let's start finding House candidates for '08 RIGHT NOW!

At this point, it comes down to us.

The DNC (Howard Dean) and the DCCC (Rahm Emanuel) did a good job, and I'm proud of them, and thankful to them. But in regards to Alabama, they didn't do jack. They didn't lift a finger. And they aren't likely to do so anytime soon.

It is up to us. It is up to us, the disaffected, disheartened, common-sense, freedom-loving citizens of Alabama to take our state back, and by extension to help right our great ship of state by heading it a little bit to the left. The national pols aren't going to help us until they realize we are capable of helping ourselves.

And the good news is that IS very possible that we can do just that.

In House District 3, the completely unknown Democratic candidate, Greg Pierce, got 41% of the vote, despite the fact that he had NO money, and almost nothing resembling a real campaign. Quoting an Anniston Star editorial:


I'm not foolish enough to believe that it will be easy to turn the bible-thumping state of Alabama blue overnight. But I'm hopeful enough to believe that the recent exposure (for some) of the hopeless hypocrisy of the Republican party provides a priceless opportunity to educate some of our peers.

The Republican Party is a den of thieves and whore-mongers, of liars and hypocritical bastards.

We need to actively identify and recruit prospective nominees for all seven districts. And, yes I said all seven districts. Bud Cramer is almost as bad as a Republican. And while Artur Davis has cast some good votes and done good things regarding black-belt poverty and such, his disdain for basic Constitutional principles is appalling.

Please let us identify seven candidates for the elections two years hence that embody the values that made our country great -- inclusiveness, freedom and liberty. Let's learn to reject LOUDLY the concepts of exclusion and hatred and fear.

Let us point out to our freedom-loving Republican-voting friends that they have been conned by the biggest, most unprincipled propaganda machine that has ever been built, and that the Republican party is the greatest enemy to freedom-loving people that the world has ever known. Because that is a fact. Let them know the truth.

And while we're at it, let's find the greatest candidates we can for '08. In each and every district. Alabama depends on it, even if it doesn't know it yet. And so does America.

for starters!

We have to get potential candidates identified ASAP and get the ball rolling by getting their names in the papers as authors of LTTEs, interviews, etc.

And let us not limit ourselves to the House! Little Jeffie, probably one of the most horrid do-nothing mushmouthed senators ever, must be brought down not a peg, but a freefall.

I recommend Susan Parker to take him on, myself. Let some old-fashioned Big Jim campaigning begin, complete with the New Strawberry Pickers and a Suds Bucket, and we'll see a change...Hit every BBQ joint, feed store and trailer park in the Most Serene Christian Republic of Alabama...
It is time for an old-fashioned progressive populist candidate, preferably one from the Tennessee Valley. Roger Bedford is too "inside" to withstand much close scrutiny, while Susan is squeeky clean, a Ph.D. and a former trailerpark dweller, and from the working class, active in her church, etc. If that isn't a sure fire vote getter record, I don't know what is.

But she waged a pretty poor US Senate campaign against Sessions last time. What do you think about Little Jim taking Sessions on? Or perhaps running Susan again, but turning over her ad campaign to the people who did Sue Bell Cobb's run this time around. (Truthfully, for all I know, that could've been who did her commercials last time. But Ms. Bell-Cobb's commercials were masterful.)

I very much like your idea of an old-fashioned, grassroots campaign, though we should not neglect the media air-wars either, not to mention the "high-tech grassroots." We need to blast them on all fronts, land, sea, and air.

The DNC did a decent job in Alabama with what they had to work with. If Joe Turnham couldn't beat Mike Rogers, no one can. The part of HD3 in Montgomery is majority black, so that really negates the vote tally there. We should expect to win it. Greg Pierce was a good candidate and had good ideas. Other congressmen from Alabama, however, suggested funnelling the DCCC money to other races around the country where we could get a more liberal democrat elected. I have met with, and truely like Greg Pierce. The DNC gave the state party a good bit of money. Did you see their Redeem the Vote or county voter guides? (county voter guides went to Dekalb, Chilton, Cullman, Morgan, and Montgomery counties) That's what it was spent on. Staff at party HQ has doubled, on the DNC's tab. The state party is trying to focus on state issues, not on congressional races. Yes, Alabama's Republicans need to be thrown out, no doubt about it, and yes, that can most likely only happen in a mid-term election, but the power of incumbency and its effect on the difficulty of the win, coupled with the type of Democrats running in Alabama (socially conservative, fiscally moderate), the DCCC prioritized going to other races. Don't blame the state party, they did the best they could.

And about Turnham too.

Good column from before the election:

http://tledit.us.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20061015&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=610150349&SectionCat=EDITORIAL2&Template=print