If you can tear yourself away from all of the great VP stuff for a few minutes, check out
Mark Strama, running for Texas State House against first-term incumbent/DeLay clone Jack Stick.
Texas Tuesdays has
an interview with Mark and a look at his
campaign academy, which is training the Democrats of tomorrow how to run a campaign.
Here's a brief excerpt from the interview, in which Mark was asked what he had learned while working for State Sen. Rodney Ellis:
Probably the most important lesson I learned from him is that politicians, to preserve their integrity, must be willing to lose their office. I remember one time when Rodney was confronted with a choice between doing what he thought was right, and doing what was politically expedient. He was genuinely concerned - wrongly, as it later turned out - that voting his conscience on this issue could actually get him defeated in a future election. He thought hard about it, and when he made his decision, he called me on the phone (which I remember vividly, because it was 4 in the morning when he called), and said, "The heck with it, I'm doing the right thing. And if I get defeated, I'll still be a lawyer, I'll still be an investment banker, I'll still be Nicole Ellis' daddy, and I'll still be an interesting guy to talk to at a cocktail party."
Check it out, and if he sounds like your kind of guy, please consider
helping him out.