It's tempting to begin taking the likelihood of Obama's victory just a bit for granted. The polls look good. McCain and Palin are flailing, and Ted Stevens is headed for jail. The Republicans have started their blame game.

But it's dangerous to assume that the election is over, or to settle for a narrow margin. Here are four reasons to keep doing all we can to keep working (and get our procrastinating friends to finally donate and volunteer) so we can create broadest possible mandate for Obama and his Democratic allies.

WHO

IS

OUR

BASE?

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE GRASS
(Grassroots that is.)

This article is the first in a series that I plan to write on current status of the various grassroots movements across our Nation to End the War and Elect Anti-War Candidates to Congress.  I will research what people in other states are doing to raise up democracy.

This progressive movement is drastically changing our country and our democracy for the better from 2008 and going forward for hundreds of years.  The Democratic party is swelling its ranks.  For the past 30 years we have been a party that was primarily identified in the press as a party of educated, intellectual, liberal, bleeding hearts. But today the working people are returning to our fold.  These are by and large people who were not necessarily Republicans but those who felt so disenfranchised that they didn’t even vote.  I believe that the Democratic party of the future will rise to be the cross-section of Americans that is once was.  What a glorious thing to have our country restored to its rightful place as a leader among nations.

The current grassroots movement  is far more potent than the anti-war movements of the ‘60’s for two reasons:

1.  Many of its leaders are over 50 year of age.  In fact, many of them are well into their sixth decade.  Thus this movement has the benefit of maturity, organization, shrewdness and experience that was lacking in the antiwar movement of the ‘60’s.

2.  They have the Internet to connect them.  Without the Internet, and without organizations like MoveOn, we would not have a Democratic House and Senate today.  In case you don’t realize it, what happened in many of the states (such as Missouri, Virginia and Pennsylvania to name a few) was that people from other states not only called constituents in these states, urging them to get out and vote, many of them, like me, sent money to their campaigns, even though we were not residents of those states. (That’s where the support of older folks like me come into the picture.  Unlike extreme youth, we also have the power of our pocket books.)

  I read on some random political blog that if Barack Obama makes it into the later stages of the election process, he expects to be able to get many million more black voters to the voting booths. Being able to influence someone to the point of actually getting them to vote is an enormous task and I applaud his efforts but one group I've yet to see targeted much are the younger voters or "just about to be voters" group. I truly feel this younger generation WOULD vote for Obama and in some ways, would hugely benefit him even if they won't be old enough to vote.  The sheer amount of time kids spend online.. on myspace, forums, etc could end up giving him that edge he needs if only he could take a step towards actively pursuing them and their concerns. In the meantime, people have taken it upon themselves to create images like the above one which are surely going to be passed around and might end up jump starting his "coolness" factor.