I think you'd do a great job!

I put a call in to the Pima County Democratic Party offices yesterday.

Mrs. 1StrongBlackMan heard me tell them that I prefer to work in the "hard areas where I'm not preaching to the choir." She is not happy.

Even though I'm sure she knows you're not likely to piss off people with your reasonable approach--and you seem level-headed enough to know when to disengage to avoid confrontation when things look to be headed that way. She'd likely be concerned for you no matter what, in any circumstances.

Being in a deep red area of CA, I envy you. The party won't put much in the way of resources or effort into my district--just enough to ensure that the GOP has to expend some effort to support Buck McKeon and not divert their resources elsewhere.

In '04 I drove from CA to OH to volunteer full-time in the Kerry campaign for the last 2 months. When I returned home after the election, with Kerry placards all over my car, a woman at a McDonald's looked at my car and said, "So you're the other Democrat in the Valley." That's how red our area is.

I can't afford to do a long trip that again right now, so I'll probably just do phone-banking to battleground states and maybe some organized bus trips to NV or AZ.

If I should end up heading your way at some point, I'll definitely give you a heads-up. It would be great to meet you!

and then they all ran home and turned on Fox Snooze to recover from the opposing ideas rattling around their empty brainpans.

I couldn't have done what you did. I have no tolerance for idiots.

All but the county chairperson denied watching fox"news" or listening to rush ... I responded by laughing and asking "I wonder how we can have direct quotes from fox and rush, when no one listens to them?" And followed up with, "I wonder how fox and rush get such high ratings when no one admits to listening to them?"

The county chair said, with a gottcha smile, "Well, you must listen to them to know that we are quoting them!"

I responded "I do. I listen to both fox and rush. While I disagree with most of what I hear, how else can I claim to be informed on the issues if I only listen to stuff that confirms my own bias?"

I think it's really good to talk with people with whom we disagree. At the very least it helps us to humanize each other. Life isn't all politics. Sometimes it's just about finding some common ground so we don't demonize other people.

A lot of my friends are VN vets. We're gonna stay tight, no matter our political differences. We discuss politics, but when we get to an impasse we drop it. We love each other too much to let that come between us.

As a liberal agitator, I'm happy to drop in a point now and then that will make them think. When they were all up in arms over the "Ground Zero Mosque" and demanding that something be done about it, I said government should not be dictating to religion and teling people where they could put their churches or temples or mosques--and on that point all my friends ageed with me.

One wingnut vet friend got so tired of me snopesing all the viral crap he forwarded (with me doing a "reply all" with the factcheck) that he threatened to send me all his incoming emails before he forwarded them so I could factcheck them before he sent them out.

It's all good. Sometimes we need to confront, other times discretion is the better part of valor.

You're absolutely right.

the very kind reply.

And, if everyone did what you're doing...

I had a dream the other night that I PM'd you to thank you for what you do. Haha.

the subject matter of dreams? I'm getting all misty ...

just 1StrongBlackMan.