in 2000, it still is our future and our America at stake.
Not all of us get a stake or a say. Too many of us aren't in a position to do anything about it. But many of us *can*. This is our damn future. Fight for it. Join us in the streets. Tuck the lilac in your lapel and *fight*.