The average reader on this site would know that many of our editors haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye with CDP leadership in recent years on…well…just about anything. Political strategy, resource allocation, technology, volunteer mobilization–you name it, we’ve complained about it.
But it seems like things are changing, and nobody could be happier than I.
I happened to be at the CDP Learn to Win training this past Sunday in Ventura (another new program I’m happy the CDP is doing–more on this in a future post) when I received an email from one of my favorite bloggers who influences a lot of my thinking on political issues and strategy–Mark Kleiman at Same Facts. The email detailed the occurrence that I detailed Sunday evening, where Rep. Walley Herger in CD-2 praised as a “great American” a nutcase who described himself as a proud right-wing terrorist.
I showed the email and the details to Shawnda at the CDP, who was in attendance at the training (hooray for Blackberry). For the record, it’s really too bad that there’s no good video of this incident. This is why it’s imperative that no matter what district you’re in, it’s always good to have a video camera trained on your local Republican–you never know when you’re going to catch your own Macaca moment.
And no more than a couple of days later, the CDP has an action plan ready to go soliciting small-dollar contributions to fund an advertisement:
Members of Congress around the country have been holding town hall events in their districts this August, and some of them have gotten pretty heated. But nothing like this.
The Mt. Shasta News reports that at a recent town hall in Redding, Republican Rep. Wally Herger went out of his way to praise a man who stood up and identified himself as “a proud right-wing terrorist,” calling him “a great American.”
Yes, you heard me right: Rep. Herger, a Republican Congressman from California, publicly praised a self-described right-wing terrorist. That’s outrageous.
The email gets better, because it lays it out on the line–directly listing all the incidents of right-wing terrorism that have occurred since Obama’s election, associating Wally Herger with these incidents, and calling for him to issue a public apology.
Me? I’m all about keeping this incident in the news. And I’m glad the CDP is asking for citizen action about this outrage, along with the small-dollar contributions.
Herger’s statement broke nationally Saturday morning and it took until Tuesday afternoon to turn around a move against praising terrorists?
Did the CDP hire the Slowskys away from Comcast?
My local Democrats are loving the more aggressive stance. Not yet at the speed of light, granted, but we can get to that, too.
As an escapee of CD-2 (only to end up in CD-3, haw haw), I’d suggest getting the money to put an ad in the Redding Record Searchlight, the closest thing to the paper of record in Herger’s district. But, as much as I’m appalled by this, what Herger said plays well up there in the State of Jefferson. It’s kinda sad, actually. sigh
-kat