HEATH SHULER TURNING OUT BETTER THAN I THOUGHT HE WOULD BE

Rahm Emanuel's Heath Shuler hasn't been half as bad as I expected him to be. In fact, his voting record, while one of the least progressive of the freshman class (along with Donnelly, Ellsworth, Carney, Space and Altmire-- all of whom have been worse than Shuler), isn't terrible. Some progressives in NC-11 wish they had someone with values more in-line with our own but on the big votes (with a few exceptions like stemm cell research) he hasn't been abandoning the Democrats so far. The jury's still out but it doesn't look like he'll be another Jim Marshall, Gene Taylor or Dan Boren. Last week, for example, he voted with most Democrats to start the process of ending the war in Iraq. He explained his reasoning in an OpEd in a local newspaper:

Earlier this week, we entered the fifth year of the war in Iraq. Throughout that time this Congress has provided the President with all the resources needed to wage this war. However, this body failed to provide any of the oversight he needed.

Today, this Congress will correct that lack of oversight, while still providing our troops the funding they need and our military leaders the flexibility they require.Today we say an open-ended commitment to this war is no longer acceptable. We say that we will no longer grant the President a blank check.

The war in Iraq has already lasted longer than World War I, World War II, and the Civil War. Continuing this war in the same manner with no accountability from the Administration or requirements on the Iraqi government is unacceptable.

While the NRCC appears to be searching for a new candidate to challenge him, the problem is ole Charlie Taylor. All of the names being floated are so used to deferring to the corrupt old autocrat that no one will jump into the race until he says he's not going to try to regain his seat. And he's not ready to say one way or the other yet. He would like the seat back-- it was very profitable for him-- but he wants to figure out which way the wind is blowing before he commits himself.

Scrutiny Hooligans is keeping tabs on what the GOP plans to do about Shuler next year. They even went to the trouble of transcribing a hilarious resolution from the Buncombe County Republican Party Convention urging Taylor to run again. God only knows what they must have been serving at that party!!

TWO DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES IN NORTH CAROLINA-- LARRY KISSELL AND HEATH SHULER

North Carolina has 13 congressmen. Six are Democrats and they all seem pretty safe bets for re-election in November. All 7 Republicans have Democratic challengers but two are already poised to defeat powerfully entrenched GOP incumbents. What these two races have in common is that their opponents are both far right loons and Bush rubber-stamps. Let's take a quick look at each of them and the districts.

Robin Hayes represents the 8th CD, the south-central part of the state including Cabarrus County at the tip of the old textile corridor-- devastated by Bush's "free trade" policies-- and east to Fayetteville with parts of Charlotte, kind of a swing district, although Bush scored 54% in 2000 and 2004, about what Hayes has been getting since he was first elected in 1998 Hayes is most famous for breaking down and weeping like a 9 year old girl after DeLay, Blunt and other Republicans forced him, on the floor of the House, to vote against his constituents interests to break a 214-214 tie for some hideous trade policies that wreaked further havoc and despair on North Carolina's textile industry. He is generally a posterboy for weak-charactered rubber stamp irresponsibility. His voting record is positively abysmal; he ties for the absolute worst congressmen on every single issue facing corporate subsidies, education, human rights and civil liberties, and everything concerned criminal and civil justice. No one in the entire House is worse than Hayes on these issues. He gets a flat zero on his votes on all of these-- and doesn't have a decent voting record on any other issues either.

Charlie Taylor's voting record is about the same. Where he stands out, however, is in the corruption department. This is his 8th term representing the 11th CD, the extreme western end of the state, the heart of the Great Smokey Mountains. It's a rural district, overwhelmingly white, somewhat poorer and more Republican than Hayes' district. The only city is Asheville. Kerry did considerably better than Gore had 4 years earlier. Taylor's weakest point is that he is widely considered to be the most corrupt politician in contemporary North Carolina. A member of Jerry Lewis' criminal Appropriations Committee, he is a major self-server and has been caught up in scandal after scandal, far beyond his involvements with taking tainted money from DeLay and Abramoff. Two counties in his district threatened to garnish his congressional salary because he refused to pay his property taxes and he owns a bank that loans cronies money that never gets paid back and gets written off (after portions are kicked back to the slippery congressman).

The two men opposing these two weak and disgraceful Republicans are as different as night and day from each other. One, Heath Shuler is a flashy favorite son being lavishly pushed by the DCCC. He fits their model perfectly: down the center moderate and totally uncontroversial. He's best known-- and was recruited by DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel because-- he is a former NFL quarterback (for the Washington Redskins). His website could have been put together by Emanuel himself: slick and very light on issues beyond studied support for mom and for apple pie. His positions are standard Democratic Party fare, much of it pabulum. Although you can quickly see he's a gun supporter, you'd be hard-pressed to find out that there's a war in Iraq, let alone how he feels about it (although he honors our veterans). I hope he wins because there is no comparison between him and Taylor. If you live in the district, please vote for Heath Shuler. If you have some spare change you're willing to contribute to a campaign for someone who will work positively to make North Carolina and America a better place to live... go to the next paragraph.

Larry Kissell was not the DCCC candidate. He's a genuine grassroots candidate with an independent mind of his own. He doesn't plan to go to Congress to take orders from an authoritarian nitwit like Rahm Emanuel or anyone else. The DCCC candidate withdrew from the primary and the district rallied behind Kissell, who's very different from Robin Hayes-- and far better suited for the 8th CD. A 27-year veteran of the textile industry and an educator and a deacon of the First Baptist Church, Kissell's website leaves nothing for guess work on how he feels-- and what he wants to do about-- all the major issues facing North Carolina citizens. When Kissell talks about "values," it isn't empty rhetoric crafted to hoodwink strangers into voting for him. Kissell's Main Street values (not Wall Street values) are what informs and drives his desire to help his neighbors and his nation to do better.

This is not some right of center Democrat who will go to Washington and cause progressives to tear their hair out ala Lieberman or Zell Miller or Henry Cuellar. On the other hand, Inside-the-Beltway elitists like Emanuel are already tearing out their hair, reading stuff like "We staged our way into Iraq in one year, there is no reason we can't stage our way out in one year. My position is out of Iraq by the end of 2006." Reading Kissell's detailed, straight-forward essays on why he's running and what he plans to do in Washington make you feel this is truly a good man-- not an ambitious politician-- and one who you know you could trust to make the right decisions for his neighbors and for us all. You don't have to vote for Larry Kissell just because he's better than the Republican; you can vote for him because he'll make a great legislator imbued with compassion, strength, humility and wisdom.

I suspect any assistance the DCCC plans to put into North Carolina between now and November will go entirely to Heath Shuler. That leaves Larry Kissell to depend on plain citizens who believe in the promise of a better society. If you live in the district you can volunteer here. If you want to be part of a coast to coast movement of people contributing $5 and $10 and $20 increments to buy into an American dream of the "ordinary people" who are the backbone of this nation putting their collective foot down to Bush and his rubber stamp congressmen (and to Democrats cut from the same cloth), please click here on the DWT ACT BLUE Page.

DEMOCRATIC FOOTBALL PLAYER TAKES ON REPUBLICAN BANKROBBER IN NORTH CAROLINA

Most people probably never heard of Waynesville, North Carolina and most people who have, probably remember it as the place where a primitive Baptist Minister excommunicated all his church's Democratic members. Fortunately for Waynesville, it's about to become known as something A LOT more positive. Waynesville resident Heath Shuler is running for Congress in North Carolina's 11th Congressional District. Before I get into why this is important and, for people who don't read SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, who Heath Shuler is, let me draw your attention to a blog piece I wrote on Sunday, July 17 called CHARLES TAYLOR-- CORRUPTION & SELF-SERVING GREED WORTHY OF A DELAY DIE-HARD. Taylor, one of the most corrupt congressmen in one of the most corrupt Congresses since the birth of the Republic, has represented the district for 8 terms. It doesn't get much worse than Charles Taylor; some say he's even worse than Tom DeLay!

So who is Heath Shuler and why did Bill Clinton call him and encourage him to run? He's probably most famous as a former quarterback for the Washington Redskins. According to the CHARLOTTE NEWS OBSERVER, "Shuler played football at Swain County High School, where he ranked among North Carolina's all-time passing leaders and led his team to three straight state championships. At the University of Tennessee, he was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. Tennessee head football coach Phillip Fulmer described Shuler as a 'people person. He was a great ambassador for UT football and he would be a great ambassador for people from North Carolina,' Fulmer said."

Shuler, who is 33 and has two children, started a real estate firm in Waynesville after retiring from the NFL. "Far too many families in western North Carolina are struggling to earn a decent living, educate their children, and pay for health care," Shuler said. "Congress is spending too much time playing partisan politics, instead of working to find solutions to the real problems facing our families."
It may be (slightly) more difficult for the Far Right Slime Machine to pull their slander tricks on Shuler since they were actively trying to recruit him to run for a congressional seat in Tennessee, thinking, mistakenly, that because he is well-off and white he must be a Repug. He's a proud lifelong Democrat. One popular blogger, "Due Diligence," referring to the criminal cases against Taylor's North Carolina bank (the bank president, Taylor's campaign finance chairman, is in jail) and to his partnership with a former KGB general in a shady Russian bank, summed up the race really nicely: "Democratic pro-football player versus Republican KGB-connected loan shark."

CHARLES TAYLOR-- CORRUPTION & SELF-SERVING GREED WORTHY OF A DELAY DIE-HARD

When most people put the words "Charles Taylor" and "scumbag" together, they think of the murderous Liberian war criminal. But they haven't met Congressman Charles Taylor from North Carolina's 11th Congressional District. Nor would they want to-- unless they were a special interest looking for a congressional whore to buy.

Taylor was first elected in 1990. According to his website, the district doesn't seem to have any cities-- just a bunch of towns with names like Flat Rock, Greenmountain, Tuxedo, Zirconia, Little Switzerland, Chimney Rock, Horse Shoe, Bat Cave, Pisgah Forest, Lake Lure, Scaly Mountain... It sure sounds like a great place for a nature trip, doesn't it? In the 15 years since he was elected, what sure appears like a gigantic integrity-deficit has found him navigating one embarrassing scandal after another. He seems to have come to believe that people get elected to Congress in order to line their pockets, not in order to serve the interests of their constituents. Charles Taylor serves his own interests and those of his wealthy corporate campaign contributors. One of the richest men in Congress (with a net worth of over $60 million), Taylor has refused to pay taxes to the point that Jackson County was forced to garnish his congressional salary to collect back taxes. The biggest source of a continuing Taylor scandal, though, is the bank he owns, the Blue Ridge Savings Bank, and the shady dealings it always seems to be involved in. Hayes Martin, one of Taylor's main cronies-- the bank president and his campaign treasurer-- pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering for making illegal loans. The beneficiary of the illegal $1.3 million loan was Charles Cagle, 11th District Republican Chairman, a close friend of Taylor's and, of course, a major campaign contributor. Cagle also pleaded guilty. Oddly enough Taylor was had the clout to prevent an investigation of himself although it was completely clear from the sworn testimony in the case that he was the guilty party-- with full knowledge of the illegal loans. Taylor's predatory nature may be most harmful to the folks in his North Carolina mountain district but he has also been busy disgracing our country abroad as well. Taylor and hiss partner, a former KGB General, own a bank in Ivanovo, Russia and newspapers there report that Taylor may be cheating the Russians as well, with interest rates as high as 60%!