Chris Mathews made an interesting and relevant point

[Tigress DEM]

25. Well, Jim Ramstad from Minnesota was ok - not perfect and don't agree with him on lots of stuff.

I went to a town hall meeting in Edina that he hosted and there were all these DEMs ready to give him what for and he stood and took it for a couple of hours. At the time, *ush wasn't having any interactions that weren't scripted, so that was a difference.

I asked him about the stupidity of a $20,000 credit for SUVs and Hummers vs the $2,000 credit for electric or flex fuel vehicles. He said that he'd worked to get that fixed and I told him that was funny because it made it into the final bill but said that a lot of times bills were changing substantially in the middle of the night after people had already voted for them. He looked honestly appalled and like he was pissed that he'd been duped.

He didn't run again and 2009 was his last year. Maybe he got disillusioned.

There also may be Republicans who want their party back, just like we want America back. What America has become these days doesn't set well with most of US but we stay and we fight because we believe in what was and what can be again - a functioning Democracy.

I'm not talking about politicians as much as I am average people who believed in certain things and voted Republican because of their beliefs. Never have agreed with much in the Republican platform, but you are right the party of today is a bunch of criminals promoting dictatorship as compromise, where they get what they want and we get screwed.

Tig