You can tell a lot about a candidate by how he or she runs a campaign, not everything you need to know, of course. Positions, experience, judgment, do matter. But it is worth noting that if a campaign is a train-wreck for Democrats and the nation, then, Houston, we have a problem.
It's common among Clinton backers in the blogosphere to suggest that, by her take-no-prisoners tactics, Hillary Clinton shows how "tough" she is, that she's a "fighter." Ditto for her campaign talking heads, including but not limited to: Bill Clinton, Howard Wolfson, James Carville, and Sydney Blumenthal. But here's what's wrong with that:
First, enough with the war (and boxing) metaphors! "It's a fight!" "It's Rocky!" It's rough and tumble. To the extent that that's true, we demean this process.
Need help? Hillary will "fight" for you. She'll knock down a shot of whiskey, run up the famous (real-world movie set) in Philly, and then pummel Obama's character. I don't think this is what "fighting for you" means. Helping you and me is voting for the right thing at the right time. Helping you and me means being tenacious when health care reformed failed 15 years ago, not giving up for all these years. It's not suddenly, after all that time, expecting that her health care credentials (what she "learned") matter.
Many of you saw the Democratic campaign and costumed alter-ego characters slug it out wrestling-style on television. That parody lampooned the entire premise that we ought to go there.
Second, in hopes that you'll mistake all manner of personal trivia, gossip and innuendo as signs of leadership or lack thereof, the HRC campaign employs the leadership=character myth. You see, that justifies all manner of sludge and false accusations: Obama isn't "fully vetted," his patriotism is "suspect," he might have known someone unsavory when he was 17, he worked on a charitable board with someone.
Then Hillary's eyebrow goes up when she talks to a news show anchor. She says snidely that Obama "says" he's not a Muslim. And you have to wonder just who is stretching the notion of what it means to be an American here. (I don't need to tell anyone reading this that he is not a Muslim. But that is beside the point. If he were, however, that wouldn't remove him from eligibility either. We do have freedom of religion the last time I checked. But this is a "straw man," a distraction.)
Here are just a few slightly edited thoughts about this from a reply I posted (under a different screen name) at Democratic Underground:
The examples of Hillary's "character" touted here include she's "tough," a "fighter," etc. You could just as easily have introduced some of the other supposed qualities which tend to (but don't necessarily) correlate with leadership. But they do not really tell the story. That's why leadership isn't about traits much at all. It's about the interaction of leaders with their followers to accomplish something. At minimum, it's about transactions: What will this leader accomplish for us? Hopefully, it's also about the transformation they build, a transformation bigger than the sum of the parts. (Now Michael Gerson, a Bush speech writer,is trying to make bringing transformation a bad thing. It's elitism, he says. And therefore, talking about bringing transformation insults us because it's condescension! Unbelievable! He sounds just like Hillary.)Using "character" as the be-all of our campaign decisions enables the media to supply us with gossipy, tidbits to wear away at the fabric of a whole person. Also, it's so much more complex a subject that the reduction-to-absurdity in the media. For example, there tends to be optimal levels of traits, which work efficaciously. So, it means little to say, for example, that a leader should be "decisive." Though there are some approximate correlates, traits like decisiveness, flexibility and extroversion, there can be too much of them (or too little). A too-flexible leader, would be unfocused. A too-decisive leader would be--well, like we have now, a stubborn, recalcitrant George W. Bush. And, though not on the same plane as Bush for "decisiveness excesses," Hillary Rodham Clinton cannot admit she was wrong about her Iraq vote.
However, such traits are not literally requirements for leadership. Introverts can learn to compensate. And BTW, a "fighter" can go too far. A leader can so so "strong" that she issues pronouncements rather than leads or alienates a sizable portion of the party. She can talk in belligerent terms so as to look tough, and by doing so may fan another war or endanger our country. There just is no magic bullet. How "tough" is enough? How "tough" is too much? Will she go too far because she wants to look tough? We know John McCain might. What about Hillary, who is increasingly sounding like him regarding Iran.
But the real problem here is that being a "fighter" misses the point in leadership. Leadership is bringing together Americans toward accomplishing their common goals. And so leadership really hinges upon coalitions and consensus. How do you bring us together when she openly mocks Obama supporters (as she did when she laughingly talked about the "heavens opening up" or insults Obama by reducing him to "just a speech.")? How do you build consensus when only she knows best and not those Obama supporters with their heads supposedly in the clouds?
Third, it is not merely feisty to employ a cadre of hit-men (and women), who seek to character assassinate day after day. It should go without saying that any man or woman running for president loves his or her country. It should never be questioned. Never. That it is is the height, or depth, of indecency and McCarthyism. I wonder what kind of "character" using McCarthy-like tactics suggests?
Don't think they are using such tactics? Read the Salon.com article addressing the daily onslaught of emails from high-level Clinton backers disparaging Obama's character here.
Here's what Peter Drier has to say:
Almost every day over the past six months, I have been the recipient of an email that attacks Obama's character, political views, electability, and real or manufactured associations. The original source of many of these hit pieces are virulent and sometimes extreme right-wing websites, bloggers, and publications. But they aren't being emailed out from some fringe right-wing group that somehow managed to get my email address. Instead, it is Sidney Blumenthal who, on a regular basis, methodically dispatches these email mudballs to an influential list of opinion shapers -- including journalists, former Clinton administration officials, academics, policy entrepreneurs, and think tankers -- in what is an obvious attempt to create an echo chamber that reverberates among talk shows, columnists, and Democratic Party funders and activists. One of the recipients of the Blumenthal email blast, himself a Clinton supporter, forwards the material to me and perhaps to others.
It's instructive to read the entire article to see how HRC is using the same "vast right wing conspiracy" to feed her propaganda through the system and they now serve as her echo chamber. How times have changed!
Here's William Rivers Pitt's reaction to the Blumenthal scandal.
Fourth, the fight metaphor is a really cunning way to try to make Hillary's negatives into positives. Sure, she's negative, but "she hast to be." She's doing it "for you," don't you know. She's doing it to protect us from Obama! Perhaps we need protection instead from the Second Coming of Clinton.
Before you note that all candidates tend to use this language, I hasten to add, you are right to a point. But it is far, far less a style of the Obama campaign. Obama has, for example, tried to unpack the myth that the Iraq war was or is about freedom, protecting us, or making us more safe.
The Clinton campaign has brought such metaphors to a new and terrible level. Language like "obliterate" would normally not be used unless one wants to show herself even more belligerent than the Beach-Boy-Song-Singing ("Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran) McCain. Is this what she's willing to do to get "traction." And if so, what does it say about where we are? If Hillary keeps it up, will there yet be shoe pounding at the UN again (this time by a US president)?
The bottom line is that the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign is filled with those who show more and more that they do not understand leadership at all. It's about them, after all, and restoration. It's not about coalitions and consensus at all. We need to send those with this kind of unenlightened, divisive thinking packing. As I have said before, it is so last Century!
I actually heard something similar in 04, that the Clintons secretly wanted Kerry to lose so HRC could run in 08. I didn't beleive it then, but I'm beginning to see the logic... at least, the "Clinton" logic in that thought.
And, I never said I wanted to turn Senator Clintons voters away.
My comments are based on the fact that Senator Clinton appears to be writing the republican stratagy against Senator Obama for the General, and it offends me.
I'm going to support the democratic candidate this fall, who ever that is. But, I don't agree or approve of the tactics Senator Clinton has taken in the past month. Do you?
I don't recall any of us objecting then. In fact, I think we all were delighted with a fighter who was willing to take on special interests and fight the right wing on the Iraq war, the outsourcing issue, and economic fairness. I still want a fighter like that.
Also, I don't believe it's the Democrats who have been obstructionist in Congress. Indeed, the Republican minority announced early that obstructing a Democratic agenda and preventing majority rule would be their main strategy in 2007. So, why do you think they will treat Obama differently?
It seems that if the Democrats have had problems with the voters in the past, it hasn't been because their ideas have been rejected. It's because nobody seemed to know what they stood for and that's because they don't stand up and fight for what they believe. How often are we mad at them, rather than obstructionist Republicans, because we perceive our own Dems as the ones backing down from fights in Congress?
Again, why do you think those Republicans will welcome Obama's post partisan approach? Admirable as it is, I don't think it will work. Maybe I'm a cynic; perhaps I've been jaded, but I see the Republicans as causing the problems not the Democrats. And I see being willing to fight them as the solution.
It's why I supported Webb so staunchly. And it's why I originally supported Edwards. And it's why I support Hillary, though I do agree with you that she should turn her fire toward McCain and not Obama.
Look, I admire Obama tremendously for his inspirational style, his charisma, and his desire to be a uniter. I just doubt the Republicans will let it happen, and I think being willing to fight for what you believe is an excellent fall back plan, so I hope Obama will have the resolove to do that when necessary.
I once shared your concern about what you call "post partisan" approach. And then I really listened to the candidate instead of what his opponent was saying and how her supporters were spinning it. Heck I even blogged about that concern here. And then I immersed myself in transcripts, speeches, articles, both candidates' websites. And I found I was wrong.
Polls suggest that re registration, more recent registration changes apparently have been those moving to Hillary.
Look forward to the day soon when we are all on the same page again.
Hillary's way is the DLC way. You have only to look at her (and the DLC's) buzz-word entitled Dream Initiative, which she along with other DLCers put together to see this. It is more benign than a Bush agenda. But it is still more lift yourself up by your bootstraps. More individual savings accounts to solve problems too, instead of, for example, real reform in banking and securities, which would really solve problems.
And you are right, I remember that you objected to the "Born Fighting" slogan. But I liked it and defended it on my own blog, using examples like Mother Jones, etc., of fighting women.
Here's why I feel so strongly about the need to fight back.
I was so devastated when John Kerry lost and I really did lay it at the feet of his campaign handlers, Bob Shrum; Tad Devine; and Mary Beth Cahill, for not realizing they needed to mount a fast and strong defense of the Swiftboat attack. Most political pundits recognize now that it was a costly mistake to wait so long.
Shrum and Devine, specifically, lost both Gore's race (I know, Gore really won - but it shouldn't have been so close that stealing it was possible) and Kerry's race by refusing to go negative even while their candidates were being slammed.
They both went around piously citing reams of research, mostly supported by the mainstream media, that voters hated negative elections and would be turned off by any hint of negative campaigning, even a justified self-defense. So, the Republicans had a field day attacking everything from the Democratic candidates' positions on issues to whether they wore earth tone suits, sighed too loudly, wind surfed or looked French. They mischaracterized the Dems, ridiculed them, and made them look spineless because they wouldn't even defend themselves.
It worked, not because people believed everything the Republicans were saying. In fact, polls indicated that they didn't believe the Swiftboat attacks. But people hated that Kerry didn't defend himself. The voters thought that if he wouldn't even defend his own honor when he was lied about, how could he be trusted to defend the country? They didn't think he had been a coward in Vietnam during the sixties. But they did wonder if the fight had gone out of him in the 2004 election.
For the record, I am comforted by the fact that Obama is answering attacks and not letting them slide by. I admit that I remain skeptical of anybody's ability to reach beyond partisan politics with this set of Republicans. But I find Obama inspiring and certainly hope it works. However, after having watched the Republican right for so long, I still need to reserve judgment about whether it will. If only to keep myself from being disappointed once again, I need to remain skeptical about the possibility of a clean, fair election based solely on a dialogue on the issues. Even if McCain wants to do that, too many groups independent of him won't allow it. We're seeing that with the North Carolina state Republican Party, which plans to run ads attacking two gubernatorial candidates by linking them to Obama and Wright, that McCain has specifically asked them to pull.
But despite our differences of approach, I think you and I will be on the same side in the not too distant future :) And you remain one of my favorite writers on the blogs.
In 2003-4 I became interested in RR through the Dean campaign. After dean left the race I launched a small (150 person County-wide rapid response effort). With newsletters 2-3 times a week. It was exhausting 9and I wasn't getting paid, of course). Lowell did a superb job of rapid response and fact checking for Jim Webb. But with a coordinated national RR strategy, we could have really effective effort. There dissemination would have been better though. If an RK person from every county had dispatched fact-checks to their listservs, we could have really accomplished even more. It's moot because Webb won. But in closer races, not having that can really cost us.
But back to the langauge we use. I am really talking about being not assertive but aggressive. I admit I have done this. I want to better typify assertive speech, but not aggressive speech. The best exemplary individual of this positive, constructive approach in the blogosphere is teacherken. You may not realize it, Karen, but you are too! I just think we are talking more about Rapid Response when we talk about defending our candidates.
I think it matters what politicians do and say in this regard because it sets a tone. I am too fiesty and scrappy myself to totally adopt what is commonly now called NVC ("nonviolent communication)" I know I won't be perfect at this. For example, any kind of mockery of some
pols (especially Bushies or Gilmore, Marshall, et al) would be out. I wonder if I can totally refrain from that! :-)
However, one of my goals is to try to practice not just wordsmithing, but rather speaking/writing while avoiding fight metaphors (and also Republican frames).
But I do think that we don't have to make everything a "war" or a "fight."
It will be an interesting quasi-experiment. And before I start, I might have one or two more op-eds about the current campaign in me.
Now, I don't know who these two are. I see two people who destroy anybody and anything who stand in their way. Even if it means the destruction of the Democratic party- it just doesnt seem to matter to them.
McCain should just rest easy this summer knowing that he doesnt need to lift a finger- she's doing all the heavy lifting for him.
Kathy- you nailed it square on the head. Excellent post.
So while it is certainly hugely appealing to have a cerebral candidate that offers fresh ideas and has inspired tens of thousands to register and become excited with the process, unless he wins the election it is all for naught. Don't ever discount the importance of toughness. For without toughness you can not win and if you can not win, you can never display the leadership you properly claim we crave and need to put the country back on track.
HRC is not going to win. She has the luxury of saying anything and doing anything, because after June none of it will matter. Meanwhile, Obama is tasked with unifying the party behind his candidacy and bringing the Clinton partisans back into the fold. He can't be as aggressive because he still has a general election in front of him.
I think it shows a tremendous amount of discipline to listen to the smears day in and day out without responding in kind.
A candidate needn't reduce him or herself to the depths of the Bush II crowd.
We've seen these examples from the supposedly hot-headed Jim Webb. Anybody hear of him duking it out in the Senate with everyone who's standing in the way of his goals? Do people remember that after the kerfuffle over his son in Iraq with Bush the first thing he did upon his son's return was bring him to the White House and introduce him to Bush? Webb has worked diligently and effectively, quite often behind the scenes, slowly working his way into some influence with such as Condi Rice, whom he has taken pains to praise for her relatively weak overtures to regional leaders in the Middle East. He's refused to slam McCain and others who have not yet joined to promote his GI Bill, even when McCain introduced a competing amendment just last week. Would anyone watching Webb operate suggest for a moment that because he is not going to war with his colleagues he is not a fighter? Are his strenuous yet quiet efforts ineffective because he's not throwing down against all who oppose him? I think not. Instead, he is extremely close to having sufficient votes on the GI Bill to override a presidential veto. That's leadership. That's keeping your eyes on the prize. He doesn't care about showing everyone he's the biggest badass on the block because it's not important to him. He understands the nature of leadership.
I have waited and waited for Hillary to show something like Webb's sense. She's a very intelligent, very strong-minded individual, but she does not get it. She lacks sophistication about the ultimate use of fighting, focusing instead on her willingness and ability to do it. As with innumerable people before her, there is something in her makeup, a certain insecurity, which demands that she prove she can take on all comers. It's this desire which will ultimately render her potential unfulfilled and her actions counterproductive.
The other type of intelligence is the type Albert Einstein had. He was a poor student, but he was able to figure out how things worked, mainly by observation. In other words he believed his own eyes and had few pre-conceptions. In a way that's an advantage of not being a perfect student and test taker. So the Einstein intelligence was a teachable intelligence.
Hillary's intelligence is so narcissistic that she is not very teachable.
We all can be studied under various disciplines such as personality type, abnormal personality type, intelligence type, as well as aptitudes for various subjects such as music, business, etc. We are all bundles of these things and so I defend my analysis as a reflection of various aspects of one human being.
I don't think anyone will disagree that rigid personalities also have rigid thought processes which affect their ability to process information, especially information which contradicts their previous assumptions. Therefore I would would say rigid personalities are less teachable than other more flexible personality types. Narcissists are very rigid. George Bush is a classic example. His ability to live in denial reflects this.
I have been tough on Hillary. But even (and especially) those for us who think we know about her and her record/behavior, have no business doing this. We have our biases here and it is really pretty appalling to try to do this, IMHO. Even for professionals, it is unethical to fein Dx from this distance. Here's where I and all of us here should draw the line.
PS academic disciplines rarely reflect reality? What you mean by "discipline" is murky. I am sure all the professional and research psychologists would disagree. Even academic professionals in clinical psychology have "real-world" clinical practice work. And the research reflects methodical, painstaking effort to validate the various hypotheses about how and why we do what we do.
A blog like this is probably not the right place to discuss these things since it would take an audience with a similar background to understand what I am saying.
For all I know, everything you say may be true. I have no inkling. But to the extent your theory is based on the the idea that Einstein was obviously a genius who was otherwise a poor student is simply contradicted by the factual record.
Rebecca said:
A blog like this is probably not the right place to discuss these things since it would take an audience with a similar background to understand what I am saying.
I do not think understanding psychology is one of my greater deficits. But because you continue to defend this line of commentary, I offer the following.
--Intelligence and the current state of the research is far more complex that you have delineated.
--The fact is that intelligence and psychological variables you mention are separate constructs. A construct is an abstraction of a hypothesized variable that is said to exist. It is then up to psychological researchers to operationalize and validate such constructs. Without that, we don't know whether it makes any sense to talk about the particular construct. Construct validity is subject of another day and another place. Let it suffice to say it is a protracted, painstaking process conducted by numerous researchers over time.
--You say "a person with a psychological "condition" can also have some kind of intelligence," is a rather odd way to describe how they operate. To the extent that traits exist, they are continuous variables, not either or. "They can also have some kind of intelligence?" You don't have or not have "intelligence." It is really a matter of how much, or how high a score on some kind of assessment (operationalizing of intelligence, or one form of it). There are, perhaps, aspects of intelligence that we still cannot measure.
--Do you have such assessment scores? That's right, you and we do not. Are we her psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor or therapist? (I am not suggesting she needs one, BTW, for all HRC supporters.) Without assessment you have no business talking about this, but no psychologist worth his or her salt would go down this road anyway. The fact that the media, pop psychologists, and various others do so doesn't make it right.
--Hillary is one smart lady. And were she to be measured on either IQ or social intelligence I imagine she would score very high on BOTH. If you think otherwise, you are not paying attention. The fact that she distills information into sound bites or slogans means nothing about her underlying intelligence. That's about marketing.
--Furthermore, she very much does understand issues on many subjects. If you followed her over the years you would know this. It is how she choses to present them and work on them that we debate. And we debate here her manner of attacking her opponent.
--intelligence isn't just a matter of either intelligence or social intelligence.
--The measurement of intelligence (ie operationalization of it)and the validation of such measures (requiring a complex, integrative and extended effort by many researchers) is also an important aspect of understanding it.
--The literature on social intelligence is still emerging. Although it appeared in the marketplace of commercial ideas before research adequately supported it, there is a growing body of work suggesting social intelligence is a useful construct. But there is much more work to be done.
--test taking ability should not be confused with intelligence, which should not be confused with IQ (or the operationalization of intelligence).
--personality type, which you mention, is one approach to trying to understand personality which evolved out of Jungian psychology (and the work of his defenders). It is not an academic "discipline." Indeed, most academic psychology researchers will tell you to ignore type approaches. It is primarily espoused in programs and organizations outside of psychology departments that "type" has taken hold (such as management schools, ed schools, churches, etc.)
--We all develop and hold implicit personality "theories" about others. It's part of the human person perception and cognition. Our implicit biases also impact how we filter and process information about everyone. The fact that this is true helps us simplify our social worlds. But pretending that these implicit "theories" substitute for the real thing is a mistake.
But none of this is the point. Enough already with the attempt to shred Hillary's psyche. It's inappropriate, unethical, flawed, and more.
I have been critical of Hillary on several issues and on how she has chosen to attack Obama. However, it serves no purpose to try to dissect or shred her. And, its unseemly to do it.
I have been doing a lot of research on GM foods, agri-imperialism, and the general unethical practices being practiced by agri-business. Believe me I was not in any way researching the Clintons while doing this. However, present at the creation of these monsters were ..you guess. Yes, it was Bill and Hillary. I was shocked because I thought I could no longer be shocked by them.
Bill had Monsanto interview Espy before he appointed him secretary of agriculture. Monsanto is involved in highly unethical practices which intend to put small farmers out of business. Bill also made sure genetically modified foods were put on supermarket shelves without any labeling. Some of these foods have caused tumors in test animals. Others have minimal nutritional value which causes people to overeat.
So as I read more I found that the law firm for Monsanto, Walmart, and Tysons Chickens was the Rose law firm. So Hillary made nice money protecting these companies from the health consequences of their practices and products.
Without getting too wonky it can be said that as the Bushes are to oil the Clintons are to agri-business. You can think of it this way. The Clintons bear a large part of the responsibility for the food crisis today. You can add Bush's goofy policy of feeding corn to cars and the Iraq war and you have the perfect storm.
The danger here is that we have seen exactly what these kinds of politicians do when they actually get into office. These people -- and those who manage their campaigns -- have nothing but contempt for the intelligence of voters, so they have no qualms pushing the limits.
With Clinton it's necessary to take a lot more things on faith in my view, because she so rarely speaks to people on the level. Usually we get the argument that polls the best, not the one that is necessarily the most truthful. That definitely worries me.
My sense is that she would be an improvement on McCain -- that she will have no qualms squeezing the middling rich to help pay for some of our national priorities (or to help pay off debt); but in terms of the super rich she is going to play along to get along.
Even in terms of the media coverage at the national level, it's pretty clear that the bigs are scared sh-tless that Obama means what he says in terms of media ownership and closing tax loopholes (a balance of interests that more accurately reflects the overwhelming majority of Americans). He is absolutely a politician, but he hasn't been completely co-opted. His move to build a national grass roots foundation is going to give him pressure points to get legislation through congress.
The real test is whether or not voters are up to the task -- and willing to invest time and energy in making things right over the next 4 to 8 years. With Clinton we are simply told to "trust me" -- that switching labels this time around will be sufficient to the task at hand. Call me a skeptic. I may not be part of political Washington, but I've lived here long enough to see how the game is played.
After years of the Democrats getting their asses handed to them on election day, some Democrats took the lesson that in order to win, you need to use every underhanded trick in the book. I would suggest that those Democrats are at the core of Hillary's support.
Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. Hillary's problem is twofold though. We have had many years of intense partisanship now, and lots of people are sick of it, and are looking for something new. Secondly, an inspirational candidate such as Obama only comes along once in a lifetime, and it was her misfortune that he came along now. If there were no Obama in the race, Hillary would have sewn up the nomination on Super Tuesday, and the dark side of the Clintons would have never have come to light. At least until the fall, when they would have used those tricks against McCain.
That siad, just on general principles, one of the problems I have with these kind of analyses, however, is the idea that somehow this kind of tactic is exclusively the provrence of Bill and Hillary Clinton. The fact is that Barack Obama also has an operation that makes daily phone calls to reporters and sends out regular emails trashing Clinton, her staff and her husband for all sorts of things, some legit, some not. Whether those criticisms are valid or not seems to depend quite a bit on one's perspective.
As for stooping to the Republican's level, I have mixed feelings. If it requires stooping to the Republican's level to provide a level of comfort that Stevens and Ginsberg are not replaced by a GOP president, there is some level below a state of grace below which I am willing to sink.
The end does not always justify the means. But the ends do need to always be balanced against the means, IMHO.
I hadn't noticed the Clinton camp bringing out Farrakhan or flag pins or innuendo about patriotism -- I saw that mostly as media-driven. Also, I haven't been paying such close attention to the contest the last month or so, because I pretty much think it has been decided, so her campaign might very well have been doing so under the radar. To the extent the Clinton camp is driving those stories, it is wrong, and frankly, counter-productive to Clinton's own long-term political interests, if she has any.
I'll still give her a pass up to now, if only because lifelong dreams die hard, but the time for negativity toward Obama will need to stop after Tuesday, assuming both do as expected.
HRC does not want to annoy supporters like me -- long-time Democrats who supported her, but for whom 2008 represents the best chance we have had in a generation to put this country right. It's been a spirited, tough, and at times unfair campaign. If I end up thinking she is behind screwing up our chances in 2008 (and I don't think she has done anything yet to cause that), then I'll never forgive her or Bill.
It not that I think she should care what I, individually, think. It's just that I don't think I am that unique.
I look forward to putting this primary behind us and turning all of our attentions to defeating McCain and electing Progressives throughout the state. 2008 can and should be a special year for our side.