You may have been following freshman Rep. Alan Grayson's various media kerfluffles.

Howie Klein has a good piece on the latest:

So last month when Enron's head lobbyist, Linda Robertson, reborn as the Fed's head lobbyist, attacked congressmen pushing for an audit of the Fed-- primarily Grayson and Ron Paul-- as ignorant of the difference between monetary policy and fiscal policy, Grayson reacted by pointing out that Robertson has a long and well-known career as a "K Street whore." She shills for whoever pays her. When it was Enron, she helped them steal billions of dollars from taxpayers and rate-payers and now that it's the Fed, she is crawling around DC starting whispering campaigns about members of Congress who are demanding the audit that the Fed dreads more than anything. Her problem, of course, is that more than half the members of Congress have signed on to the bill calling for the audit. So she's going after Ron Paul and Alan Grayson, the two who are pushing this the hardest.

Suddenly, the month old exchange showed up-- courtesy of Robertson an undisclosed p.r. operative-- on Red State and Politico last night. The right, punked as usual, is aflame with indignation about Grayson calling this wonderful civil servant a whore. But some things transcend partisan ID, political party, ideology and the rest, not the least of which is the class solidarity of the Inside the Beltway elite. Alan Grayson didn't say they should all be lined up against a wall and shot; he probably wouldn't even agree with that as an excellent way to help get the country back on a good footing-- especially because there actually are some good one in the lot. But those good ones do not reside on K Street and no one not of that K Street Culture of Corruption world would count Linda Robertson as one of the good guys. She was, after all, the head of Enron's lobbying office-- a position that defines the word "whore." The outraged and offended congressmembers-- who realize a charge like this is an affront to all of their self-proclaimed senses of dignity-- would probably rather not discuss the substance of the claim.

It's not just Grayson's blog-friendly habit of saying outrageous things and then refusing to apologize for them that has the Beltway Elite freaking out. It's the fact that he's squaring the circle -- he made the "whore" remark on the Alex Jones show. Jones is frequently called an extreme right winger, but he's really more of a paranoid populist (whom I suspect of being in the pay of the corporate right, but that's a post for another time) more akin to Ron Paul than Tom DeLay, more Glenn Beck than Rush Limbaugh.

Grayson is to my knowledge the only Democratic elected official in the country who is willing to consort with outcasts like Ron Paul and Alex Jones. It's because he's on the populist side of the real dividing line in American politics: the one between the haves and have nots.

Something is going on in American politics and so far it's happening only at the fringes, but when the green shoots all die off and the banksters finally drive the economy off the cliff, there will be a sharp realignment. Grayson is the first progressive to make a stand on the populist side of that line.

I'll talk about a Texas Republican who's on the scary reactionary side of that line in the full entry.

Last week one of my old High School classmates invited me to the Facebook page of Larry Kilgore for Texas Governor.

This guy has 2336 Facebook followers.

His platform is typical right wing crazy, but check out his position on the war on drugs and the war on Iraq.

Texas Secession - Washington continues to ignore the 10th amendment and Texas is not in a suicide pact with the US government. Until Texas independence, Washington's mandates on transportation, education, housing, health care and family issues will continue. Texas GOP Platform page 8 and 20: "We support state sovereignty reserved under the Tenth Amendment and oppose mandates beyond the scope of federal authority. We support downsizing of the federal government in order to re-establish states’ rights."

Economy - Washington requires Texans to pay for their corporate welfare bailout schemes. The debt is equal to $175,000 per person. For every dollar sent to Washington from Texans, we get back 94%; while New Mexico gets back 203%. Texas GOP Platform page 23: "We oppose all corporate welfare that supports continued inefficient businesses. We encourage our government to allow a free market economy to prevail both domestically and internationally."

National Security, Immigration and Trade Agreements are inseparably linked - Washington refuses to protect Texas from illegal foreign invaders. Many Texans are upset about NAFTA, WTO, SPP and other international agreements that Washington has gotten us into. North American Union is coming unless we act. Texas GOP Platform page 23: "We strongly oppose and call on Federal and State officials to place high priority on the withdrawal of the United States from the Security and Prosperity Partnership and the formation of the North American Union."

...

War on Drugs and Alcohol - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: "The War on Drugs has cost taxpayers over a trillion dollars, we are approaching 40 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses." County governments in Texas should determine the drug and alcohol policy not Washington. Texas GOP Platform page 8: "We understand most crime is local, and the states, reserve law enforcement authority under the Tenth Amendment."

Texas Military Forces - Texas Military Forces have been conscripted by Washington to fight undeclared wars. Texans need these volunteers in Texas to protect Texas. Texas GOP Platform page 8 and 15: "We charge the President to cancel the state of national emergency and charge Congress to repeal the War Powers Act and end our declared state of emergency. Never deploying the military except against invasion or threat to our vital interests."

...

Trans Texas Corridor - Rick Perry continues to support the TTC thus ignoring the people of Texas. Criticisms include the high cost, environmental damage and property confiscation. Texas GOP Platform page 23: "We emphatically oppose the Trans-Texas Corridor in any form or manner. We call for full investigation of any public officials authorizing any form of eminent domain for the Trans-Texas Corridor and foreign funding."

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the LORD's: and He is the governor among the nations. – Psalm 22:27&28

This stuff is all quite fringe now, but the cracks are showing where the current political coalitions will shatter. Hell, I'd say the GOP coalition has already shattered everywhere but Texas and the Deep South. We'll see if it's progressives or reactionaries who ride the populist wave when the shit hits the fan. So far the reactionaries are way out ahead, largely because they're way out of power, but also because the leadership of the Democratic Party is very self-conscious about where their true loyalties lie.

I was talking about Kilgore with a friend who does polling for Democrats. Good guy, not a real insider but his thinking is definitely informed by the people he works with everyday. Rather than seeing this and saying, "hmm, a populist Texas Democrat could get quite a few votes and put together a coalition of urban liberals, rural populists, African-Americans and Hispanics", he simply said, "Yeah if a third party candidate were to run, we could elect a Democrat in Texas."

The Ross Perot voters are still out there but the Democrats don't want to pick them up off the floor.

The coalition that FDR built to save the country from depression is still out there. This was the coaltion Robert F. Kennedy was rebuilding when he was killed in 1968. Could RFK have held the Democratic coalition together and prevented the rise of Nixon/Reagan. I don't know, but it wouldn't have been the first time that a ruling party had reorganized themselves into a new winning coalition at the end of a 30 year run at the top. McKinley's GOP managed the feat in 1896.

This country has suffered enormously for the failure of Democrats to rebuild their coalition in 1968. Hopefully we can prevent our current coalition from collapsing with the economy. But it will take leadership that is not beholden to the moneyed interests.