The story that everyone wants to tell is that the Democratic Party is disheartened and disintegrating. Teabagger Republicans are juiced up and on top. Or so the media says, over and over again.
But the House candidate who raised the most money in the entire country during the last FEC reporting period -- $860,000 in three months -- is not a teabagger. He is not boosted relentlessly by Fox News. He's not even a Republican. He doesn't think that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, that President Obama was born in Kenya, or that global warming is a hoax.
This House candidate also, remarkably, had the largest number of contributors. Over 15,000 individuals contributed, many of whom have given time after time, whatever they could. The House candidate who raised the most money did so without French-kissing lobbyists, without flattering the idle rich, and without reaching into his own pocket.
The House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is an outspoken populist who tells it like it is on the war, on jobs, and on health care. His website is called CongressmanWithGuts.com. In the 100,000 e-mails that he has received this year, the most common refrain is, "You are saying what I've been thinking."
I know who he is. Because he's me.
But no one has reported that the House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is a proud Democratic populist. No one.
There are something like ten thousand political reporters in this country, maybe more. The information above is readily available. Anyone could have visited an official government website, www.fec.gov, any time this past week, and seen it for themselves. We did our part -- we sent out two news releases, both local and nationwide. But in lieu of any actual reporting in the media, there is instead what Simon & Garfunkel vividly described as the "Sounds of Silence":
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
The political reporters camped out in D.C. often act like a giant Xerox machine for the fib factory known as the national Republican Party. Recently, they saw fit to report (and repeat, and repeat) the Republican Party's crackpot claim that we are withholding a secret poll with bad news in it for us. (We aren't; there is no such poll, but the Republican Party is soooo good at manufacturing plausible lies.) Not one word from those reporters, though, about what would seem to be an irresistible "feel good" story -- that thanks to People Power, that brash, plain-spoken Democratic Congressman from Orlando is the Number One fundraiser in the country. Nothing about that.
The fact that an unapologetic progressive Democrat could amass such support, not by trading favors for money, but by striking a chord with so many ordinary people, refutes the pervasive meme of Democrats divided and despondent. Particularly when it's a Democrat who says that "you can't beat a Republican by being one." Particularly a Democrat who quotes Harry Truman and Howard Dean: "If you run a fake Republican against a real Republican, the real Republican will win every time."
Freshman Democrat Alan Grayson, number one in the country. The story that no one will tell. It doesn't fit their preconceptions. So you're just not going to hear about it.
Unless you happen to read the Huffington Post.
Follow Rep. Alan Grayson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alangrayson
By the way, sir, I may have been incorrect about the one hand thing, it might actually take two. You though, have long now been one of those fingers, by my count.
Debate the issues, debate current leadership performance, debate our ideas, debate their ideas and allow these citizens their bona fides because whether we want to acknowledge this or not, I’m quite sure there is a Tea Party sympathizer in every extended family at this point where one could never say that about a republican at least in my large family. These folks are going to be big time formidable and we’d better have something other than these cute little quips to control them because at this point no one is listening in the larger political dynamic comparatively speaking as they continue to add to their ranks rapidly.
Organize, mobilize and BRING THE POLITICAL BRASS KNUCKLES!
Would you be willing to build a talking points machine, something to churn out the memes to counteract the republicants? Let's go toe to toe with them using the same tactics. If we can flood their fax machines with crap everyday too I think it will start to seep through.
Keep up the good work! Also; you tell it like it is in a very articulate way, so smart voters notice that.
I agree that it is unconscionable that this has not been mentioned more by the "political reporters", while so much attention is given to the antics and vapidity of the far right "noise makers".
There are some other great Senators and Reps. like you who are plodding along trying to do what's right. Bernie Sanders, Ron Wyden, Howard Dean, Al Franken come to my mind. Unfortunately, others have been a sore disappointment this year.
I do agree with you on most things, so far. However I will never put a politician on a pedestal. they always fall and hard.
Best of luck , you really do have a lot of silent people backing you. We are here.