Alan Grayson is running for the Florida congressional seat he lost and I’m thrilled. He’s one of the very few Democrats left who has the guts to really take it to the Republicans. I’ve always admired his fearlessness and plain spoken bluntness. Losing his last election doesn’t seem to have diminished his passion for confronting the lies and duplicity being spun by both parties.

For the 70% of all homeowners in Orlando who owe more than they own on their home, and the 25% nationwide who are “underwater,” and feel like they are drowning, I’m in. For the six million Americans who haven’t worked in six months and are seeing their benefits running out, for the eight million more who are unemployed, and for the eight million on top of that who can find only part-time work, I’m in. For the millions of parents who have absolutely no idea how to pay for a college education for their children, I’m in. And for everyone who is appalled by the prospect that we may cut Social Security and Medicare benefits as we spend more than $150 billion a year on three unnecessary wars and almost $100 billion a year on the Bush tax cuts for the rich, I’m in.

If for no other reason, I love Grayson because he’s an unfashionably idealistic peacenik at a time when no one seems willing to give peace a chance or even talk about it. He also wins points with me for quoting John Lennon.

Imagine if we had decided after 9/11 to wean ourselves off oil and other carbon-based fuels. We’d be ten years into that project by now.

Imagine if George W. Bush had somehow been able to summon the moral strength of Mahatma Gandhi, Helen Keller, or Martin Luther King Jr, and committed the American people to the pursuit of a common goal of a transformed society, a society which meets our own human needs rather than declaring “war” on an emotion, or, as John Quincy Adams put it, going “abroad, in search of monsters to destroy”.

Imagine.

Imagine that we chose not to enslave ourselves to a massive military state whose stated goal is “stability” in countries that never have been “stable”, and never will be.

Imagine.

“Imagine all the people, living life in peace.”

You can contribute to his campaign here. I’m in.