One wonders how fanatics can gain power over the masses. How does ISIS over run enormous swaths of Iraq, Syria in weeks and carve out a "caliphate" when American troops slogged through months of battle to win a single Iraqi city? How does a small group of odd balls, losers and misfits gain control over a German nation of seventy million to found the Third Reich? How does a small group of billionaires gain control of the US Supreme Court, the House of Representatives and the US Senate, when they are so vastly outnumbered by the millions of work a day people who live in this nation?
One of the many mantras of which Mad Dog grew weary when he was a teenager on various varsities was: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of fight in the dog."
Or, as Roger Butterfield noted in his classic textbook of American History, explaining the near success of the Confederacy, which was at overwhelming disadvantage at the start of the Civil War, those fighting for "The Cause" had a greater sense of grievance. There was also that other sense of grievance, however, that of the abolitionist and the slave, which ultimately gained ascendance.
Here in New Hampshire, as we see the overwhelming tsunami of Scott Brown lawn signs, internet ads, TV ads, radio spots and rallies, as we see the polls showing Scott Brown on his way back to the U.S. Senate, we watch in dismay as the Democrats are missing in action, and we can understand how a minority party can win elections, has won elections and control of the government: they simply want it more.
We Democrats, in the immortal phrase of Maud, would rather stay home and make jello.
Jello R us.
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