What Can I Do?

Yes, Kerry is struggling - but against his own party.

by Alan Bisbort

Source: Hartford Advocate, May 14, 2004.

Lately we've been hearing a lot about John Kerry's "sputtering" campaign. How, as the New York Times put it in a thumb-sucking front page story last Sunday, Kerry is "struggling to find a theme" … while "Bush presses forward" … Kerry is "seen as lagging in some key areas." (Does Karl Rove write the Times's headlines now?).

Cited for expertise in the Times story — and really the only marginally credible source of these specious charges — is Donna Brazile, Al Gore's former campaign manager. Brazile is the Marcia Clark of elective politics. She bungled so many things during the 2000 campaign that it cost her candidate a solid victory and instead put him in a position to have a victory snatched away by the Supreme Court. Though she should be hanging her head in shame, Brazile is running her mouth.

All I can say to her and other backstabbers: stop the circular firing squad! Just because Kerry didn't pick you to help on his campaign, do something constructive for a change … like buttoning your lip. Even Howard Dean, a man who — when the smoke clears on 2004 — will be hailed as a true American hero, has "moved on" and is working tirelessly to see that his erstwhile opponent wins the White House. If anyone has just cause for being bitter and vindictive, it's Howard Dean, but he is made of sterner stuff. (I still say he'd make a great president). What's wrong with the rest of you?

We could all learn from 78-year-old Norman Sommer, the one-man right-wing vanquisher who, on a fixed income and from his tiny Miami apartment, has started a nationwide "umbrella movement" to "counteract the right."

When I was about to give in to Bush Fatigue back in January, Norman told me, "Don't despair. What the right wing has done in the last 20 years is man made and it can be undone. The more I put into it the more I get out of it personally. And I am 78 years old and suffering from more health problems than I care to admit."

Since then, I haven't looked back, and the momentum is rolling like the proverbial snowball down the mountainside. It's headed straight for that House of GOP Cards in Washington, D.C. — both at the White House and both houses of Congress.

When people ask me, "But what can I do?" I point to Norman and to the gem Margaret Mead offered many years ago: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that has."

Instead of despair or backstabbing, here are some things that desperately need doing to Show Bush the Door in 2004:

• Go to a swing state and knock on doors. According to estimates, the Democrats — if the election were held today — would firmly win enough states to garner 168 electoral votes, while Bush would win 190 (though his support is eroding by the hour and the body bag). That leaves 17 states, with a combined 180 electoral votes, pretty much up for grabs (thus, the "swing states"). America Coming Together (www.act4victory.org) is a good organization for providing the reliable details on how to talk to strangers. Believe it or not, this has been proven to be the most effective means to sway voters. Just make contact with them. They are as freaked out by Bush as you are.
• Voter participation in the U.S. is the second lowest of any western democracy, with half of the eligible voters taking part in presidential elections and one-third in all others. That's pitterful, as Granny Clampett would say. Yale profs Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber are trying to encourage Americans to "Get Out The Vote!" in a new book by that title published by Brookings Institution. Green and Gerber discovered that of all the methods used to mobilize voters, the most efficient is simply going door to door or standing outside a grocery store and talking to strangers.
• "Personal outreach to potential voters, involving longer and more engaged conversations, produces better results than more impersonal efforts, such as recorded phone messages, leaflets and emails," they write.
• Finally, you should never, ever, sit around wondering, "What can I do?" If nothing else, give Norman a call. He'll give you an earful.
  

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