A self-rigtheous scolding

At 12:51 PM, Kyle Michaelis said...

We can talk all we want about campaigns and candidates, but it's going to take more than that to make us a real force in Nebraska once again.

We need issues and ideas that play at the local level. If candidats are pushing them, that's great but until then someone needs to fill the vacuum. We need an identity make-over or at least a reintroduction to the people of this great state. My great regret is that I don't, at this time, have more to offer as to how we can go about this. It takes good candidates, yes, but it also requires a new idea - a new rallying cry (or several).

We can discuss the merits of individual candidates. We can discuss outreach strategies. We can discuss future elections with any number of hypothetical scenarios of various degrees of preposterousnes and presumptuousness. But, I'd hoped this conversation would become one about the issues, here in Nebraska, that need our attention. About the people, in this state, who most need our voice and our strength.

If that's not a conversation we can have, I fear we might all be as exhausted and devoid of vision as I myself feel, in which case we'll be arguing the same old "blahs" of ineffective leadership and the need for new ideas from here to eternity.

It seems many see the problem(s). Now, can we please start talking about the solution? Please. Can we get back to the issues and back to the work of making peoples' lives better? Where does the progressive spirit guide us in the 21st Century? Where is there a new connection with the people of Nebraska, a new dream for America, to be forged?

Are we so convinced of the infallibility of the Democratic status quo, the old party line? Are we really willing to write all of our failures off on the Republican noise machine and their candidates' blind devotion to the day's talking points? If so, shame on all of us for our ignorance and PRIDE. Perhaps our winter has only just begun.

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