Almost there…

Almost there…

So many of us who have been blogging about politics for the last four, six or even eight years are looking at the next 48 hours with a mix of hope and trepidation. I have never been one to underestimate the stupidity of the "low-information" voter, and it’s that particular member of the human species (specious?) that might well tip this election in a direction that might make me take up Bill Maher’s "Exit Strategy".

Like many others, I started blogging back in the middle of 2002 as the edges of the event horizon that surround the Black Hole that is the 1600 Crew (or Bush Administration to the rest of the world) became more and more defined. The decisions and fear-mongering words that were being sent out via the White House Stenographic Corps from the lips of Lying Ari Fleischer and then Scotty McClellan needed some sort of counter, and the "new" media that was the seminal blogosphere (or Blogtopia! if you read Skippy!) became the only place that any information could be gleaned which was not slanted by press corpse asshats whose retention of their access was far more important than the truth. See: Judy Miller.

As the next two years passed, and all of a sudden the "walkthrough" in Iraq was becoming the Mess in Mess O’Potamia the media began to question their role, but not enough to make a difference in any meaningful way. John Kerry, an honorable and bright man ran against the Karl Rove machine and was eviscerted as election day grew closer; official government records delineating young Lieutenant Kerry’s injuries and Silver Star citation were made out to be not just "phony", but were the source of sick humor at the republican convention in 2004. But John Kerry moved the ball down to the five yard line; I went to one of his last rallies in Columbus, Ohio at the OSU campus. The Senator spoke, The Boss sang and we all left that rally believing that we’d wake up the next Wednesday morning and begin to see the renewal of America. Nope.

So in 2006, the media began paying attention to the blogs, the outstanding work of Marcy, Christy and of course, Jane brought the credibility of top-notch reporting of the Libby trial to the American people via The Lake. The recognition of the "left-wing" blogs as the messengers of a progressive agenda began to emerge, and the blogs and their DFH authors who had been marginalized for all the previous years began to become participants in the National political conversation, not just their written words, but in significant fund-raising and candidate building activities. 2006 was a keystone year in the development of not just messaging, but in building the bottom-up organizations that have proved so successful in the current success that the Democrats are enjoying. Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy was the butt of many insider jokes in the "mainstream" punditry, those horses-asses couldn’t see past the looped footage of "the scream" to listen to Dean’s message; that it took involving everyone to win, not just folks in states that the chattering consultant/pundit class deemed important. And guess what? Every state had bloggers, messengers eager to document, report, be shit-stirrers when needed and triage the bad news when that was needed too. And the bloggers now had the ability to carry the message sometimes with their slant, sometimes with the party slant, sometimes in opposition in some form, but the message was getting out there.

Which brings us to the two-yard line. Tonight. The GOTV efforts of the Obama campaign will set standards for election cycles to come. The discipline and work that the Democrats have shown after being in the wilderness for six of the last eight years is going to pay off, in house and senate races; and if the ball moves over the Goal Line with the election of Barack Obama.

It wasn’t solely blogs, it’s wasn’t the media (it certainly wasn’t the media), it was the hard work of all the men and women who have felt battered by the eight years of a man whose priorities included vacation, war and more vacation that has moved that ball to the two yard line. Now let’s take it over for the score, and make this the year we re-introduce Sarah Palin to long Alaskan nights.

See you next week when we’ll get to greet a President-elect Obama.