An Open Letter to Rahm Emanuel From the Red States

Respectfully sir, but by your blueprint, what the hell are we supposed to do? For thirty years, as this whole conservative insurgency has been allowed to uproot rural populism on a bunch of lark issues, we’ve been taking one for the team, and we are getting a little sick of it.

The millions of us in the middle of the country who voted progressive and always do, need the help of the national committee, or the national commit needs new leadership.

Next door to where I live in Missouri, the state of Kansas has a long history of electing populist female democrats to the statehouse. Kathleen Sebelius is merely the latest in the string. In Kansas, the R’s are imploding, on the verge of splitting off into two separate parties, moderates and ultra-conservatives. All those RINO’s in Kansas are switching parties. This is a state where the prosecuting attorney of the largest county switched parties to unseat Phill (KK)Kline as State Attorney General, and the former state party chair became a Democrat last week to run for Lt. Governor on the ticket with Democrat Sebelius this fall. This is not a state to write off! Look at the demographics! Look at a map and notice all those little liberal arts colleges scattered throughout the state in small towns with county seats that still occupy the town square. Those are blue enclaves. Wichita has four colleges and huge swaths of blue. Peruse the letters to the editor in Kansas papers and “talk back” pages, and the wind-shift is palpable. This is a state to turn. Maybe not this election cycle, maybe not next, but within a decade it can be turned. Kansas has a tremendous percentage of college grads and they are saying “enough!” A look at the numbers reveals that the R’s do not have that great a percentage advantage. This is not a state to write off.

Mr. Dean has the right idea: Build the local organizations in the red states.

In Missouri, we are still blaming the National Dems and the Kerry campaign for pulling out weeks before the election in November ’04. That move on the part of the national party cost Claire McCaskill the Governor’s mansion, and who knows how many of those R’s in the statehouse by <10 votes per precinct are there because the national party bailed on us, writing us off as unwinnable?

Real people got hurt when you putz’s decided we rubes didn’t matter, and Missouri was written off. Yeah, maybe Bush still woulda won – but Matt Blunt wouldn’t have. And a lot of R’s in the state lege wouldn’t have. And a lot of citizens got hurt because those losers grasped victory from the jaws of sure swift defeat, with the help of our very own turn-coat national organizations. Screw us once (04) shame on you – Screw us twice (06?) and shame on us. You owe it to us to help us turn back the tide.

Or do we have to denounce the parties to a man and form a third? Time for a Progressive Party of America? Do not for a moment think that we are not on the verge of taking such action – and with the Blue votes of modest means and red votes of moderate leanings that such a party could pull from your states, well, the possibilities are endless!

It hasn’t come to this yet, and it doesn’t have to. But you need to make friends with Dr. Dean and listen to what he has to say about the state organizations. He is right and you are wrong. (Even eloquently made points can be 180-degrees off the mark.) Admit that fact, apologize to the real base, those of us at the county level no matter the color of our state, for we are the true blues trying to turn states purple, and we are offering you a seat if you will just get on board.