Person of the Quadrennium

Almost four years ago, on a freezing January night, more than 400 Kentucky Democrats overflowed a meeting room in downtown Lexington to listen to the most infamous losing presidential candidate in a generation.

Howard "The Scream" Dean electrified the crowd that night. With the state and national Democratic parties flat on their backs after the 2004 electoral defeat, the pugnacious ex-governor was rarin' for a fight.

Make me your national chair, he told the crowd, and I'll rebuild the grassroots state parties that made the Democratic Party dominant for 50 years. I'll support candidates who are proud Democrats, and I'll make sure your voice is heard.

It may take a generation, he warned, but we will rebuild a national party. No one, not even Dean himself, would have bet a nickel he'd do it - albeit with the help of a once-in-a-century candidate - in just four years.

Ari Berman in The Nation tells how he did it, and why we owe Howard everything.

It's a week after the election and Howard Dean is speaking at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, giving an unusually full-throated argument for Democratic Party organizing in Oklahoma, the only state where John McCain beat Barack Obama in every single county. "I don't know when we're going to win Oklahoma, but we have a Democratic governor from Oklahoma, we have a Democratic Congressman from Oklahoma and what we need to do is go to Oklahoma, show up and explain ourselves in terms of the values that Oklahomans hold." Those values, Dean argued, aren't so different from those of New York City or anywhere else commonly thought of as Democratic territory. It just so happens that Oklahoma's aforementioned governor, Brad Henry, had given Dean a pair of cowboy boots, which he wore, to somewhat hilarious effect, throughout the Democratic convention in Denver.

The former Vermont governor and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has become an unlikely advocate for Democrats across the country, particularly in so-called red America. His passion for showing up in unexpected locales is not based on wishful thinking or stubborn naivete but rather political necessity. Dean's favorite quote, which he repeats over and over, is Louis Pasteur's "Chance favors the prepared mind." The way he sees it, you never know when any state, even the Sooner State, might get a jolt of blue. After all, just look at what happened in 2006, when Democrats flipped both houses of Congress. Or this past November, when Barack Obama won Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia, along with three previously red Western states, and the party picked up Congressional seats in places like Alabama, Alaska, Idaho and Mississippi.

It almost feels like ancient history, but "four years ago the Democratic Party was in a very different condition," Doctor Dean says at the beginning of his talk at the Y. Republicans had just retained the White House, gained four seats in the Senate and three in the House, and held twenty-eight governorships. Bill Frist was Senate majority leader, Dennis Hastert was House Speaker, George Bush's approval rating was at a healthy 50 percent and Karl Rove planned a "permanent Republican majority." It was "not a fun time to be a Democrat," Dean cracks.

How quickly things change. Four years later Democrats elected Obama with 67 million votes. They picked up seven seats in the Senate (with Minnesota still pending at press time)and twenty-one in the House, and they hold sixty of ninety-nine state legislative chambers. Obama's extraordinary campaign and Bush's remarkable mishandling of the country's domestic and foreign policies deserve much of the credit for the Democratic Party's resurgence, but so does Howard Dean. Before virtually any major politician, Dean not only sensed that the era of Republican ascendancy could be stopped but also how to do it, first through his trailblazing though unsuccessful presidential campaign of 2004, and then through his forceful stewardship of the party as DNC chair since 2005.

"Dean gave the party a mission and a focus," says Paul Tewes, a top Obama strategist who ran day-to-day operations at the DNC during the general election. "That's a big deal when you're out of power." DNC member Donna Brazile calls Dean "one of the unsung heroes of this moment."

Dean's work is far from done, especially right here in Kentucky, but he's created a foundation on which we can build if we stay true to Democratic values and stop running fake Democrats like David Boswell.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ...

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Liberals in the South: Don't Write Us Off

Should the Democratic Party fight to regain the South or write it off?

Probably shouldn't ask a Kentuckian right now, given that we're still nursing hurt feelings over being the one and only state in the nation without a Barack Obama campaign headquarters.

But Thomas Schaller and Bob Moser are debating the proposition in Salon, and it's hard to find two more opposite views of Democratic politics in the South.

(More after the jump.)

Schaller, of course, is the author of "Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without The South", the book that advised the national Democratic Party to abandon southern red states to the wingnut freakazoids and concentrate on wooing the purple West.

Moser makes precisely the opposite case in his book, "Blue Dixie: Awakening the South's Democratic Majority", arguing that Democrats can't win national elections without the South.

Schaller is a patronising jerk, with his "that rarest of all birds, the white southern liberal!" condescension. Just among my limited acquaintance in my small rural county, there are at least a dozen white southern liberals - and half of them are middle-aged men. No, that wasn't enough to carry our county for Obama (though he did take several precincts), but we aren't museum specimens for northerners to gawk at, either.

As Molly Ivins often wrote, there's nothing in this world tougher than a Southern liberal. We've fought the bullies and their dead-wrong politics our entire lives, and can out-debate any Bible-Belt wingnut while simultaneously drinking a clutch of DLC pundits under the table.

But Moser isn't much better, implying that southerners have to be bribed into the Democratic column with economic goodies, rather than persuaded by force of argument. He also puts a little too much faith in demographic change and underestimates how vicious the freakazoid wingnuts are going to get as they see their power slipping away.

Here's the truth every Southern liberal knows, and the point that Schaller, Moser and every other hand-wringing Democratic pundit is missing: the politics that will win back the South is the same politics that will win and keep the East, North, West and Middle:

Democrats that stand tall on their hind legs and proud for real American values: the rule of law, equal opportunity, good jobs at good pay, public education, health and safety at home and at work, peace and prosperity.

It's the only thing that works. It's the only thing that ever has.

Cross-posted at Blue in the Bluegrass.

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If We're Not Doing Social Justice, We're Not the Democratic Party

Get the wooden stake, quick: the Democratic Leadership Council "Let's Be More Like Republicans!" ghoul is trying to rise from the dead.

A big reason that the Democrats won back Congress in 2006 and are likely to keep it in 2008 is nominating and electing socially conservative economic populists like Heath Shuler. More progress. But to create an updated version of the New Deal, the Democrats have to treat economically liberal social conservatives as equal partners, with their own spokesmen and leadership roles in the party, not just as a handful of swing voters brought on reluctantly at the last moment.

You know what a "socially conservative economic populist" is? It's a sex-hating Comstockian who makes you pay for the privilege of being black, female or gay in their white, straight male paradise. Heath Shuler? Make that "their white, straight, STUPID male paradise."

(More after the jump.)

Remember when Democrats were pure economic populists and didn't sully their majority popularity with messy social liberalism?

You know, the 1950s:

• when coloreds knew their place in the back of the bus and were happy to have a seat at all
• when women stayed barefoot and pregnant
• when gays were beaten and murdered
• when the only birth control was a coat hanger in a dirty alley
• when nobody cared how much you beat your wife and fucked your kids as long as you kept it behind closed doors

The determined stand against that cramped, ugly world first taken by courageous Democrats in the 1960s may have lost them popularity, but it was a price they paid willingly.

"We've lost the South for a generation," LBJ said when he signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. He knew what standing tall for Civil Rights and Doing The Right Thing would do to the Democratic Party, and he did it anyway.

As did Democratic politicians throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties, sacrificing themselves and their party's White House hopes in order to ensure that people could live where they want, love whom they please, reproduce willingly, worship - or not - unmolested, get equal opportunity at good schools and jobs, live free of fear for their personal safety.

Show me a Democrat who claims to value the economic safety net over civil rights, reproductive freedom and social justice, and I'll show you a Republican who's picking your pocket while reciting Bible verses.

You cannot BE a true economic populist if you don't value individual freedom. And you can't value individual freedom if you're a social conservative.

Hate is not a family value, and above all things social conservatives hate. They hate everyone and everything who is not exactly like them: their race, their religion, their economic niche, their educational level, their neighborhood, their sexual preference, their favorite TV shows.

Social conservatives are antithetical to all social, scientific, political and economic progress. Social conservatives, as William F. Buckley so perfectly described them: "stand athwart history and shout "Stop!"

Like that supposed "socially conservative economic populist" Mike Huckabee. Ever actually read Mike Huckabee's political philosophy? He doesn't want to go back to the 1950s; he wants to go back to the 950s, when the king's word was law, serfs knew their place, and disobedient children and wives were stoned to death. A place where John McCain would be right at home.

Article author Michael Lind, who has apparently spent the last 15 years in a cave, says:

Social conservatives, having lost the culture war, should be offered not only a truce but also an opportunity to join a broad economic campaign for a middle-class America, as many of them did between 1932 and 1968. When pro-choicers and pro-lifers unite in cheering the public investment and living wage planks at the convention of the neo-Roosevelt party, we will know that the political era that began in 1968 is truly and finally over.

Michael, wake up: the mid-century New Dealers that you are calling "social conservatives" are extinct. They had nothing in common with the social conservatives of today's rethuglican party. Comparing the two is like comparing the pro-slavery "Democrats" of the decade before the Civil War with the Democrats who chose Barack Obama to be the next president.

Today's social conservatives will never, never, NEVER "cheer public investment and the living wage." Any more than plantation owners in 1860 South Carolina would have voted for Abraham Lincoln.

And every minute, every dime, every electron wasted pretending otherwise is political suicide.

While social conservatives may have "lost the culture war" in New York City or wherever the hell Lind lives, they're basking in victory out here in the real world, where blacks are quietly redlined out of the best neighborhoods and schools, gays are fired without consequence, children are forced to join group prayers in school, pharmacists refuse to dispense birth control, and only burka-wearing virgins can be raped.

Salon commenter Buzz Lightyear nailed it:

What's the point of greater economic equality if it doesn't lead to a better and more just society?

That's what made the 1960s so special and why the Democratic party transformed from the party of Roosevelt to the party of McGovern.

Once people had enough money in their pockets, they started looking around to see how to they could make the world better. Ending a pointless war in Southeast Asia and ending the oppression of racial minorities were obvious ways of doing that.

Of course, the power structure couldn't have that, so the 40-year-long War on The Middle Class was enacted so that the common folk would be too busy worrying about their economic security to have the energy to sustain social change.

You want the nation that won World War II, brought 30 years of prosperity and established social justice back? Vote for Liberals.

And tell Michael Lind, the DLC and their "social conservative" friends to stay the fuck away from Real Democrats.

Cross-posted at Blue in the Bluegrass.

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A Precautionary Tale for Progressives

As we all suspected, the withdrawal last week of Andrew Horne from the race to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was the tip of a huge, ugly, downright evil iceberg.

As well as we have all learned the lesson of the 2007 "Democratic" majority in Congress - that Democrats in power cannot be trusted as far as you can throw them - what happened to the Senate race in Kentucky proves that it's even worse than you thought.

Progressive bloggers in Kentucky have been chewing nails and spitting rust on this all week, but MediaCzech of Kentucky's first progressive blog, BlueGrassRoots, nails the backstabbing bastards to the ground in a passionate polemic that every progressive in the country should memorize.

What we have is Paul Hackett: the sequel. Only worse. In Paul Hackett’s case, the establishment threw their weight behind a progressive candidate with a great chance of winning. Here in KY, they’ve just rigged the system to nominate a slimy, DINO, government defrauding, nursing home slumlord with no chance of beating Mitch McConnell in an election this November.

OK, I know what some of you are thinking now… “How dare you give Mitch McConnell a free pass?!”

Well, let me tell you something. It does the progressive movement in KY NO GOOD to sugarcoat the situation and live in a positive fantasy world. What we need is a healthy dose of reality to let KY progressives know where we are, what we’re up against, and be able to form a coherent strategy for how we’re going to take the KDP and our state government back.

Trust me: it just gets better. Read the whole thing.

Then check out Chuck Schumer's pathetic, whining response.

Cross-posted as Blue in the Bluegrass.

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What a Difference a Win Makes

I am not convinced that this endorsement is as big of a deal as many in the MSM are making of it. But, now that they are pushing the narrative, perhaps it will have legs after all.


...more on the flip...

Seeking to build on his landslide win in Saturday's South Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will receive the endorsement of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in Washington on Monday, sources close to both men said Sunday night.

The Kennedy stamp of approval was one of the most sought-after prizes of the Democratic nomination battle, and it represents a coup for the Illinois senator, adding an establishment seal of approval to what began a year ago as a long-shot White House bid. Obama had cultivated Kennedy's support for months. So had Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who along with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, had pressed Kennedy in recent days to at least remain neutral.

Kennedy's decision came after weeks of his rising frustration with the Clintons over campaign tactics, particularly comments by the couple and their surrogates in South Carolina that seemed to carry racial overtones. Kennedy expressed his frustrations, directly to the former president, but to no avail. He came to his endorsement decision over the past week, after speaking to numerous family members, especially younger ones, and gave Obama the word on Thursday, people familiar with the endorsement said.

Will this endorsement mean much to the general electorate, or even the Democratic electorate in upcoming primaries? Continue to color me skeptical, especially in the sense where Obama is reputed to bring in new & young voters who were not yet born when Ted Kennedy was first elected to the Senate.


No, where I do believe this news will resonate is amongst the establishment of the Democratic party at the state and national level, especially in the clubby US Senate. By my count, Kennedy is the fourth sitting Democratic senator to come out for the junior, once-elected senator from Illinois, rather than the junior, twice-elected senator from New York...and the wife of an immensely popular former president as well.



[Ah, bless that Google News...it seems that Kennedy is actually the fifth sitting senator to endorse Obama; Leahy of Vermont was the fourth last week. Add these to McCaskill of MO, Nelson of NE and Kerry of MA].


Also, Bill Clinton did much to resurrect the image of Camelot during his White House bid & tenure, and the Kennedys did all but adopt the First Couple in the '90s. So, yes, I believe it is amongst the establishment (and not coincidentally, the money people) where this endorsement will resonate most. And, in that light, it's quite a slapdown of the Clintons.

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Is Hillary Planning to Attack Obama on Abortion and Edwards on the War?

I just received another call from a pollster. This was perhaps our sixth or seventh poll, the majority obviously from campaigns. Such is the burden of living in Iowa.

This afternoon's poll sounded like a push poll, but I suspect it was Hillary's campaign testing new lines of attack on Obama and Edwards. The questioner started by asking me whom I support and how strong my support is. I said the name of someone other than Hillary and said, when asked, that I was fairly certain. (Actually, I'm more than fairly certain that it will never be Hillary--at least in the primary season.)

He began with a question that made me think he was calling for the Edwards campaign.(Which is still possible.) It was a longer version of this question: "Do you agree that the government in this country has been rigged in favor of the wealthy and against the middle and the working classes?"

Then the pollster said something to the effect of, "If you knew that Senator Obama, when he was in the Illinois State Senate, failed to vote against several anti-abortion measures introduced by conservative Republicans, that instead he voted "Present", which is often a way politicians avoid casting controversial votes, would you be very concerned, somewhat concerned, not very concerned, or not concerned at all?"

Then he asked something like, "If you heard that John Edwards is a liberal trial lawyer who advocates a withdrawal of troops from Iraq within his first year of office, a timeline experts say is irresponsible, would this make you very concerned, somewhat concerned, not very concerned, or not concerned at all?"

After answering a couple other demographical questions, I asked him who he was calling for. He said the name of the private company, a name that didn't mean anything to me. (Did it have 'Richmond' in the name?)

So what do you think? What was the purpose of this poll? And who do you think was behind it? I guess we'll know for sure as soon as we hear someone going after Obama as a gutless pawn of the anti-abortion crowd.

[That's All]

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John Edwards and the Kentucky Governor's Race

I don't know if any of the other Democratic presidential candidates are paying this kind of attention, but John Edwards' campaign is sending emails to all of the Kentuckians on its email list encouraging them to vote for the Democratic candidates this Tuesday.

This Tuesday, you can help us start building Democratic Party majorities around the country, starting right here in Kentucky.

For information, go to www.kydemocrat.com/our_party/2007_candidates

At a time when the disgraced policies of George Bush are dragging down Republicans in state-level races in nearly every district in the country, Democrats in Kentucky know that, starting Tuesday, this coming year could be more than just an election year -- it could be the year when a fundamental realignment takes place, from the Kentucky state house to the White House.

John Edwards is committed to expanding the map and turning red states into blue states. Time and time again, opinion polls show John is the one Democratic candidate for president who can win in red states, blue states -- and across our nation.

So this Tuesday, please take time to vote for Democratic Party candidates running statewide in Kentucky -- and join John in changing America over the next 12 months.

Sincerely,

David Bonior
National Campaign Manager, John Edwards for President
November 3, 2007

Note: no request for money. Just an unadorned demonstration of Edwards' committment to growing and strengthening Democrats at the grass-roots level in every single state, no matter how "red."

'Course, Edwards probably has a soft spot for Kentucky after the incredible reception he got in Columbia last month. And the Kentucky Governor's race has a high national profile. But are any other Democratic presidential hopefuls making this kind of effort? If you've gotten any similar communication from Kucinich, Gravel, Richardson, Biden, Dodd, Obama or Clinton, let me know in comments.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

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Mitch's Solicitous Concern for the Democrats

If the fairy tale General David Petraeus told Congress accomplishes nothing else, it appears to have melted the cold, hard, partisan heart of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell is very concerned about the effect of MoveOn.org's infamous ad calling Petraeus "Betray Us" for his misrepresentations to Congress and the American people.

But McConnell is not concerned about the ad's deleterious effect on Petraeus' credibility, or public trust in Smirky or Congress.



No, no. McConnell is worried about the ad's damage to the Democratic Party.

On Hugh Hewitt's radio show September 11, McConnell said this about Move On and the Betray Us ad:

"I assure you, we're going to continue to press Democrats both collectively and individually to denounce this ad. I think this organization is ruining the reputation of the Democratic Party."

Bless you, Mitch. Bless you for your nonpartisan concern for American Democracy.

Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald.

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Amen to Lynn Woolsey: Let’s have some Dems get anti-war primary challenges

That’s what California Democratic Congresswoman Woolsey says herself:

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) is encouraging anti-war activists to find challengers to centrist Democrats, with the aim of moving the party to the left and ramping up opposition to the war in Iraq, to the chagrin of top Democratic aides.

“You folks should go after the Democrats,” Woolsey said in response to a suggestion from an activist during a conference call last month organized by the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

“I’d hate to lose the majority, but I’m telling you, if we don’t stand up to our responsibility, maybe that’s the lesson to be learned.”

Democratic leaders have yet to punish Woolsey for her stance, but their aides were irked by and dismissive of Woolsey’s remarks.

“The political reality is that the real targets of the outside groups should be Republicans who have so far refused to join the overwhelming majority of Democrats in voting for a change of course in Iraq,” a top aide said.

Ahh, the current Democratic Congressional leadership: shoot the message as well as the messenger.

Oh, let’s take Ms. Woolsey’s call one step further.

Let’s have more liberal bloggers beating the drum for Green Party or socialist candidates for the general election, too. I intend to do so.

Oh, on a sidebar note, I’d like to say Kevin Drum really fucked up on this post saying that Kucinch and other second-tier Democrats, most of whom are more ardently anti-war than the “big dogs,” need to pack up, quit the primary campaign, and go home.

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly and Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus.

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Let's Play Smack Barack

Beating up on Barack Obama seemed to be the theme of Tuesday evening's Democratic Presidential debate in Chicago. In addition to trading turns whacking the Obama-piñata, the seven candidates attending did their best to woo a sometimes hostile crowd of about 10,000 union members, under the stars on a humid night at Soldier Field.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama lashed out at each other on foreign policy and the dangers of corporate influence as they aggressively wooed the support of organized labor yesterday.Fellow Sens. Joseph Biden and Christopher Dodd joined Clinton in zinging Obama, both calling his comments about Pakistan ill-advised.

The sharpest exchange at the AFL-CIO forum in Chicago came as Obama defended his stand on threatening a military strike against terror targets in Pakistan with or without the permission of that nation's government."I find it amusing that those who voted to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism," declared Obama, alluding to Clinton's vote authorizing force against Iraq.

Obama's statement has to be the take away soundbite from the debate. Regardless of that comeback rejoinder, much of the media would have us believe that Obama's earlier statements regarding Pakistan & his willingness to meet with leaders of governments hostile to our own has hurt him severely with voters.

Though this trend may seem to be reflected in national polls, state polls tell a different story.

While the current national polls have the top tier ranked accordingly...

Clinton--41.7%/Obama--21.3%/Edwards--17.9%

...early primary states have the race shaping up as a much tigher contest...

Iowa

Clinton--26%/Obama--19.3%/Edwards--24.7%

New Hamphire

Clinton--30.3%/Obama--26.3%/Edwards--10.7

South Carolina

Clinton--34%/Obama--30%/Edwards--14.5%

...however, most recent polls in Florida, California, Nevada, Michigan & New Jersey have Clinton firmly in the lead, that is if anything can be definitively stated as "firmly" with the first votes to be cast are still over five months distant.

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Shame on Us

Cindy Sheehan announced this morning that she has given up because she has

endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such "liberal blogs" as the Democratic Underground. Being called an "attention whore" and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes.

Sheehan says

I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike.

I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

That is exactly the point Andrew Bacevich made in his Washington Post Op-Ed.

Sheehan's 15 minutes of fame might be over but she is right. Being for an end to the Iraq war is not a matter of "left and right" politics, it is a matter of "right and wrong."

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Welcome Pete McClosky

Former Congressman Pete McClosky has left the Republican party. He is now a registered Democrat. For those who followed last year's elections, that isn't surprising. After attempting to lead a "Revolt of the Elders" against Richard Pombo in the last election, he ultimately endorsed Jerry McNerney (D-Cal). The reason I am posting is that his announcement is something every American should read. It gives me hope.

McCloskeys have been Republicans in California since 1859, the year before Lincoln's election. My great grandfather, John Henry McCloskey, orphaned in the great Irish potato famine of 1843, came to California in 1853 as a boy of 16, and joined the party just before the Civil War.

By 1890 he and my grandfather, both farmers, made up two of the twelve members of the Republican Central Committee of Merced County. My father's most memorable expletive came when I was a boy of 10 or 11: "That damn Roosevelt is trying to pack the Supreme Court!"

I registered Republican in 1948 after reaching the age of 21. We were the party of civil rights, of free choice for women and fiscal responsibility. Since Teddy Roosevelt, we had favored environmental protection, and most of all we stood for fiscal responsibility, honesty, ethics and limited government intrusion into our personal lives and choices. We accepted that one the duties of wealth was to pay a higher rate of income tax, and that the estates of the wealthy should contribute to the national treasury in reasonable measure.

I was proud to serve with Republicans like Gerry Ford, the first George Bush and Bob Dole.

In 1994, however, Newt Gingrich brought a new kind of Republicanism to power, and the election of George W. Bush in 2000 has led to wholly new concept of governance. The bureaucracy has mushroomed in size and power. The budget deficits have become astronomical. Our historical separation of church and state has been blurred. We have seen a succession of ethical scandals, congressmen taking bribes, and abuse of power by both the Republican House leadership and the highest appointees of the White House.

The single cardinal principle of political science, that power corrupts, has come to apply not only to Republican leaders like Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney and John Doolittle, but to a succession of White House officials and appointees. The stench of Jack Abramoff has permeated much of the Washington Republican establishment.

The Justice Department, guardian of of our rule of law, has been compromised. It's third ranking official, a graduate of Pat Robertson's dubious law school, has taken the 5th Amendment.

Men who have never felt the fear of combat, and who largely dodged military service in their youth, have led us into grievous wars in far off places with no thought of the diplomacy, grace and respect for other peoples and their cultures which has been an American trademark for at least the last two thirds of a century. We have lost the respect and affection of most of the world outside our borders. My son, Peter, one of the U.S. prosecutors at The Hague of the war crimes in Serbia and elsewhere, tells me that people of other countries no longer look at the country which countenances torture as a beacon for the world and the rule of law.

Earth Day, that bi-partisan concept of Gaylord Nelson in 1970, has become the focus of almost hatred by today's Republican leadership. Many still argue that global warming is a hoax, and that Bush has been right to demean and suppress the arguments of scientists at the E.P.A., Fish & Wildlife and U.S.Geological Survey.

I say a pox on them and their values.

Until the past few weeks, I had hoped that the party could right itself, returning to the values of the Eisenhowers, Fords and George H. W. Bush.

What finally turned me to despair, however, was listening to the reports, or watching on C-Span, a whole series of congressional oversight hearings on C-Span, held by old friends and colleagues like Pat Leahy, Henry Waxman, Norm Dicks, Nick Rahall, Danny Akaka and others, trying to learn the truth on the misdeeds and incompetence of the Bush Administration. Time after time I saw Republican Members of the House and Senate. speak out in scorn or derision about these exercises of Congress oversight responsibility being "witch-hunts" or partisan attempts to distort the actions of people like the head of the General Service Administration and the top political appointees in the Justice and Interior Departments. Disagreement turned into disgust.

I finally concluded that it was a fraud for me to remain a member of this modern Republican Party, that there were only a few like Chuck Hegel, Jack Warner, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins I could respect.

Two of the best, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, and Jim Leach of Iowa, after years of battling for balance and sanity, were defeated last November, and it seems that every Republican presidential candidate is now vying for the support of the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells rather than talking about a return to the values of the party I joined nearly 59 years ago. My favorite spokesmen have become Senators Jim Webb and Barack Obama.

And so it was, that while at the Woodland courthouse the other day, passing by the registrar's office, I filled out the form to re-register as a Democrat.

The issues Helen (McCloskey) and I care about most, public financing of elections, a reliable paper ballot trail, independent re-districting to replace gerrymandering, the right of a woman to choose not to bring a child into the world, a reversal of the old Proposition 13 and term limits which have so hurt California's once superb education system and the competence of our Legislature, are now almost universally opposed by California's elected Republicans, and the occasional attempts at reform by our Governor are looked on with grim disdain by most of them.

From Helen's and my standpoint, being farmers in Yolo County gives us the opportunity to work for purposes which were once Republican, but can no longer be found at Republican conventions and discussions.

I hope this answers your questions about the party and a government I have served in either civil or military service under ten presidents, five Republican and five Democrat ... I doubt it will be of much interest other than to our friends, but it has been a decision not easily taken.

Respectfully, Pete McCloskey,

It's of great interest to me Pete. I hope everybody reads your message. It is dead on. I will do everything I can to encourage Democrats to make you proud of your decision.

I wish I had a 100 t-shirts with Pete McClosky's pictures on them!

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