I posted this on NE Watchdog today, in response to a letter sent by NDP Chair, Vince Powers, to Senator Mike Johanns. Powers suggested that Sen. Johanns become an Independent and caucus with the Congressional Democrats.

As it stands, things are even worse for the NDP than I had predicted. We now have absolutely NO federal or statewide offices occupied by a Democrat. We have a new State Chair that has been running around pulling hare-brained stunts rather than leading the NDP into a brighter future.

I think I'm going to have to come out of my self-imposed hiatus from politics and renew my assault on the powers that be, hopefully resulting in a NDP that stands for what its people want, and not just what the oligarchs in Lincoln and Omaha demand.

I will be updating the information posted on my previous blog with the results of the 2012 election as I find the time.

----

Harrassing Mark Fahleson the other day in a parking lot, now coming up with this hare-brained scheme - what Vince Powers needs to do is quit coming up with these kinds of antics and start listening to what Nebraska's Democrats want from our party. He wouldn't have to go very far to find it, all he'd have to do is actually read, and heed, the party's Platform and Resolutions.

The real voices of our political parties should be those of the people elected at the local level; that would be the delegates to the party state conventions, elected within their counties by their neighbors. These are the people that are truly attuned to what Nebraskans want. They are the ones burdened with honing their parties' guiding documents, they are the ones whose will should be considered the direction their party takes.

As it stands, apparently both the NDP and the NEGOP go where the horses, rather than their riders, would lead them.

I attended three NDP state conventions as a state convention delegate and was elected three times as a delegate to the NDP's State Central Committee. For a time, I even served on the NDP State Executive Committee as Associate Chair of the 3rd CD. What I witnessed sickened me. The people who were supposed to lead the party, the delegates, were mere sheeple that willingly allowed themselves to be led around by the sheeple dogs - the chairs of various caucuses, committees, and officers of the party. Those sitting on the raised platform at the front of the room were supposed to do the bidding of those that sat in the chairs on the floor, but it was always the other way around.

My incessant exhortations to the flock to rise up and do their duty resulted only in my being labeled a pariah of the party. By expecting my party to behave as its foundation documents - its Constitution and Bylaws, and its Platform and Resolutions - dictated, I was seen as a threat to the same old bunch of oligarchs that have "led" the party despite whoever sat in the chairs.

I have a suggestion for Vince Powers. HE should join the Democratic Party. The best thing he could do would be to spend more time listening, and less time talking. He should heed the will of Nebraska's Democrats and they would lead the NDP into a new era of significance, something that hasn't happened since before Ben Nelson got a stranglehold on the party.

There are a lot of good Democrats in this state - more than the NEGOP would like to admit. If they would just work to advance the ideals that they have always set for the party, rather than demurring to the will of whatever "leader" they were willing to follow, the NDP could rise from the ashes like a Phoenix.

Here are some FACTS to consider. The data in the graphs and charts below are derived from records provided on the Nebraska Secretary of State's website and from the Nebraska Legislature's Blue Books.

The Nebraska Democratic Party has been in a steady decline for the past thirty-plus years, as is readily visible in the two graphs. The real difference can be seen when one compares metropolitan (RMLO) vs. rural Nebraska. While rural Nebraska has nearly as many Democrats as Douglas and Lancaster counties combined, the party has been dominated by a series of metropolitan oligarchs that, for the most part, ignore the rural membership, causing it to lose ever more ground.

Obviously, continuing to run the party in the same way that it has been for the past thirty years will result only in further decline and even more marginalization of Nebraska's rural Democrats. It is time for a Revolution. It is time for Nebraska's rural Democrats to say, "Enough is enough. We will either be recognized as having an equal share in the NDP, or we should consider the formation of a Farmer & Labor Party, as the marginalized Democrats in Minnesota did many years ago." (Hubert Humphrey was one of the more prominent F&L Party leaders) Such a party could attract many of the centrist and liberal segments of Nebraska's Republican Party, as many of them are feeling disaffected by its leadership.

The NDP will be holding a state convention this week and NOW is the time to get people armed with knowledge and valid information so that they may fight for their rights. It is NOT time for calls for everyone to "just get along" and have warm fuzzy feelings for one another. It is, rather, a time to call for a radical reinvention of our party, a time to throw off the dusty, ineffective leadership of the past and forge a new coalition capable of advancing the Democratic cause in this state. Our choice is to either revolutionize the party, rendering us a party capable of electing statewide and federal candidates, or surrender to the inevitable decline of all but one Congressional District that can deliver a solitary electoral vote for a presidential candidate, and  possibly fill the mayoral seats in Lincoln and Omaha.