Haven't read the letters yet, too preoccupied with the UU church shooting.

I just want to say how much I appreciate you. Your insistence often moves me a great deal.

No thinker is perfect and I barely count as one at all when it comes to politics. So I read you more like I listen to music. The dogged logic of your arguments has a beauty like Bach, and I often feel a sense of grief when I imagine how hard it must be for you at times for you to persuade folks to engage with resolve based on what is real.

The difference is, I grieve and cluck. You, and so many stalwart people here, grieve and reason, grieve and act.

I admire your grace, and theirs, and have learned more about the principles of good government from reading your column and these letters than from years of vague civics education.

Thank you for your passionate insistence that Americans try to make sense. It seems so simple...what we do should make sense. At times it's painful to see you work so hard to show us that twisting away from common sense just creates political pretzels.

Common sense, along with chronic disaster, should combine to awaken all of us. These seem like adequate ingredients for unequivocal change. But when I doubt that it can ever happen, I remind myself that there are voices like yours, like many here, that might help heave the country awake and rumble the world back to sanity.

The history of voting is a mixed bag. I mean, what good has it ever done? Anything?

In terms of voting, what good has voting ever done for us?

For instance, women - back in the early 1800's in America, some of those uppity women thought that they deserved to vote . It took another 100 years before women were able to vote, so what in the hell good would it have done to vote for woman's suffrage before then? I guess it happened when it was supposed to happen, 'eh? I have no doubt that women in the early 1800's, when the issue first really caught steam felt like some still feel, that because they were not immediately given what they wanted............they just gave up. I mean, what good would it be to work towards something when one can whine about it instead? Finally, in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was enacted, which gave women the right to vote. 100 years. American women waited 100 years, and some here whine about a couple of presidencies? Pussies. I mean, voting based upon skin color was allowed before that!

Speaking of that: What good would it have been for people to vote for a president before Reconstruction to allow non-whites the right to vote? Why even TRY? I'm sure that any non-whites then would have agreed with some and would have just sat it out, because - of course - what good would it have done to vote? Even when they were arguing for the Fourteenth/Fifteenth amendments, I'm sure it would have just happened just as soon if all the civil rights people had just sat out those elections............ Voting is stupid

Speaking of Civil Rights - why should people have voted in a party that would enact civil rights any sooner? What good would THAT have done? In '64, that's when fate chose the Civil Rights Act, so it's not like voting for a party that would have pushed it before would have done anything!!! Moreso - like some have suggested - it'd have been better if all the people that worked for Civil Rights for 100 years before that day just had sat it out. Why should they fight the good fight when it's soooooooooo much more personally fulfilling to do nothing and then bitch about the outcome!?

BUT! But, what would have happened if they had done that? Jim Crow was in action for almost 100 years before the Civil Rights Act, and I wonder what would have happened in '64 if all the civil rights activists had just chosen to do NOTHING? If they had said, 'The Democrats don't care, they're no better than the Republicans......fuck it. I'm not going to do anything to put a presidency in place that would be better. Ba humbug!' What would have happened? Was all that work wasted? If a decade before the Civil Rights Act, the civil rights pioneers had just given up? No, they'd not do that. They knew that anything worth fighting for may take a while and would then finally result in a great outcome. They didn't pussy out. They didn't whine. MLK didn't just give up and throw a tantrum and cry in his soup. He had every reason to - he was beaten up, he was jailed, he was treated terribly - probably as bad as Rockstar for his beliefs! - but he did not give up like some do. He fought on. He was intelligent enough to recognize that sometimes.......change comes in incremental steps.

Change comes in incremental steps. One president is not going to do 100% of what you want. But we can build upon the good to make better, and grow the better towards greatness.

That's the only way anything has ever been accomplished.

Or, you can just petulantly grouse about the lack of change and give up.

No, I'll work for any change in a good direction that I can get. I'll let the whiners whine by themselves and to each other.

But, I suppose that some'r right...............voting never accomplished much.

There will always be Democrats who disagree with Glenn's point. But with Congress's approval rate at around 9% you can bet there are Democrats in spades who agree.

Let's get on with the project.

It needs refining and defining, so I will offer a few suggestions.

If there had been a real House leadership since January 2007, that might have moved some of those blue dogs. If there had been a real House leadership, the Democrats might have blocked some of Bush's program.

Therefore I believe that the top of the hit list must be Nancy Pelosi.

The next question is this. What's the most effective way to prevent her re-election and convey a massive message to the House leadership?

There are two candidates for Nancy's seat worth mentioning - Cindy Sheehan and the Republican candidate Dana Walsh.

It may be that neither is as progressive as Nancy Pelosi. But let us keep our eye on the ball; let us not forget the point of the exercise. It is to motivate the next majority leader to lead.

So I believe that the question now is whether a vote for Cindy or a vote for Dana is the most likely way to bring that about by sending Nancy home.

I don't know the answer but it's time we went to work on it. And then if we mean business it will be time to donate not only votes but time and money to electing a non-Nancy.

If you live in California, this will be a great focus for your electoral energy. You like Obama - but he's locked up California anyhow. You're skeptical of Obama - well then this might be a cause worthy of your election year energy.

Glenn, you've convinced many of us. Can you help develop the strategy now that we're convinced it's worth the effort?