Blue America Welcomes Norman Solomon

We don't always get even close to a perfect Blue America candidate. But Norman Solomon is. He's running for the Marin-Sonoma County seat widely believed to being given up by Lynn Woolsey. It's a sturdy Democratic bastion and it deserves strong progressive leadership, not another cookie-cutter Democrat who will just go along and get along with the mostly Conservative Consensus in Washington. No one ever accused Norman Solomon of going along to get along. I hope you can jump over to Crooks and Liars at 1pm this afternoon and meet him for yourself. John Amato has known him for many years-- ever since he read Norman's book, Made Love Got War-- and will be interviewing him today. Please consider making a contribution to his campaign.

This morning I spoke with Norman about the budget kabuki between Paul Ryan and Obama. Since what differentiates him from a pack of careerist professional liberals who want to run for the seat is his ability to come to problems with an independent mind and analyze them in terms of progressive values and solutions. "You can’t beat heartless Republicans with spineless Democrats," he told me. "Paul Wellstone talked about boosting the democratic wing of the Democratic Party. I intend to strengthen the progressive wing of the Progressive Caucus... There’s no future but disaster if Democrats cave in to Republicans. And -- as a progressive Democrat-- I’m ready, willing and able to push back against the Obama administration every time the White House betrays progressive values."

Norman is a lifelong movement progressive, not someone who will reluctantly be dragged along in a progressive direction from time to time. It pains me to see Democrats who opposed "Bush's" war in Afghanistan but still want to give Obama more... something. They keep supporting spending billions of dollars there, in Iraq and elsewhere. We won't have to worry about Norman Solomon ever doing anything like that. "Martin Luther King Jr. denounced what he called 'the madness of militarism,'" he reminded me. "When I went to Afghanistan in 2009, I could see the human consequences of that madness-- and the ongoing tragedy of U.S. military intervention. After more than 40 years of anti-war activism, I’m determined to bring that commitment to the United States Congress... From climate change to economic fairness to civil liberties to war, the Obama administration has let progressives down. We have two overarching responsibilities-- to defeat the Republican right wing and to implement truly progressive policies. We’ve got to fight the right, and we’ve got to fight for what we believe in."

And that's what Blue America believes in as well. Please join us over at Crooks and Liars to get to know Norman a little and please remember to help him with his campaign. Here's the trailer for War Made Easy, Norman's film which is based on his book. How important is it to have someone like this in Congress to help balance out the dedicated servants of the ruling elite? Ask yourself.