GO FIGHT WIN

If you're feeling depressed about your presidential candidate choices, cowboy up and do something about it instead of just whining about it on blogs. Well, whine about it here, I like the traffic. But not on those other guys. Instead, go find some conservatives running for state and national office and be their best friend. Somewhere across America there is a politician running who meets your standards for enlightened conservatism. Send him twenty dollars. Every month. And a letter saying what you think is important, and maybe print out an article (or blog post) you think his staff ought to read.

Congress is our firewall. We need it. Whoever gets in the White House, he or she is gonna be a pro-amnesty squish at best and the Shamnesty crew is already doing a little dance about it. So we need to do whatever we can to slow it down in Congress. And we need some Senators who are going to filibuster their little butts off when McCain or Obama or Hillary send some noodle-spined hack through the confirmation process on his way to being a judge or a cabinet member. We can't lose any seats and even safe seats, like Jim Inhofe's in Oklahoma, need your attention and support.

Don't send your money to the RNC; Mel Martinez will take it and give it to pro-amnesty losers. And while there are some good PAC's out there bundling small contributions, why shouldn't you get the pleasure of a personal interaction with the candidate himself? Give it directly to the campaigns of the politicians you like, and make sure they hear from you personally. And if you're local, give 'em a hand: my parents have driven all around their section of Oklahoma putting out Inhofe signs since 1994, and he now remembers them and says hello whenever he's in town. Start building those relationships now. Do the phone bank thing. Write letters to the editor when they give your guy a bad rap. Start a blog and update it regularly. Knock doors and talk to people.

GO. FIGHT. WIN. At the very least make the DNC spend their time and money fighting you. If they have fifteen fires to put out in close races they didn't expect any trouble from, they may cut loose a few of their longshots and concentrate on damage control.

Live in a blue state where it's all completely futile? Need a place to start? Here's a good one: Lou Barletta in Pennsylvania. DoublePlusUndead makes the case for him there. He may be a new Tancredo in the works.

And here's some awesome for you: via HH's Generalissimo, Lt. Col. Allen West is running for Congress in Florida.

Longtime JYB readers will recognize Col. West's name. This is a man who was such an effective commander in Iraq that the jihadis specifically targeted him for assassination. I won't forget it because his position on coercive interrogations is refreshingly unnuanced. It saved his life and that of his troops, and the country rallied to keep him from being court-martialed. In the process he was named Frontpage Magazine's man of the year in 2004. Diana West is backing him up, too.

So there's a couple of starters for you. If there are any outstanding candidates you know of, let us know in the comments.