Judith and I were invited by some friends to the HUGE fundraiser in SF last night for the DCCC. They raised $2.5 million, the largest amount in this election cycle.
Rahm Emanuel did funny Bill Clinton imitations and reminded us of what a great delegation we have in Northern California (Nancy Pelosi, Zoe Lofgren, George Miller, Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda, Barbara Lee), not to mention our two Senators from the Bay Area. He talked about the political situation, and in how many races the democrats are ahead, but reminded us there were six days to go, so we shouldn’t be spiking the ball on the twenty yard line.
Nancy Pelosi rocked the house, though she deflated some of the more vengeful-minded (me?) by saying she planned on using the Golden Rule as speaker. If you saw her on 60 Minutes two weeks ago, she was very insistent that impeachment was NOT on the agenda. (Of course that doesn’t mean Conyers can’t hold hearings. And I’m consoled by recalling that both Agnew and Nixon resigned.) Yes, I’m optimistic!
The highlight of the evening was not Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Graham Nash singing ‘I am a Patriot’, but Bill Clinton. He gave a rambling, thoughtful talk about the administration’s use of fear to divide the country (“America is not about fear” brought great applause). He urged us to support Prop 87, California’s Alternative Energy Plan (he had a good phrase that was better than “future-proofing” but I don’t remember it now), for which he has been in many commercials out here. He talked a lot about how the Democratic Party is becoming home to a broad array of patriots, both conservative and progressive, and the huge responsibility we will have to work together for the good of the people.
He closed by coming back to politics and fear. He said there were a lot of people out there who have never voted for us, and need a little encouragement. His analogy was being on a diving board for the first time — that democratic water sure looks good, but you still have to overcome your fear and jump.
So with (now) five days to go, let’s see if we can encourage some of our conservative relatives and friends to make the plunge. For some of them, I think we can point to the Democratic Party as the Big Tent — Jim Webb in Virginia was Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy is running as a Dem. The Chair of the Kansas Republican party in 2003 is running as a Dem. Hundreds more of these.
In order to effect some change, we need power, and we need their votes.
See what you can do.