As Kos recently pointed out, a number of old stale Democrats were responsible for the passage of FISA, and he proposed mounting a slate of netroots challengers to take them on in the 2010 primaries. Yesterday I made the case for Kos taking on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA-08) in her San Francisco district, personally.
Here, in the Washington, D.C. metro area, Rep. Steny Hoyer (MD-05) has been taking up space in Congress since 1981. In the heavily Democratic fifth district of Maryland, it is unlikely that a GOP challenger can dislodge him. Any effort to remove FISA Champion Hoyer from Congress will depend on the strength of a Democratic primary challenger.
In November, following the general election, will be an effort to recruit a suitable challenger for Mr. Hoyer, one with a robust familiarity with the digital environment and other emerging tech, who can appeal to Progressive, Libertarian, and Constitutionalist sentiments alike. An 'Agent of Change' - from the netroots to Congress.
Please add your input and participation in such an effort. (more)
There are many on DKos from the DC Metro area, and many who have been here longer than I have. I've lived in the Washington area for just five years, and have not focused on the regional political situation much until now. However, in a former life, I have managed campaigns and spent a considerable amount of time in politics, organizing professionally.
The Movement for Change that Barack Obama represents must do more after January to support our new President. The Congress must be upgraded to a 'new version' as well. Its less a question of party affiliations than of the cognizance these people have of the new issues raised by the emerging digital environment of the 21st Century. In FISA, our "pre-digital" Congress has proven itself demonstrably unable to adapt to this new era, in which we have now been living for more than a decade.
From Stenchy's website, a description of the district:
The 5th Congressional district of Maryland was redrawn in 2000 and includes a large portion of Prince George's County, the three counties of southern Maryland - Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary's - and a portion of Anne Arundel County. Major cities in the 5th District's portion of Prince George's County include College Park, home of the flagship campus of the University of Maryland, Hyattsville, Greenbelt, Clinton, Beltsville, Bowie, Laurel and parts of Fort Washington and Upper Marlboro, the County seat. The Fifth Congressional District also includes the Anne Arundel County areas of Crofton and Davidsonville, just west of Annapolis.
The southern part of the 5th District stretches from Waldorf (Charles County) south to Lexington Park (St. Mary's County) and across the Patuxent River to Prince Frederick (Calvert County).
Help me identify a resident of the fifth district (or nearby in the NoVA/DC area and able to relocate), who would make a viable candidate for this seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. First, lets look at the qualifications, image, and style required of such a challenger, and then we'll go into platform issues to be considered by such an individual if he is to be recruited.
QUALIFICATIONS
1. Youth - Under 40 - Stenchy is getting up there and suburban Maryland is a relatively young district, which incorporates the University of Maryland. A candidate able to effectively evoke the youth demographic, and bring out 'under 30' voters to the polls will have a significant edge.
2. Technologist - A scientist, engineer, system/network administrator, or dot.com entrepreneur would appeal to the district's uniquely large population of highly educated, technically oriented voters - and their families. In addition to UMD, the district includes the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt,and the sprawling laboratory complex of the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville. While JohnsHopkins University and its world-famous Applied Physics Lab are located in the adjoining district, many of its students, faculty, and staff undoubtedly live in the fifth CD. At any rate, the candidate should be recognized digerati, and know his/her way around FISA, Net Neutrality, and other issues that Stenchy is clueless of.
3. Successful - The individual must be financially secure enough to commit the time, if not the money, to wage an effective campaign. This may come in the form of an entrepreneur who has build and/or sold a business (which no longer requires his/her 24/7 attention), be otherwise self-employed, or an individual in a professional position able to take a significant leave of absence from his/her career while pursuing the race for Congress.
4. Philosophically Sound - A desirable candidate would possess a deep, abiding faith in the U.S. Constititution and Bill of Rights, and a missionary zeal to restore them in Congress, following the excesses of recent years. That the individual is solid in his/her beliefs and demonstrates some ideological backbone is more relevant than their specific positions. They must be able to take clear, unambiguous positions on critical contentious issues, to defend those positions effectively, and to avoid degenerating into sound bytes of mush when cornered by the media.
5. Technologically Proficient - The candidate must be innately communicative, sufficiently acquainted with the new information modalities that are taking over politics in the 21st Century. A Web 2.0 campaign, which reaches deeply into the netroots, and mobilizes them dynamically and effectively is required, and so the candidate's personal intuitive understanding of the new media is essential. The fifth CD has complete broadband penetration, and all manner of advanced, leading edge internet applications will be employed in the campaign.
6. Movement Oriented - The proposed contender should be prepared to work with similar 2010 netroots Congressional Challengers from around the country, both before and after election, as part of a coordinated effort to bring new digital sanity to Washington. Locally, he/she should be able to work well with Progressive organizations, involved in Renewable Energy, Sustainable Living, Relocalization, Fair Trade, Climate Change, Homelessness, and other contemporary isses in social activism, in building a winning Center/Left coaltion to defect the incumbent Rep. Hoyer.
7. Integrity - Must be willing to mount a campaign free of lobbyist and special interest PAC money, without being a creature of either the Chamber of Commerce or Organized Labor. Independent of entrenched interests on the critical issues of both Health Care and Education, the ideal Congressional hopeful will offer a wholesome (scandal free) personal life and background. Qualified by virtue of obvious character, the successful candidate will be untrammelled by stories of jilted ex-wives, abandoned children, indicted business partners, vindictive hookers, or fame seeking drug dealers in his/her life to date.
8. Personal Qualities - It is necessary to find an attractive individual who is sincere and projects this quality, without being 'phony', contrived, or scripted. He/she should present as intelligent, articulate, approachable, compassionate, and charismatic; photogenic on camera, confident on video, with a clear - unaccented - speaking voice. Typically, a winning candidate has weight in proportion to height and does not present with facial hair (particularly if female). This district has significant African American and Hispanic populations, and racial diversity would not be considered a barrier to electability.
9. Three Terms - Six years in Congress are enough for anyone; we're not looking to replace one fiefdom with another. The Republicans had the right idea with "Term Limits", too bad all those GOP term limit advocates welched and kept running for reelection themselves. We seek a candidate willing to devote six years to service in the House, as citizen-legislators, with the intention of returning to private life before growing stale and corrupt in the job themselves. Its a sabbatical of service, "to DO a job, not Get a job", and its not a career move. Two reelection bids, in 2012 and 2014 would carry the new Congressman to the end of a second Obama presidential term, by which time, undoubtedly, America will again be looking for "change".
10. Accomplishment - More important than the typical candidate profile of membership in the Kiwanis, Rotary, etc., is a demonstrated record of achievement in his/her field, be it published papers,journal articles, and patents, or community organizing and social entrepreneurship. More important still is a desire to focus on and reach specific goals during his/her service in the House. Many of our Representatives spend long careers in the House, without ever leaving any significant trace to mark their time in office. The successful candidate will be an obsessively goal-directed individual, imbued with "the fierce urgency of Now".
PLATFORM
1. Renewable Energy instead of Transmission Lines - A major controversy exists in the district over plans by utilities to construct new high voltage transmission lines throughout the state, to conduct power between existing and new Coal-fired power plants, and growing population centers. Instead, Distributed Generation using Renewable Energy technologies - including offshore Wind Resources in the Chesapeake Bay - is a far more efficient and sustainable alternative for the district. Candidate "X" would work to forge a new partnership between Federal and State energy officials, utilities, homebuilders, and technology firms to demonstrate broad based community alternatives to new Coal generating facilities and their controversial transmission infrastructure.
2. Advanced Biofuels & Sustainable Agriculture - Rural Maryland has been an early participant in the emerging Corn Ethanol industry, but many farmers - and Maryland motorists - have thus far been left out of the biofuels boom. Working in partnership with the University of Maryland and the USDA/ARS research complex in Beltsville, Candidate "X" would initiate a new university/government/industry partnership to encourage the development of third-generation non-food "energy crops", able to propagate on disused low grade farmland, and cellulosic ethanol made from agricultural and municipal wastes. Specifically, with the biotech and biofuel resources in the district, Candidate "X" will seek federal participation between the Department of Energy and the Federal Aviation Administration, to establish the nation's first Biofuel Depot for Commercial Aviation at Thurgood Marshall Baltimore Washington International Airport. Additionally, sustainable agriculture concepts such as "BioChar" can be used to both increase the yields of existing Corn crops, and to return fertility to marginal lands, while returning Carbon to the soil for permanent sequestration.
3. Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport & Economic Development - While located at NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in neighboring Virginia on the Delmarva penninsula, the rocket base is uninhabited, built on a narrow strip of barrier island beach between the Atlantic and Cheasepeak. Many of the engineers and technicians there live in southern Maryland. The commercial spaceport project has thus far failed to realize its potential, and could be the catalyst for thousands of new jobs in the region. Candidate "X" would invite the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center, both in the district, to collaborate on the design of a new series of Earth Resources microsatellites, to provide commercially valuable data on climate change impacts, which could be built locally and launched from Wallops Island, invigorating commercial launch activity at the Spaceport. A new space-oriented Industrial Revenue Bonding authority would be proposed by Candidate "X" to underwrite the cost of perhaps a dozen launches, with spacecraft costs recovered from the commercial remote-sensing payloads they contain. The same micosatellite constellation could then furnish complimentary data to NGOs in the developing world, for use in improving agriculture, water management, and pollution control, on a tax-advantaged basis to U.S. investors, who would profit from data sales for domestic applications.
4. More Mass Transit for Suburban Maryland - Candidate "X" would seek early full funding from the Federal Transit Administration for the proposed "Purple Line" of the Washington, D.C. Metro (Subway) system, which would connect New Carrollton, College Park, and Bethesda Maryland with a northern loop outside the District, to relieve regional road congestion, taking tens of thousands of commuters off the overloaded Capital Beltway.
5. Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research - The Obama Administration can be expected to repeal Bush-era restrictions on the use of federal funding for Stem Cell research. The State of Maryland has launched a promising biotechnology initiative to make up some of that shortfall, and develop new therapeutic treatments at the University of Maryland and the many life sciences ventures in the district. Candidate "X" will advocate for new medical research funding to be granted in the region, to drive this emerging biotech industry toward near term cures for Heart Disease, Paralysis, Alzheimer's, and other conditions for which stem cell research has already demonstrated promising laboratory results.
6. Ecology of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed - Pollution from agricultural and stormwater runoff and municipal sewage dischage has severely damaged the Bay seafood harvest, and the brackish grasses which sustain the entire ecosystem. At a time when all Renewable [Carbon-neutral] Energy sources must be explored, it is unacceptable to dump sewage into the Bay, or leave garbage rotting in landfills which drain toxic runoff into the waterways which feed the Bay. Likewise, stormwater - rain - represents a recoverable fresh water resource that we can no longer afford to ignore. To protect the nation's largest and most sensitive watershed, Candidate "X" will propose a new federal loan guarantee program to encourage local public/private partnerships, investing in next-generation Waste-to-Energy [sewage & garbage] and water reclamation infrastructure, to modernize municipal facilities throughout the National Capital Region.
7. Climate Change Impacts - Maryland has 4,360 miles of coastline along the Chesapeake Bay, Coastal Bays and Atlantic Ocean, much of it in the fifth Congressional District. Sea level rise rates along Maryland's coastline are nearly twice those of the global average. Sea level has risen approximately one foot in the last century and is now expected to rise another 2-3 feet over the next few decades, far sooner than previously anticipated. Studies on the engineering and financial aspecets of Climate Change mitigation must begin now, not after homes are inundated by the rising sea. Candidate "X" will propose to direct the Army Corps of Engineers, in partnership with Maryland's Coastal Program, to conduct a massive, in-depth study of the probable impacts of sea-level rise in the National Capital Region, and then to solicit proposals from the Civil Engineering community on projects to effectively mitigate such impacts to the extent practical with present and foreseeable technologies.
8. Preserving Maryland's Rural Communities - Small towns in rural southern Maryland have suffered for decades from the fight of young people to urban areas offering greater economic opportunity. Many once vibrant towns have become shadows of their former selves as declining populations make more existing businesses nonviable, accelerating the decline. Candidate "X" will work with the Rural Maryland Council and St. Mary's College of Maryland to identify opportunities for home-grown business ventures in rural southern Maryland to seek research grants and procurement contracts with the federal government, particularly with respect to the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. As a principal test and evaluation center for U.S. Naval Aviation, the Pax River base can more effectively serve as a magnet for economic developement in southern Maryland, as innovation in aviation and aerospace technology increasingly advances through smaller, more entrepreneurial ventures as opposed to the traditional defense contractor monopolies. Candidate "X" will propose the creation of an Aero-Marine Technology Park on federal land at the base, with mathing private funding, to attract new ventures, jobs, and manufacturing activity to the region.
9. Affordable Sustainable Housing Initiative - The University of Maryland has been a leading competitor in the Department of Energy's biennial Solar Decathlon, demonstrating advanced housing designs and technology which render the homes energy (and water) independent. Where the program has failed is in translating these new architectural concepts into building design packages which typical local homebuilders can take up and use to construct affordable housing desired by consumers. Congressman "X" will bridge the gap between Department of Energy and Department of Housing & Urban Development programs in sustainable residential design, and the practical deployment of such technologies, from the UofM program to leading developers throughout the region. In particular, Prince George's County has long endured a shortage of affordable housing, as the pressure of rising population in the DC suburbs pushes housing costs out of the reach of many working families. As the Solar Decathlon has proven, green living technology can make homes more affordable instead of more expensive, as monthly energy costs are factored into the family income equation. Congressman "X" will ensure that new federal housing finance efforts support the new Residential LEED standard and take sustainable development into account, supporting the "green mortgage" initiative.
10. Access to Health Care - Whether or not national health insurance has been enacted by 2010, true access to quality primary medical care demands not only that it be paid for but that it be present and available where the people who need it actually live. Rural southern Maryland, like many areas outside of urban centers is not a market which attracts many medical professionals to want to live and practice there. A shortage of primary care physicians contributes to "Emergency Room overload", and this problem is unlikely to be alleviated by national health insurance alone, without a concomitant increase in the rural availability of doctors. Congressman "X" will sponsor a community health care partnership to operate two mobile free clinics, staffed by M.D. General Pratitioners, Pediatricians, Geriatrists, and Registered Nurses, aboard retrofitted motor coach chassis, to tour the fifth Congressional District providing pro-bono care to rural residents throughout the five county region on a weekly scheduled basis.
WONT YOU HELP STENCHY RETIRE?
With your kind thoughts, I'm sure we can all help Stenchy find a dance partner for the 2010 Democratic Primary, who will assist him to shuffle off to a richly deserved retirement. In his memory, Congressman "X" can be expected to cast many spirited votes to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, against hype-driven Wars for Oil, and in support of President Obama's agenda for change.
Feel free to comment on any of the proposed candidate recruitment criteria and the district-specific issues selected. If you happen to know the MD/DC/NoVA region and might have someone special in mind that you think would make a good 'Congressman "X"' in lieu of Stenchy, please comment to nominate your suggestion, preferably with photo and links, if possible.