"Mister, you can be a hero."

[Pab Sungenis]

Going through my old CD's, I came across the 1994 revival cast of "Damn Yankees," and on a whim ripped it into iTunes. As I was clicking over to Democratic Underground, the song "Heart" started up.

"When the odds are sayin' 'you'll never win,'
That's when the grin should start!"

Ever since the heartbreaking 2004 election, we'd been told from one know-it-all or another that the Democratic Party was dead. The only hope we would ever have was to give in on the war and Bush's economic plan, because that was what people supposedly wanted. That fiery liberal spirit, as Tom Lehrer once sang of about Hubert Humphrey, was dead. We were all supposed to be neocons now.

Fortunately, our party didn't take the bait. We held our ground. We rallied our own troops even as we fought to bring the other set of "troops," otherwise known as Bush's cannon fodder, home.

"Ya gotta have hope.
Mustn't sit around and mope.
Nothing's half as bad as it may appear.
Wait 'til next year, and hope."

A dark horse candidate, if you'll pardon an otherwise unpardonable pun, came out of the midwest. He spoke of the Audacity of Hope, the need to dare to make things better. He spoke, and moved people's hearts. Democrats started to realize that we shouldn't take the fuzzy-headed pundits' advice, but instead follow our guts and do what we knew was right.

"We're so happy that we're humming.
That's the heart-y thing to do.
'Cause we know our ship will come in,
And it's ten years overdue."

We might not be out of the wilderness yet, but there is a light up ahead. The fog is lifting. The path is finally clear, leading us onward. With three little words, "yes we can," our candidate has taken us, and is ready to show us the way.

YES, we CAN end this war.
YES, we CAN rebuild our crumbling cities and infrastructure.
YES, we CAN break the addiction of foreign oil.
YES, we CAN reclaim our place in the world as a great nation that leads by example.

"Mister, you can be a hero.
There's nothing to it but to do it!"

As a baseball fan, especially one whose team's record for disaster rivaled that of the ill fated Washington Senators in real life as well as the musical, I had always identified with Adler and Ross' lyrics, but now, when I think about what has happened so far in this election year, it will always have extra meaning for me. We watched a no-name, local hero from the midwest, take on and defeat a political machine even larger and powerful than the famous Tammany Hall, and win. We saw an idealistic young man with an impossible dream reclaim what had been taken from us over and over. We're no longer the party of opportunism and "me first"ism. We're no longer willing to play second fiddle. We're ready to reclaim our place in the sun, and just maybe some of our "leaders" in Congress will change course, and follow someone who really knows how to lead.

We've been shown the secret. We can do this if we want to. If we try, and I know I sure as heck am going to, we can win the whole darn thing.

"It's fine to be a genius, of course,
But keep that old horse before the cart!
First, you've gotta have heart."

[Orrex]

1. If this involves selling my soul to Mr. Applegate, count me out

Booze and broads may be great;
Though they're great they'll have to wait
while we think about the game.

[Pab Sungenis]

2. lol

I think the opposite is true. We've reclaimed our soul this time.