Today I spent two and a half hours knocking on doors in a neighborhood about two miles from my house. It was the first concrete step I have taken on the road to the 2006 elections. The main purpose of today's canvassing was to make initial contact with registered Demoratic voters to find out what issues are important to them and to enhance the accuracy of the voter lists. Although it is still almost a year before the election, and it may seem like this sort of activitiy is unlikely to have a significant effect on the results, this is the kind of work which forms the foundation for the kinds of success we saw recently in Virginia and New Jersey. And it felt good to be taking some sort of action to vent my anger with the sort of people who countenance treason in the form of outing our covert agents for political ends and who call a decorated veteran of two wars a coward for dissenting from their clap louder strategy in a failing occupation.
In my case, the activity had an added benefit. My canvassing partner was Dr. Jim Corwin, who is currently the only active candidate running for the Democratic nomination to replace the current member of congress from Maryland District-01, Wayne Gilchrest. Although the external data would not seem to indicate that he has much of a chance, I think that there are a lot of factors coming together in this election (in addition to the overall implosion of the Republican Party into a miasma of scandal and corruption) which could make this race interesting. More importantly for me, Jim impressed me very much as someone who has entered the political arena for all the right reasons, and I will be proud to campaign for him whatever his chances.
Although the voter registration numbers for District 1 appear to favor the Democratic candidate, these numbers are deceiving to some extent, since a large portion of the district consists of Maryland's Eastern Shore, whose voting history seems similar to the rural areas of Virginia and the Carolinas. As such, they tend to be socially conservative but may not have changed their voter affiliation.
Nonetheless, the incumbent built up a strong approval rating as a pre-environment moderate in a district where the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is the center of both the social and commercial lives of many. But recent pressure from groups like Club for Growth and the DeLay Cabal has pushed Gilchrest further and further to the right in a district where population shifts in Baltimore's southeast suburbs has shifted the district toward the center. Combine the likely Republican nomination of current Lt. Governor Michael Steele for retiring Senator Sarbanes seat and the overall disgust with the widening scandals surrounding Bush, Frist and DeLay, and there is reason to believe that a political outsider who is a family doctor with roots on both sides of the Chesapeake could make this into a race. And if the perfect storm of scandals finally breaks through the corporate media disinformation smokescreen just maybe I can wake up next November and feel proud of my representative in congress again. And even if he is not successful this time, it will still bring us one step closer to the day we take our country back from the corrupt regime which has betrayed all of the ideals which have made our nation one that the world used to look up to
I urge all of my fellow Kosmonauts to start today; to push yourselves beyond your comfort zone to take some concrete step each day toward the goal of a Congress which will perform its role as a watchdog rather than a lapdog and begin to reverse the policies of the last few years which have benefitted the very wealthy at the expense of the middle class and the poor. As a side benefit, you will sleep better, and you may even get to spend a few yours with your future congressman. Not bad for a few hours effort.