HONG TRAN & INCUMBENT SPOILS

Did Maria Cantwell gain ground on her Republican challenger in the upcoming fall elections by hiring/buying off one of her primary challengers the supposedly anti-war Mark Wilson? With his own campaign failing to find much traction Wilson ostensibly needed the money and so he adopted the rather feeble charade that he can lobby against the war 'from the inside' and ended his own run to work full-time for the incumbent Cantwell-- Wilson has a family to feed and if that's the primary reason for abandoning the fight it's difficult to find too much fault-- Hard Times require difficult decisions and besides his inability to magnetize the funds required to truly challenge Cantwell where it really counts, in the high-cost Media, insured pretty much from the get-go he would not get the chance to succeed-- It's another story if his defection from professed principle simply aimed for careering insider status one rung up the political ladder-- 'Say it ain't so, Joe' (Mark)--

Although Wilson will now probably want his anti-war supporters to adopt his employer's candidacy (his appeal may even include some camouflaged variation of the 'lesser of two evils' banality) another anti-Iraq War repeal-NAFTA pro-Health Care candidate Hong Tran at last count is still pressing her challenge of the rich and privileged incumbent who still hasn't found the courage to adopt something other than the less-than-upright 'stay-the-course' non-position of the republican president-- Importantly Tran's articulate message still carries an obviously 'American' resonance-- It mirrors the position of the majority of Americans and a super majority of registered democrat Americans (verified by a blevvy of polsters left and right) even if she hasn't garnered much name recognition-- Tran's Vietnamese heritage and compelling personal history doesn't count for much inside the elitist old white girls' exclusionary wing of the democrat party but her independent spirit and courage to soldier on in the face of the stacked decks and the cynical realities of today's politics is something to behold and admire and encourage-- She actually appears to walk her talk--She's not just about photo-ops--Remember when the Democrats were on the side of actual working people??-- Was it so long ago they have forgotten??--

Whether Cantwell's republican tactic of buying off her opponents succeeds in muting activist disappointment and pro-peace dissent that appeared to threaten her klutzy tin-eared campaign and allows her to retain her seat, it is more than apparent and perhaps more important that today's Democratic Party as most can now see is no longer the party of Roosevelt and is not the party on the side of history-- (Whether the Republican party is either is a question for another post--) A warning salvo suggests that millions of immigrant Mexican women(and men) with their eye on the prize of future citizenship and its inherent voting privileges are watching the way the democrats have treated and continue to disrespect Hong Tran-- WAKE UP!!!-- The mirage of calculating buzz-word blather and feigned stances or fighting principles??-- The choice is ours--Thanks, Hong Tran, for the inspiration--