To all democrats everywhere:

[kenfrequed]

If this isn’t the most egocentric beginning to this little note give me a few minutes. I am certain that I will eventually reveal the depths of my egotism for all to see.

Alright now, in the past couple of months the numbers of republican congressmen announcing their intention to sit it out and retire has grown by leaps and bounds. In my own Minnesota (though not my congressional district) Jim Ramstad is retiring and leaving the third congressional district in play.

Every week I seem to read about another Republican retiring and opening up another district to vulnerability. Of course many of these Republicans end up coming from districts that do swing now and again, so with Bush and Rove poisoning the political well so much it is going to seriously compromise republican chances for doing much of anything and it is highly likely that Democrat gains will widen.

Of course this is all up in the air and a lot of it is contingent on what kind of Democrat that is put forward on the national stage. But let us forget this for a moment. Let us pretend that it doesn’t matter who is put forth for president and that it will have little to no impact on the upcoming congressional elections. Of course I strongly believe it will, but I will try to put aside my own preferences.

I suspect in the next six months each and every district will be visited by two or three different groups of people representing ‘Party Interests.’ I urge you all to ignore them. Ignore them like you would try to ignore a screaming child not getting a happy meal on a long bus ride to whatever corner of America you live farthest from. The sense of entitlement and self interest will be all that is beneath their pleading and goading and cajoling.

One group will be some of the party old guard (of course there are good old guards too-but trust me these guys won’t be them.) Many of them are going to be unelected or rarely opposed party figures that may hold down part time jobs as pundits. These are the guys who in days of yore would have picked candidates in smoked filled rooms and you know what? They still think that they do.

To those of you with the temerity and idealism to run they will approach you and bag you down with bullshit about what they think they know about your district. They will boggle you with juggled numbers in their power meetings, complete with food and power-point. These unshakable curmudgeon-cynics are immune to passion and vision and many just exist to get people they know in places of power. In deciding that they are modern day king makers that inflate their own importance at the expense of actual democracy.

The next group will be “The Professionals.” These guys are useless and clueless. When they aren’t throwing elections to the other side for no reason they are often giving useless advice on media presentation that eventually serves no purpose and is about as exciting as plain oatmeal or maybe the paste you ate when you were in kindergarten.

Their best skill is to underestimate and misjudge the electorate at every turn. The most effective of these pricks manage a negative campaign and little else. They specialize at sanding all the rough edges off of perfectly viable candidates until all that is left is sawdust that can be glued back together and lacquered into whatever shape they think to be most electable.

You will almost never encounter these jackal-mercenaries alone. Since they are ‘for hire’ they have no reason to be faithful to party or platform or issue. Some of them might have started out doing work for whatever issue that they embraced at whatever private undergraduate college they got through. If we are all lucky they still give a shit but usually they have long since sold out. So you will either encounter them with the former “old Guard” or the next group of fabulous scum.

The DLC has been around since the 80’s and has been a perfect foil to the Democratic Party since then. It has been a dagger aimed at the heart of reform and progressives since that time, though it has only become obvious to some of us when things like Free trade and Joseph Lieberman popped up.

This is the group you would next have to work your way through. Though seemingly powerless and with very little actual people-support they still manage to cow politicians into accepting their guidance. The DLC will have their own person picked out (who may or may not be the ‘old guards’ choice) and it will not be you.

They will have some switch-hitting ex republican chosen who has seen the light and is ready to be limitedly socially moderate and economically conservative and will play well with the suburban or NASCAR crowd or whatever other line of Bull they seek to sell you this week. Or they will scrape the chamber of commerce for a businessman they can trust. Either way you will not have a real Democrat running for office. You will have a corporate stooge or a puppet.

I write this semi-rant/semi-comedy (I hope) to illustrate what has happened in many congressional districts in the last couple of years. I call upon you to ignore the old guard and the DLC and their professional friends. Ignore them and run. Ignore them and support the guy you like.

[NMDemDist2]

1. kicking this so I can find it and read it after the debates n/t

[sce56]

2. Kicked W/O a rec?

[NMDemDist2]

3. i haven't read it yet... n/t

[NMDemDist2]

4. i'll kick this one, worth a read.... n/t