Mea Culpa Again

I just finished teeing off on a phone rep trying to raise money for the Democrats. I apologized in the middle of my rant to this young lady because I know she was told to call me, but I still feel bad. We need all the help we can get, and I here I am stomping over her idealistic impulse to make a difference.

But here’s the reason why I was so steamed. For reasons upon which I don’t care to elaborate, it is a problem for us to receive phone calls from unknown sources, and our record showed that we were receiving, on average, six “unknown source” phone calls a day. This constitutes a nuisance to us. And without even checking, I knew the source of the phone calls was the Democratic Party.

Another reason why I feel bad is that I know the Democrats have to resort to this stuff because they don’t have the resources (re: money) that the Repugs do. The Repugs can just have someone stop by door to door (which actually is illegal in our development) or have a local person, probably a neighbor, stop by, give you their pitch, and ask you to write them a check.

However, I don’t need to tell anyone reading this about the struggle we all face to make ends meet. If I were personally able to toss money to the Dems whenever they asked (a la George Soros), I would do it. But that is impossible for me.

Also, here is a thought. Maybe the Dems, before they put the bite on us for more dough, should do, say, just a little bit better of a job of DEFINING THEMSELVES AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE REPUGS! Before you ask me for money, make sure that John Kerry, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin vote AGAINST the fraud bankruptcy bill instead of FOR it (and make more noise when the Repugs decide not to allow a break for any Hurricane Katrina victims who may have to file after October 17th when it is due to go into effect). Make sure, as I noted earlier, that “the senators from MBNA,” as Atrios refers to Biden and Carper, vote as if they actually remember who got them their jobs! And maybe, just maybe, Joe Lieberman, despite his civil rights “cred” from the 60s, should finally make it official and become a Repug.

David Sirota kind of put his foot in it this week when he said the leader of Iraq (whoever that figurehead is) said he supported a timetable for withdrawal of our forces and the Dems should do the same, and then a commenter found a link to a story on Yahoo News that said exactly the opposite. However, Sirota’s point is fundamentally correct. How can people feel that the Dems are in their corner when too many of them think they can get by supporting a “Repug Lite” agenda?

(Also regarding Biden, he made some kind of wishy washy statement on Iraq this week along the lines of, “well, we have to see this though, but at a point if we’re not making headway, we ought to think about a timetable,” etc. Senator, in case you don’t know this, by my count, about 262 people died this week in car bomb explosions. I think more decisive action is required than announcing some words that constitute nothing. I seem to recall a Democrat from another time, speaking about a war fought in another country into which we became entangled, saying, “it’s their war, and we ought to let them fight it.” We remember him every November 22nd, in case you don’t know who I’m referring to.)

I know Howard Dean understands this problem, but I hope he can somehow get everyone “on the same page” regarding a solution. If so, then maybe it will be easier to raise money for the party and it won’t be forced to keep shaking down longtime donors such as myself who, though not contributing financially as in the past, are still trying to make a difference (hence the existence of this site).