Let's Go Yankees!

In 1996, the New York Yankees won the World Series for the first time in almost twenty years and resurrected their franchise from being a league-wide laughingstock. I have been pondering whether or not the same has just transpired for the Democratic Party. Personally, after having voted for Nader in 2000 (only because I live in a safe ‘blue state’) and Kerry in 2004, it is extremely sweet to finally pick a winner and that’s exactly how it felt for me in 1996. Now, what transpired in the years that followed is of some concern, but luckily the Democrats are not headed by George Steinbrenner. After losing in the first round of the playoffs the following year, they compiled the best record in major league history and won the championship in ’98, ’99 and 2000. Ironically, after Bush was ‘[s]elected’ it all started to go downhill for the Bronx Bombers. I think what can be generally agreed upon is that the Yankees fell back into their old habits of simply purchasing (for obscene amounts of money) a marquee player at the expense of the development of younger players in their farm system. While the Democrats have thusly succeeded by simply not being the Republicans, it would behoove them considerably to adopt a more aggressive brand of politics as opposed to their passive and not so aggressive style of decades passed. I realize that Pelosi and Reid (having proven themselves as number eight and nine hitters in the lineup) are talking tough about using their widened majority to push forward a more progressive agenda, but I’ll definitely have to see it to believe it. I discussed how important it is for those who found themselves involved in the political process for the first time as a result of the Obama candidacy to continue staying active via congressional oversight. While I cannot say I have practiced as much, I am told repeatedly that lawmakers do indeed respond to letters, faxes and phone calls (to a considerably lesser extent, e-mails) as it is these constituents they ultimately must answer to every two and six years. The moral of my story is, I guess; let’s try to be more like the Yankees of the late ‘20s, the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s and early ‘60s as opposed to the Yankees of the 21st century. After all, that new stadium of theirs is an abomination.