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I'm starting to feel optimistic, for the first time in a very long time, about New York State politics. It's frightening to be feeling optimistic, maybe echoing my feelings every time I cheer for the Buffalo Bills in the Superbowl - but I see good reason for it.
My title probably has some Clintonistas worried, and a lot of people mumbling "but Obama lost here." I'm not actually that concerned about the Presidential race, though, but rather something that's feeding into it and feeding on it.
I had lunch Sunday with a friend who was a precinct captain for Obama in Texas. He talked about the thrill of seeing lines out the door of people who'd come together for a caucus to vote. Caucuses, though they have downsides, have the bonus that the people involved actually get to see each other, talk with each other, and maybe even get to know each other. There's a sense of coming together that's hard to achieve when voters jump into a shrouded booth and then come out again, their position a secret. It wasn't just the Obama folks who got to enjoy the spectacle, though - the party regulars, the people who'd kept the system running even when voters weren't that excited, got to see what energized voters can look like.
Mixed signs (in Austin, TX).
This year's race has people talking, even here in New York, where Hillary Clinton was the obvious favorite and we all vote quietly and privately. I'm kind of wishing, in contrast to my earlier writing, that New York had voted later, but the conversations I'm hearing haven't shown any sign of stopping.
And what's in those conversations? Yes, some sniping about which candidate is better, but also a sense that, whatever his other failings or merits, Barack Obama is getting one thing right: we need to talk about what "we" can do, not only about what "they," the candidates, can do.
I've recently seen Dryden residents come together and build a new community center cafe, in a diner that was an icon of Upstate gloom in Spitzer's very first campaign commercial.
New signs (in Dryden, NY).
There's a line in that Spitzer commercial worth re-thinking, contrasting with the action that citizens took on themselves to make that diner a sign of hope:
For every New Yorker who's been ignored, left out, who's been told, 'you can't fight City Hall,' so many times they've come to believe it. For every New Yorker without a voice, listen: there's one strong enough for all of us.
[text: Spitzer for Governor]
Spitzer: "I represent the people of the State of New York."
The message here was representation by a strong leader, not voters coming together to make change themselves, and that's proven to be a problematic solution to the problems we face here.
However, I look at our most recent cause for Democrats to celebrate in New York, and I see an ad where voters are running for State Senate, where the claim for the candidate is that "because Darrel Aubertine is running for State Senate, we all are."
That's not quite "Yes, We Can", but it's not that far away. (And yes, some of his ads were more conventional.)
I suspect that pretty much all of New York's elected leadership would prefer to lead. "Yes, We Can" is more than just a friendly claim, a slogan for a single campaign - it's a threat to the folks who depend on voters paying minimal attention to what's going on and having minimal hope that they can do something to change it. It's also a wakeup call to "every New Yorker who's been ignored, left out, who's been told, 'you can't fight City Hall,' so many times they've come to believe it."
Whatever happens in the national election, I see new energy and a different attitude rising to the surface among our citizens. Is it enough to melt the Albany iceberg? That's still difficult, no question, but reminding voters that their voices and their actions matter is a huge first step toward helping ourselves out of these snarls.
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