Hi everyone, I'm Michael. This is an open thread meant to provide all the Roots Project people from Virginia with a way of saying hello without clogging everyone's inboxes with one-line emails. Anyone else who wants to say hello can do that too. So please, leave a comment, introduce yourself, let us know about any particular skills or talents you might have, experiences in politics, or whatever.

As I see it, this group is quite an amorphous blob of potential energy, and it would be nice to start hammering out what sort of amorphous blob we would like to be. As for introductions, I'll go first.

Via Raw Story, the GOP is losing its hold over Christian groups. Republicans are so weighted down with corruption, debt, and war that they don't have a lot of political capital left over to pass gay bashing legislation, repeal the enlightenment, or enact their special legal code just for women -- you know, to make sure they stay where they belong.

The future of the Republican coalition, just around the bend...

On March 31st, the Democratic party in VA-05 is holding its annual dinner. Speakers will be Jim Webb, Harris Miller, and the two congressional candidates, Fighting Dems Al Weed and Bern Ewert. They're trying to replace George "Football Metaphor" Allen and Virgil "MZM Scandal" Goode this November.

C-SPAN has nothing planned for March 31st programming, and we'd like them to cover the event. If you want to see both sides of these two primary races, help us out; e-mail events@c-span.org and tell them to cover the 5th District Dinner on March 31.

Below the fold, I list some of the reasons why these speakers, and the 5th district in particular are important parts of the progressive movement. events@c-span.org

If Supreme Court declares the Texas gerrymandering setup unconstitutional the old districting plan will be replaced and the Texas filing deadlines will be reopened. TX-11 could have a Democratic challenger after all. That would be quite a Cinderella story for the bloggers and activists pushing for 435 congressional candidates, but at the same time it would bring the TX-28 primary showdown extravaganza to an anticlimactic end.

I have three questions:

1. With our current field of candidates, would reverting back to the old map (or potentially adjusting to a new map) weaken our prospects by creating coverage gaps?
   
2. If Ciro and Cuellar get their old districts back, is it still possible or even desireable to challenge Cuellar?
   
3. Does anyone know a Democrat who lives where TX-11 used to be?

This is an open thread for ideas to help win elections in rural or red districts. Any thoughts?

Assuming your typical laundry list of solid-left positions (out of Iraq now, single-payer health-care, gay marriage--why not?, etc.) how have others found success in pursuading voters, rather than simply pandering to them?- which is what our DLC-picked primary chellenger is shooting for. Anecdotes of other principled liberals who have done well in heavy-red districts? How would a netroots campaign be tailored to a district with high incumbent-loyalty?

Please, discuss...

John Murtha just appeared on Fox News to talk about Iraq, long-term military readiness, and overall national security. He's phenomenal, I love it. He speaks Progressive every time he opens his mouth. I know everyone says he's a moderate, and it would probably be hard to call him a Progressive across the board. But Progressivism is about progress, and I'd like to think that no color on the left-right spectrum has a monopoly over progress.

That being said, Conservative and Progressive are at least as antonymous as Conservative and Liberal, so we need to take special care that the things we call Progressive are not just Liberal, or new-and-Liberal. Well Murtha's stance on the war isn't your typical Liberal line, so the independently Progressive aspects of it float to the top for ease of examination. In short, he looks back, he looks forward, he bridges the parties.

I'll tell you how he did it on the flip.