Wins

Hi. I've been absolutely fascinated by politics since about 1978... I think that's when my grandmother started sending me Herblock editorial cartoons she clipped from the Washington Post. I drew my first Reagan cartoon in 1980 (age 9, copied from Mad Magazine). In high school, I teamed up with a conservative friend (a math & programming wizard with feet as hairy as a Hobbit) and ran his mock election candidacy as Dukakis. Deep in OC, "Dukakis" won. I was proud. I read Marx and Chomsky (it wasn't until college that I realized he's the left's Dan Quayle... dumb, cynical and wholly full of shit). I listened to the Dead Kennedys. And kept waiting for meaningful liberal victories.

They didn't happen. Yeah, I still blame Nader for actively combating what would've been our greenest presidency. If Noam is Quayle, then Ralph is surely the left's Bush (arrogant and wholly full of shit). The left just kept getting more angry, stupid, and stubborn (a lot like the tea party). Honestly, aside from Ted Kennedy and Wellstone (also opposed by the Green Party), liberalism was pretty devoid of nationally prominent thinkers that actually accomplished things.

But along came Obama and his team of pragmatists (if you haven't read it, I recommend the Metaphysical Club, about the creation of pragmatic philosophy... which trails only baseball and national parks as this country's greatest gift to humanity). I predicted his presidency early. But I most certainly didn't anticipate the speed at which progress would take hold. If you'd told me sometime in 2000 (or anytime during the Rove years of supremacy) that within the next decade we'd have a president endorse gay marriage or demand that cars get 56+ MPG... I think I would've probably dismissed it as too optimistic. Remember when 8 MPG SUVs were outselling cars by ridiculous numbers? That was one term ago.

Look at Obama's coalition. It's a Guthrie folk song. It's a liberal Noah's ark: young, multiracial, loaded with estrogen. Compare it to the Opposition. It's amazing. Liberals have never been good at keeping people together. We have an anarchistic streak. When Goldwater got beaten, conservatives organized. They coalesced, realizing that everlasting political victories take time and strategy. If the left could've figured that out earlier, maybe they get behind Gore. He wins... and Alito and Roberts are just lawyers for an oil company somewhere in Dubai.

Obviously, that didn't work out. But then Obama did. And, with apologies to some leftists, there is a difference between Roberts and Sotomayor. Kagan, too. These are meaningful adjustments and I'm thrilled that they will be ongoing. Ginsburg can retire... if she feels like it. A scientist remains the head of the Dept. of Energy. Etc.

We're winning and winning big. I didn't think DADT would be eliminated this decade (it's not that old), much less have the Democratic party and its president endorse marriage equality. A decade ago, Tommy Thomson was governor of Wis. Then, Bush's Secretary of Health. This week, he lost to Tammy Baldwin for the state's senate seat. Massachusetts elected a consumer crusader to rightfully sit at Ted's seat. We raised taxes for schools in California. We have a super-majority in the statehouse. I'm represented in Washington by a former Sierra Club lawyer. Gay marriage started winning in state contests. Pot was legalized in Co. The list goes on and on. Sure, there's plenty to do.

But it's worth noting that this week was the greatest liberal triumph of my lifetime. Yours too, probably. This isn't hyperbole. Yes, trends probably suggest that a lot of these things were eventually inevitable (demographics, price of gas), but most of the big and small victories that occurred yesterday owe a huge debt to the strategy, optimism, inspiration, and pragmatic patience of a black man at the top of a now competent Democratic party. He's been hammered from the left and the right, but Obama has remained unfazed. He knows the score and the clock. He's building something slowly in an impatient world, but I think it's built to last. In human history, has there ever been a more diverse coalition rallying around one person? I don't think so (Caesar's popularity was coerced). That alone is something truly worth celebrating.