Today, another job lead ended up at a closed door. I remembered the line from Maria in the Sound of Music, “when the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.” As I’ve written before, I sure hope I can find that open window soon. I suspect a lot of us have similar feelings. On one mailing list, a friend wrote,

I also think that we're getting a lot of people burned out from lack of progress. With the cave-in and other disappointments, a lot of people … are throwing their hands up and walking away. I'd love to figure out how to avoid that.

Yet today I also received an email from a friend that had driven in from out of state to help with Ned Lamont’s U.S. Senate run last year. She talked about driving back home after the victory party on primary night, and her friend bouncing around the passenger seat saying, “MY WHOLE LIFE JUST CHANGED! MY WHOLE LIFE JUST CHANGED!!!.”

Her friend is now working as an online activist for a non-profit in Washington. Many of us have been changed by our involvement in campaigns like Gov. Dean’s 2004 Presidential bid, or Ned Lamont’s 2006 U.S. Senate bid. It’s transformational politics and we’ve been transformed. Yeah, we have frustrations that progress isn’t coming as quickly as possible, that our finances are much more tenuous than we’d like. We’re frustrated that the opportunities to be transformed don’t seem to be as apparent in the 2008 cycle as they were in 2004 or 2006, yet we keep on looking for the open window that we know is there.