Finest Hour — a Campaign Revived

Celebrate, then get to work

By Bruce Watson

Think back to last weekend, just days ago.  With the temperature nearing triple digits and the sun blazing across America, Saturday, July 20, was one of the darkest days of 2024.

A convicted felon, the only president who tried to overthrow an election, looked more certain than ever to be re-elected.  His opponent, despite mounting pressure to call off his campaign, seemed determined to stay the course.  Those who dared to talk politics shared fears of the worst on Election Day.  And all the media could talk about was “The 2025 Project” that promises, with the convicted felon’s full support, to destroy democracy.  Then on Sunday afternoon. . .

Quoth Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “The time is out of joint.”  And given the shocks that the 2024 campaign has already sprung on us, we are not deluded about the struggles and perils lurking between now and November.  With time disjointed, surprises will abound, and more shocks to the system.  But by Monday morning, as Kamala Harris raked in endorsements and record contributions, the words of another Englishman arose to counter Shakespeare.

Writing in 1776, Thomas Paine observed, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”  “The world” is certainly a stretch but after a full month of sinking polls, dire medical reports, SCOTUS outrages, and worse, we deserve a little elation.

YAY!

Okay, enough.  Now back to work.

As the Harris campaign bolts out of the starting block, we grassroots activists feel our time has come.  “Now it’s GO TIME!” Connector editor and Swing Blue Alliance co-lead Susan Labandibar says.  The pent up energy of the last month, the waiting, the watching are being released into a campaign that begins NOW.

Yes, the Naysayers are out there.  So little time left!  Was a “coronation” of Kamala Harris really a good idea?  Who will be her running mate?  What if we look weak, divided?  What if HE —

Enough.

Now is the time to hit the doorsteps, bank the phones, send the letters and postcards, talk as if there were no uncertainty, as if the world begins over again — now. With thanks to President Biden for a bold decision and a lifetime of service, with condolences to his loyal supporters, we in the grassroots march on towards November 5.  Are you in the march?

There will be more hand wringing, more debate, more doubt.  “The reflection is awful,” Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, “and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.”

But let the words from another American facing a different crisis serve as marching orders for Democrats and their grassroots.  During the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, when astronauts rode a crippled spacecraft around the moon and toward a likely death, NASA engineers in Houston could not hide their fears.  Would the whole world watch three men perish in space?  This will be NASA’s worst nightmare. . .

“With all due respect, Sir,” flight director Chris Kranz interrupted.  “I believe this is going to be our finest hour.”