Question: What is the most important thing about the 2008 Election?
Answer: That the Democrats win the White House.
That prize has always been the most important thing. From day one. Whether the nominee was going to be the white woman, or the black man, or one of the white men.
Yet, some people who call themselves Democrats seem to have forgotten that imperative even though the rough and tumble of the primary season is past. Some Clinton supporters seem to still want to fight a war against Obama. Some Obama supporters seem to still want to fight a war against both Hillary and Bill.
My advice to both: Stop talking nonsense and wasting energy. Start thinking straight. The issue of whose side are you on is not a matter of Democrat versus Democrat. It's a matter of the Democratic Party against a party whose reign has produced a cesspool of ethical and financial corruption and incredible administrative incompetence in both domestic and foreign affairs.
There is a reason Bush's poll numbers have been so low for the last three years: He has lost the trust of the American people. There is a reason the Republican Party was battered in the November 2006 election. It lost the respect of the American people. There is a reason nearly 30 Republicans in the House and six in the Senate aren't running for re-election this year: They know the party's internal structure has collapsed from the moral rot of years of slash-and-burn politics.
I have some questions for those Democrats who want to wallow in the internecine squabbles of the primary campaign.
Do you remember that in November 2006 the American electorate sent a distress signal seeking rescue from the worst president and the worst administration of modern times? Do you remember Iraq and Afghanistan? Have you noticed the growing wreckage of the American economy -- and who's feeling the pain the most? Have you forgotten the tenure of Alberto Gonzales at Justice and the attempt to turn that and other federal agencies into dumping grounds for GOP hacks and gofers and right-wing religious fanatics? Have you forgotten the Bush administration's callous incompetence in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and its equally shameful indifference to the plight of wounded service men and women the Walter Reed Hospital scandal exposed?
Have you forgotten Tom DeLay's the K Street Project, and Jack Abramoff's ugly plundering, and Duke Cunningham's looting, and the GOP leadership's ghoulish behavior in the Terri Schiavo case, and its tawdry, look-the-other-way sexual politics the Mark Foley scandal revealed?
Have you not noticed John McCain's shameless bending of the knee to the worst policies of the Bush administration and his pandering to the worst elements of the right-wing?
Have you forgotten what the "prize" is? The prize is the rescue of the United States of America. The prize is restoring integrity and a sense of concern for ordinary Americans to the processes of the national government. The prize is repairing the enormous damage the Bush administration has done in every sector of American life and to America's honor abroad. The prize is preparing the American people for its ever more multi-racial future. The prize is the Democratic nominee winning the White House in November.
To those Democrats who want to keep looking backward, I say: face forward and follow the words of one of the most powerful anthems of the Civil Rights Movement. Keep your eyes on the prize, and fight on for the America Americans deserve.