On Saturday afternoon, I had the opportunity to speak with Mark Hull-Richter over the telephone about his write-in campaign in California's 42nd congressional district this year. Should 3,000 people in the district write Hull-Richter on their ballots tomorrow, the Democrats will have a candidate in yet another district in which they were not previously running one. You can listen to the interview here (warning: a large .wav) or read the rush transcript below.

Jonathan Singer: Can you tell us a little bit about how it came to be that you're mounting a write-in campaign, how you decided to enter the race?

Mark Hull-Richter: Well, I was at the January meeting of the California Democratic Party's executive board and they announced there that they had all of the races in the covered. So a few weeks ago I went to look and see if that was actually the case because I had heard that the Democrat who'd filed for the 42nd had dropped out and there was nobody listed on the ballot, no write-ins filed or anything. And it just seemed to me that that was a poor way to run an election for the Democratic Party, so I filed.

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PRESS RELEASE                                                               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                                               MAY 24, 2006

TONY BARR REACHES, EXCEEDS GOAL

           Today Tony Barr officially became the Democratic Party nominee for Pennsylvania's 9th Congressional District to the United States Congress when his verified vote total raced past the needed 1000 write-in votes, and continued to a present total of 1776.  Barr organized an intense grassroots campaign as a write-in candidate in the course of just sixteen days, winning at least 1776 officially accepted write-in votes in the May 16 primary election, almost double the number needed, to gain a spot on the Democratic ballot in November.  Tony Barr will face Republican incumbent Bill Shuster in the November general election.  Had Barr not succeeded, Shuster would have run unopposed.  

           Tony Barr, a Bedford County Special Education Teacher, took on the challenge of running for Congress after becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the 9th District's current representation.  He was also alarmed to see that the Democratic Party had not qualified a candidate for the election; he stepped forward when he heard that local Democratic grassroots organizers were interested in supporting a qualified candidate.  

Check out: www.tonybarr2006.com                                                                    

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Despite some good news, Democrats are in a crisis.  Fewer than 1 in 5 of us think Rep Nancy Pelosi is an effective leader.  It's arguably our party's biggest problem.  Where I live in the Bay Area, she is an even bigger disappointment to her constituents, who roundly booed her weak Iraq and impeachment stances at her recent Town Meeting.  

Many recent diaries document Pelosi's ineptness and passivity - now capped by her complicity in illegal spying, and her attacks on Senator Feingold's efforts to hold the president accountable for breaking the law.  What can the Netroots do?

The good news is: plenty!, cheaply, and easily - if we discard our usual preconceptions about ballots, money, and "spoiler" candidates - and only if we finally acknowledge our own potential.

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