Am I a Liberal

Am I a liberal?

Someone recently suggested that I was “a raging liberal.” It made me wonder if I actually qualify. So…

Abortion: Most Democrats consider me to be pro-life because I’m not convinced that abortion on demand is a woman’s right. The Evangelical Right preaches that the Bible clearly teaches that life (meaning our humanity) begins at conception. I won’t get into the theology here, but I disagree with them. My disagreement is based on my understanding of specific portions of the Bible. And in a discussion of the issue, we’d be discussing the meaning of Bible passages that we both consider inspired and inerrant. Does that make me a liberal? I haven’t formulated a law or policy. But I think the positions of both the Religious Right and the pro-abortion lobby are too absolute, too extreme.

Gay Marriage: I believe in the separation of church and state. I believe marriage is a religious institution. Gay couples can already live in the same house and think of themselves as partners in any state. With the help of a lawyer they can bequeath their possessions to each other – it’s just not automatic, like it would be if they were legally married. I’m not sure why government should be involved in licensing marriage at all. Leave it to churches.

Gun Control: I have several guns in my house. I even shoot them occasionally. It’s clear that the Constitution grants citizens the right to bear arms. I’m not sure the Founding Fathers meant for that to include the personal ownership of a bazooka , a sawed off shotgun, or an Uzi.

Immigration: I don’t really have a position. I understand that most undocumented immigrants are something like economic refugees. I understand that they broke US law by crossing the border, but I don’t think that THAT alone makes them criminals in the same since that bank robbers and burglars are criminals. I understand the argument that they contribute to the economy. I understand the argument that they take jobs from citizens. I’m not sure how I’d balance those arguments.

Taxation: I think of taxes (and other forms of government revenue) on a scale with two ends – one progressive, the other regressive. Everyone (or at least the vast majority of adults) should contribute to the cost of government. A progressive tax is one that solicits a larger share of revenue from those most able to pay. A regressive tax is one that raises revenue from those who are less able to pay. Flat rates and sales taxes are generally regressive. I prefer progressive forms of taxation. But there is always room to simplify the paperwork and record keeping involved in any tax system.

Fiscal Responsibility: Like most Americans, I think it would be marvelous if the government could live within its means. Of course, it hasn’t been able to do that for decades. Efficiency and cost cutting have to be a focus of any government.

Health Care: We are the most prosperous society on Earth. And yet tens of millions of our citizens are reduced to going without basic preventative and family medical services because the lack medical insurance. The system currently in place means that those individuals show up at emergency rooms, run up a much bigger bill than could have been if they got regular medical care, and leave the rest of us to pay their bill. Those of us who do pay for insurance can have that insurance cancelled if we become “too much of a risk.” The cost of actual care keeps rising, but there are caps how much an insurance company is required to pay. Often, a profound illness (like cancer) can leave us bankrupt despite the fact that we pay for health insurance. Our health insurance can be in jeopardy of we change jobs, or if we go a period of time without a job. And then some of us can’t get coverage regardless of our ability to pay because we have “a pre-existing condition.” Healthcare reform is a matter of social justice, of making America a fairer society, of basic human rights. But more practically, it’s an economic issue that will shape our future as a country. We have a vested interest in health care because a healthy population is more productive. And health insurance reform (including some form of a public option) is in itself a matter of fiscal responsibility. It is fiscally irresponsible NOT to reform health insurance.

Energy & the Environment: I like animals and fresh veggies. I’m not sure I expect Norfolk to be flooded by melting ice caps in the next few decades; but I’m also not sure I don’t. If we can make cheaper energy, I’m in favor of that. If we can make cleaner energy, I’m in favor of that. Lower emissions and higher gas mileage sound like good things, to me.

So, am I a liberal?

The Blame Game

It's come to my attention that Rene thinks I blame her for Woodard's loss in the Northern District Board of Supervisor race. What I wrote was analysis, not accusation. We mirrored statewide mistakes at the local level. I'd like to not make those mistakes again.

There's plenty of blame to go around. We wouldn't be in this situation if Bill Rasnick hadn't moved away: maybe it's his fault. Davy is not the perfect candidate; at least some of it's his fault. Vernon cost us a few votes. Mike and Dan cost us a few votes by letting Vernon hang around. Deeds cost us votes by making the statewide races personal and going after McDonnell instead of campaigning on real issues. And the Republican State Leadership Committee in Alexandria cost us a couple of votes in the Northern District by sending little Willie Morefield $40K two weeks before the election.

It would have been nice if Childress had come around a little earlier. But he eventually did his part. I know Rene talked to David a lot. I can't help but wonder how many votes it would have gotten Woodard if he'd had one of his signs in the Steele's yard. I'd say 75 if I had to guess. There was one in my yard. But no one expected it of the Steeles, because they only show up at party meetings when it serves their personal ambitions. I could be wrong. I'll say I was wrong if either of them shows up at the next two party meeting. I'll even sit with them.

I don't blame Tom Childress or Spot & Rene. There's plenty of blame to go around. I could have made more phone calls...

Do Democrats Eat Their Young?

I've talked already about the problem with marbles - how people in the Northern District seemed to pick theirs up and go home when the primary was over. Another problem we had was simple party unity in the county. And the lack of party unity managed to eventually be personified in one Charles Vernon.

Before I go on I should say that I count Mike Hymes as a friend. I endorsed him on my blog for the Southern District Board of Supervisor’s race. I'm glad he won. I feel much the same about Dan Bowling. I supported him in a letter to the Free Press. I wish he'd won.

I made my feelings about Mr. Vernon's political involvement plain to them. At the time, it didn't matter much. I don't know if it does (matter to them) in retrospect. If I make those feelings public now and perhaps criticize them on the issue, I doubt it will hurt Mike's reelection chances in 2013 or damage our friendships much.

I think of Charles Vernon as somewhat loud and pompous. He tends to use 11 words when seven would be eloquent and four would make the point. We all have our flaws, I suppose.

Vernon originally supported Woodard's campaign - and every other Democrat in the county, even though he makes a point of saying he's an independent. On September 3rd, Vernon published a "letter of non-support" at Rene Steele's forum. It was melodramatic; he "declared war" on Woodard. It was over personalities. Playing the chivalrous knight (the image he seems to want to project) he came to the defense of a damsel in distress: Amy Flick. Amy and Woodard had disagreed on matters concerning the town of Pocahontas. Flick decided she'd support Campbell over it. Whatever.

Vernon's post got just over 100 comments and the thread got just under 2000 viewings in the 61 days leading up to the election. Only seven other people posted to Vernon's thread - including Rene, who owns the forum. Over half the comments were by Vernon himself (who doesn't live in the Northern District). While the thread got about 30 views a day on average, most of those views were problem from the eight people who contributed to the thread.

I doubt Vernon did much to decide who got Rene's vote. I think I know who two of the anonymous posters ("Just a Taxpayer" and "GOP") are, and I don't think either of them live in the Northern District. Woodard lost by 61 votes. Maybe Vernon's thread cost the Woodard Camp one or two dozen votes. I'm sure Vernon will disagree verbosely with my estimate.

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The more important effect that Vernon had, in my opinion, was that he was demoralizing to the party in general at county events. Every time Mike Hymes or Dan Bowling stood around at a public event with Vernon, it sent voters and party people who were familiar with the situation a mixed message. I have to wonder whether having Vernon around didn't cost Bowling as many votes as it gained him - if for no other reason than simple lost enthusiasm among county Democrats.

Vernon commented on my post from yesterday, since it mentioned his name. I told him he had other places where he could share his opinions and that I didn't really feel any obligation to let him post here. He copied that private email I sent him and published elsewhere without so much as informing me - something that doesn't surprise me.

I thought I said it rather well in that email, and since it's now public, I may as well quote it here:

Got your comment. Spare me the formal respect crap; it leaves a taste like eating the icing off a cake... too much sugar.

Don't flatter yourself too much. I don't blame you for the defeat of Woodard. Your credibility in the Northern District political arena was largely borrowed from others - Hymes, Bowling, etc. The day you published your letter of non-support for Davy they should have kicked your ass to the curb. But instead they fed disunity by continuing to associate with you in public, to the party's detriment.

Mike Hymes and Dan Bowling are nice guys. As the last Democrat standing at the moment on the Board of Supervisors, Hymes will become even more of a leader for the party now. And Charles Vernon, on the other hand, is a cancer in the party's side. Keeping him around after this because he serves one or two individual candidates - well, we may as well eat our own young...

The Democratic Primary: Who's Got the Marbles?

At the local level there were a number of mistakes we made as Democrats - mistakes that may have kept us from winning local races.

For starters, we mirrored the mistake the party made in the Governor's race. We had a three-way primary in the Northern District to see who would get the Democratic nomination. It was a bad idea. But none of the three candidates could be dissuaded. And at the end, the two losing candidates picked up their marbles and went home without offering much support to the winner.

If the Steeles ever threw their support back to the Democratic candidate, I missed it. Rene couldn't afford to because it would have alienated the handful of Republicans who follow her forum. Spot is a nice guy; and after losing in the primary we never heard from him again. Most of Spot's followers (judging from precinct returns) voted for the Republican candidate for Board of Supervisors.

Tom Childress was not much better. After dedicating decades of service to the Northern District, Childress considered leaving the party after losing the primary. It was Labor Day (three months down the road) before he came back to the table and supported the Democratic candidate for Board of Supervisor.

I've drawn the conclusion that a caucus in May would have been better than a primary in June. The fight would have been less public. Recovery time would have been shorter. The impact of people picking up their marbles and going home wouldn't have been so great...

Perhaps this weekend I'll tell you what I think of Charles Vernon and the people who consorted with him, and how that impacted the election.

Creigh Deeds' Long Coattails

I've been home almost an 90 minutes after working the Virginia election today. I'm an election official, a precinct chief for the precinct where I vote in Adria, Virginia (Tazewell County). It's been a depressing evening...

In my precinct the Republicans swept all six races. It'd been clear for a couple of weeks that either a.) the science of polling had collapsed or b.) Criegh Deeds was going to lose by a large margin. The polls were right. And while there are certainly a variety of factors in play that determined the outcome, the press and the commercial campaign strategy of Deeds seems to be the largest factor.

Republican Governor-elect Bob McDonnell is a Pat Robertson-style culture war Conservative who toned down his image some for the governor's race. McDonnell wanted to talk about transportation, infrastructure and the economy during the campaign. His plans on those issues met with criticsm from analysist, and under a Democratic governor Virginia has become the best managed state un the union. Deeds could have won on those issues. He decided, instead, to talk about McDonnell. And we heard over and over and over again about McDonnell's views on abortion, McDonnell's views on the role of women in society, McDonnell's appearances on the 700 Club, McDonnell's views on birth control within marriage, etc. It was negative. And it left everyone talking about McDonnell, not Deeds.

Democrats need to figure out that years ago they won the battle on abortion and women's rights, and that pushing it front and center now doesn't really get them anything. I'm not sure the Democratic core is as committed to the abortion issue today as it was in the past. I'm one of the more active, loyal members of my local Democratic Party. I don't really like abortion. I'd end 95% or more of all abortion if I could. I'm a serious enough student of the Bible to doubt that it makes the absolute, definitive statements on abortion that the Religious Right claims. The fact that I might only end 95% of all abortions makes me a baby-killing liberal to the Religious Right and a compromising hypocrite to the far left. I don't think I'm that unusual. Democrats also need to learn that they can't count on all women simply buying into a women's rights agenda. Women are not a homogeneous community.

Deeds had long coattails. His failure took a lot of other candidates down with him - all the way to the local level.

There are other issues. The political demographics of America are simple. Democrats have an urban power base. Republicans have a rural power base. The Democrats in Virginia in this election fielded a candidate for governor from a rural background in a bid to carry rural areas. The bid failed, and they lost urban voters in the process.

It didn't help that many of the federal issues being addressed by a Democratic President are controversial. Health care, Cap & Trade, economic policy in general - all illicit strong emotions from the Political Right. And the bottom line is that Virginia remains a Republican state. Democrats managed to hold the governor's mansion for eight years, to regain a hold on both US Senate seats, and to carry the state once in a row for a Democratic candidate for President. But the state legislature is a GOP body.

Tomorrow (or sometime soon) I may comment on more local considerations in this election.

Working the Election

The Democratic Primary was yesterday in Virginia. This morning I tore the Brian Moran bumper sticker off my car. He came in third out of the three candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor in Virginia. Now I have to find a Deeds bumper sticker...

Of course the real race was the one for our Board of Supervisors seat (County Commission, in most states). No incumbent. Three candidates. Tom Childress has been active in the district's Democratic Party as local chair since the 1970's. Robert "Spot" Steele served previously on the school board and tried to take the seat away from a sitting board member in the caucus process a couple of years ago. Davy Woodard is a sitting member of the School Board.

I picked up voting machines on Monday after work. Monday was my last day of the year as a teacher. Other teachers worked Tuesday; I took a personal day. I got to the polls just after 5am. We set up the machines and looked at the new computer-based poll books. All the voter records are on laptops now instead of in big computer printouts. It worked marvelously and I spent the day with two other very pleasant poll workers - waiting for voters to straggle in. Not many did.

Tom is easily the most qualified person on paper. He came in third, despite being well organized and having workers out at the crack of dawn at the poling precincts.

Spot and his wife, Rene', manage a mission that provides food and other items for needy people in the county. That provided for the appearance of conflict of interest (or something like it) in the caucus process a couple of years ago. There's some overlap between those who vote for him and those who are served by the mission.

Davy's a nice guy without much political experience.

Tom and Spot had signs and people at the polls. Davy won by six votes.

Voter turn out was just the other side of pitiful. In my precinct, 51 of the 778 registered voters turned out. My precinct was strong for Spot in past elections. If 10 more people had made it to the polls in Adria, Spot would have won the election by a vote or two.

And people feel like their vote doesn't really matter...

The Republican Know-Nothings...

I think it is hilarious, the extent to the GOP employs the "fear and loathing" approach to political support. The idea is simple: talk about something the public is afraid of, feed their fear (reasonable or unreasonable), and the offer to fix it. No sincerity is required.

When Tim Kaine ran for Governor of Virginia I would hear radio ads for his opponent, Jerry Kilgore. In my neck of the woods, Kilgore seems to be playing a fiddle with just two strings. On the one string his ads would tell us that we shouldn't vote for Kaine because, why, Kaine was a Catholic and the Pope wouldn't let people be executed in Virginia while Kaine was governor. (Kilgore assumed I'd think this was bad.) The other string played a note about illegal immigrants and how the state could save thousands over dollars by identifying them and being sure they weren't paying in-state tuition at Virginia Tech. I thought, "They got in to Tech? Jezz, leave them alone!"

Kilgore lost, even though he started out as the frontrunner. I'd like to think his racist rhetoric and the manner in which he patronized voters had something to do with that...

Now we are getting the same thing from presidential candidates. Romney and Giuliani want to out do each other with who can be the most hard line on immigration. The irony is that neither of them were hard line on immigration until they began running for president. But they know that fear and loathing plays well with rednecks in rural Idaho and old white ladies in Florida. So they've all become a bunch of know nothings.

The Know Nothings were a political movement in the 1850's. They were scared of what the Irish might do to America. And they played the fear and loathing card to get elected.

There's a good piece in the Boston Globe about Romney and Giuliani and the Know Nothings.

Immigration is a much more complicated issue than the GOP wants you to believe. Don't let fear and loathing determine how you vote...

Could You Vote for Hillary?

Eight years ago (give or take a few months) people started asking me if I could vote for Al Gore. It usually wasn't really a question - it was more of an accusation. They'd tell me that Gore was arrogant and over-educated (I always wondered what was wrong with being over-educated). They'd tell me Gore was stupid, that he thought he'd invented the Internet (which, obviously, he hadn't), and that Al made fun of Oliver North at a 1987 Senate hearing where North told Congress that one day Osama Bin Laden was going to be a problem (You remember that email? The truth is that Gore wasn't on the committee and never questioned North). Then they'd tell me something like that Bush had better judgment and would make a good president - and they'd finish with something about how a Bush presidency would be good for public education in America....


Four years ago those same people started asking me if I could vote for John Kerry. And, again, it usually sounded more like an accusation than a question. They'd tell me that Kerry was a hypocrite because he only threw cheap ribbons that can be replaced anyway instead of real medals at whatever that protest event was. They'd tell me Kerry didn't really earn those three purple hearts, anyway, and that they knew he didn't because Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said he didn't (and we all knew they were a disinterested party speaking on behalf of God and justice). And they'd tell that Kerry was really just a pansy who owed most of what he'd accomplished in life to money he got from his wife with the funny accent. Then they'd tell me that it was unpatriotic to vote against Bush in the middle of a war (even if he started it)....

Now those same people have started asking me if I could vote for Hillary. And it sounds like an accusation again.

I voted for Kerry. I think I voted for Gore, but that was a long time ago and I'm not absolutely positive.

When the Democratic Primary comes around in my state, I'll probably vote for John Edwards. For reasons I can't really quantify, reasons that have as much to do with personality as with politics, I don't really like Hillary all that much. But on November 4th, 2008, if the choice comes down to Hillary Clinton or Fred Thompson, or maybe Hillary vs. Newt Gingrich, I will not stay home and curl up in bed and pull the covers over my head.

The Republicans have spent eight years trying to privatize public education and take America backwards in time to before it was a Great Society. They started an expensive war to satisfy personal agendas. And when it's all said and done I'll go out on November 4th next year and vote for whomever I think is most likely to clean up the mess that George W. Bush and the GOP have made of America. And I'll do it at least in part because it's my patriotic duty.

The answer, then, is "yes." I'll almost certainly vote for someone else when Virginia holds its Democratic Presidential Primary on February 12th. But if it comes to that, I could vote for Hillary on November 4th next year. Quickly, and without much reservation...

The Reincarnation of Bobby Kennedy?

Could John Edwards be the reincarnation of Bobby Kennedy?

I don't actually believe in reincarnation (not many Baptists do). Plus the math doesn't work: John Edwards was a few days shy of being 15 years old when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. But Kennedy succeeded in 1968 in convincing America that a man can be rich and still care about the poor. And he did it partly with a campaign trip that took him through the heart of Appalachia.

Edwards will spend three days on a poverty tour not unlike Kennedy's trip. The "Road to One America Tour" will leave New Orleans Monday morning and travel 1800 miles through some of America's poorest cities and rural counties. And Edwards plans to end his journey where Kennedy did 40 years ago, in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.

The Edwards tour starts tomorrow night in New Orleans, in the Lower Ninth Ward. Hurricane Katrina left that area of the city particularly devastated and recovery efforts have not been very successful there.

Edwards will also stop in

• Marks, Mississippi, where Martin Luther King Jr. began his 1968 Poor People's March to Washington.
  
• Helena and West Helena, Arkansas
  
• Memphis, Tennessee
  
• Cleveland, Ohio
  
• Youngstown, Ohio
  
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  
• Wise, Virginia
  
• And Whitesburg, Kentucky

The tour will end Wednesday with a visit a health care clinic in Wise, Va., and meeting in Whitesburg where Edwards will talk with area youth about economic opportunity, and finally a speech at the Floyd County, Kentucky, Courthouse where Robert Kennedy spoke.

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"It's time to be patriotic about something
other than the war in Iraq." - John Edwards

A Safer World: Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore Drops Out of the Presidential Race

The world is a safer place today: Former Virginia Governor James Stuart "Jim" Gilmore III ended his bid to become the forty-fourth president of the United States.

In a statement, Gilmore blamed his campaign's failure on the move to earlier primaries in some may major states like New York and California. But the Associated Press reported that Gilmore was down to only $90,000 in his campaign war chest. With more than five months before the first primary, Gilmore's campaign was simply unable to raise money.

Gilmore was governor of Virginia from 1998 to 2002. He was elected on a tax relief promise that ultimately amounted to a bait-and-switch ploy. He promised to eliminate the car tax in Virginia, and he succeeded in reducing it drastically before the end of his term. While reducing the car tax was the "bait," the "switch" occurred when his administration failed to replace those funds (as he'd promised) in local government coffers. Almost every penny collected in car tax revenue went to county and city governments, not the Commonwealth's purse in Richmond.

Gilmore's election strategy had been based on the hope that he world be recognized as one of the GOP's true conservatives - and anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, anti-gay, pro-gun lobby, fiscally conservative candidate who wanted to shift more of the cost of public education on to local governments during his term as governor.

"I didn't run some place and pretend I was a liberal and run someplace else as a conservative. I just didn't do that," Gilmore once said. He was fond of comparing his political life to Ronald Reagan.

Jim Gilmore: the first of the major GOP candidates to drop. Good damn riddance!

Fred Thompson: Hero to Rodent at the Speed of Sound

"Dumb as Hell." That was former President Nixon's description of Fred Thompson in February of 1973 when Thompson became one of the two co-chief counsels to the Senate Watergate Committee. By June 6 (15 weeks later), Nixon's opinion hadn't changed; according to a recent Associated Press story, Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, can be heard on one White House tape explaining to then President Nixon that Thompson was "friendly," even if he wasn't very smart.

The truth about Fred Thompson surfaced recently as the Associated Press was reviewing Nixon Era White House tapes.

Sarah Baxter, a columnist for the Times of London, is blunt: Thompson was Nixon's "mole" in the Senate Watergate Committee. Imagine... One century he was a hero, the guy that asked the BIG question ("Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?"). And Fred Thompson was credited with writing the question that summed up Watergate, that meanest of questions that Thompson's mentor, Senate Howard Baker (R-TN) asked former White House counsel John Dean ("What did the president know and when did he know it?"). Then the next century rolls around and everyone figures out that when Thompson asked White House aide Alexander Butterfield about tapes and listening devices, Thompson already knew the answer and asked the questions mostly so that his friends in the White House would know that the Senate knew about the tapes. Democrats on the committee when incensed that Thompson let the cat out of the bag on that issue.

Oh, and the Baker question? Some historians now thinks that it was originally intended to show that whether the president was involved in the Watergate scandal came down to the word of one witness (John Dean) against the word of a sitting President. Which was true until the tapes came to light.

Rarely do people get such a glimpse into how history will remember them. When the tapes were reviewed, Thompson went from being the tough hero who asked the hard questions to a rodent (a mole) at the speed of sound (the sound of those tapes).

Does Thompson play up his Watergate hero credentials? Sarabeth at 1115 Dot Org points out that:

To hear Freddie tell it, he was singlehandedly responsible for bringing down Richard Nixon’s house of cards. He was the “hard-charging counsel on the Watergate committee” who took the lead in revealing “the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office”.

And now we find out that Nixon's attorney, Buzhardt, spent days coaching Thompson on how to question John Dean because the Nixon White House wasn't sure Thompson was smart enough to carry that much water for them...

But in Fred Thompson's case the irony is that after decades of pretending to be the hero, Conservatives in America may actually like him more because they now know he "Carried water for the (Republican) White House," as one historian puts it. And the rest of America? Unfortunately they may well view the issue as being long ago in a far away place and not take into account what living the charade for so long says about Thompson's character.

I suspect that other character issues and conflicts will surface for Thompson as his years as a Washington lobbyist come under scrutiny. As one blog I read today has already pointed out, when it's all said and done, Thompson may go the way of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The LA Times recently reported that Thompson took money from a pro-choice group for his services as a lobbyist and then told them he spoke to John Sununu several times on their behalf when Sununu was White House Chief of Staff for the first President Bush. If he lied to them, he committed criminal fraud, the same kind of fraud that Abramoff is now in jail for. If, on the other hand, he really did lobby the White House for a pro-choice group, his status as the Right-to-Life candidate is in the crapper.

Thompson needs those conservative credentials; charm (and good acting) will only take him so far...

Leading in Iowa: John Edwards

John Edwards is the Democratic Party's frontrunner in Iowa, according to a recent poll by the Des Moines Sunday Register. A win in Iowa could move Edwards up in the polls nationally. But the Iowa Caucuses are still about eight months away.

At the moment, 29% of likely voters in Iowa would vote for Edwards. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is second with 23% and Hillary Clinton is in third place with 21% of the vote.

Black Wednesday

Tomorrow is Wednesday. I'll have to iron a black shirt. And a black pair of pants. And perhaps polish my black boots a little. Because on Wednesdays I wear black...

It's been that way for 132 weeks. On November 2, 2004 I worked as a poll worker for Tazewell County, Virginia, at the Springville polling place. I think I worked about 17 hours that day. I came home and went to bed. And when I got up the next morning it took me about seven or eight minutes to figure out the George Walker Bush was still president. I wore black to work that day. And for 130 of the 132 Wednesdays since the election I've worn black whenever I left the house.

The two exceptions? The day after Democrat Tim Kaine won the governor's race in Virginia I wore more festive colors to work. (Since I work in West Virginia, half my co-workers never fully understood why.) I also dressed quite colorfully on the Wednesday after the most recent midterm election - the one where Democrats won back Congress.

When is the next opportunity for a colorful Wednesday? At some point in 2008 I expect No Child Left Behind to face reauthorization. I'd like to see the Highly Qualified Teachers provision and the accountability provisions of the law revised considerably. I'd also like to see the name changed; NCLB is leaving children behind in droves.

If the law governing public education in America is revised substantially I may well dye my hair some strange shade and wear a green shirt and purple tie to work the next day...

Talking Back to the Village Idiot?

I occasionally write letters to the editor. Often my letters are in response to someone else's letter. Someone writes in and misrepresents some data, skews the truth on some issue or topic I hold dear. I feel compelled to correct their misinformation, to point out the inaccuracy. The problem I often encounter is that if I don't respond, those who read that first letter believe it. But if I do respond, some people think I'm as dense as the first person.

So the question becomes, how do you know when you're just talking back to the village idiot? (And is that really something you want to do?)

It's not always easy to decide...

The GOP Debates

I'm a Democrat. I haven't always been. But 10 years or so ago I became active in local politics and joined the Democratic Party because I found it best fit my values and world view.

The quote of the night probably came out of Giuliani's mouth a few minutes ago: "Neither party has a monopoly or either virtue or vice." Until recently that was an amazing revelation for many Republicans.

My least favorite GOP candidate? So far it's Jim Gilmore. He should be in jail for the way he raped local government in Virginia during his tenure as governor. His "No More Car Tax" campaign took pretty much every penny of tax savings out of local government coffers instead of state accounts. For Arlington and Alexandria, maybe they coped alright. But in rural Virginia Gilmore is occasionally burnt in effigy. And rightfully so...