People for the American Way theorizes that the Tea Party will run Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck for the presidency in 2012. I suppose it could be true. They even had a little slogan competition that we could use to get out in front of the movement.

Whether the presidency rumor is true or not, this situation provides us an opportunity to clarify for the public what Beck and Palin are really all about.

So Ladies and Gentlemen of TPM, I present "Wreck and Failin," (or "Failin' and Wreck) 2012," with some variation of a slogan like "They're gonna soak the constitution in crazy and light a match."

Or how about "Failin' and Wreck 2012: I can see disaster from my house."

Make up your own: it's fun. But also very serious.

It's really, really time to roll back the notion in the public mind that either of these two is a good fit for the presidency. Neither one is dumb--that's not the problem. But poor Glenn Beck is a randomly-educated, historically unhappy guy with ADD, who finally found his niche in the highly-structured Mormon faith/social system. He's the kind of guy about whom you say "Hey, good for him, turning things around for himself." But he's still a pretty wobbly top, and you don't trust him to remember to turn off the stove when he leaves the house, much less hand him the presidency.

And Sarah Palin, the Machiavellian Mom with the farm-girl schtick? Not that the president has to be a super-nice person, but at least he or she needs to have a thought process that includes other people. I don't believe Sarah Palin has that.

What Palin does have, and shares with Beck, is a solid understanding of the fact that bringing religion into politics is a sure-fire way to double up on political effectiveness. It's like a turbo-boost for politics, steroids for the state.

Which brings us to another talking point that we need to get out there, about the real reason for separation of church and state (and why Beck and Palin love to pretend it's not there.) The powers of church and state are separated in the constitution so that ordinary people couldn't be dominated by the power of both, and perhaps in the hope that the American people would be dominated by neither, except by specific personal choice.

The founders had watched the combination of government and religion used as a cudgel all over Europe, and it was with a sigh of relief that they looked to the Enlightenment to guide them in building a nation where people could believe what they chose, but where the power of the state could not be juiced up with religion to create "double-domination." This is what separation of church and state really means--it's the separation of powers that's important, not that there's some sort of WWF match going on between Big Government and Bigger God. By not giving too much power to church OR state, separation of the powers of church and state is a natural way to allow human beings the maximum freedom of choice about both church and state. The founding documents outline a government which was an experiment in whether government power could be naturally limited by the absence of teaming up with religious power.

In other words, not only was America NOT founded as a Christian nation, it was SPECIFICALLY not founded as a Christian nation.

But you'd never know that, to hear Wreck and Failin' yammer away about taking back America for Christians. And it's not that they've never read the Constitution--they know what it says. But in order to be President under American Rules, they'd have to sell themselves on actual, mainstream policy, which would mean sharing power with people from...other places and other faiths. Not to mention actually thinking things through. Ick.

So they're willing to play by Tyrant Rules, and bring religion in so as to get more bang for the buck in hearts and minds. It's also why they need to demonize "Islamists:" it's a way of making what they're doing look less alarmingly totalitarian by comparison.

Frankly, this is not OK.

It's as Un-American as Poison Apple Pie.

And to cynically offer this stuff up as an entirely fake (and wholly owned subsidiary) of corporate power--an instrument of domination that the founders did not see--well, all I can say is, it's time to make it stop.

I hope this won't be erica's last TPM blog. But if we all have to move forward without the benefit of support from our little community, it seemed important to get this out as a way to frame the discussion moving forward. Your thoughts requested. I won't be commenting, because in order to comment I couldn't be "erica," but I'll add additional viewpoints to a future blog as necessary....

Ok so today the front page of TPM linked to an article saying that one of our Cafe folk, Ripper McCord, has been questioned about a fire in Congressman Carnahan's (Mo.) office.

It's almost impossible to tell what happened from the reporting/comments on the incident--all I can gather is that in the flurry after the event, it was blamed on the Tea Party, but now that it's possible that the culprit was Ripper (obviously a Democrat) the rhetoric from Carnahan's office has ceased, or at least softened. The size of the fire has also varied, it's been described as a "firebombing" and also as looking like someone walked into the office and set fire to some papers with a lighter.

Details aside, does anyone in the Cafe know what actually happened, and/or if Ripper is ok? Some very mean things were said about him in the press, and that's tough, even for people who are thick-skinned. The idea that people are Innocent Until Proven Guilty doesn't mean much in our short news-cycle world, especially when the IUPG is at the center of something the media can whip up into, if not a firestorm, then certainly a souffle.

Some ill-spirited things were also said about TPM in the comments I looked at.

What am I trying to say? I guess I hope that if people take personal swipes at Ripper, at TPM, at us, we can stand with dignity as individuals and a group. I hope we can stress that we believe in the rule of law when it comes to peoples' actions, and that rule of law includes the presumption of innocence unless and until a trial proves otherwise. I also hope that we can acknowledge that Ripper IS a member of our community, a community that exists for, and because of, passionate debate on political issues. Some of us think Ripper's great, others not so much, and we can all get under each other each others' skin sometimes. But that's why we're here, to see if what we write can make an impact--but every single one of us is a whole person behind what we write--a best, a worst, and everything in between.

What I really hope is that we won't try to deny the existence or importance of one of our own: "Hey, yeah, the guy was just one of the people who wrote here, I didn't really know him, yeah, now that I think about it maybe he was a little weird." Because that kind of thing was cheesy way back when Peter did it in 33 AD, and it's cheesy today. Ripper's one of us, and although we might be quite surprised if it turns out he did something illegal, I don't think we should deny that he wrote, we responded, thoughts were exchanged, thinking about issues did take place.

One of the things I like about people around here is that we're not pushovers. I hope if there are harsh words spoken, we'll be appropriately stubborn about changing our minds about Ripper, our community, and our own beliefs. 

A few days ago, Cafe regular Zipperupus wrote a prose-poem and was kind (and brave!) enough to let the rest of us muck around with it a bit. It was a good conversation all in all, although like many of these things it got a little weird in places. Part of the deal, I guess.

Anyway, the urge to edit and change what Zippperupus wrote made me think it was time to jump in again myself. So here it is, all, in honor of Zip's poem. Probably about time.

You made a poem.

Stretched your arm down, down;

Strained about oblivion and lobbed what you caught, twisting silver in the air

like a fat and healthy salmon

Onto the dock in front of us for our observation and delight.

My, what a fish is this! we said: the scales! how they reflect the sunlight!

Why, the sheer, gleaming fishiness of it, wriggling! Flash of dorsal fin and tiny sharp teeth!

Now this, this is a fish!

Then someone noticed fins not quite right somehow, mouth

Out of proportion to the length of the animal, or its breadth perhaps.

"It seems a bit fat," someone said, and someone else observed that a little less sheen

Would bring the animal closer to the Platonic mean, fish-wise.

"I'm pretty sure it's not a fish at all," said a third, "but more of a crustacean with

Fish-like tendencies."

At that (just before we were about to cut it open to take the closer look

that is the death of all poetry)

The fish grinned, slapped its tail once, twice, then thrice upon the dock;

Launched into the same bright and spinning arc that brought it,

Kissed goodbye stale air in favor of sensuous waves, disappeared--

And your poem was mystery again.

Ok. So the day after his grilling by Congress, Tony Hayward doesn't go back down to the Gulf to help the ordinary souls affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill pull their lives back together. Nor does he spend the day washing off oil-soaked birds or turtles.

Instead, Hayward flies to England--specifically the Isle of Wight, to watch/help his son race "Bob,"  the 52-foot IRC Super 0 sailboat he owns with 2 other corporate bigwigs, round the island. They came in fourth in their class, by the way, which seems pretty good.

Link to results: http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk/web/code/php/main_c.php?page=results2010&section=resultsa&map=rir10&style=std&ui=rir2&override=&classrequest=85&submit=Go

Link to photo of winning boat: Just apropos of nothing, here's a link to a sailboat racing site with a photo of Velsheda, the boat that won the class. Pretty boat. (Photo, by the way, says it's owned by a guy named George Bekris, but the caption under the photo says somebody else's name. Life is full of arguments over who did what.)

http://www.challengeandadventure.com/archives/tag/bella-mente

Now, to those who would consider Hayward's behavior insensitive, I feel obligated to point out that the boat is a SAIL boat. That's pretty much Beyond Petroleum, eh-what? I mean, what do we want in terms of environmental sensitivity? Plus, the boat is American-made! Poor Tony--he's doing his best.

I swear I have a point here, and I'm getting to it. Tony Hayward, like all the guys who own boats at this regatta, is a rich guy. The company he works for? Also rich. And if we want any of his/its money, we're going to have to sue him for it. Otherwise, he's going to spend it racing around on his $700k sailboat, or tooling about in his support boat that cost more than any of us make in a year, or hiring sailing professionals to fly in and make him look damn good if he decides to drive for a few races.

This is how it works. We want his money, we have to convict him of a crime, or sue for civil damages. We can forget about getting him or his company to repair the GOM out of the goodness of their hearts, and frankly, we can probably forget about repairing it at all in our lifetimes. What we have here is a VERY big personal injury case, along the lines of tobacco or asbestos. And "Dude, how dare you go sailing!" is not going to get us where we need to be. Kris Broughton pointed this out in his blog earlier today--oil companies, here and elsewhere, spill oil often and in many cases without consequences. If we want consequences, we better lawyer up.

To put it bluntly, this is a giant personal injury case, to be fought out for years between some of the best lawyers in the world and whoever we the people can afford.

Which brings me to my point, at last. I don't know if Obama is a good president. Like many people around here, I question a lot of what he does. But I think he's a pretty good lawyer. And this thing is going to be all about the money. Money for restitution, money for cleanup  (such as it is), money for forcing companies that don't care about safety to be safe anyway, money, money, money.

I hope we can all channel our indignation toward keeping steady pressure on our attorney in chief and his colleagues to make sure that whoever we the people can afford keeps the pressure on BP to pay. It will take years. But if we wear ourselves out on rhetoric, we'll not only lose the Gulf, we'll lose the case.

 

Those who feel that BP's business practices (or those of other similar corporations) are unwise or bad for the marketplace could simply apply the logical market solution: short the stock.

I don't mean this in a conspiratorial "Let 'em sleep with the fishes" way, I'm just offering the observation that if one's analysis reveals that short or long-term prospects for a company or business practice do not look good, one is free to take a short position. If enough other people also take a short position or sell their shares, one makes money.

Since BP's share price has fallen considerably in the past month, perhaps this might be a logical bet as well as demonstrating one's negative analysis of BP's business practices.

I know this website, "The Oil Drum," www.theoildrum.com has been mentioned as a great source for spill info but thought it deserved to be in a headline. It's an energy discussion site, and many of the posters are engineers, some in the oil industry. Right now they're following the live feed of the topkill. Somebody just tweeted in that the procedure has been delayed again. Don't know if that's true or not.

Word has spread about the site, and there are more newbie posters than there were a few days ago, but it's really worth checking out.

Caveat: this is a "Peak Oil" site, so if you read the discussion threads, you may get bogged down in discussions of what the angry, agrarian, post-oil world will look like. These discussions can go on for a long time, so don't be afraid to skip to threads with more BP technical info on them.

I'm going to try to bring some of the thoughts expressed on the Cafe today into a blog about how we could move forward in the wake of the Gulf oil spill. This means I will be trying to speak for people who are smarter than I am, about what a movement might look like. You'll know who you are when you read this--please be patient and help when I fail.

The heart-wrenching discussion of the Gulf tragedy, combined with disillusionment over the failure of the Obama administration to immediately correct the course of the previous administration, has drawn me to conclude that there are actually two fissures whose swampy effluvia now poison the land and the symbol we know as "America." They're related, but confusing one with the other takes us down a weird road on which nice people like Dan K and JEP 07 try to decide whether President Obama is good, or bad.

One fissure is in the Gulf, caused by companies run amok, unrestrained by those who ought to have been looking out for our interests. We watch the oilcano in the seabed, watch the blaming, the pathetic attempts to save what's already lost, with a dreadful sense of familiarity and our minds buzzing with the refrain that Aldos Huxley was right when he said that the most important lesson of history is that almost no-one learns anything from history at all.

The other fissure, more subtle yet more entrenched and more nauseous by far, lives in the political heart of our country: Washington DC, but the poison reaches into our ideas about what we take for granted and what we reluctantly accept, and, most troubling of all, into our frail, very human hearts.

This fissure is the idea that Greed is Good. Here in America, the idea has always kind of been kicking around, but in the last fifty years or so since a "not very nice" lady announced in a popular novel that one of the Seven Deadly Sins was perfectly okay,"Greed is Good" has been a fever. (In another age, the Catholic Church might have been able to put a stop to this silliness, but as we know, the Mother Church has had a little problem with credibility lately.)

All fevers eventually burn themselves out, and perhaps we can finally hope that "Greed is Good" has become enough of a caricature of itself that it can die a well-deserved death. (From "The Fountainhead" to "The Wellhead," so to speak.)  But a variety of morbid symptoms have appeared during the interregnum. 

I'm tired so I'm going to bullet points here but if you're still reading you'll know what I mean.

 

...We handed over power to the greedy, figuring that they deserved it and would know what to do with it

...We lost the idea of government as a co-op

...We were sold on the idea that "they" were bad--and it was true, but how could it be otherwise when "we the people" handed off the responsibility for important things?

.. when we say "We have seen the enemy and he is us" it's not quite right. The corporatists and the compliant politicians are NOT us--which is exactly the problem. We should be in there, and that has to change.

The "Greed is Gooders" and their enablers didn't directly cause the fissure in the Gulf, but they they were sure as heck there for it. Accountability, yes. On the other hand, we handed them their jobs and many of us turned a blind eye toward what they did--accountability for us--yes, as well.

Now it's all about what to do.

Having sold our birthright and received a morally bankrupt government and a dead sea for our troubles, it's time to fix this. I'm all for figuring out what to do in the Gulf, but it doesn't take a huge brain to see that the tepidity (word?) in Washington means we need to get going on both these poisoned springs. Which means a change in direction for a lot of us. A couple of days ago I saw a film called 180 Degrees South, which talked about the importance of making a 180 and then going forward.

Therefore, I'm going to suggest that our movement be called TAGFOR, which stands for "Turn Around and Go Forward." (Not my phrase, by the way but maybe we can use it.) TAGFOR also has OR, for "Ordinary People" in it, which I like, because corporations and politicians haven't been representing ordinary people and that needs to change. I hope some ordinary people from the Republican party will join us--maybe they've finally had enough too.

So I'm for a five-million person march--on Washington, and certainly into the offices of local politicians and representatives, with the news that we the people are back. We're pissed off but at the same time we know we have not been involved enough, and that's going to change. We're ok with human frailty and legitimate commerce, but not with corruption and greed.

What do people think? Does the "Two Fissures" idea help resolve some of the confusing debate here? Does TAGFOR make sense? I'm going to post this despite the fact that it's not really finished, if it's got anything going for it others will take it from here anyway.

As BP considers options regarding the Gulf Oil Disaster (wow, remember when that title would have referred to the PERSIAN Gulf?) here is something the public deserves to know:

Is BP looking at all its options, including those that might make the drill site unusable in future, or only at options that would allow BP to get back into the well/oil deposit at some point soon?

According to BP's statements, they're ready to try anything, but it's sort of hard to believe that with all those engineers and executives pondering what to do, the subject of a tradeoff between stopping the flow of oil now and starting it again later hasn't come up at all. In fact, the absence of this very question in the narrative is what's got me wondering about it.

That, and "The Decider's" suggestion of putting a "Tactile Nuclear Weapon" down there.

Do folks agree that this is a question that should be specifically asked and answered? Can anyone provide a definitiive answer?

The question posed in one of John Yoo's surviving e-mails to Jennifer Koester is an icky one:

"Do we know if Boo Boo (presumably Abu Zubaydah) is allergic to certain insects?"

Koester, a young lawyer helping Yoo write the legal opinions, wrote back:

"I have no idea, but I'll check with [REDACTED]."

***

Aside from the whole banality of evil aspect, this passage points the way to some investigation that the well-connected folks who figured out Koester's name could get to work on next. Who did Koester call to find out the answer to this question? The list of people who could have provided a reliable answer must be pretty short.

"I have no idea, but I'll check with [REDACTED]."

Think about this--the guy is a foreign terrorist imprisoned a thousand miles away. Who's she gonna check with to find out his allergy status?

His Dermatologist?

His MOM?

("Hello, Mrs. Zubaydah, this is Jenny from DOJ. We want to make sure Abu's enhanced interrogation goes as smoothly as possible and we are wondering if he's ever had a problem with spider bites...Okay, thanks, sorry to trouble you. We'll tell him you said hello.")

Horrifying, I know. But here's the thing--Koester checked with someone because later, in another surviving document, there's a reference to Zubaydah not having insect allergies.

Who that someone is is important, as is how the information was obtained, because it's not like terrorist medical records are just lying around all over the place. And the interrogators would have wanted some sort of reliable verification. How did they go about finding out about the insect allergy, and who gave them the information? I think there are 3 ways they could have obtained it:

1. Self-reported medical history, or old medical records obtained from somewhere. It seems incredible that admission to Guantanamo could involve a medical workup/physical, but maybe it does, maybe they asked Zubaydah about allergies, maybe he said he didn't have any. Good enough, as they say, for government work, even of the most horrible sort.

But this doesn't seem certain enough. Once the subject came up, I suspect the interrogators would have wanted to know for sure. So,

2. They could have released the "certain insects" near Zubaydah, but not during an interrogation, and observed what happened when he was bitten. Or, and here is where an investigative treasure could lie--

3. They could have run tests. Is it possible that, out there in the world, is a physician who did skin or blood tests on Zubaydah to determine his allergy status so the "certain insects" interrogation could be signed off on? And if there is, I wonder if that doctor would be willing to talk about how he or she went from "first do no harm" to an interrogation that's right out of a horror movie?

Who did Koester check with? How did that person know or find out the answer to the question? There are so few people who would have had this information or been able to get it, and knowing how it was obtained would be most helpful as the conduct investigation continues.

 

 

 

Ok so I decided to take a different tack on this public option thing. We've all heard the "not enough support," "political suicide" answers, but I got curious about exactly WHY Senators didn't sign the public option letter, and why they do/don't support the public option, if that's a different question.

And, if there WERE enough support, would they vote in favor of the PO?

Let's call them and find out!

As we call, we can post the answers as comments. (In the interest of brevity, let's try to keep out personal opinions out of it, and stick to what the Sen. or staffer says, with just enough analysis to make it clear.)

I'll get the ball rolling. I started by calling Sen. Klobuchar's (D-MN) office. I figured that she's in a pretty progressive state, Al Franken signed it, she's interested in healthcare issues, etc. So why wouldn't she sign the letter too? 

The staffer I spoke with seemed bright and appeared to understand the issue, but I was unable to comprehend the details of Sen. Klobuchar's problem with the public option/reconciliation. It seemed a bit murky. Here's what I got:

Senator Klobuchar appears to support the public option, and supports the letter but did not sign it.

I gather that one reason has something to do with the Minnesota Model of Health Care, which is both generous and efficient, and also has a Quality Index. I asked if the Sen. was concerned that MN might somehow lose out if the public option was enacted, but that didn't seem to be it either.

The main thrust seemed to be that the Senator wanted the issues to get worked out in conference. I asked if the Senator believed that there was any chance that the bill would come out of the conference committee with a PO intact. The staffer did not know. (For which one could hardly fault her, I'm sure she doesn't go around asking her boss what she believes in her heart of hearts.) 

The staffer and I did agree that those seeking an abortion are probably out of luck for using the PO as coverage, because the law does not allow the Federal govt to pay for abortions. This would have to get worked out somehow, but it wasn't clear how. (Not necessarily what I wanted to hear, but at least I could understand it.)

All in all, I found the ambiguity about the PO curious. If any of the MN folks can add clarification I'd be thrilled. If a Senator supports the Public Option and think it's crucial for keeping costs down, why not sign the letter?

So, one down, 36 to go. Who wants to play?

Sorry this is pretty much a rehash of a prev post with a new headline but I am in a rush today....

 

The best sign of a way forward and a method of resetting the current poisonus, corporatized discussion that passes for political debate in America came yesterday in the CPAC straw poll for the presidency--Ron Paul won it, with Mitt Romney a distant second and Sarah Palin an even more distant third.

It's clear--the corporatized flimflam mouthed by Palin and Romney doesn't wash with even its most ardent fans when it comes to actually choosing who ought to govern them. They picked Ron Paul--who has a few independent ideas and seems to genuinely think his ideas would be good for the country. I don't happen to agree with many (any?) of Paul's ideas and they would not carry the country or even the Republican party, but they're an indicator that no one actually falls for that corporatized crap except our elected officials who rely on it for financial support and legislative power, instead of relying on the votes and support of their constituents.

 The "coronation" of Ron Paul could hardly be a clearer sign that it's time for Democratic Pols to quit with the corporate pandering and turn to their constituents for inspiration and support. Unfortunately, Democrats and Progressives have higher standards than Republicans, so the Dems are going to pretty much have to go cold turkey if they want their constituents to embrace them now and in November.

 

Everyone, I really think this could hardly be clearer. The ones who are terrified of the Republicans and their corporate interest "handlers" are our legislators themselves. Nobody who isn't desperate for political donations falls for this stuff--let's tell our legislators to get the lead out and work for our interests, not the corporations'. Or, no matter how much money they get, they will go begging for votes in November.

I am sensitive to the concerns of those who ask that we progressives continue to support our President and elected Democrats.

 

At the same time, it's difficult to keep supporting a Democratic Party that at its highest levels is barely recognizable as a progressive or populist entity. We're stuck here in a desert of desperately corporatized language (see Bluebell's recent comment about a survey she received from the DNC) and it's really hard to see if Moses is at the head of the line and which way he's going.

 

It's tough to be a Democrat, because the instinct to provide a better life for everybody is always going to conflict with the drive to look out for number one. In order to deal with it, we need to be able to clearly see that our leaders at least are thoroughly committed to a better life for everybody, so we can have a little comfort and encouragement as we go forward. It's different than how Republicans do it, and it's what creates a balanced, energized Democratic Party that gets things done and then celebrates them.

 

There is just no way to underestimate the impact of the bank bailout which left ordinary people behind, and of the rise of corporate influence and pandering, on our party. No matter how you slice it, our party has not backed ordinary people on this issue. It's probably bad everywhere, but it seems worst in the Senate and the Administration. It has to end, or Dems will both lose the Senate this fall and lose the most passionate Democrats to outright despair, the Green Party...or maybe to Canada.

 

The Republicans have more cynics in their ranks than we do, and the corporate handlers who set up this bizarre mess are the most cynical of all. If it's a seige, they will win because they can wait us out.

 

But the best sign of a way forward came yesterday in the CPAC straw poll for the presidency--Ron Paul won it, with Mitt Romney a distant second and Sarah Palin an even more distant third. It's clear--the corporatized flimflam mouthed by Palin and Romney doesn't wash with even its most ardent fans when it comes to actually choosing who ought to govern them. They picked Ron Paul--who has a few independent ideas and seems to genuinely think his ideas would be good for the country. I don't happen to agree with many of Paul's ideas and they would not carry the country or even the Republican party, but they're an indicator that no one actually falls for that corporatized crap except our elected officials who rely on it for financial support and legislative power, instead of relying on the votes and support of their constituents.

 

The "coronation" of Ron Paul could hardly be a clearer sign that it's time for Democratic Pols to quit with the corporate pandering and turn to their constituents for inspiration and support. Unfortunately, Democrats and Progressives have higher standards than Republicans, so the Dems are going to pretty much have to go cold turkey if they want their constituents to embrace them now and in November.

 

But if they do break out the white meat and tofu and walk away from the red meat and champagne, the turnaround will be both electrifying and complete.

 

Thank you.

There's been some criticism of our self-congratulatory tone since we merry band of brothsisteren, surprising ourselves more than anyone, managed to get the "Draft Mellencamp" initiative all the way from Cafe' chatter to MSNBC and the Letterman Show in just four days. And this despite being self-defeatist, pie-in-the-sky progressive types!

But before we either self-destruct or get back to our activist knitting, it seems appropriate to thank Josh Marshall and the team for creating and continuing to host a site where people from different places in the country, who don't know each other at all, can meet, have an idea and use online resources to share it all over in a way that gets noticed, checking back in with each other at the Cafe' as they go.

It's easy to complain about this or that, but for some years now, Josh and the TPM team have provided a spot to lurk, then comment, then post, and to use that activity to create action. This is the way it's supposed to work.

So Josh, thank you for the invitation, and for being a fine host. I'm going to disable comments on this one so folks don't feel they have to add their thanks to be polite. To chime in, just hit the Rec button.....

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

New thread and updated information:

Yesterday, some of us were crying into our TPM Cafe cups about the Evan Bayh situation and I said I thought John Cougar Mellencamp could be a progressive, practical, populist replacement for Evan Bayh. JEP and a few others thought so too, and before you knew it I had posted a blog on the subject, JEP had started a Facebook site and posted the idea on some progressive Web sites, and the idea was off and running!

Here is today's situation:

The Facebook site is headed toward 400 members. Several other Facebook sites have sprung up--I think JEP and Gene's is the most successful, and they are posting and networking like crazy. The idea has been written up in The Nation and Village Voice--as an actual topic, not a comment, and has percolated out into both progressive and republican blogs, where it is being talked about. Most comments are running in favor, with people saying Mellencamp is at the very least a nice guy whose heart is in the right place.

Mellencamp has yet to comment on the effort, which I view as a good sign. He must have heard about it by now, and if he thought it was completely out of the question to run, probably would have said so by now, so as not to leave fans hanging.

Calling or writing Democratic Party officials in Indiana would be strategic now, I think.

Also, Mellencamp is managed by Randy Hoffman Entertainment at  212 765 2525 and represented by Creative Artists Agency in LA, at 424 288 2000. I wouldn't suggest plugging their phone lines or anything, but quick calls to find out what's going on or encourage him to run wouldn't hurt.

Many other ideas have surfaced as a result of this initiative--progressives are talking, working together--something good will come of all this!

Maybe Al Franken can call Mellencamp and encourage him to run...

There is a rumor floating around--OK, a rumor I started--that John Cougar Mellencamp, one of Indiana's most famous entertainers other than Janet Jackson and David Letterman, may step into the breach and run for Senator of Illinois now that Evan Bayh has announced his retirement.

Indiana's a pretty conservative state, but Mellencamp is a familiar figure whose strong populist appeal may speak to disillusioned Republicans as well as to progressive Democrats. And he's been politically active as an entertainer. In fact, just today his website released a story about his recent White House concert, which makes me wonder if he's been testing the waters.

Mellencamp might just be the guy to run the kind of "Damn Right I Care About Ordinary Americans" campaign that would be the antidote to "Massachussets Fever" in 2010. Besides, Al Franken could use some outspoken company in the Senate.

Mellencamp is managed by Randy Hoffman Entertainment at  212 765 2525 and represented by Creative Artists Agency in LA, at 424 288 2000. 

By the way, time is of the essence here. Mellencamp has to collect a lot of petition signatures immediately in order to get on the ticket by the deadline, so if you think his candidacy is a great idea, call all the registered Democrats you know in Indiana and get them going on this!

Update: there are a couple of Facebook pages up, plenty of comments on Kos, and random independent suggestions for a Mellencamp candidacy up on the Internet. His Manager hasn't responded to requests yet, and the agency that reps him is closed for Presidents' Day. Watch for details tomorrow!