(Disappearing) Postal Service As Campaign Issue?

I was hired by the Postal Service in 1993, it was once a job I took more pride in than any I'd ever had. We gave every citizen the same service, whether they were in huge urban buildings that had there own zip code or at the end of miles of dirt road- The Postal Service was America at it's finest.

Then came the Republicans to power. The Postal Purchasing manual got rewritten, and through a no bid contract instead of buying new trailers the Postal Service paid more to lease used trailers from General Electric. Mail was pulled off Amtrak trains and entrusted to fly by night truckers who delivered when they felt like it. Defense contractors with no experience in mail processing were given multi million dollar contracts to build high tech mail sorting machines that didn't work, given more lucrative contracts to fix them, and even more contracts to replace them. Meanwhile the Postal Service revealed it's grand "Network Redesign" plan to gut service to rural areas while giving even bigger discounts to junk mailers. In my little corner of the Postal Service, a big city Post Office loading dock, I fought the good fight to move the mail. I lost that battle, and retired before they fired me. It's been over two years since I left, but I'm still angry at how they're gutting and corrupting our Postal Service.  

Is a quasi government agency whose major product is the delivery of junk mail relevant any more? I write this evening from a big city, served by every major parcel delivery company. Broadband internet is available from several sources that speed e-mail and more at the speed of light. A hundred miles west of here in the country they're still on dial up in much of the county, and the two wi-fi "hotspots" have been down for months. Fed Ex is rarely seen, and if you miss the UPS driver you have a one hour window at the depot 20 miles away to pick up your package. But the Post Office is still there- for now. In fact, there's a handful of Post Offices in the county, while UPS is literally in the next county. They'll hold your package all day for you, ship it back when it breaks, even sell money orders, and all for the same price as they charge in the big city.

Unfortunately Postal Service management has other ideas- when a small town Postmaster retires, service is "suspended", even though Postal Service employees are trained and ready to take their place. Post Offices are allowed to literally rot away until they are unsafe to work in, and again service is "suspended". We used to keep temporary Post Office trailers ready to go in case a Post Office was rendered unusable by disasters and such, but I haven't seen one in years- the Postal Service would rather have excuse to shut down another small town's Post Office.

If in the Postal Service's brave new world of customer (dis)service you still persevere and drive 20 miles to mail your letters, packages, etc., your problems will just be beginning. The Postal Service has a mail processing center within 100 miles of just about every American. Thus a letter to the next town can be sorted and delivered the next day. But under "network redesign" many of these centers would be closed and mail shipped hundred of miles away to be sorted even if it's only going across town, taking days longer to reach it's destination.

Most of the Post Offices and sorting centers the Postal Service wants to close are in swing districts held by republicans. Postal service is important in these districts, and cuts are a great wedge issue to peel off independents who might otherwise vote for the republican incumbent. In the 2006 campaign I sent briefing papers on Postal Service cuts to several Democratic challengers in these districts and at least two of them used my material and won.

I'm fired up, and ready to go again. So my question, dear Kossacks: Is it worth raising the gutting of our Postal Service as a campaign issue?