Dark Cloud, Silver Lining

Kos hilights a report that shows that the Democrats are being hurt more than the Republicans by the new campaign finance laws. This was pretty much as predicted. The irony of this report is that it reveals something that right-wingers have actually been crowing about for a couple of years: that they have better grass roots support than the alleged "party of the people" that is the Democrats. It may sound bad now, but I think this will, in the long run, be a good thing. It will get the Democrats off their butts and realize that they can no longer take their base for granted. Dean has already demonstrated the success that can be achieved when you do this. If the Democrats as a whole learn the lesson then I am confident they can close the fundraising gap with the Republicans. They will probably never pass the Republicans, but history shows that they don't need to. Democrats quite often win races where the GOP spends more. They just need to remain competitive to win. (I'd also like to remind people of a previous post that showed that the Democrat candidates currently have much more cash on hand than Bush does. Thus demonstrating that there IS a significant pool of money out there that can be tapped by the "party of the people".)