The View from Perriello Land

Regardless of the stripe of your particular brand of politics, the following quotation from Rep. Tom Perriello, who represents a district in Western Virginia (some near Roanoke), should resonate. It has not resonated with Perriello's colleagues who seem far more distracted with the serious duty of keeping their jobs than with running the country. Perriello, in fact, is the only man in Congress that I can immediately say, without reservation, that I respect as a representative of the people. Here's his quote (from salon.com):

"What people are upset about is a lack of leadership and a lack of solutions, not doing too much. There's certainly an omnipresence of risk aversion among politicians that prevents us from doing what's necessary. We need wartime consiglieres, not risk-averse politicians right now … We should stop worrying about protecting our own jobs, and start worrying about protecting the jobs of the American people."

Perriello won his first election in 2008 by 727 votes and is a Republican target this year.