The "Fierce Urgency of NOW"!

Now, more than ever--in the face of global climate change, the new energy crisis, and the increasing militarization of our lives under the shadow of a perpetual war on terrorism eroding all we have cherished about our democratic way of life--we live in urgent need of a creative new vision and approach to politics and policy in the United States.

While the campaign of Barack Obama has inspired many of us by its invocation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s words and spirit, it still remains unclear whether the Obama campaign or the Democratic Party will in 2008 be able to live up to the spiritual wisdom and challenge embodied in King's phrase, "the fierce urgency of now."

Given the wild cards of the superdelegates and the Michigan and Florida primary debacle, the arithmetic of the Democratic campaign indicates that neither Obama nor Clinton will have enough delegates by this summer to wrap up the nomination simply by virtue of completing all the state primaries. This means the decisions of the Democratic Party leaders in the coming weeks about how the Party will resolve this likely standoff and deal with both the superdelegate and the Michigan/Florida wild cards will be pivotal to ensuring a Democratic nomination process that has legitimacy with both Democratic and national voters.

Two things are already clear: 1) If the Democratic Party fails to resolve the superdelegate wild card in a way that ensures that the majority decision of the Democratic primary voters (of at least 48 states, if not 50) will be the determining decision in this nomination process, the Democratic Party will help to ensure a Republican victory in November by alienating many voters from the entire Democratic nomination process. Voters in Michigan and Florida are already in danger of being alienated because of the disenfranchising mess the state and national parties have made of the primary process in those states. If the Democratic Party wants to add insult to injury and ensure nation-wide alienation, all the Party has to do is allow the superdelegates to overrule the choice of the majority of the country's Democratic voters.

2) If the Clinton and Obama campaigns continue in the direction of the politics of mutually-assured destruction, they will together be helping to deliver the country and the world to another four years of Republican rule and Bush-style policy on the war.

Last fall I thought there would be little the Democratic Party could do to lose this election in the face of the almost universal failure of the Republicans in Congress and the White House to serve the public interest on issues like the environment, the war, and public health. But the old saw about the Democratic Party's amazing ability to find a way to pull loss out of the jaws of victory seems once more to be proving itself to be true....

The Democratic Party lost in both 2000 and 2004 because of overconfidence in its ability to win against an "incompetent" and "dumb" Bush. Overconfidence in the upcoming election campaign against McCain (who has already proven in the primary that he is neither incompetent nor dumb) will almost certainly ensure another Republican victory....

So now it is time for a fiercely urgent appeal to all voters inspired by Obama's call for a new politics of vision to act to ensure that the Democratic Party and its two competing candidates will act wisely in the months ahead to avoid the kinds of self-destructive folly that will deliver the Democratic Party over to another bitter loss to the Republicans in November.

Given the stakes of this election not only for the future of this country, but for the world and the global environment, Democrats--and especially the two remaining Democratic candidates--cannot afford to be selfish. It is time for both candidates, all leaders and members of the Democratic Party, and all voters who care about the future to act to ensure that the usual degrading selfishness and small-minded politics does not now take over the Democratic nomination process. To whatever extent this downward spiral is allowed to happen, the Republicans will grow in the strength of their prospects for the general election in November.

It's up to all of us who care about and desire a new politics and vision of government to make sure this nightmarish politics of mutually-assured destruction does not take control of the remaining months of the Democratic primary process. The drive downwards has already begun, with the stated intent of both candidates to deepen the politics of attack and counter-attack in the weeks ahead. The Clinton, who seem to represent the establishment politics of the status quo, have been taunting Obama for some time now to join battle in the mud. And Obama has been getting drawn in. Now it seems both campaigns are fully engaged in the usual political war that surrenders the high ground of a visionary politics in order to engage the narrow-minded tooth-and-nail battle for momentary victory on the low ground of the status quo.

If both candidates follow this downward spiral, one will emerge victorious in the politics of the moment, but at the fundamental price of betraying the meaning embodied in the Fierce Urgency of Now--and that betrayal will turn the momentary victory of one of these candidates into a terrible loss for the Party, this country, and the world at large. We will all be the ultimate losers in such a pyrrhic victory.

So let us all work in whatever ways we can to make sure that the politics of THIS moment and this campaign stand for more than a pyrrhic victory. Both Democratic candidates have their own responsibility to guard against engaging in this pyrrhic struggle, but all of us share the responsibility to make sure we do not allow these candidates to drag THIS political moment down to the level of those that have come before. This moment requires and DEMANDS better from all of us. And the Fierce Urgency of Now demands that we all not merely stand by as spectators and allow what is politically inevitable (according to the status quo) to happen.

The audiences of the debates between Obama and Clinton were great at letting the candidates know that we demanded more of them. But now that the candidates are free from our guidance and restraining influence during the debates, they seem to be throwing off all restraint and slip-sliding into the same old political muck. We need to find new ways of reminding them that if they do this, they will be battling each other in the muck alone. THIS time we will not follow them there. If they go there, they both risk rejection by us. If they wish to fight for a pyrrhic primary victory only to lose the general election, and betray us all, then we must conclude that neither one of them is wise enough to lead us into the new politics we so desperately need.

Let us remind these candidates of these truths loudly and clearly--the fierce urgency of Now demands nothing less than this from all of us.