You should run for office.

[Telly Savalas]

After all, you're smarter than the current elected Democrats. You're more progressive and you're more willing to fight.

Granted you'd face well bankrolled opposition but as is pointed out on a daily basis here, Americans support a progressive agenda and prefer a fighter like you to the milquetoast alternatives. Moreover, you'd have the support of an energized grassroots movement to combat the powers that be. All the folks here that worked so hard to get Obama elected? They'd be working for you. The party's base? Yours for the taking.

Waiting for someone else to fix the situation clearly hasn't been working, has it?

So be the change.

[rug]

1. Will you be my press secretary?

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. Too many skeletons in my closet. Reps have to be crystal clean these days.

Not worth putting my family through the stupid shit I did 20 years ago as if t were yesterday.

You?

[Bigmack]

14. Actually, the Repubs seem to be able ...

to have sex with goats and still be "forgiven".

[Ruby the Liberal]

20. Another problem for me. I am DSA.

[Le Taz Hot]

35. You know what?

I think EVERYONE has that problem. But I really do believe it's easy to counter. Basically, throw out a "ye who is without sin" kind of thing. Admit you're human. Admit you've made mistakes, just like every other human being on earth, recognized what you've learned from the experience and you moved on.

Fear of being exposed is the weapon they use to keep the peons like use (OK, like me) in their place. Personally, I'd rather go down fighting that to keep taking this shit.

[hobbit709]

44. Skeletons, hell, I've got whole cemetaries.

[Freddie Stubbs]

52. Nonsense. The Governor-elect of FL was the head of a company which

paid the largest ever fine for Medicare fraud.

[tuckessee]

3. I would but I can't.

I had too much fun when I was younger....:P

[DeadEyeDyck]

4. K&R

awaiting that PAC $$$

[Edweird]

5. I'm unelectable for numerous reasons. I'd make Grayson look the picture of tranquility and harmony.

I have my talents and politicking isn't one of them.

[Lucian]

6. I could, but I can't.

I'm not a millionaire. I hate large corporations, so I wouldn't get any money to run. I want all renewable energy, so that would go against the oil and coal companies. I still have my spine. I'd stand up to people, and they wouldn't want that. Oh, and I'm an atheist so my political career is doomed before it even started.

[Odin2005]

7. I'm unelectable because of my Atheism and my Asperger's

There is no way people will elect a non-believer with a severe stutter and the charisma of a rock.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. Rep. Pete Stark is an avowed atheist. Only one in Congress.

I want to move to his district if I can.

[tpsbmam]

18. I dunno....I just spent a fair amount of time looking at your blog....

Well done! You might get votes just with your intelligence & dry sense of humor. Only thing I could find to hold against you was being a Taurus....ex is a Taurus. LOL

[Odin2005]

21. LOL, thanks! We did have an Aspie DUer that ran for office this year, didn't win.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=387x1238

[hfojvt]

27. and so did I

although I have won one office, a local non-paid position. This time I lost in the primary. I consider myself an Aspie as well, although I think I pass for normal, and have never been professionally diagnosed.

[AlienGirl]

56. Didn't win, but got a better percentage than any other non-incumbent Dem in the county. nt

[AndyTiedye]

25. Yeah, We're Much Better at Engineering than Politics

I like that colorful infinity a lot better than those puzzle pieces everyone was using for a while.

[Odin2005]

50. I don't like the puzzle-pieces because of their association with Autism Speaks...

...which is a "pro-cure" organization that is all about scaring parents into donating money for funding junk science.

[ZombieHorde]

26. I have never met someone who has Asperger's and is a theist, have you?

I had a foster son for a while with Asperger's, I listed his religion as "Taco Bell," since that seemed to be his favorite thing.

[Odin2005]

49. Nope. I have never took religion seriously, myself.

Even when I was still nominally a Lutheran as a child I had what was an essentially Deistic or Pantheistic view. My own current view could be called Atheism or Einsteinian Pantheism depending on definitions.

Apparently that is extremely common among autistics, and I suspect it has to do with our poor social instincts. IMO religion developed out of imposing the human social reality of agents with free will and intentionality onto inanimate nature.

[KamaAina]

55. Actually some people on the spectrum are very devoutly religious

as with politics, there semms to be not much of a middle ground.

[Diclotican]

37. Odin2005

Odin2005

Even a rock have some sharm;).. My brother have Aspberges, and he can sharm everyone when he want, and is secure in his envirmoment;)

But the stutter can maybe be somewhat more difficult to work with.... Specially if you want up to higher offices...

But then, I bet you can't do worse than others who have been running for office either... Asberges or not asbergers;)

Diclotican

[Odin2005]

51. LOL, thanks for the encouragement!

It's "Asperger's", BTW, after the German psychiatrist who first studied autistic people. One of his patients, a boy named Hans IIRC, supposedly became a respected scientist. If Hans is still alive he would likely be in his late 70s, now.

[AmandaMae]

9. Maybe someday. I doubt I'd get elected though.

[SocialistLez]

10. TOO many strikes against me, at least for my area:

1)Black
2)Lesbian
3)Female
4)Atheist
5)Democratic Socialist/Green Party

[Capitalocracy]

31. You've got my vote.

That's exactly the kind of candidate I'm looking for. And I bet I'm not alone.

[Le Taz Hot]

36. Fuck that!

YOU are my PERFECT CANDIDATE!!!!

[LuckyTheDog]

11. Great. Raise $1 million for me...

... and I'll run for mayor.

I'd pledge to run for Congress, but my district is represented by an awesome progressive already. And my state has 2 senators I support.

If Carl Levin retires, get back to me. But if you do, you'll need to raise more like $10 million for me.

On edit: I should be totally electable. I belonged to a socialist organization while in college, which could come back to haunt me. Beyond that, though, I'm pretty plain-vanilla and scandal free. I'm white, straight, 100% faithful to my wife of 17 years and college-educated (at a nice, non-elite state college), but from a working class background. I have never done any drug more powerful than marijuana and my last bong hit was probably 25 years ago.

[AlienGirl]

12. I suppose I will; it was fun last time I did it. nt

[flvegan]

13. Someday, I hope to.

I'm completely unelectable as far as a Senate or House seat goes, but something very local might be in sight.

[Coyote_Bandit]

15. My first priority

is to myself and my family. Everything and everyone else is secondary. And that most definitely includes the society and corporate culture that has treated me like a throwaway.

I'll run ***IF*** you assume the responsibility of providing care for my aging family members - and if that care (and your hours and obligations) is subject to my standards. But I doubt you're up for that deal.

[MrMickeysMom]

16. You forgot to add...

Run for local office.

So far, the excuses I hear here neglect how easy it is to knock doors and get elected. Remember, all politics is local. Your taxes are best affected by what happens there... You interface UP the chain from the most common denominator.

Plus, it's the hardest job you'll ever love. I know. I didn't bust the bank in running for office, either... just did a poop-load of walking and talking, which is quite healthy, you know.

[LuckyTheDog]

19. You must not live in a big city

Getting elected to city council where I live takes about $200,000.

[MrMickeysMom]

42. You're right... population is under 30k

Which is what most municipalities are... therefore, where people SHOULD run!

[LuckyTheDog]

48. So, I should move to the suburbs?

No thanks. Not for me.

[Starry Messenger]

17. Jackie Speier kicked ass this weekend.

I voted for her, and I'm pretty pleased so far. :shrug:

[Rex]

22. I'd buy that for a dollar!

[guruoo]

23. What if...

http://viraladdict.com/?p=409#more-409

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. yes, clearly unless i am fit for public office, i am not fit to comment on it

:eyes:

because you know when bush was in office, i had no comments then too. or reagan. or anyone else.

[Rochester]

28. No one would vote for me

I think even a lot of D's would not, as my views are quite unorthodox.

[AlabamaLibrul]

29. I'm entirely unelectable.

An atheist independent who most aligns with Greens, wasn't "born and bred" in Alabama, and is poor?

I'm to the left of the only real Democrat in recent Alabama history, who wanted a statewide lottery for FREE TUITION at state colleges if you did well in HS, the duly elected Governor Don Siegelman who was Karl Rove'd into jail.

[TheKentuckian]

30. I had no issue working for my Reps reelection.

My energy stance in a coal state is a tough sale and I wouldn't modify it to win.

I probably should figure a way to get my ass on the Metro Council though, that might be plausible even if I'd be drowned out by the nanny staters and corporatist representing both parties on the committee.

[Capitalocracy]

32. I might run on a local level

if I weren't stuck in Argentina.

My chances would be slim... but I think, in my case, as with many people here, the ideas are there and somebody should bring them to the table.

A lot of people here should run for office.

[Le Taz Hot]

33. I've been thinking about the same thing.

DUers running for office. In droves. Personally, I'd like to see people go for the gold, so to speak, and skip the whole City Council/State Office thing and go directly towards a Congressional campaign. I know in California it's $3,000.00 + a certain amount of signatures (can't remember how many) to get on the ballot. How many candidates could the members of DU put up? We certainly have the support and the activism on this board. Because of the current DU rules they would HAVE to be a Democrat (unfortunately), and under those guidelines we'd be bucking the Party Bosses every inch of the way but anything is better than the collective spineless corporate pieces of shit sell-outs we've got in there now.

[Capitalocracy]

34. We should start with offices we can win

depending on how many people volunteer, that could be in addition to congressional runs. If we literally formed a movement with a bunch of people running for office as part of a national network who spend as close as possible to $0, and a dozen or so actually win local office seats, it would capture the attention of the MSM and take very few election cycles to turn into a real movement.

This is something I've thought about before and would be doing if I had a voice.

[Le Taz Hot]

38. I understand your logic

and don't, on it's surface, disagree. However, this country is currently in a life-and-death struggle of class warfare and we need NATIONAL action NOW. Please understand that I am NOT discouraging ANYONE for running for office, I just think we need more direct access to national legislation.

Personally, I'd LOVE to run for Congress but I can't do it as a Democrat which means I wouldn't have access to DU support.

[Capitalocracy]

39. I think it has to be a national movement

but one that includes a focus on local office and the changes that can be made there, although running for national offices would be great too. When you think about it, we'd have a lot of power to change the country if we could take power in local offices across the nation... living wage laws in several towns and cities? Public health care in a few states? These would be the beginnings of a wave of change that would take over the country.

And I think that's the closest thing to immediate change we can ask for.

[Warren DeMontague]

40. Another unelectable Atheist, here.

But, who knows. Babies do love to barf on me.

[melm00se]

41. Absolutely not

I would really prefer to avoid the scrutiny and daily hammering most if not all politicians take.

For example: I dress to the right...here at DU that would be interpreted as I have some secret, unspoken republican leanings.

Additionally, there are folks who take one person's commentary as pure unadulterated scripture level truth and anyone making contrary statements or one's that appear to point out that this "emperor has no clothes" must, without a doubt, be tools of (pick one, more or all) big corporations, the banksters, the MIC, Rush Limbaugh et al, Wall Street, any not listed and/or all of the above.

Why in God's name would I want to subject myself to that level of, frankly, bullshit?

[The Straight Story]

43. No need to - I hired people for a job, will bitch when they do it poorly, and fire them

if I need to.

I don't need to run for the office, I am part owner of it.

[Union Scribe]

59. Perfect answer.

[MrMickeysMom]

45. Telly... I find the reaction here to be MOST interesting...

I've seen excuses that have to do with being an atheist (So what? Is that a litmus test? Hello... Church and State???)

I've seen excuses that have to do with dealing with criticism (So what? You can't listen more intently to what issues are local without constant criticism? Fail)

I've seen excuses about having inhaled and exhaled (So what? You think you're the only one? What does it have to do with local government representation issues?)

I've seen the excuse that you might only need to run in large cities (WTF? Most municipalities are under 30,000, so it won't break the bank if you get out and knock doors)

VERY interesting results of your OP. I wonder if I'll hear more excuses about how you can't make a difference running locally. This would be the same thing Thom Hartmann encourages people to do, but it seems that it's too much and they'd rather talk about someone else fixing the situation.

:nopity:

[The Straight Story]

46. My uncle was mayor of Marietta, Ohio.

My grandfather was mayor of Byesville. Both made a difference and worked hard for the people.

In the end, there can be only one mayor of a town at a time - those of us who did not, for whatever reason, did not abdicate responsibility to one person. Ours is to ensure they do the job they asked for.

There are many legitimate reasons not to run - and just because people do not run, for whatever reason, does not mean they don't have valid points or a leg to complain on.

[MrMickeysMom]

47. I'm not talking about running at large for Mayor...

Which in our case, is a weak position, maybe a tie-breaker of some ordinances, and runs at large. I'm talking smaller representation such as a member of council.

In fact, I'm not abdicating leaving one's duty as a good citizen for the sole purpose of running for a particular office. Yes, there are legitimate reasons for people not running. I'm just amazed at the excuses for those who it would seem WOULD run, but for their particular excuses.

I salute ANYONE who actually shows up at local government meetings, because I consider being a citizen activist THE MOST IMPORTANT role. Yet, very, very few do show up, unless their "issue" effects them.

It failure at several levels.

By the way, good for your uncle. I'm sure he DID make lasting impressions.

[Union Scribe]

58. Did you really think someone was going to announce a campaign in this thread?

It doesn't mean these people aren't civically active or unqualified to comment on politics, so I think you should put away your violin.

[MrMickeysMom]

60. No, I didn't think this thread was for announcing

In fact, the kind of comment I'd expect would be, "you know... I'm going to help someone GET elected", or, "I'm going to be an activist to better government", or even, "you know, I can see myself deciding that some day".

You didn't see any of that, did you? Maybe we need an orchestra of minor keys...

[spanone]

53. you run first.

[MilesColtrane]

54. Too many "youthful indiscretions" in my past.

Plus, I'm not good looking or a good talker.

There's also the fact that I have to make a living somehow.

[Scurrilous]

57. K & R

:thumbsup: