Chris Bowers for Philadelphia Mayor

Only if he wants to, but at least read this:

There are two specific narratives that I find absurd. First, there is the notion that people win elections by moving either to the left, the right or the center. This is one of the most pathetic types of lame, D.C. based thinking used to describe what is ultimately a broadly non-ideological electorate. The second type of narrative, which I find far more preposterous--and actually offensive--is the notion that elections are won by either one or a small handful of high-level consultants / party leaders in some backroom somewhere. That is just flat-out crap, and it need to be called such. Ultimately, voters and the American people swing elections. As much as the media seems to have forgotten, this is still a democracy in America, and when there is a change in power, it happens because the American people wanted a change in power. It didn't happen because they were tricked, scammed, or otherwise manipulated by a small number of consultants and / or party leaders hiding behind a curtain somewhere. Yet still, after every election that results in a change in power, one man behind the curtain or another is anointed by the media as the primary cause of the change in power: Atwater, Carville, Gingrich, Luntz, Begala, Rove, Rahm, etc. The message they want us to hear is that this very small list of people are responsible for changes in power in America, which is just a cynical, patronizing, aristocratic, anti-democratic, bullshit message to send out to Americans and to our democracy.

And there is something else too. Hundreds of thousands--millions--of Democratic and progressives activists contributed to this victory. Moving public opinion for even 5% of the electorate is extremely difficult, and there is no way it could have been accomplished without a broad-based, team effort. Everyone deserves credit and congratulation. However, not everyone is getting credit, and there are even some elements in the leadership of the Democratic Party who want to prevent certain others from receiving any credit. There are those who still say the netroots are destructive to the party, that Howard Dean is destructive to the party, and that the left-wing is destructive to the party. The thing is, that the netroots, Howard Dean and the party's left-wing all worked their asses off to help Democrats win this cycle, and our thanks for that is to be punched in the nose by Carville, Tauscher, Rahm, and a whole bunch of others. That is just offensive and bound to lead to increasing internal strife within the party. We are not Dobson-ites demanding tow Supreme Court justices and a Constitutional amendment. A step in the right direction might be to actually say thank you, and that you appreciate our efforts. You must read on....