Candidate Barack Obama uttered these words on Feb. 5, 2008:
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama
President Obama repeated a similar theme in his farewell speech in January 2017, saying:
“This is where I learned that change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged, and come together to demand it. “
Can I take a moment to give you, the readers of Daily Kos, a hearty round of applause? We suffered a crushing defeat in November, but you are coming back stronger than ever. From participating in town halls, showing up at your congresscritter’s office, knocking on doors in Kansas, registering voters in Georgia or blowing away online donation records to little-known candidates, you are making a huge difference. And you are getting noticed. Check out this fantastic column from McClatchy newspapers, 'Meet the Democratic Party’s new kingmaker – a liberal blog.'
The website’s online fundraising pitch collected $400,000 for Jon Ossoff in a single week, more than some candidates for the House of Representatives raise in a year. Eventually, donations totaled about $1.6 million.
“We knew right away that the amount of money coming in was just enormous, far, far beyond our wildest dreams,” said David Nir, Daily Kos’ longtime political director, who authored the site’s endorsement.
Meet the Democratic Party’s new kingmakers.
Those kingmakers? That’s you, dear reader. You are the ones making it happen with your time, energy and donations. We’ve got a long road to taking back Congress in 2018, but if anyone can do it—it’s you. It’s us. All of us together. A united front to fight back and win.
I would like to give a special shout-out to our Daily Kos Elections crew. These guys are the best in the business, tracking the tiniest bits of data to give a complete picture of each district. Even congressional staffers admit to keeping the DKE data handy:
That might sound like a boast, but it’s one that Democratic officials in Washington readily agree with. One strategist, asked about Daily Kos Elections, pulled out his phone to show a webpage with the site’s presidential-results-by-congressional-district tabulations – which he said he kept handy at all times.
“They’re super smart people,” said a DCCC official. “They may be working for a left-leaning outfit, but they have a really accurate, smart sense of where the most competitive races are and what it takes to win them.”
No matter your role in the resistance, take a minute to pat yourself and those around on the back. Maybe hop over to McClatchy and read the full article. And then take a deep breath and get back to it. We’ve got 533 days until Nov. 6, 2018 and we need to make every moment count.