I've been fairly well appalled at the hagiography of Jesse Helms in the wake of his death.  The man was a racist and a homophobe.  

They're saying he was a "gentleman" - which is utterly wrong.  Would a gentleman have greeted Senator Carol Mosely-Braun (D-IL), the first black woman in the U.S. Senate, by entering the same elevator and literally whistling "Dixie" through the ride?

Which is why I'm so impressed with a man in North Carolina named L.F. Eason.  From the Raleigh News-Observer:

L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half-staff.

Last week, I posted a Top 50 list of potential running mates for Barack Obama over at BlueOregon - and we had a fantastic conversation.  

Now here's your chance to weigh in. I've set up an Instant Runoff poll that lets you rank your choices (from among my Top 32.)

So dive on in, and rank your picks for Obama VP. You don't have to rank all 32 choices - but at least do your top ten or twenty.  And if there's someone you absolutely, definitely don't want on the ticket - be sure to rank everybody else above that person.

Not to worry, DemoChoice.org makes it pretty fast - automatically re-ranking and re-sorting each time you make a pick.

There's already 500+ responses - and it's a very close contest (though I won't spoil the fun for you by letting you in on it...)

[Originally published at BlueOregon.com.]

I just spent three days in Little Rock, Arkansas - where I was invited to talk about technology and politics at the Clinton Presidential Library, to a conference of under-35 elected officials.

The visit to the Clinton Library was an extraordinary reminder of how good we had it during Bill Clinton's presidency.  In a stark contrast to the failed Bush presidency, the exhibits remind you of achievement after achievement of the Clinton years.

But it all started in 1992.  

In that campaign, Bill Clinton called on a new generation to participate in the political life of our nation, and millions of us responded.  He asked us to "vote our hopes, not our fears" -- and many of us joined him in believing in a place called Hope.  

Clinton told us that his presidency would be about "putting people first" and putting power back in the hands of the people.  He came from outside Washington, to fight the "privileged, private interests" that have "hijacked" our government.  

[Note: Also cross-posted at BlueOregon.com.  Full disclosure:  My firm built Jeff Merkley's campaign website, but I speak here only for myself.]

Deep inside the Willamette Week endorsement interview of the Dems running for the U.S. Senate, there's a clip of Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick talking about blogging.  And it sparked a mini-firestorm in the netroots over the weekend.

In the clip, Jeff Merkley praises the blogs, noting that the netroots will spread the word about our Senate race in the fall.  But Steve Novick dismissed blogging as "a way for a number of people to waste a vast quantity of time."

And while it's certainly true that there's plenty of time wasted all over the blogs, it's also true that the netroots have become a central part of the progressive infrastructure in this state and across the country - helping take this country back.  We share information, build community, get organized, raise money, and influence the dialogue.   Novick's backhanded dismissal is just bizarre.

One-minute video clip on the jump...

For weeks now, there's been all this talk about how this presidential primary campaign might come to an end - if several prominent superdelegates were to endorse either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton as a group.  Or even, a larger group of semi-prominent superdelegates (remember the superdelegate surge that was rumored to be happening post-Texas/Ohio?)

Which got me to thinking:  Who would those superdelegates be?   Which superdelegates are especially influential - with other superdelegates, with the media, with the public?

• Obviously, a lot of folks have mentioned Al Gore.  But he doesn't seem particularly interested in the job.
• Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid could play that role, but they seem committed to waiting it out.
• Jimmy Carter has negotiated peace treaties and observed elections all over the world.  Maybe we need him to weigh in.

In any case, rather than brainstorm up names, I decided to attempt a Power Ranking of Uncommitted Superdelegates.

So, I poured myself a stiff cocktail, came up with some criteria, assigned some values, and came up with a chart that ranks all 286 uncommitted superdelegates.

[Note: this post includes content originally published by me at BlueOregon.com along with a more recent update.]

In a front page Oregonian story, Congressman Greg Walden tried to tapdance away from blame in the NRCC auditing scandal.

First, a recap for those new to the story:  The FBI is investigating the loss of at least a million dollars from the campaign operation for US House Republicans.  It's alleged that a contract committee treasurer faked audit reports for the members of Congress overseeing the operation.  Among those involved?  Oregon's very own GOP Congressman Greg Walden, who chaired the audit committee while the fraud was perpetrated, right under his nose.

Yesterday, Markos took the opportunity of another stupid WSJ editorial to raise the issue of campaign finance reform.  He's repeatedly argued that we should stop tinkering, and do some kind of major reform.

So, here's an idea that I've had brewing in my head for a while.

Let's create a voluntary campaign finance reform that does the following:

In each congressional district, after the primary, any major-party candidate could voluntarily choose to forgo all private financing - and instead receive a single check of $1 million in public funds for their general election campaign.  If their opponent raised more than that, they'd get matching funds on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

That's it.  That's the whole thing.

Some notes on the jump...

Tomorrow, the DNC is expected to take up a proposal to add another state to the early presidential primary/caucus calendar.

All indications are that it's going to either Arizona or Nevada (or maybe Colorado).  Whichever state wins out, it'll be a caucus - wedged between Iowa and New Hampshire.  New Hampshire will be the third state, but will retain its status as the 'First in the Nation' primary.

Over at LeftyBlogs.com, we've been building a system that automagically reads, collates, and shares over 1500 liberal/progressive/lefty blogs from around the country.

Want to know what's happening in North Carolina?  What about Montana?  Or maybe Florida?  You get the idea.

Well, through the magic of tagging and RSS - LeftyBlogs.com is now featuring diaries from DailyKos that are tagged with a state's name.  Say, if you're writing about Jon Tester, just tag your diary "Montana" and it'll appear over at LeftyBlogs.com, in the Montana feed.  That'll help make sure that plenty of state bloggers can stay in touch with what's happening in the Kos community.

Oh, and if you've got a blog about state and local politics, be sure to add it at LeftyBlogs.com.