This is a cry in the wilderness because I'm a resident of Virginia facing one of the few meaningful elections in the country this year and I'm confronted with having to support Terry Freakin McAulliffe as the sole Democratic nominee for Governor. I was active in Chinese dissident politics in the [Bill] Clinton years when McAulliffe was Clinton-Gore reelection money man. Although the Repubs overplayed their hand (again), the underlying actual stench of Johnny Chung or Charlie Trie or Wang Jun (Wang Jun! The son of one of the "Eight Immortals" of the Chinese Communist Party! "The Godfather of Golf in China") should have scared off any clear thinking human being.
So I'm going to have to campaign for this unqualified, unprincipled, unintelligent egomaniac because its him or Ken Cuccinelli. I'm already over-sensitive to my angst over the character of our VA Democratic leadership but the headlines recently are making me downright ornery.
Max Baucus. Its the two-word answer to the question: What is wrong with our Democratic leadership. Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee since 2001 and NOW! he says he must look into the black hole 501c4 tax-exempt "welfare" organizations.
I've always been an avid reader of TPM Muckraker - you don't win a Polk for nothing. Besides my day job pays me to use similar rakes for the labor movement. But even the recent headlines there fill me with dread because I revel when its an R and despair when its a D in their crosshairs.
The Dem Arkansas State Treasurer Martha Shoffner. The former US Attorney for AZ Dennis Burke.
And don't get meet started on Penny Pritzker. It was the final straw for me. I unsubscribed from OFA as my only response to a second-term president sliding towards a job in Illinois betraying all the people in his community that voted him to office at the start of his career. I started off joking with my Chicago friends who worked with "Barry" on the living wage campaigns but none of us are laughing any more. The conversations now are more like psycho-analysis asking: was it Barry or Penny who first realized who was faking whom. And at what point did it become love like Billy and Meg in the movie.
I can only implore us for more and better Democrats. And more quickly while you're at it.