The Third Rail

I try to keep things level, but my brain tilts way to the left, and today with the news that a pick-up driving corporate conservative beat the less inspiring corporate democrat, less than a year after the disaster that was Bush, I couldn't help but think that it's time for what remains of any kind of working class movement in this country to push its supposed party hard. When Cokie Roberts got on television after the so-called Republican Revolution of 1992 she said point blank into the camera that what Clinton needed to do was "move to the center." Clinton, of course, had long been a corporate kissing triangulating centercrat. What she really meant was, Clinton shouldn't even pretend to represent the people who voted for him. And he listened.

The "third rail" means instant death, or at least feared instant political death. But it's often an illusion meant to keep your from doing anything effective and brave. Stay away from actual third rails, and actual low ones, but grab all the political ones you want.