If you live in Virginia and you find the idea of Mike Huckabee as frightening as I do, there’s more that you can do than just sit in your home, behind a locked door, worrying. You can make a difference. You can, in your own small way, take a stand.

The next time you hear one of your Virginia neighbors praising Mike Huckabee, you can speak, calmly but clearly, explaining that Huckabee embraces too many irresponsible extremist policies to make a good President for all America. You can then back up those conversations with this bumper sticker, which makes the simple statement that there are many people in Virginia who don’t support Mike Huckabee’s negative political vision: Virginia Against Huckabee.

Gingrich had a short run as House Speaker, because he just couldn’t manage the leadership responsibilities. Gingrich alienated his colleagues and ignored nuance in the wild pursuit of ideological purity.

What Gingrich is most remembered for is his three-week shutdown of the United States of America. Our government of the people was disabled, threatening American jobs and risking national chaos.

Gingrich still believes shutting down the USA was the right thing to do. As the Gingrich 2012 presidential campaign gears up, put this bumper sticker on your car to show that you’re not going to go along with his plans: Don’t Shut Down America – Say No To Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich is the guy who took the entire USA along for the ride on his political crusade in the 1990s. He shut down the government, and nearly wrecked American business as vital services caused the commerce infrastructure to disintegrate. Then, Gingrich was kicked out of Congress.

Now, Newt Gingrich is coming back and saying that “experience” qualifies him to be made President of the United States. Please. Newt Gingrich couldn’t handle being President of his local PTA.

Michigan knows what the consequences of poor leadership are, and people from Detroit all the way up to the UP are finished with politicians who play sophomoric ideological games when the public good is at stake. That’s why, in 2012, Michigan voters are opposed to the presidential election of Newt Gingrich.

That majority anti-Gingrich opinion is being expressed by this Michigan Against Gingrich bumper sticker found over at Zazzle. Economically, Michigan is only starting to get back on the road. They’re not about to let a loose cannon like Gingrich wreck the recovery.

Realistically, South Dakota probably isn’t the strongest political base for a presidential campaign, but then, when has John Thune been realistic? Senator Thune has supported all kinds of wacky political projects over the years, such as the rushed invasion of Iraq, a plan to entrust Social Security to Wall Street hedge fund managers, and now an effort to take away health care coverage from huge numbers of Americans.

To say that he’s not suited for the White House is to describe the matter gently. John Thune is an ultramaroon.

It’s the ultimate in arrogance that Mike Pence believes that this draconian, uncompassionate agenda places him in a strong position to become the next President of the United States. That’s where we stand, however. Mike Pence has begun campaigning in the preliminaries to the 2012 presdiential election.

Can the Mike Pence for President campaign be stopped? Grassroots activists in New York State are giving it a shot. A resistance effort of New Yorkers against Pence has begun there, and this bumper sticker is one manifestation of its work.

New York Stands Against Mike Pence. Will you?

It’s an interesting choice, because, like Barack Obama, Krampus gets a bad rap from right wing religious extremists. Obama isn’t a Muslim Communist terrorist, and Krampus isn’t an evil devil.

Krampus is mighty mischevious, but he’s not Satan – he’s not in the Christian pantheon officially at all. He’s a native European mythological figure who is associated with trickster stories and the ages-old horned god motif. These stickers give pagans, and others who seek a nature-based path, a way to access the 2012 re-election campaign that’s honest to themselves.

Wear one of these stickers on your shirt, and you’ll be confident that no one you meet will have seen them before.

Whether he’s threatening to murder a particular person who bothers him or telling an entire group they’re not as good as he is, Carl Paladino is like the worst of the playground bullies, posing and flexing and spouting off, completely out of control. It’s only embarrassing in a campaign, but just imagine how bad it would be for New York State in practical terms if this man took the helm. Decades ago, most of the rest of us who live here in New York got past Paladino’s Me-Me-*!#$-Me variety of bigotry. We understand that no matter how different we look from one another we’re all in this together. Hatred does not represent New York in spirit. Hatred should not represent New York in the Governor’s office.

Say no to Carl Paladino for Governor.

Allen West, the Republican Party nominee for Congress in Florida’s 22nd District, has made a speech publicly railing against the idea of coexistence:

As I was driving up here today, I saw that bumper sticker that absolutely incenses me. It’s not the Obama bumper sticker. But it’s the bumper sticker that says, ‘CoExist,’ and it has all the little religious symbols on it. And the reason why I get upset, and every time I see one of those bumper stickers, I look at the person inside that is driving. Because that person represents something that would give away our country. Would give away who we are, our rights and freedoms and liberties because they are afraid to stand up and confront that which is the antithesis, anathema of who we are. The liberties that we want to enjoy.

Watch the video of these remarks and you’ll see that Allen West makes these comments without the slightest sense of irony, which is quite sad. The “rights and freedoms and liberties” that are the foundation of American society are found in the Constitution. The very first freedoms are written in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In other words, Government shall not be used as a cudgel for one group to dominate another, for one belief to suppress another, for one religion to eliminate another. The central idea of the U.S. Constitution, which is the Supreme Law of our Land (Article VI), is CoExistence of different people, of different religions, of different expressions, of different ideas.

The GOP’s new nominee Allen West stands against CoExistence.

Allen West stands against the idea of America.

If you are for the American value of coexistence, be against the election of Allen West this November.

Here’s what it means for Wright to be running as a “citizen’s candidate”: Instead of the standard procedure for the selection of a congressional candidate, in which a self-centered politician gathers resources for the power to orchestrate a top-down campaign, Claudia Wright was democratically chosen by a group of committed citizens who had organized around a selfless purpose: The replacement of Jim Matheson as Democratic congressional candidate with a progressive candidate.

As a Blue Dog, working with Republicans to block Democratic legislation, Jim Matheson has gained the strong opposition of his district’s progressive candidates. In spite of his claims that he doesn’t need liberal help to win re-election, Matheson looks vulnerable this time, and his campaign is struggling to figure out a good way to deal with the rebellion on the Left. So far, they haven’t come up with a reasonable response.

Win or lose, 2010 may well be remembered as he year of Claudia Wright. Utahn Democrats are tired of the Blue Dog nonsense.

In the current election season, something similar is happening in Maine. With a declaration yesterday that “We can continue using duct tape, Bondo and baling wire to keep our economy limping down the road,” Republican Steve Abbot joined more than 20 other candidates who are running for the office of Governor of Maine. The Portland Press Herald refers to the race as “already crowded,” as if there isn’t enough room in Mainers’ heads to think of all their choices. Won’t an anointed candidate emerge to make the choice simple?

But who says life has to be simple? A “simple” choice between two alternatives often leaves most of the power in the hands of those who decide what the choices will be. Now that’s classy… as in upper-class control. We say let a thousand candidates bloviate, and let the people decide who moves forward.

In the meantime, there’s nothing wrong with a little humor directed at the situation. Share this message with fellow travelers on the roads and byways of the Pine Tree state: You’re running for Governor? Hey, me too!