Mmmmmm. Breakfast.

With yet another BlogAd there to your right, it seems as though I must be about ready to quit my job to do this full time because it pays so well . . . But, no. I will, however, take a moment to talk up this ad and why it's here, as I so often do.

Jim Moran is the Representative in Virginia's 8th Congressional District. He was an early supporter of Howard Dean's presidential bid, and early opponent of the Iraq War fiasco, and generally and all-around good guy. Howard Dean is returning the favor by personally endorsing Moran and helping him in his hotly contested primary. Note that I said Dean was personally endorsing Moran. Moran is not on either of the "Dean Dozen" list produced by Democracy for America.

And why is this a "hotly contested" primary? Apparently, Jim Moran, like Howard Dean, has a tendency to speak his mind before he considers what might be politically expedient to say. This has led him to hot water, and no small amount of controversy. But he's still a man I feel I could vote for, if I lived in the district. But perhaps I should let someone who does live in the district make the case. This is from my imaginary blog friend Maura in VA, another long-time Deanista and Moran constituent:

I should preface this first by saying that I am volunteering for Moran's campaign.  I write for his blog and generally pitch in however I can.  So obviously I am a strong supporter.

Part of the reason that I am volunteering for him is because he endorsed Dean.  I wrote to him and called his office countless times in the summer and fall to ask him to come on board with Dean, and when he did, I told him I'd help him however I could.  But I would never volunteer for him, regardless of who he endorsed, if I did not think he was a good Congressman and essentially a good person.

When I first moved to Northern Virginia 10 years ago, I was in Jim's district (VA-8).  He was a great rep--out in the community all the time, very accessible, very responsive.  I was working as a teacher at the time and was so glad to have a Congressman who was such staunch supporter of public education.  I wrote and called his office often about policy issues and always heard back promptly.

Then I moved a few miles away into Tom Davis territory, VA-11.  For a Republican, he's not too bad--he can be cooperative with Democrats in the DC area on some regional issues, and is not as radical as many.  But his constituent service was awful.  Maybe it's because I was usually contacting him to ask him to vote a different way than he planned to vote or something, but I don't recall ever getting a letter, a phone call, or an email in response to inquiries and concerns.

Then in the last redistricting, Davis dumped my heavily Democratic precinct into Jim's territory and I was gerrymandered back into VA-8.  And the difference was like night and day.  Even when I wrote to Jim's office to protest his positions on things or disagree, I'd always get a thoughtful response.  My next door neighbor needed help with an amnesty issue for a family member and said Jim's office was great.  My colleagues who have lobbied him on education issues say he is accessible, thoughtful, and honest.

He's earned some very meaningful endorsements lately, including the Virginia Partisans Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club, the National Education Association Fund for Children and Families, and the Virginia AFL-CIO.  He's a great champion of worker's rights, human rights, and public education.  (If you saw the BlogAd that raised this diarists ire so much, I wrote the copy below it.)

Jim wasn't just an endorser in name only in the Dean campaign.  He went to Dean Meeetups, traveled to speak in support of Dean to Democratic groups all over Northern Virginia, attended fundraisers, came to Falls Church HQ to help out, and stuck with us even when our spirits were low in VA.  

He was a passionate opponent of the Iraq War.

[T]he very controversial quote that has gotten Jim into so much hot water has been totally taken out of context and distorted.  He never said that Jews were to blame for what's going on in the Middle East.  I agree with what a commenter said below - that the term "Jewish lobby" was very poorly worded, and Jim has apologized for saying something that implied that he thought Jewish leaders were to blame for the war.  The fact is, Jim has said in MANY contexts, and I have heard him myself, that religious leaders of many faiths have let us down by not exhibiting more leadership in opposing the war. Do any of us here disagree with that?  If my Catholic Church was less obsessed with my reproductive functions and more focused on peace and social justice issues, we might not be where we are today, either.  Does it make me anti-Catholic to say that?  I hope not.  

He's been my Congressman for nearly 10 years, but it's only in the past few weeks that I have really gotten to know Jim Moran as a person.  And I really like him.  He has said that he's "like a bull in a china shop", and there are times I have thought that was an apt description--he can be awkward and gangly and generally not as cool and calculating as most politicians.  He wears his heart on his sleeve. That's good and bad.  Good, because he's passionate, he puts his heart into his work, and he's GOT a heart.  Bad, sometimes, because he'll say what he thinks without  measuring it first if he's fired up.  His opponent's campaign has been relentlessly negative lately, and Jim's not as thick-skinned as I'd expect a politican of his years of experience to be.  But when I hear him talk about kids in our community, or the deficit, or the war, or women's rights, or affordable housing, or working on the Dean campaign--I know he's the real thing.  Not real calculating.  Not real scripted.  Not real suave sometimes.  Just real.

I want him to keep working for us in VA-8.  If his opponent wins, it's a triumph of the worst kind of negative campaigning.  Initially, I had been impressed by his opponent's grassroots campaigning--he's been out on the street and has had volunteers on the ground for a while--but his camp has descended into relentlessly negative distortions and attacks of Rovian proportions.  

This whole Dean endorsement issue has been emblematic.  At first, when the word got out that Dean was endorsing Moran, supporters of Moran's opponent claimed that the Moran campaign was making it up.  Then they claimed that Dean was being paid for the appearance.  Then they claimed that Dean was just hosting a fundraiser, but wasn't actually endorsing.  Just this week, Moran's opponent said to my face that it was a lie that Dean was endorsing Moran, and I said that was funny because I had just gotten an email from the Governor himself about it, and talked to Tom Hughes at DFA earlier that day to get permission to pass on official confirmation from DFA that Dean was in no way being compensated and was indeed endorsing Moran.  Yet on the campaign Web site for Rosenberg, in a post that went up today, it still says that the purported Dean endorsement is a lie.  It's ridiculous.  And it's that kind of tactic that is so far beneath what I expect of fellow Democrats that it makes me want to work even harder for Moran.

I know, very few of my Wisconsin readers will make the trip to Virginia for breakfast, even if it is with Gov. Dean. But Moran's a guy worth supporting, both as a Dean Democrat and as someone unfairly hounded by primary opponents--something we Dean fans recognize all too easily.