Militarytracy: "The left has come to understand that we must do our part to swing debate left and bring up points for debate that are of concern to the whole nation but will be ignored if someone does not represent them. And we must get comments and commitments from candidates because Presidents almost always have to find a center. Getting Warren to run is about that."

If that's really what the left has come to understand, then to be perfectly blunt, the left is an a$$. Because if you examine the actual numbers at all political levels across this country, where we've been losing the debate big time is at the state and local levels of government. Not coincidentally, these are the very level which serve as the primary incubator for eventual candidates for federal office, and further determine the makeup of our congressional redistricting.

The DNC has become so incredibly and outrageously Beltway-centric of late that state and local party structures have been withering for lack of national support, while the self-absorbed national party has managed to suck the air out of the room, as they seek to centralize fundraising efforts in Washington. As recently as 2010, Democrats held exclusive control in the majority of all state legislatures throughout the country. But not any more.

Because while the DNC started cutting its support for state and local Democratic efforts once Howard Dean stepped down and / or was muscled aside as its chair in 2009, Republicans were pouring $30 million into the "Redistricting Majority Project", also known as REDMAP.

REDMAP was the political initiative that helped the GOP seize the statehouses in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and elsewhere in Nov. 2010, and gave them near-exclusive control over the decennial congressional and state-level redistricting process in those states.

Republicans now have gained complete control of the governor's office and both chambers of the  legislature in 23 states, while Democrats can say the same in only seven states. Of the 98 state legislative chambers across the country, Republicans control 68 of them, and the Democrats just 30. (The Nebraska State Legislature is unicameral and nonpartisan.)

Further, Republicans now also control every single state legislature in the entire South save for one in Kentucky, where Democrats retain control of the State House of Delegates. Nationwide, the GOP has outright control of the state legislature in 30 of the 50 states. Democrats control only 11 state legislatures outright, while 9 states have split control of the legislature between the two parties.

When local Democrats in Wisconsin revolted in 2011-12 and forced a recall of Gov. Scott Walker and six GOP state senators, the RNC poured millions of dollars into that state to shore up their side, while DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz did little more than fart loudly in the general direction of Milwaukee. That's what's happened again this year, and it's crippling our efforts and ultimately hurting us very badly.

So, if you really want to not only "do our part to swing debate left and bring up points for debate that are of concern to the whole nation," but to keep that leftward swing sustained, then you and I and the rest of our Democratic coalition need to tear our eyeballs away from the fishbowl that's Washington, D.C., at least for right now.

Rather, we need to refocus our attention on organizing ourselves politically at the local precinct level. Then, we need to resolve to ensure that our voters head to the polls for each and every election, even if it's just for filling a single vacancy on the local school board.

We need to once again start paying attention to every single gawddammed game on our schedule, not just the Super Bowl. As bat-guano crazy as the Republican Party appears nowadays, their members and supporters aren't so insane as to not vote in an election, the way ours are wont to do time and again for whatever their reason.

Those two recent recalls of Colorado Democratic state senators were allowed to occur -- even though registered Democratic voters outnumbered their Republican counterparts in both those districts -- because GOP voters turned out at the opportunity to kick our guys out and put their guys in, while ours simply shrugged their shoulders and stayed home.

Focusing one's attention like a laser beam on the presidential election -- which comes up only every four years -- to the virtual exclusion of most everyone and everything else that's downticket, has proved itself to be a clear pathway to eventual political ignominy and irrelevance, if we continue down it. To that effect, we best reacquaint ourselves with this simple but mighty concept, per the late, great Thomas "Tip" O'Neill:

"All politics is local."

Why is it that only Republicans seem to heed O'Neill's admonition nowadays? We are NEVER going to be able to change the tone in Washington, if we keep allowing our voices to be drowned out in our own backyards due to our own nonchalance and apparent disinterest in the politics of our own communities.

We therefore must renew our own political commitments to our own neighborhoods, towns, cities and states, and take care of our own business at home. If we can do that, as Democrats once did successfully for several generations from the 1930s until well into the 1990s, the rest of our country's politics will realign itself upon that new equilibrium. That's how Democrats kept their congressional majorities for the better part of 62 years, from 1932 to 1994, with a few short periods excepted.

The DNC is certainly capable of garnering a near monopoly in political fundraising, but it is structurally incapable of enabling and enacting the formation of a new national political dynamic all on its own. For that to happen, it needs robust and healthy state parties with enthusiastic supporters to do the work at the local level. Whenever Democrats and their progressive allies show up, Democrats and their progressive allies will generally prevail.

That's what Howard Dean knew and his two successors didn't. And that's why his 50-State Strategy worked, while Tim Kaine and Debbie Wasserman Schultz both flailed impotently thereafter. Because even if we win the White House again in 2016, it will mean little or nothing if we keep losing ground at the state level while becoming noncompetitive in the Deep South.

Okay, I think I've ranted enough already today to fill up several open threads, so I'll shut up now and let everyone else have their say. I hope I haven't glazed over anyone's eyeballs with this stuff.

It's just that I feel just as passionately about what's happening to our nation and party as any one of you. And from my own vantage point as a senior official in the Hawaii Democratic Party, this is my understanding of what's wrong with Democrats right now, and what has to be done to right the ship before it's too late.

No one has claimed it was long and drawn out.

Wilson did.

Or did you miss his long and drawn out "story" -- and of course what the GJ Report says about its veracity or rather lack thereof.

They stopped just short of calling it "perjury" but made clear note of it.

The central part of that struggle for the gun story was the alleged gunshot to the hand inside the Tahoe -- but the prosecutors said that physical evidence proved that that did not happen.

That gunshot had to have happened while the gun was outside not inside.

Only one shot was fired inside the Tahoe and it hit no one and nothing but the door panel. It was recovered with no blood on it or the door panel where it entered.

It turns out that Dorian Johnson's story remained consistent from first interview to the Grand Jury, while Wilson changed his story again and again with his final story not matching some of the physical evidence.

In other words, Wilson lied to the Grand Jury while Johnson likely told the truth.