I'm wary of former Republican lawmakers switching sides out of convenience. Remember that Theresa LaPore was a Republican who became a "Democrat" and ended up embroiled in the "butterfly ballot" debacle in Florida.

If it ends up that the seat is just a "buffer" for a democrat majority, hey I am all in. I am of the feeling that we can deal with a conservative democrat congressional seat as long as it gives us a huge majority.

I want to make lots of ex Republicans. That is called winning the debate. Throw this guy into the mix with Grayson ... bet his views will change over time.

Although I guess we did win a very short victory when Jim Jeffords switched to the Dems. But he was gone in the next election.

He very likely would have won. After he opted not to run, Bernie Sanders ran as an independent, supported by the Democrats - and won.

that the Republican Party was taking. The problem, in my view, is with stealth candidates like Theresa LaPore. Naturally I would like to see the Dems regain control of the House, but with as few DINOs as possible.

She was a registered Democrat through 2000 and had worked for the local party. She became an independent after the election. From the Wikipedia article, the butterfly ballot she designed was similar to the one created by her predecessor in 1996 - where it was estimated to cost Dole votes - although that did not matter to either the national results or the Florida results.

What is indicated is that our systems of running elections are deeply flawed. (In 2004, what was called a caterpillar ballot likely cost Kerry votes - as it seems that in places with multiple districts at the same location, some ballots were tallied as if they were in one of the other districts. This was suspected because there were "ghost" spikes for obscure candidates when their slot was the one Kerry had in the other district. (This affected Kerry far more than Bush as it was a problem in some large cities - not the suburbs.)

With their victories in so many state houses in 2010 many states have had their districts redrawn to favor rushpublican or solidify bordline ones. While it would be ideal to have 200 or more liberals and progressives in control of the House that's not going to happen, thus to win it back these are the alliances you make. Hopefully by being in the majority Schwarz will work within the caucus and with the leadership...

This is how you get anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-corporate, anti-worker "Democrats" in office.

Ans this is how you can't get a Democratic president's agenda through Congress even with a "Democratic" majority in both houses.

usually they end up being pro-gay, pro-choice and pro-corporate, just like Clinton and Obama.

Obama

ended DADT
signed Lilly Ledbetter
signed Matthew Shepard
appointed two women to SCOTUS
created the birth control subsidy

AND

kept the Bush tax cuts
endorsed Reaganomics with a payroll tax cut (okay, maybe it's Reagnomics-lite, but it tastes just like Reaganomics to me)

that this is how you turn blue parties purple, or even light crimson.

The Republican-lite party. It tastes great and it's less filling.

You think you can elect progressive/liberals in mostly conservative areas? I'd sure like to know your secret. The options are almost always between a "conservative" Democrat who will vote with the caucus 75% of the time or a rushpublican who will keep Boner as the Speaker.