2008 Was the Most Important Election Ever, Except for 2010

In 2008, Yes We Can became Yes We Did. Already it seems the political narrative has had its memory wiped clean. 2008? That was that year between 2007 and 2009.
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OBAMA: Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You'd give them a pep talk and then you'd always end it with something. What was it...?
BARTLET: "Break's over."

That last line from The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin's 2008 NYT Op-Ed , has been stuck in my head lately, especially when talking about Generation for Change and the first big event the group is putting together in 2010--live music, dancing and special guest speakers at a rooftop nightclub in Hollywood on the night of May 17, in support of Jerry Brown's campaign for Governor of California.

I work with Generation for Change (G4C) in my "spare" time. It's an LA-based grassroots network of young professionals, who didn't always call themselves Generation for Change. G4C's members were once the founding chapter and launching pad for a nationwide initiative called Generation Obama. GO-LA rallied thousands of volunteers and raised millions in funding for the Obama campaign in Los Angeles. They helped popularize new modes of bottom-up organizing and messaging, like the now iconic HOPE poster. Their efforts went beyond a few leaders in a campaign program to the leadership of an actual generation, filling a national need the country barely knew it fostered. As someone who came a bit, erm, late to the Obamanon, there's something I want to say to the veterans of the Obama campaign who got there first:

Thank you.

No, seriously. THANK YOU. You helped form the coalition that made Barack Obama President, and you sweat blood to make it happen.

In a collective effort so massive, widespread and energetic that it became known as a movement, we saw that a campaign can be more than a cynical political exercise. It can become a communal cause that even latecomers like me get to take part in. So, thanks. Here comes the hard part--we still have to make sure it counts.

In 2008, Yes We Can became Yes We Did. In the time between then and now, some folks have been hard at work turning Yes We Did into No You Didn't. Already it seems the political narrative has had its memory wiped clean. 2008? That was that year between 2007 and 2009. Young people across the country attended large gatherings--similar to contemporary Tea Parties--never to be heard from again. There may also have been elections, the subject of bestselling gossip lit.

And now, the forces of faithless negativism are on the move again. These are the ones that spent decades defining "The Enemy" as our Government, Other people, and ultimately ourselves. They're going nationwide, from Massachusetts to California, where their targeting, among others, G4C endorsee Jerry Brown.

Jerry once steered the state to booming job creation and budget surplus in the midst of national recession. He's been a champion for alternative energy, workplace diversity, public education and equal rights, mostly before it was popular. He's a former CA Secretary of State, Governor, Mayor of Oakland, and California's current Attorney General.

Yet Jerry is barely holding his own against two GOP'ers who have achieved statewide recognition as "those Billionaires", by using their respective private fortunes to carpet bomb California's airwaves. Former Ebay CEO, Goldman Sachs executive, and McCain economic adviser Meg Whitman programs more television than NBC.

Her rival Steve Poizner is another Silicon Valley veteran, whose tour of duty in the Bush 43 White House (2001-2002) came around the same time Ms. Whitman first registered to vote (2002). Both march lockstep with their party's agenda, which is mainly concentrated on stopping solutions before they start. Nationally, the quick-hit seems to go:

  • Repeal and deny health insurance for 30 million Americans (but hold onto pre-existing conditions).
  • Stop legislators from finishing what they've started on Climate Legislation.
  • Stop Immigration Reform.
  • Stop Financial Regulation.
  • Stop progress on Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell.
  • Stop Campaign Finance Reform...

You see the pattern. Punt away every point of progress now within reach, and a few we've already got in hand. The frontrunner in California isn't bidding $150 million of her own cash for nothing. She's trying to buy a legacy--ours.

The choice we face in this instant--as a generation, a movement, and a community--is the same as it will be for every voter in every precinct across California and the country this fall:

1) We can turn back, and go our separate ways. We can look back on the glory days, and say that we've done enough for now. We can pour the last rays of big-H Hope into the policies and politicians who brought us to the brink.

2) We can continue the work of moving forward, together, reclaim our momentum as a movement, and build a sustainable constituency. We can finish what we started.

For the moment, all the latter option entails is coming out to a hot nightclub to see a a kickass lineup and an appearance by one of the more entertaining personalities in the Democratic Party. It started that way in California a few years back, and it can again in 2010. Still, it's understandable if you're favoring door #1. Politics is tiring, and right now the whole enterprise seems awfully mean-spirited.

It occurs to me that the phrase atop this post was not, as implied, some sort of catchphrase. I've watched far more West Wing than is medically recommended, but I only remember Martin Sheen's President Bartlet bringing that particular hammer down twice. On the series premiere, and again at the start of the Third season.

In Season 3, Bartlet was about to kick off his re-election campaign. His staff was beset by infighting, disillusionment and exhaustion. Near the end of the episode they gathered around their President as they had in the Pilot, two years before. With a few additions, they were the same people--if less sure of themselves and less energetic than they'd been in the early days. They were told what they might do together, in the months ahead:

BARTLET
There's a new book, and we're gonna write it.
You can win if you run a smart, disciplined campaign, if you studiously say nothing -- nothing that causes you trouble, nothing that's a gaffe, nothing that shows you might think the wrong thing, nothing that shows you think.
But it just isn't worthy of us... It isn't worthy of us, it isn't worthy of America--it isn't worthy of a great nation. We're gonna write a new book, right here, right now. This very moment. Today...
You know what?

Break's over.

Doors open 8pm on May 17th, at Drai's nightclub on the roof of the W hotel in Hollywood.

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