(crossposted at MyDD)

In 2003 and 2004 I worked my butt off for the Dean campaign. I contributed early and often, joined the midnight madness of the summer of 03 and started attending Dean meetups. By the fall of 03 I was leading a Dean meetup group and actively volunteering at the state campaign headquarters.

In 2003 I was in despair for my country. The television news stations were all flag waving war supporting echo chambers where rightwingers got national coverage for smashing bottles of French wine in front of television cameras. I think that I had suffered from a case of 'political depression' since the fall of 2000 when the Supreme Court selected Dubyah as our next President.

And yet no one seemed to stand up and so "No More." No one, it seemed, would stand up and say that this was wrong, that things should change. Democratic leaders, under the thumb of Terry McAwful and the DLC, seemed to have no spine, no backbone, and to even half-heartedly support George Bush.

And then, at the California Democratic party meeting in 2003, Governor Dean stepped up and delivered a Paul Wellstone line: he said that he was here for the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. He had my vote from the day I heard that.

The home office somewhere in Indiana outsourced the job to Bangalore a long time ago and Dave started trading quips with his friend Senator Magoo recently. Still, someone needs to report this.

So, without any further introduction, whoosh! here are the top ten things that Senator Barack Obama WANTED to say last night in the debate but just couldn't because honesty only gets one so far on ABC:

Well, not quite, but he offered some praise for the Senator from Illinois that shows that at least some Republicans think that Obama is the real threat to the Republicans this fall.

It is pretty strong praise from the opposition. If it came from a Democrat I would consider it to be a real endorsement.

I'll keep this short.

Lots of Hillary Clinton's supporters are drawn to her by their perception that, whatever they feel about Senator Clinton, they cannot walk away from a chance to finally vote for a woman who is running for the White House. (Never mind the question of where they were when Carol Moseley Braun was running.)

If Senator Obama would consider stepping outside of the box that presidential campaigns are run in, it is possible that he could significantly improve the migration of voters to his campaign from the Clinton camp AND do something great for America.

Feel like helping a suffering animal by sending an email letter?

About a year ago when my partner was in Anchorage, Alaska, he visited the local zoo. He came back and told me of a sad elephant who really needed to be rescued and taken to a warm place where she could roam and interact with other elephants. Her name is Maggie.  She is kept in a small enclosure, on a concrete floor, with little exercise and no contact with other elephants. Elephants are highly social creatures that suffer greatly when kept away from other elephants.

In the past two weeks she has collapsed twice and had to be helped up by the fire department. There are now loud calls for that zoo to allow her to go to an animal sanctuary in Tennessee. Their board is meeting Tuesday and has solicited public comments on the issue.

Files this one under "Idiots With a Little Power."

Dr. Andrew Feldmar, a respceted Vancouver psychologist (who once studied under R.D. Laing and worked with Zenon Pylyshyn), wrote an article in 2001 talking about an acid trip he experienced 40 years earlier.

In 2006 he was driving across the border to Seattle to meet a friend. He was pulled for a random check and a border guard found his article online. Because of the admission in his article he was fingerprinted and denied entry into the US for narcotics use. He was told that he can never enter the US. He was given the option of applying for exceptions to this - but these are yearly waivers, are expensive to obtain, and he must prove that he has been "rehabilitated."

Words matter. How we define our terms can have an impact on public discussions and debate. We understand the concept of the frame of a debate here at Daily Kos. Let's not fall into using an important frame of the right.

For too long now we have let George Bush and company tell us that we must support the "war" in Iraq. But this isn't a war. They use that term for a reason. Let's not play along.

The disgusting tasering of a student at the library at UCLA's Powell Library shows students trying to talk to the officers and requesting their badge numbers. Good for the witnesses to this brutality. They at least stood up to the police.

What are the rest of that university's students going to do about this, now? Here is a clear case of abuse of powers by police, the usual "we are just trying to protect the average citizen" nonsense often used to justify such behavior, and the usual sheep-like "we should wait for more information" nonsense commentators are offering.

Are there going to be marches? Will there be a protest outside of the police building on that campus? Will the students at other universities and colleges pass resolutions and march and hold vigils against police brutality?

We always joke about one of our dogs, a cocker spaniel with some very neurotic traits. We tell people that when no one is looking he slips out to the backyard and has a cigarette and a gin & tonic to calm his jittery nerves. We are only kidding, of course, because being a cocker spaniel means that there really is no soothing his nerves.

But a story on NPR about one enterprising cocker spaniel reveals that she has found a way to not only calm down, but to also hear colors and see sound and to really, really get into what the universe is saying.

Like Timothy Leary, "Lady" is a dog who has dared to turn on, tune in, and drop out.

What could be used to incentivize bloggers to get up and get out and volunteer for a campaign? Begging and pleading, not terribly effective. Pestering, naah.  Incentives? But what to offer as an incentive? Tshirts and CDs are expensive.

What do Kossacks really want?

Mojo.

Here is your chance to earn recommends - just for saying what you are doing and what you will do in the real world.

After the primary win by Ned Lamont in Connecticut I sent an email to a number of Human Rights Campaign staffers asking if they would now stand with Democratic voters and endorse Ned Lamont. Becuase the Human Rights Campaign claims to be the most important voice for the GLB community I assumed that they would now be open to changing their endorsement to the Democratic candidate in the race with the greatest stated support for equality for our community. I was wrong.

So many African American leaders helped Ned Lamont. Can we start talking about the renewed strength of that voice in our party, too?

I know that we all have a giant list of books to get to, which means that any recomendation can be easily overlooked. Nonetheless, this one is different for one reason: it is a primer on how to win as a progressive that says the important stuff which never shows up in any other activist manual.

The conservative training organization 'The Leadership Institute' includes it in its recomendation list for political activists. They acknowledge it is written for progressives ('radicals') but they think it is too important for their own people to miss.

If they think it is important enough to tell their people to read it, and it was written for us, I can't understand why it isn't on every must read list for progressives.

The book? "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals" by Saul Alinsky.

Claude Allen, a top Bush advisor until two weeks ago, was arrested for attempting to defraud Target and Hecht's stores of $5000 through a refund scam.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

More...

David Marek, former editor of Campaigns and Elections magazine, tells Reason Magazine that he thinks attack ads have a place in campaigns, but that the Republican party is better because Democrats are unwilling to "go for the jugular."

http://www.reason.com/...

This has me wondering if we are doing our research on all of the potential Republican nominees for 08, to make sure that whoever their candidate is, we can run swift-boat type ads? We've learned from Rove, et al, to attack them in a way that undermines their primary message. An example that comes to mind is Giuliani and his possible primary message that he was a great leader on 9/11. Would we be ready and able to run attack ads against him for cowardly hiding on 9/11? Are we willing to find a firefighter to say in a commercial that Rudy was busy posing for the cameras and unable to make decisions while staff waited for leadership that day?

He is just an example - but are we creating a plan of nasty attacks and swift-boat style ads for whatever candidate they throw our way?