ROGER WAUN (D-TX), LIKE MANY PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATES, HAS TO BATTLE INSIDERS-- ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE

Republican Mac Thornberry represents a north Texas district, the 13th, with a PVI of R +25. Fathom that! Kerry only took 22% of the vote there. And Democrats don't always bother to run congressional candidates. Last year Roger Waun did run and did just a little better than Kerry had 2 years before. Well, intrepid soul that he is, Roger is running again this year! And not just running-- running to win! This guy has spirit! And he isn't compromising by presenting himself as some kind of a Republican-lite hack the way some other Democrats do in deeply red areas. Roger is running a strongly populist campaign, making it clear that he wants to represent struggling working families, not the special interests Thornberry has been so devoted to. I had a couple of e-mail exchanges with Roger today that are instructive about what red district Democrats can expect from Beltway Insiders when they don't go all reactionary like a Nick Lampson or Don Cazayoux.

I dropped in at the DCCC last week, and got totally stiffed. They offer absolutely no help to Democratic challenger candidates who are not on their list of targeted districts. They are constantly trolling our districts for campaign cash, and then they ship it to their chosen few.

The DCCC is a fraud! They are totally out of sync with Chairman Howard Dean's 50 State strategy.  They are peopled by arrogant yuppie wannabe's who show absolutely no depth of character or empathy for anyone not on their favored list.

I got the same runaround from incumbent Democratic Congressmen, who would rather work with my Republican opponent in order to maintain their little club on the Hill.

I asked one of DCCC's top political staffers how many votes he got in the recent primary election.  His jaw just dropped as I had let the air out of his ego. These guys are a bunch of political whores.

My advice-- don't waste your time on the DCCC, unless you have $100,000 and some positive poll results. And, if you do, you don't even need this group of hustlers and phonies.

I've been hearing this-- and worse-- from Democrat candidates from around the country. I asked Roger if he would allow me to reprint this. That got him even more feisty:

Go ahead and post my remarks. I hope they are read by the DCCC staffers who are misleading America by posing as a Committee that helps elect Democrats to Congress. 

I approached them in order to get them to do a poll in my District-- to prove to them that it is winnable. They wouldn't help me in any way, not even with opposition research. And I don't care who knows it.

I will be encouraging my supporters to ignore the DCCC and especially to ignore their calls for money. They are draining financial support from my District and hurting my chances of defeating a 7-term Republican Rubber Stamp Congressman who consistently votes against everything progressive Democrats stand for.

I hope all progressive Democrats can learn from my experience. You will be better off distancing yourselves from the DCCC. At the least, maybe you can convince some potential contributors to support your campaign directly, and not send funds out of your district that will never return.

He's got a real good website too and... WOW!!!! he's using the Blue America "Have You Had Enough?" song in all three of his radio ads. If you're from Amarillo or Wichita Falls of anywhere in between (or west of there all the way to the New Mexico border), there is an alternative to another two years of lockstep Bush rubber stampism. Would you like to see the occupation of Iraq end? Thornberry has never once disagreed with a single item on the Bush agenda-- not once. Of the 62 roll call votes connected to Iraq on which Thornberry voted, he supported the Bush-Cheney line... 62 times. Roger is a pastor and a former Army intelligence officer and his position on Iraq is crystal clear. He lists it as his #1 issue: "An end to the war in Iraq and the billions of dollars we are wasting on this un-winnable religious civil war with no military solution." There couldn't be a greater contrast between what Roger Waun stands for and what Mac Thornberry stands for. The DCCC should be encouraging candidates like Roger, not discouraging them.


UPDATE: SPECIAL NOTE FOR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES

The way I connected to Roger was via a candidates' discussion group, or list serve, called November Victory. Any Democrats-- especially any ignored by the DCCC-- who would like to particpate in that group can contact the founder, Cynthia Pooler at UnitedDems@aol.com/

Candidates share their experiences and their solutions to common problems; very worthwhile. (And the DCCC participates too!)