Artur Davis (D -- Alabama) Is On C-SPAN at 7:30 Eastern

[Syrinx]

Call him with questions about the Siegelman case!

[Freddie Stubbs]

1. He is a DLCer:

DLC | Blueprint Magazine | January 4, 2007

Results Matter

Democrats won in 2006 because voters prefer problem-solvers to ideologues.

By Rep. Artur Davis

The dominant theme of the midterm elections was that a majority of voters rejected ideology as the central organizing principle of government. They particularly disdained the preference for ideological certainty at all costs that the Republican Party has come to represent. And that's why, for Democrats, the coming two years represent a chance for both short-term success and fundamental reform.

The ideological rigidity of the Republicans who have been running the Congress and the White House has yielded a fidelity to outsized tax cuts at the expense of fiscal discipline; a massive transfer of entitlements to already healthy corporations; an ugly redistribution of resources at the expense of college students and Medicaid recipients; and, not least of all, the advance of a slash-and-burn politics that aggressively distinguishes one kind of American from another. The architects of these policies do not know doubt: If you don't share their agenda for the country's well-being, their political approach is to brand you as uninformed -- or in possession of a flawed or eccentric character.

You could watch the turning away from this ideological certainty in race after race. Whether it was John Tester's campaign in Montana, Jim Webb's effort in Virginia, Claire McCaskill's race in Missouri, or even Harold Ford's near-win in Tennessee -- all these red-state Senate candidates undercut traditional Republican advantages by running as problem-solvers offering pragmatic solutions to the challenges facing our economy and country. Even an unabashed liberal like Sherrod Brown of Ohio rolled up impressive totals in sections of southern Ohio that don't agree with his votes on gay marriage or gun rights, and he did so by offering a deadly critique of the ways Republican policies have cost Ohio jobs and capital.

To be sure, Democratic wins in red states and red districts were helped by Republican hypocrisies. But the foundation of our victory was a recognition of a point that former President Clinton often makes: Evidence matters in politics, and results matter most of all. We didn't have to guess the impact of the Clinton policies in the 1990s: 20 million new jobs; crime and social pathologies going down; poverty decreasing; a projected $5 trillion budget surplus.

more: http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=106&subid=122&contentid=254155