June Maryland Assembly District 20 candidate forum
The Maryland primaries are sneaking up the schedule -- they'll be on September 12 -- and I've been meaning to post some notes from a Democratic candidates' forum I went to a couple of weeks ago at the Takoma Park Community Center. I had to leave before the event was over, but a video of the event can be viewed via the Takoma Voice.

Voting for Maryland General Assembly delegates is a little unusual by U.S. standards in that each district's voters elect three district-wide candidates in the general election. In my deep blue part of Maryland -- District 20 -- winning the Democratic primaries may be the main hurdle for would-be delegates to overcome. Although Green Party candidate Linda Schade finished with a respectable 13.6% of the regular election vote in 2002, she would have needed at least half again as many votes to actually contend for a seat.

Two delegates from the district are seeking re-election -- Sheila Hixson and Gareth Murray. The third, Peter Franchot, has decided to run for State Comptroller against the execrable DINO Donald Schaefer, leaving an open seat. As a result, the race has attracted what I think can safely be described as an exceptionally strong field of candidates.

So readers know my own biases, I strongly supported the model voter-verified electronic voting and Fair Share Health Care bills in the last legislative session, and I'm leaning to making climate change a top issue in my voting decisions. For that and related reasons, I favor a Metro Purple Line*, at least over the "ICC." That's the Intercounty Connector, a highway intended to serve as a kind of second partial outer Beltway, and strongly favored by Governor Ehrlich, Montgomery County executive Doug Duncan, and the Washington Post. Candidates with decent track records or plans bearing on these issues will get my favorable attention.

The forum I attended gave each candidate a chance for an opening statement. That segment was followed by questions from the moderator (Takoma Voice publisher Eric Bond), with each candidate giving a response and sometimes a followup clarification or elaboration of that response. This was followed by questions previously submitted by the audience, which were handled similarly.

I'll spare readers a minute by minute account of all that in favor of just recording my impressions of each candidate (in alphabetic order, just as they were seated), and what they said or what I've learned that might serve to distinguish them from the others. Personally, I still haven't completely made up my mind about which three candidates I'll support in the primaries; it's a tough decision.


Sheila Hixson (incumbent)
"Proudly representing Montgomery County in the Maryland House of Delegates for over two decades," as her campaign brochure emphasizes, Ms. Hixson has been chair of the House Ways & Means committee since 1993. Last year I was very unhappy with Ms. Hixson for blocking a measure supplementing electronic voting machines with "paper trails," but this year she changed course and supported a model bill that sailed through the House before foundering in the Senate.

For all that her powerful position in the House is an important leg up for Takoma Park, I felt Ms. Hixson was less able than other candidates to describe what her overarching legislative and political goals were. Her statements at the meeting were, perhaps understandably, focussed on the details of the recent legislative session, but the resulting slew of "lost this by two votes" and "won that by three" didn't tell me much about which votes were actually important to her. Her campaign literature emphasizes she has sponsored legislation to accelerate the Earned Income Tax Credit, provide adequate funding for special education students, and anti-discrimination and domestic violence initiatives, while her web site also emphasizes a variety of measures like EITC that benefit senior citizens. Also to her credit, Ms. Hixson voted for the landmark "Fair Share Health Care" bill last year.

As I recall, Ms. Hixson allowed that she was now against the ICC -- another turnabout from years gone by** -- but also considered it a "foregone conclusion" at this point. Since she was presumably the most powerful politician on the dais that evening, that's discouraging -- and an indication that either her powers as the chairman of the Ways and Means committee have their limits, her opposition isn't that strong, or both.

Tom Hucker
Hucker may bring the most interesting background to the campaign -- director of the well-known grassroots political advocacy and canvassing organization Progressive Maryland. Far from running as a pure outsider, Hucker touted his experience lobbying Maryland delegates and networking with them on issues like Fair Share as a key strength of his candidacy. Similarly, he has garnered some impressive endorsements.

Regarding health care, Hucker made the point that Maryland should at least avoid "going backwards," referring to the upcoming 2007 expiration of CareFirst's nonprofit status. He made a similar "holding action" statement about the ICC, saying the issue now was to stop a full outer Beltway. Ulp.

Arriving late because of a previously scheduled campaign event, Hucker seemed very energetic to me, if also a bit like, say, a salesman or -- that's it -- a Progressive Maryland door canvasser, with that intent way of trying to get you buy into the pitch that the good ones have. But it's also a good pitch in a good cause, and he may be worth voting for.

Aaron Klein
Klein is a youthful public finance expert who has worked for Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) as chief Democratic economist on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee. In his remarks, one thing he stressed is that he's from the area -- Takoma Park Middle School, Montgomery Blair High School. This may be to offset the mixed blessing that the words "Senate staffer" can be in a local race, or it may be to subtly distinguish himself from Heather Mizeur, who has a similar resume, but grew up in Illinois.

The biggest challenge facing Maryland was school construction, Klein said, getting applause when he said there were "too many portables" housing classrooms. (Maddie was in one this last year, but to tell the truth, it didn't seem so bad to me. I'll have to check with mom for our official position on that, though.) As his campaign site also emphasizes, he strongly supports the Purple Line, and he commented that he "knew where the money was buried" in Congress that could help pay for it ...which got a laugh.

Regarding affordable housing, he joined Mizeur in mentioning the Montgomery County MPDU (Moderately Priced Development Unit) program, which requires participating builders to set aside affordable housing in exchange for the right to build at higher densities. But unlike Mizeur, Klein said it was simply no longer sufficient, and implied it needed better incentives.

Lucinda Lessley
Ms. Lessley stressed her extensive experience as budget policy advisor to the Assembly she now intends to join as a delegate. She has most recently worked for Congressman Elijah Cummings, a senior member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Like Klein, Mizeur, and Hucker, she's young and seems extremely bright and dedicated.

Of all the candidates at the meeting, Lessley hit something like the right note for me when asked what Maryland's biggest challenges were. While agreeing with others that the Purple Line is an important goal, she added that she believed Maryland needed to change the way it managed growth and development, by adding regional and statewide perspectives to the traditional county roles and by strengthening smart growth laws. This seems to be a theme of her candidacy, judging by her web site, where she writes:

...Only a coordinated planning process that examines development from a regional perspective can ensure that Marylanders do not waste time and fuel on congested roads, send their children to overcrowded schools, and watch our State’s natural resources â€" particularly the Chesapeake Bay â€" suffer irrevocable harm.

Ms. Lessley has also made an interesting campaign promise that sets her campaign apart from the others: she "will not use a position in the General Assembly as a springboard to higher office ... my goal is to achieve the seniority in the General Assembly that would enable me to be the strongest possible voice for our District."

Heather Mizeur
You could say Ms. Mizeur one- or two-ups Aaron Klein by being Senator John Kerry's domestic policy advisor and a Takoma Park councilwoman. Both in her remarks to the audience and on her web site, she stresses her union background -- her dad was active in the UAW, and she walked the picket line with him.

Mizeur identified education as one of Maryland's biggest challenges, but spent more time talking about changing the state's tax structure, which she said is too regressive. In response to a question about health care, Mizeur mentioned she was familiar with Senator Kerry's national single payer health care plan, which she proposed "scaling" to Maryland. Mizeur touted aggregate electricity purchases from wind and other renewable power sources as one approach to global warming that the state could accelerate, and advocated not letting developers buy out of the MPDU state grant program

Mizeur's web site (which is pretty slick, but can take a while to load) lists verifiable voting as one of the main issues she hopes to address, and mentions her vote protection work on the Kerry-Edwards Maryland campaign. So she's good to go on that issue.

Like Mr. Hucker, Mizeur mentioned already having many political relationships throughout the state, in her case from being the Maryland Kerry-Edwards campaign director. Speaking of Hucker, it looks like Mizeur has some sharp elbows, too; she seems to have snapped up the tomhucker.org and .com web domains, which are "parked free" at GoDaddy.com and lie largely unused -- except for Mizeur ads in the middle of the page.

CORRECTION, 7/7: Ms. Mizeur e-mails to clarify: "I have not purchased the tomhucker.com or .org websites... Tom owns them but just hasn’t put a site up yet. I have an aggressive internet advertisement campaign on Google which keys to the names of D20 candidates and words like “progressive, democrat, takoma park, silver spring, etc."
Gareth Murray (incumbent)
Mr. Murray may have not done himself a favor at the meeting I attended; when the candidates were asked whether they supported gay marriage, Murray -- a Baptist minister -- was the only one who did not answer with a simple "yes." Murray emphasized that "religious ceremonies were not where the rights are," appearing to favor civil unions for gays and lesbians wanting the legal benefits of marriage. It should be emphasized that he's not intolerant or homophobic; for example, the minister attended and supported an "Equality Maryland" rally against so-called "conversion therapy," which purports to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality, often via psychological pressure about their status as true Christians.

Starting out with what may have been an ironic "Purple Line forever," according to my notes, Murray went on to say that he felt affordable housing was a key Maryland issue, without which the Purple Line "wouldn't matter", since people priced out of the local market (including essential services like police and firefighting) would need to commute in to local jobs from further out of town -- so points for a more down to earth take on the kind of thing Lessley was talking about.

Murray said he hoped to help slow conversion of affordable housing to condominiums, and instead encourage measures helping renters to co-own their housing. He also joined Hixson in calling for some kind of relief for seniors facing high property taxes. While some of these are pretty sensible positions, it should also be pointed out that Murray supported the ICC back in 2002.

In the last legislative session, Murray voted for the Fair Share Health Care bill and the HB 244 model voter-verified electronic voting bill (of course, so did everyone else, that one passed 173-0). He has sponsored bills to improve Maryland nursing homes, and has been part of a Commission on Men's Health.

UPDATE, 7/9: A reader forwards two articles reporting Mr. Murray didn't favor a statewide domestic partner registry, either (April 2004, Feb 2005). Mr. Murray's reasons make little sense to me.

Diane Nixon
Ms. Nixon, who works at Georgetown Hospital, has run for the Assembly before, narrowly losing to Gareth Murray in 2002. Her good showing was possibly due to a Takoma Voice suggestion that voters see her as a kind of "none of the above" choice. In her opening remarks, she mentioned she considered herself an animal rights advocate as well as being concerned about hospital oversight.** She's also on record as an open birth records activist.

Despite her modest platform, Ms. Nixon would occasionally make comments that kind of endeared her to me. At one point, for example, after the other candidates had proposed all manner of policies against global warming, Ms. Nixon said that it was important to preserve birds and trees. Which is true, really, and even arguably a radical way to look at the issue. (The "birds" part may have been prompted by her skepticism about wind power, which was touted by many of the other candidates, but is known to be a potential danger to migratory birds.) Still, I think I'm ruling her out at this point, since she brings less political or policy experience to the table than the other candidates.

UPDATE, 7/10: Ms. Nixon e-mailed me today, and says she has more experience and a broader platform than I described: "I have been a legislative consultant in Annapolis for the past twenty years. I have written bills that have passed overwhelmingly ... I am proud of being an advocate for animal protection issues, but my campaign is about many other issues, some of which include health care, fighting crime, and protecting the environment." The full text of her e-mail is included as a comment.



As I mentioned, I had to leave the forum before it concluded, but I think I got a pretty good impression of the candidates. I welcome comments and corrections about any of the above. Again, I think it's a very strong field, and District 20 will be well represented no matter who wins.


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* I'm agnostic about the exact route and plan for the Purple Line; the Sierra Club, Inner Purple Line.org, and the Coalition for Smarter Growth discuss some of the alternatives.
** An old, undated document at the ICC opponents site ICCfacts.com lists Hixson and Murray as supporters -- alongside a number of other Democrat stalwarts like Peter Franchot and Chris Van Hollen.
* ENDORSEMENTS -- The endorsement listings for each candidate are probably incomplete. Links to each verified endorsement or set of endorsements follow: Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA); Progressive Maryland (but see also questions raised by some candidates about this year's endorsement process); Progressive Democrats of America; Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund; Montgomery County Career Firefighters (MCC Firefighters)
** Lest this unsettle Georgetown Hospital customers, Ms. Nixon explained that she thinks her hospital is very good, but that hospitals should undergo snap, unscheduled inspections rather than scheduled ones.

EDIT, 7/7: Removed a "Well, shoot" etc. comment from the correction to the Mizeur segment, and replaced "UPDATE" with "CORRECTION" in red; I'm persuaded I took my theory too lightly.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:22:00 PM -- |    

 
Land of the free
Vietnam veteran Mike Ferner:

Yesterday afternoon, drinking a cup of coffee while sitting in the Jesse Brown V.A. Medical Center on Chicago's south side, a Veterans Administration cop walked up to me and said, 'OK, you've had your 15 minutes, it's time to go.'

'Huh?', I asked intelligently, not quite sure what he was talking about.

'You can't be in here protesting,' Officer Adkins said, pointing to my Veterans For Peace shirt.

(Via Radley Balko.) The story continues downhill from there, Ferner is in the market for a Chicago area attorney, and the U.S. government's battle to keep itself safe from free speech continues. Little did Andy Warhol know everybody's fifteen minutes would turn into a time limit for peaceful self expression.


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EDIT, 7/5: Realized Warhol's 15 minutes were a lower bound on fame, not an upper one, and changed the last sentence accordingly. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:15:00 PM -- |    

 
Dana Priest, I think I love you
Roger Ailes, writing at "firedoglake," chronicles the "Meet The Press" encounter between William "Book of Virtues" Bennett and Dana Priest, the Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post reporter:

The highlight of roundtable (which can be seen here, at Eschaton) involved Dana Priest’s response to Bennett’s assertion that she and the New York Times reporters should be jailed for publishing classified information. Priest stated that publishing classified information is legal, except in certain narrow circumstances. Deflating the gasbag with a single prick, Priest added that some people wanted to make casino gambling illegal, but that doesn’t make it illegal.

(Second link added.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:36:00 PM -- |    

 
Wal-Mart economics -- and Wal-Mart voters
Slate has been running a fascinating debate between Barbara Ehrenreich and Jason Furman under the heading "Is Wal-Mart Good For America?" As Ehrenreich points out, it's an odd pairing: she's an activist and author who went 'undercover' to document what it's like to work for Wal-Mart, he's a liberal economist perhaps best known for his arguments that Wal-Mart is, indeed, good for America, and in fact particularly for the poorest Americans.

Furman's arguments center, as they must, on the huge productivity gains due to the Wal-Mart business model, and the payouts in cheaper goods particularly for low-income Americans. In making these arguments, he ignores, as he must, that even greater productivity gains could come by simply enslaving Wal-Mart clerks and selling the tube socks they stock for a quarter and the TV sets they move from warehouse to storeroom for a buck and a half. This isn't possible, of course -- but the reason lies outside Furman's core competence of economics, in the precise rock-bottom labor conditions Americans are politically willing to countenance.

The issue with Wal-Mart, to me, is that they have found a way to game American politics and policy by outsourcing health care costs and even living wage costs to the rest of the country by running a full-time, powerful megabusiness on part-time, powerless labor inputs. The vaunted national "productivity" gains resulting from Wal-Mart's business model are an Enron-like accounting scam. Those gains are achieved by squashing their own labor costs and those of suppliers with both taxpayer help and illegal union-busting methods. Thus, I would argue that Wal-Mart's economic success is in part a mirage resting on a labor market failure abetted by the NLRB, and on political failures that states like Maryland, unwilling to foot substantial health care costs by themselves any longer, are finally addressing with "Fair Share Health Care" bills.*

For her part, Ehrenreich concludes:

What is it that we really differ over? We both want higher wages and more generous government social programs; we both voted for Kerry; we're both in the upper-middle class or pretty close. The difference, I think, lies in our mental ZIP codes. Where you see some unfortunate, but not really all that bad, numbers, I see human crises, and I see them in my extended family and my network of friends as well as in the letters I get from readers: The car that gets you to work breaks down and is going to cost $200 to repair. The baby gets sick so you miss a day's work and face the possibility of losing your job. Your back goes out and you can't scurry around the floor picking up tossed merchandise any more.

You're screwed, in short, and, until we all pull together and fight like hell for a better deal, there's no help coming.

This seemed to finally get Furman's goat. Unable after all to let his prior response be his last, he responds (in part):

So, you want to go further to pressure Wal-Mart to raise wages and benefits, to make it a better company? If that's all it was about, count me in. But the principal methods are preventing the spread of Wal-Mart's benefits to new communities (like my hometown, New York City), living wages at $15 an hour, retail-specific minimum wage rules like Chicago's and Maryland's pay-for-play that target a single company that already provides decent health benefits.

The collateral damage from these efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits is way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy more broadly for me to sit by idly and sing "Kum-Ba-Ya" in the interests of progressive harmony. Not to mention the collateral damage to rational thought from many of the arguments made by the anti-Wal-Mart community, including the arguments I noted in my last post that undermine food stamps and the progressive taxation.

Pretty warm exit strategy there: condescending "Kum-Ba-Ya" remark -- check! Opponents incapable/unwilling to engage in rational thought -- check! And of course, sliding in a "decent health benefits" assertion that is all too easily refuted -- there's nothing decent about health benefits with the kind of huge deductibles Wal-Mart requires of its low pay workers.

Even were the market always right, there's still reason to think Furman is wrong. That's because even Wal-Mart shoppers -- the purported beneficiaries of Wal-Mart's methods -- are not as on board with the country's direction as you'd think they would be if the low, low price of underwear were the only thing on their minds. Writing at the blog "RealClearPolitics," Ryan Sager describes the rise and possible fall of one element of Republican voting strength of the past years -- "Wal-Mart voters":

What's Wal-Mart got to do with anything? Not a whole lot, except as a symbol of a particular type of voter: largely Southern, rural, lower-middle-class, female, socially conservative -- not big fans of tax cuts, but huge fans of government programs.

Outsourcing health care to state Medicaid systems, unionbusting, and strip mining rural economies may be about to bite Wal-Mart and its political patrons right where it hurts. The shift in attitudes among these voters over the last several years has been nothing short of seismic:

Zogby finds that while 85 percent of frequent Wal-Mart shoppers voted for President Bush's reelection in 2004 (and 88 percent of people who never shop there voted for Sen. John Kerry), Wal-Mart voters have turned on the president dramatically. In a poll taken earlier this month, they gave Bush a 35 percent approval rating -- compared to a 45 percent positive rating from born-again Christians, 49 percent from NASCAR fans, and 54 percent from self-identified conservatives.

Most worrying for the GOP: Fifty-one percent of Wal-Mart voters agreed with the statement that it's "time for the Democrats to take over and run" Congress -- as opposed to just 31 percent who think "Republicans deserve to retain control."

Assuming not all of this shift is due to closely observing Bush's signing statements or the upsurge in Shia-Sunni tensions in Iraq, I'm guessing there's also a bit of dissatisfaction there with this, the greatest of all possible economies. I'll close this post by noting this dovetails nicely with observations -- well, hopes -- I expressed after the 2004 election, in "The road back -- take on Wal-Mart":

Wal-Mart is not just a deserving political target, but a useful one over the next four years: it was spawned in "Red State," rural territory, and its roots remain there. To the extent Democrats and union organizers can succeed in bettering the lot of Wal-Mart workers, they will have found allies across the country, in precisely the areas Democrats need support, among precisely the working people from whom they need to earn it.

Maybe they haven't succeeded yet with bettering the lot of Wal-Mart workers, but it seems like a lot of Wal-Mart shoppers are willing to give them a chance.


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* Maryland's Fair Share Health Care measure calls for businesses with over 10,000 employees to either pay at least 8% of payroll to health benefits, or make up the difference with payments to a dedicated state Medicaid account.
NOTE: Sager article via Steve Benen ("The Carpetbagger Report").

UPDATE, 7/5: Reader WorldWideWeber points out an excellent London Review of Books article about Wal-Mart, "The Price of Pickles," by John Lanchester. But see also Jason Furman's Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story to recognize again that Furman is also concerned about shortcomings of the American economy; in his view, though, singling out Wal-Mart is counterproductive.

UPDATE, 7/11: Forgot to mention I crossposted this to Daily Kos -- and forgot to check back in until now. Good news: 31 comments! Bad news: many of them about Barbara Ehrenreich voting for Nader back in 2000. But not all of them are about that; at any rate, the post was recommended by quite a few people, so maybe it was also read by a lot of people.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:49:00 AM -- |    

 
I find this helps: barbecued beef ribs
I found these recipes in a "Summer Grilling" edition of cooksillustrated.com, then modified them a bit, then tested them this past weekend, and then rewrote them a bit.


Get the beef ribs ready: wait for a sale, then buy a lot. 7-8 lbs. (remember, bones) feeds four adults who discover they want more after all. Make a rub: 8 parts chili powder, 1 part cayenne, 4 parts salt, 4 parts pepper. Sprinkle or rub it on the ribs. Sprinkling isn't as messy, and it still sticks, you can wipe the ribs around in the spices that get away on the dish.

Barbecue them: use a chimney starter, people. It works without all that starter fluid fume huffing. Fill a big one up about halfway, light it; once flames appear on top, empty the chimney on one side of the grill; there should be a pile about two briquets deep. If you have soaked hickory chips, put a bunch of them on the coals; if not, don't worry about it. Put the ribs on the other side, meat side down. Put an aluminum pan under them so you have less of a mess later on. Close the grill cover. If your grill allows it, make smoke escape on the meat side of the grill, but give the coals all the air you can from underneath.

Here's the key hard part: Do not open the grill for one hour. Peeking is counterproductive: you lose heat. The goal is 250 F air temperature, if you can measure that somehow.

After an hour, add some more charcoal, maybe half or two thirds of the original amount. Turn over the ribs, rotate the ones closest to the fire away from it if you like, fuss around, act concerned. Close the lid. Do not open it for another hour and a half.

Dip them in rib sauce: saute a diced medium onion, and some garlic cloves pressed or minced into tasty little bits. Then add 2 cups tomato juice, 3/4 cup white vinegar; molasses and worcestershire sauce to taste, couple tablespoons or so each; chili powder, ground pepper, salt, a teaspoon or so each; a little dry mustard if you've got it, and a bit of minced hot chile if you like that. (Vary proportions as you see fit.) Simmer for a while until it's a little thicker, then let it cool. Oh my dear lord is it good.

Eat them: serve with cole slaw, baked beans, and cold beer. You will be happy. We were.

Happy July 4th! posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:12:00 AM -- |    

 
Would everyone please buck up
Maybe my "dancing Snoopy" was over the top, but you'd think the Supreme Court had just OK'd torture while snacking on Hamdan's freshly slaughtered remains, the way some people are managing to find or sense defeat in the jaws of Thursday's victory.

No one ever said a Hamdan victory would be the end of it. But right now, for a change, the uphill fight is theirs, not ours. Let's not cede this high ground: a Supreme Court ruling has certified that the Geneva Conventions and their reflection in the Uniform Code of Military Justice are the law of the land, ignored at the peril of committing war crimes. Military lawyers already get that. So howler monkeys like Rush Limbaugh or John Boehner can scream all they want, but they are going to have to scream their way to a supermajority of the Senate and the abrogation of one of the world's great agreements to undo Hamdan.

I'm nearly as concerned with the knowing comments and posts here and in some of the corners of the blogosphere as with likely weak-kneed behavior by the usual Vichy Democrats. There's a point where pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're close to that, if we can't win on high ground like Hamdan - let alone if we don't seem to want to even make the effort.

I admit I don't know what that effort should best be, and I'm very open to any suggestions. But I'm not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. For my part, I'm starting with writing my two Senators telling them they had better get to work fixing Guantanamo so it squares with the Constitution and human rights -- and warning them they had better not even vote for cloture of debate on any bill that attempts to circumvent Hamdan and Geneva Conventions human rights guarantees for any U.S. detainees.* And I'll follow up with a letter to the editor of the Washington Post. We need to fight for this now, and make this what people of honor are about now, and not wait and see what November brings.

I feel likewise about the warrantless surveillance issue and other threats and proofs of Bush lawlessness, and I continue to believe outright promises of censure, investigations and the possibility of impeachment is a winning strategy, because it is an honest one.

"Had enough of King Bush?" That's the bumpersticker version of what I think -- I've long since had enough. So have a lot of us. But we're not going to win anything by always sitting back and predicting how Bush and Rove and Cheney and Addington are going to get around this one.


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* Readers in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington, and other states with unreliable Democratic Senators might do even more good with a letter like that. Readers in Tennessee, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Virginia and other states like those could at least remind their Senators what they believe.


UPDATE, 7/3: It occurs to me that U.S. Grant made a similar point, but better, one hundred and forty years ago during the Battle of the Wilderness, responding to an officer worried about what Robert E. Lee would do next:

…I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault and land in our rear and on both flanks at the same time. Go back to your command and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.

Another thing about that battle: by conventional reckoning it was a draw at best -- but Grant continued pressing south. By some accounts that was the turning point of the 1864 Virginia campaign, and of the Civil War itself. We have numbers, the Constitution, and simple justice on our side; we should press on.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 3:40:00 PM -- |