The news that Brian Schweitzer is endorsing Terry McAuliffe tomorrow immediately made me think about David Sirota's excellent book, "The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington." Chapter 2 of that book is devoted, in part, to the populist hero who is now the popular governor of Montana. For instance:*"Working on [Schweitzer's] original longshot 2000 Senate campaign, I saw a candidate that fully understands subjugation psychology, how conservatives have used that psychology in the West, and how to use it for himself and the populist uprising he now leads."
*"[Schweitzer's] true talent is...the ability to steal the populist mantle from conservatives and position himself as the leader of a new uprising."
*"...[Schweitzer's] challenges to the big out-of-state corporations at the heart of key problems like high energy prices, declining farm incomes, and environmental degradation created targets for popular blame."
*"...Schweitzer's strategy is a page from the playbook of Saul Alinsky, the radical twentieth-century organizer...one of history's great uprising architects."
*"All of Schweitzer's other proposals - to better fund education, expand health care, and increase investment in renewable energy - will rely on Democrats' using the tax issue to wedge apart the conservatives' antitax movement..."
*"If we get smart and don't allow Republicans to [use tax cuts to kill us], they have nothing. That is exactly what Schweitzer and the uprising are banking on."
Also, see here for more from Sirota on Schweitzer, who "has blazed for a national Democratic Party that desperately needs to reconnect with the working-class and rural regions it was originally built on."
That's the guy who's endorsing Terry McAuliffe tomorrow. Think about it.
