Nick Ruiz-- Firestarter

You ever just have a feeling about something? Like, when my old boss Seymour Stein signed Madonna-- did he even know it was MADONNA-- who would go on to make him a millionaire many, many many times over... and keep Warner Brothers humming along in the black for over a decade? Probably not-- but he had a powerful feeling, I'm sure. At any rate, that's how John and Digby and I feel about Nick Ruiz, who is running for Congress in central Florida's new 7th congressional district. His election can change how Americans feel about politics, because there is something extraordinarily authentic about him. Of course, politics isn't the music business-- but it is about intuition as much as it's about anything else... more, thank God, than just being about cold hard numbers (or we wouldn't have won this year with Matt Cartwright (PA), David Gill (IL) and Beto O'Rourke (TX), all of whom the "experts" said had "no chance.") And there's something about this guy, Nick-- if we can elect him-- it will change EVERYTHING.

Ruiz will be for American politics, what Madonna was for the American music biz in the eighties and nineties. In many ways, they (and some other notable bands and artists, from Dylan, The Doors, Hendrix, Aretha, Led Zeppelin to The Clash, Pistols, Michael Jackson and Nirvana) reset the whole industry in a different direction.

Political instinct. It's what makes or breaks politicians. And for progressives like us, we're looking for politicians whose political instincts represent US. Not the 1%. Not careerists and opportunists that want just that-- careers and opportunities. Good government is not about that. And when you elect the right people, you get good government and good policy.

Like when you sign good bands, you get good original music. Not watered down bullshit.

And we all know how much watered down bullshit politicians have been giving us lately.

Not Ruiz. He's an old school, New Deal Democrat. Liberal. Progressive. In all the good senses of those words. Look at his platform. How many Democratic candidates spell out where we need to go in these terms? Almost nobody. Ruiz is refreshingly unlike almost any other progressive candidate we have encountered to date.

So it's probably fitting, in some Murphy's Law kind of way-- that of all the people to challenge Ruiz in a primary, it would be some teabagger, wearing a blue t-shirt, masquerading as a Blue Dog Democrat. But yep, that's what it is. Ruiz's challenger is a fake Democrat. An anti-social safety net, 'FairTax' teabagger. His name is Jason Kendall, and he is a self-professed, wanna-be member of the Blue Dog Coalition. The same Blue Dog Coalition that we gutted in 2010.

So, what to do!? Let's make sure, for starters, that Nick has the funding to get his message out so that primary voters in the district know that he's the real Democrat and the other candidate isn't any better than the Republican candidates John Mica and Sandy Adams. If you can, please contribute what you can through Nick's Blue America page.