Sure wish I could vote for Feingold! Instead of moving to Canada, I'll move to Wiconsin. :)

I live in St. Paul, and the same sad story can be told here about the Democratic party as you tell Merritt. I left the Democratic Party without looking back after the 1988 election (except for getting Wellstone in, of course). I've been working strategically ever since, but along the lines of supporting, voting for, and working for the issues and candidates that are important to me as a progressive independent and, I believe, are essential to the preservation of the public interest in these 'cannibalize government' times.

I have not actively worked for the Green Party either, although I have campaigned for and voted for some of their local candidates. I was so angry with Wellstone's vote in support of the Patriot Act in 2002, at the time he was killed, I still hadn't decided whether to vote for him or the Green Party candidate.

I am in complete agreement with you Merritt, about the Democratic party activists at the local levels. They just don't get it. They have been in power for so long, most of them are still wandering around shell-shocked, not able to grasp that they themselves lost it all, and aren't going to be calling the shots politically at the local or national level, for some time to come. The best example of their delusionary thinking is their denial of the party's failings, which has resulted in this fine right wing Republican mess the nation finds itself in--again, both at the local and national levels.

We have had THE WORST run of governors in Minnesota history in the past decade--Republican Arne Carlson, the Jesse Ventura, and now the worst of all, Republican Tim Pawlenty. It is, in a nutshell, AWFUL. And to think that Minnesota was once a bastion of Democratic liberalism! No more!