UPDATED: Some have suggested I mention Bono Mack's opponent, Bornstein. I am impressed with her and have already voted for her. My complaint is with the DCCC. For some reason, or due to some back room dealings, this district isn't seen as competitive, or worth fighting for.
ORIGINAL POST: California: blue state. Very blue. Even Arnold is about as purple any GOPer this side of the Hudson.
My town? Also blue. Palm Springs boasts a gay mayor, gay people on the city council, and gay people on the school board, and none of them (to my knowledge) are of the insane Log Cabin circular firing squad variety. Sometimes it's difficult to tell, because local elections tend to be superficially nonpartisan, allowing closeted Repugs to vote for things like new super Wal-Marts and other municipal misadventures.
Through it all, our darling congresswoman, Mary Bono Mack, remains unscathed. She even proposed a wilderness bill this past winter. Isn't she green??? If I check my color wheel, that would make her brown (red + green). Or Christmassy.
Even the HRC (Human Rights Campaign) endorsed her in 2004. Stonewall Democrats here were outraged. Her defeaning silence on issues of importance to gay people--including Proposition 8--has been spectacular to behold--that is, when she isn't quietly voting with the Mormon/Pentecostal hate machine.
She's a slithery eel. If politics were a jungle, she'd play the shy, nocturnal predator, seldom seen, and seldom heard from. She'd definitely not a howler monkey like Michelle Bachmann, or an uneducated poser like Sarah Palin.
No, she's a survivor. None of her controversial votes are reported here by our friendly neighborhood Desert Sun (newspaper). Conveniently, all the photos of Mary and her pal George W. Bush have mysteriously and quietly vanished from the Sun's archives.
She's a wealthy wallflower.
The thing is, she WOULD be vulnerable if she opened her trap like Bachmann does. If she were controversial. If she weren't the career politician, forever camouflaged, spending 100% of her time keeping her job, instead of doing her job.
She WOULD be vulnerable, if the DNC (CORRECTION: DCCC) would come after her and recruit a decent candidate.
In the meantime, we're looking at 20, 30, 40 years more from good ol' party-line Mary, the archconservative in the blue-green suit.
NOTE: I'm sure I'm not the biggest expert on Mary Bono Mack in the DailyKos community. If I've misspoken, let me have it.