We know Phillip, and he's no hero
We put Sherrod Brown on Wampum's sidebar very early in the '06 cycle. We exchanged a lot of mail with Phillip de Vellis during the course of the campaign, and offered some suggestions on message and technique.
When the torture vote came up we were stunned that Brown voted for torture. There was no political necessity, he already had a safe lead. He just didn't have to vote against habeas corpus and for torture. We wrote to Phillip de Vellis and obtained an unsatisfactory response. In a nutshell, lump it or you're not a Dem.
We took Sherrod Brown off our sidebar.
After the '06 cycle ended, Phillip got work, and dozens of better people didn't.
I don't see the situation changing, and I expect Barack Obama's got more problems now than John Edwards had after flushing two women who signed what they wrote when they wrote it, not weeks later.
In '92 MB volunteered for Clinton-Gore and worked her way up from vol to deputy field director and acting field director for a battleground state. We don't see that now. The "grass roots" are now just a rhetorical device, a throw away liine meaning nothing.
Comments
I agree with you. Those who seem to thrive as political operatives are usually the bottom dwellers. I guess as they know where all the bodies are buried ('cause they are the ones who buried 'em); they have essentially created for themselves a carte blanche. Its deplorable - but today’s norm, I’m afraid. Not everyone behaves this way, thank god. There are a few politicians who value character. Congressman John Hall for one. I know some of the people working in his office and they are fine, decent human beings. Not everyone’s like that, unfortunately.
Posted by: The Fat Lady Sings | March 23, 2007 10:46 PM