SC races have been pretty much ignored by the national polling services. In the presidential approval ratings, SC has seen one of the biggest shifts away from incumbents, but SC had one of the highest approval ratings to start with, so that's pretty meaningless, statistically speaking.

Randy Maatta is considered the underdog for SC District 1, but I've also heard that the Republican Party itself had wanted the incumbent to retire. Election Projection has all incumbents winning in SC but no poll results. I firmly believe that Randy has a good chance; he's on the progressive side on all the issues. Click here to have a look for yourself.

I've been lobbying some of the PACs to try to get Maatta some support, and so far, nobody has even heard of him. But I don't despair; none of them have heard of the incumbent, either! Randy has worked for the State Department, so he's no stranger to DC, but this is his first time seeking elected office. IMHO, a non-politician who nevertheless has plenty of political savvy (including fiscal responsibility) is just what the House needs.

When Maatta announced his candidacy in late February, he took the "safe" position on Iraq - we shouldn't have been there in the first place - but I told him that wasn't good enough. I invited him to our March 19th event, a drop-in memorial service for those who had died in the Iraq-Afghanistan war, and to my two DoP presentations in late March and early April at different locations around SC District 1. Whenever I invited Randy to an event, I would send him (and his former campaign manager) digital copies of my handouts.

Randy was unable to attend my events, but I made it a point to attend his, and we were very soon on a first-name, hugging basis and had an active correspondence going. As the self-appointed "resident psycholinguist" for his campaign, I advised him that the biggest thing working against him was the "strange-ness" of his name (Finnish origin) because the incumbent's name (Brown) is so generic and obviously American, and I started promoting the campaign slogan MAATTA MATTERS in the hope that at least the local media would pronounce it correctly.

Getting back to the issues, we also have a Green candidate, and I made it clear to Randy that the propeace community would vote Green unless he promised to co-sponsor legislation for immediate withdrawal of troops and bases such as the FCNL STEP resolution. He soon came out in favor of the Murtha legislation, but I responded that he wouldn't be seated until the 110th Congress, and at that time, Murtha's legislation specified the end of '06 for the "re-deployment" of our troops, so I was still not satisfied.

Maatta spoke to the SC Progressive Network in late March, of which SC DoP Campaign is a member. This organization reaches almost 100,000 voters. At that meeting, Randy confessed that personally he was in favor of immediate withdrawal, but that to openly take such a stance would be political suicide. SC DoP Campaign had been having weekly walking vigils at our open-air market since November, so I could disagree with that contention in good faith. I told him that the tide was turning in spite of the fact that such landmarks as the Downing Street Minute and the World Tribunal on Iraq were not discussed in our media, and that even people who were not anti-war and had favored the invasion were having second thoughts.

By Earth Day in late April, Maatta had come out clearly in favor of immediate withdrawal. At the same time, I became disillusioned with our Green candidate who favors stronger immigration restrictions and a firmer punitive justice system, so I gave Randy my full support with the propeace community as my witness. Please believe me when I tell you that I had actively lobbied the incumbent for about eight months both in DC and here in the District; that man had broken my heart, my health, and my spirit by last November.

In the primary in early June, Randy came in second to a man who has been running every two years for decades - a "perpetual" candidate. Randy's election-night party felt like a wake except for his former campaign manager who was doing what my son Jason White, MA DoP Campaign co-Coordinator, calls "jumping up and down" - expounding with red face, gruff voice, flailing arms, and long strides about vote tampering and court challenges. I advised Randy not to waste his time and money - to let it go and focus on the run-off. I reasoned that it would be a mistake to give the impression of being a sore loser, and that if anybody should challenge the primary results, it should be the candidate who was eliminated. I promised him that we WOULD stick with him and win him the Democratic nomination, and that's just what happened.

At the gathering the night after that run-off, he introduced us to a wonderful new campaign manager whose best friend had been a SC DoP Campaign sympathizer since my March DoP presentation. I overheard her whispering in Randy's ear about the Department of Peace, and she gave me a ride home that night and reiterated her support. Imagine my delight when he wrote to me shortly thereafter and promised to co-sponsor HR3760 if elected!

My next move is to work on getting Jim Clyburn (D-SC6), a man with 40+ years of experience who will chair the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats win the House and who has already signed on to HR3760, to come to District 1 and help Randy's candidacy. YOU CAN HELP: If you know of anybody with clout in the Democratic Party, PLEASE bring SC District 1 to their attention. Besides the fact that all Representatives' votes are equal regardless of the size of their home state's congressional delegation, assuming all other incumbents are re-elected, Randy's victory will evenly split the SC delegation to the House between Republicans and Democrats.