I've been lurking on this site for a while, and have been following all the posts and the rising movement against Alito with great interest. I'm amazed and exhilarted by the power of the blogging community, who have managed to start shaking the foundations of the traditional Dem beltway establishment. I just read the diaries posted by
Armando and
Duke1676, and also all the comments posted. Although most of the posters here are very enthused, seems to me that some people still think that this is bound to fail, and Alito will get confirmed.
Bullshit. The fight is not over. It is just beginning, even if it picked up the groundswell late. We've made a difference already by convincing some of the senior leadership to put up a fight with a filibuster. We can continue to convince more. I'm sure everyone has gotten the message already by the sheer number of calls, emails and faxes in the past few days. So what's to be done next if this isn't sufficient to convince the vaccillating senators? What's holding them back? The perception that it might harm them during an election year. Obviously, appealing to their principles and sense of duty isn't working here. So fine, let's deal with their concern. Their constituents, and how to make their constituents see that filibustering Alito is the right move.
The problem we have here is that the democratic leadership messed up in the hearings, and failed to get across the reasons we need to oppose Alito to the disinterested, soundbite following public. And the MSM, which seems to have been blindly following the Karl Rove show for the most part have been complicit in perpetuating the myth of an easy Alito victory. Instead of focussing on why there is an opposition to Alito, they have foussed on why the opposition will fail, namely, the lack of votes. And that is the only soundbite/headline on the issue that people have been seeing/reading the last few days.
What we need to do next is to get them to change their coverage. Keep the presure on them. Everyone did a great job pointing out the error of Howell, but the spin they put up on that made us look like thugs on TV. We have the passion for the truth. But what we seem to be missing is the ability to convey that same passion to the people who do not participate in the blogosphere. And that's a whole helluva lot of votes there. I've been watching the Daily Show the last few days, hoping that Jon would mention something about the Alito filibuster. But he didn't. I understand that it is his show, and it isn't necessarily about showing the liberal viewpoint. But right now, he is the only one we've got. And maybe Olbermann. I think it's time now to target the news channels. Mount an internet campaign aimed at changing the coverage. Flood CNN and MSNBC with, calls, emails, comments. All they've said so far is that Kerry and a few senators are calling for filibuster. What they haven't mentioned is the ground swell of netroots support. Don't let them ignore us. Don't let them belittle our efforts. It makes a difference when people find out that this isn't just a politically motivated move by Kerry.
And let's not stop at that. We need to make the people who aren't involved in the blog worlds aware of this movement. Email your family, your friends and link them to some of the posts here, especially those by Senators Kerry and Kennedy and the ones which explain the reasons to oppose Alito. And get them to forward it. We need to spread the message, and increase the momentum. Cram it down their throats if we have to, that stopping Alito from getting to the Supreme court would be is a deadly serious matter for the state of this nation.
Let's stop quibbling about who leads or does not lead the blog world. If they won't step up, fine. We can't just stop and squabble in confusion. Move on. Keep pushing. Keep fighting. The fight ain't over until it's over. And even then, it isn't.