Josh asks whether there is a constituency for building green infrastructure as part of the stimulus. The answer is: we must be the constituency. This is precisely the moment when the careful movement building of the primaries and general must begin to pay off, if it ever will. Every one of us must contact our representatives to let them know that we endorse these measures, and contact our friends to urge them to do the same (after due reflection, of course). We must not adopt the attitude (implicit, i’m afraid, in Josh’s post) that congressional action is a spectator sport for us to sit back and enjoy or despair about. Yes we can!

This originated as a comment on Greg's post, which I couldn't get the system to accept. It seems to me that the discussion (not just here) misses a key point: Obama is not about "kumbaya" for the sake of peace and love; he is about making government an effective tool to deal with the urgent issues that require governmental action, but don't necessarily involve people's emotional and ideological commitments.

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  Listening to McCain address a meeting of small business people on the radio this afternoon, I realized that he is not Bush III.  Rather, he is Goldwater II.  In the space of 3 minutes he proposed privatizing unemployment insurance and health insurance, and stated that the solution to the economic crisis is to lower taxes and regulation.  OUCH!  I suppose, given that he came of age in Goldwater's Arizona, it's not so surprising; still, it's amazing to see someone running on such a platform in this day and age.