Greetings from the GWN. You people ROCK!

The 2006 Congressional election ballgame has reached the seventh-inning stretch.  Seems an appropriate time for a spectator to take the opportunity to speak to all you players of my favorite team on the field.

Maybe you haven't heard me rooting for you from up here in the bleachers.  But that's cool; the main thing is I've been enjoying the game a lot, and I'm impressed with the lead you have built going into the last innings.  You've been working your asses off out there, the schmucks on the other team have made a lot of errors, and I'm confident you're going to put this one away.

Why am I sitting in the stands, you ask?  Simple, I'm a Canadian.

A Nova Scotian, to be more exact.  And a political activist here at home.  And a political junkie at all times, especially where US politics are concerned.  Obviously what goes on in your country has a major impact on mine.  But it's more than that.  Most of my family has roots in Connecticut and New York going back more than 250 years.  A great Nova Scotian writer, Thomas Raddall, called Nova Scotians "His Majesty's Yankees".  Our histories are very much intertwined.

Reading this blog and others daily, it's hard to sit here in the stands while your campaign builds momentum and an extra little push could start that landslide rolling.  I'm often tempted to push that button and make that contribution to a particularly worthy candidate.  But I feel that would be wrong, just as I feel it's wrong for Americans to contribute to political candidates in Canada.

But I do what I can.  In Feb. '03 I marched with about 100 others through my small town to protest the impending war in Iraq.  To my mind, that was a very pro-American thing to do.  If your friend is about to do something stupid, you try to stop him/her.  If he's all drunked up and says he can drive home OK, you try to take away his car keys.  If she's planning to move in with a guy who you know is an abuser, you try to talk her out of it.  This is what friends do.

My father is a life-long Canadian-style conservative.  He refers to Bush as "that asshole".  You probably already know this, but I want to make it as clear as I can:  there are billions of us out here, beyond the borders of your republic, who care very, very much about what you're doing over the next few days.

You have the momentum.  You have the great cause in your hands.  You can help make again what America once was, an example to the world, for you and for everyone else.

I know what it is to work on an election.  I know it's a lot of long hours.  But, believe me, you are working for something much bigger than you can imagine.  We are with you, in our hopes, and in our dreams.