I'm not an advocate of seeing the world through rose-colored classes. I have no interest in fooling myself into thinking things are hunky-dorey when they're not. I want to see reality clearly and as objectively as possible, without being skewed by either false optimism or deflating pessimism. That's one reason that I follow the Electoral College as closely as I do, and why I began my Electoral College survey (newest iteration to be posted tomorrow) to provide for myself as clear a picture of the status of things as I can find. So I understand that it's important to guard against being overly optimistic or failing to call a spade a spade, but it's my opinion that some people, including, I'm afraid, some of the frequent posters on this site, are going entirely overboard, and in the process of trying to be "realistic", they're bending over backwards and losing all sense of how the actual ebb and flow of this election is moving. The result is that their postings are terribly pessimistic, dark and full of foreboding if not outright despair.

The effect is worse than rabid wingnut trolling, because it comes from within and infiltrates our psychic defenses. We take it in (again and again and again) and, lo and behold, soon we are feeling down and depressed about the election, when a clear-eyed view would tell us that we're simply a little behind right now, but far from out of it, and certainly nowhere near the entrance to the land of panic.

There's a reason why juries in trial courts are told not to talk to each other during the presentation of testimony and other evidence, and it's not because anyone expects a sentient human being to go all the way through a trial without forming any kind of opinion about what's happening. But until we actually express those opinions to someone, by writing them down or saying them in conversation, we're not really terribly committed to them and can more easily be persuaded one way or the other by a discussion of the evidence and the opinions of other jury members. Well, the same things holds true here as well -- if you go around constantly saying how bad things are, there's very little possibility you're going to be open to actually seeing clearly when things are good, or, at least, better than your fears. Not only that, but the constant pessimistic repetitions actually helps to create the reality it's expressing, by helping to spread the meme from person to person -- and that, in the end, is terribly destructive to the cause we have got to be dedicated to, electing John Kerry and getting rid of George Bush.

In short, I don't think that the kvetching and geshrying we're being subjected to right now is either justified or helpful. I understand that some people just feel that way, and I grant that they've got the right to do so -- I simply wish that if they cannot bring themselves to look more closely at things and, as a result, feel more positive about the race, they work a little harder to keep their negativity to themselves.

I hear gasps among you. Yes, I am indeed arguing for people not to post what they feel. I do not want to be constantly exposed to such pessimism and negativity, and I do not want the ideas expressed to catch hold and become a consensus reality and infect the expectations game on which so much of politics is based. Please note that I am most assuredly not arguing for any kind of censorship except the necessary self-censorship that comes from discipline and dedication to a cause which is more important than one's own need for self-expression.

I certainly understand where the negativity comes from. We all see clearly how bad Bush is and how profoundly his policies and his administration have screwed up pretty much every aspect of our world, and, knowing this, we look around and can't understand why so many people are apparently still supporting him, why the undecideds can't see what we see and make up their minds, why liberals like Ron Silver are attracted to a failed presidency like Bush's, and why the race is so tight. We think, I believe, that Kerry should, by all rights, be leading by big margins because it's so damn obvious to us that Bush needs to go and that Kerry (and practically every other Democrat who was running) will be a much better president. We're thrown off balance by the blatant fact that things are neck and neck and that they'll probably stay that way right down to the wire.

But that's just the way it is, not everybody sees things our way. That's perhaps unfortunate, but it doesn't mean the race is lost, and it isn't any reason to despair. It's certainly more than enough reason to do everything humanly possible to help bring about a Kerry victory: giving money, getting involved, canvassing our friends, neighbors and relatives, and, yes, keeping our pessimism and negative thoughts to ourselves.

Addenda: Here's another side of the same coin, negativity expressed not as depressed pessimism, but as unjustified anger expressed at one's compatriots. Digby is a really good liberal blogger, very intelligent, perceptive and expressive. I usually agree with him, but even when I've disagreed I respect his opinions and the thought he obviously puts into forming them. He may be wrong sometimes, but he's never, in my experience, egregiously wrong.

This guy, apparently, has got nothing better to do then use his dKos diary to ream Digby a new one when Digby has the temerity to post something the guy disagrees with -- notwithstanding the fact that the guy seems to have misunderstood a thing of what Digby was saying. (If you read the comments that follow his diary entry, you might want to have a sponge handy to mop-up all the testosterone-saturated spittle coming from inside your computer.)

Hey, chill. Kerry's behind, but he's not toast, and Digby may have got something wrong (a little), but it's not as big a deal as you're making it. He hasn't betrayed you or the liberal cause because he said that Bush got a bounce from the election -- face it, he did. Not as big as Time or Newsweek measured it, but it's there and it's real. The good news is, it's probably going away, real soon, so the good fight goes on and your, um, energies would be more appropriately directed toward the true problem, ridding the world of the presidency of George W. Bush.

Got that? Bush is the problem, not the innocent mistakes of liberal bloggers.