The Democratic party’s midterm wins in 2006 and the thunderous reclaiming of the Presidency in 2008 are an echo of another great success for the common man - the tremendous realignment that occurred between 1930 and 1936, cementing Democratic control of Congress for forty prosperous years. The New Deal created a safety net, which gave people the tools and opportunities to stand on their own again.
We again face the sort of economic inequality and volatility that characterized those years, environmental troubles now are even worse than the dust bowl, and we were an oil exporter in those years, which is decidedly not the case now.
We need to do some things differently, but conservative minded districts need a bit different approach ...
TX-06 has a Cook PVI of R+15. The northwest is urban Dallas Fort Worth, the south east is pure rural Texas. If Joe Barton hadn’t stuck his foot in his mouth we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, but his obvious choice of the wants of British Petroleum over the needs of common Texans put this district in play. I’d like to turn this into more than just a personal House seat win for me, but I’ll need your assistance to get it done.
What do you think that Texas voters want? What are the commonalities between Crockett, Texas and Concord, Massachusetts? What can we start here that will change not just a slice of Texas, but a large swath of the country? No one who can win in a district like this is a potential recruit for the House Progressive Caucus, but the Republican lite of the Blue Dogs doesn’t cut it either.
I'm here today to introduce a new brand of Democrat: the Green Dogs.
So who are these Green Dogs? He would say he is a "western libertarian minded Democrat". She’s focused on job creation, but well aware of energy and environmental concerns as we try to rebuild our economy for a rapidly changing twenty first century. They share many of the values of their urban and northeastern fellow Democrats, but with a more traditional mindset and a libertarian approach to social justice.
Note that libertarian has a small "L"; Rand Paul is great, but that’s because he is making things easy for Jack Conway due to all of the strange, untested theories he espouses. What we mean when we use this word are things like a firm respect for the rule of the law, a preference to solve problems on our own, and a pointed disinterest in the opinions of others when it comes to private affairs. Health care reform? That’s putting a stop to a rigged game. Financial regulation? Another rigged game will be brought to a screeching halt when we get it done.
Anyone blessed with a bit of natural wit who has access to a well run public school ought to be able to get a good paying job after a couple years of post secondary education. Some people are meant for four year universities and office jobs, but there are wind turbines and solar arrays to be installed. Rail lines have to be rebuilt to take medium speed passenger and rapid freight traffic. Homes and businesses with PACE funding need new windows, doors, passive solar heating, and a dozen other things our idle construction workers could be doing. America, made aware of climate and energy issues, could be America revitalized, if only we’d discard some notions that ought to have been left behind in the previous century. The right choices will mean jobs enough for all of us.
A generation of tearing apart our democratic institutions and privatizing or offshoring anything that wasn’t nailed down have left us with a badly degraded ability to respond to the challenges we face. We need, as a nation, to turn and face climate change and the problems in our energy supply like the deadly peril they represent to our society.
The climate is certainly changing and this is driving the crazy weather we see - hurricanes starting in April and running clear into January? The east coast buried beneath what the residents called the snowpocalypse while the west puzzles over what to do with a Colorado drainage that is running with just two thirds the water it had when initial governing agreements were made? These are real, tangible signs of a world that is changing and if there’s even a 1% chance the worst case scenario might come true ignoring it would be the equivalent of ignoring warnings of men who wanted only to learn to fly airplanes, but not land them.
If we’re going to bring this country in for a safe landing that means all of us, working together. The obstructionism and fawning over corporations that Republicans like Joe Barton offer aren’t a solution to anything that troubles the average Texan in line at the grocery store. The Green Dogs can bring a renewable energy renaissance home to our districts ... but only if we make it to Washington.
We need the help of this community to do just that. Please, if you can, visit my ActBlue page and help us out financially. If you can't afford to donate but have some spare time, whether you live in the district or not, you can volunteer by going to my website and filling out the volunteer form. Another way you can help us is by spreading the word on Facebook and Twitter.