I Won't Be Marching This Weekend - You Shouldn't Either

The news reported this morning that as many as 100,000 anti-war activists will converge upon DC this weekend to march in protest past the White House.

I won't be among them, and I hope the Democrats I know won't be, either.

Setting aside the merits of their demand - that all U.S. troops be brought home from Iraq immediately - and the controversy surrounding the march organizers - the ANSWER coalition - there's substantial reason to skip it.

Just across the Potomac river from the White House we are just over a month out from elections for Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, and the House of Delegates.

The statewide elections are very close - the latest polling shows that the governor's race is within one point - and there are a handful of statehouse races where we have opportunities to knock off some of the most right-wing extremist legislators in the state.

These races are going to be won and lost on the ground - the candidates who identify and turn out their voters better will win.

Marching past the White House, and past a President who has shown countless times that he really doesn't care what we think, isn't going to change a damn thing.

Electing more Democrats will.

100,000 is a big number. If even half of those people would put down their picket signs and pick up a clipboard to take door to door in Virginia for just two hours, they could knock on 2 million doors, talk to 400,000 voters, and identify more than 100,000 Democratic voters to turn out in these coming elections. That's also a big, and even better, number.

Those are voters we could turn out again 2006 when one of Virginia's two Republican Senators is on the ballot - electing a Democratic Senator from Virginia would be a dramatic step in the right direction. They're voters we could go back to again in 2008 to help us take back the White House - a critical step in the right direction.

Republicans get this, and that's part of the reason they've been pummeling us at the ballot boxes. Don't look for a massive counter-demonstration tomorrow. Yesterday, Ken Mehlman sent a message to Republican activists. Rather than being called to the Mall to walk around preaching to either the converted or those who couldn't possibly be converted, Republican activists around the country will be participating in "Super Saturday" - making calls from around the country to ID voters in Virginia. (Click here to see a screen shot of the email message.)

I'm committed to change, and I'm committed to winning. If we progressives learned almost nothing from the past 5 years, I'd have hoped we at least learned that protest marches don't lead to either. Millions around the world marched against the war - lo and behold, we're at war. More than a million marched in DC to protect the right to choose - lo and behold, it's more at risk now than ever before. Marches make us feel better, they make us feel like we're doing something to make a difference. Years and mountains of evidence show that our feelins betray us - when we're marching we're doing something, but not something that will make a whit of difference.

If you live in the DC-metro area, or are planning to head to DC this weekend, please consider doing not just something, but something that can lead to change - volunteer on a campaign in Virginia. Email me. I'll get you plugged in.