Landslide? Fight even harder!

Even dwellers in the right-wing alternate-reality bubble are getting hard-pressed to deny it:  the polls are looking very good for our side these days.  The RCP average this morning shows Obama up 4% nationally, boosted by a Gallup tracker lead of 6%.  Recent data have him leading 52%-43% in Pennsylvania, 53%-43% in Ohio, 49%-45% in North Carolina, 52%-43% in Nevada, 52%-41% in Wisconsin, 48%-40% in Minnesota, 54%-42% in Michigan (and that's Rasmussen!), 51%-44% in Iowa, 50%-46% in Colorado, and 53%-44% in all-important Florida.  Our Senate candidates lead 52%-40% in Wisconsin, 49%-43% in Pennsylvania, 53%-39% in Florida, 48%-42% in Connecticut (yes, that one had been close earlier), 50%-40% in Ohio, 48%-44% in Nevada, 53%-37% in Michigan.  Massachusetts looks close, but in the end I can't see that state re-electing Brown.  The Republicans are getting so desperate they're even starting to rehabilitate Todd "legitimate rape" Akin.  An Obama popular-vote margin bigger than 2008's, 350 electoral votes, and an enlarged Senate majority suddenly seem like real possibilities.  Some even dream of re-taking the House, though that remains unlikely.

(Update:  We've even got a shot at a Senate seat in Indiana, thanks to teabagging nutjobs who primaried six-term veteran Lugar and replaced him with the fringier Mourdock.)

So does this mean we can relax?  Sorry, but this is no time to stop being on guard against complacency.  Even if you think victory is inevitable, the margin matters.

If a real landslide is in reach, we need to fight all the harder to make sure we get it.  Obama will still be President whether he gets 270 electoral votes or 350, 51% of the popular vote or 55% -- but in the latter cases he'll have a stronger hand to play in appealing to the public against Republican obstructionism.  A Senate majority that includes Elizabeth Warren will be give the party a different character than one that doesn't.  A badly-mauled Republican party is more likely to be weakened by internal recrimination and infighting than one that just barely lost.

This is a high-stakes election.  The stakes are theocracy vs. secularism, denialism vs. reality on global warming, Randian laissez-faire and an unregulated financial parasite class vs. a rational mixed economy, mythology vs. science in public schools, insurance-company death panels vs. a major step toward universal coverage, Bible-based bigotry vs. marriage equality, relentless attacks on abortion and even birth control vs. individual choice, cave-man foreign policy vs. informed diplomacy.  And don't forget Supreme Court appointments.

Slavery, votes for women, and interracial marriage were once genuinely controversial issues.  After thumping defeats, the reactionary side on each of those issues faded away and ceased to be part of the national conversation.  That's what real victory looks like.  If 2012 is a chance to administer another thumping defeat to the bad guys, let's do it.