For decades now, decades, I have lived in either a right-leaning or a full-on batcrap crazy Republican congressional district. I was being represented by people that didn’t represent me. The doozy to beat all doozies was (not) being represented by Tom DeLay, whose house, by the way, was 3 blocks from my workplace.

All of the negatives of that last experience was more than balanced by meeting a bunch of the scrappiest Democrats that I had ever seen. The Fort Bend Democrats. Texas politics invaded my life and I was hooked. Out here on the Left Coast we Californians are much more calm and soft-spoken. In large part because we all agree (for the most part) and pass blue urine.

But when I landed here in CA CD-42 my congressman was a guy named Ken Calvert, who was at the time, a 20-year veteran who never had a serious Dem opponent and never accomplished anything. Basically he’s office furniture, maybe a credenza, but I prefer him as a chair.

A La-Z-Boy.

So the only good thing about him as my congressman was that he didn’t ever do anything which was fine with me.

Then came The Former Guy (every time I see the shortened TFG reference I think of the other phrase that must have been invented in New York (starts with “this”, ends with “guy”) and you say it with a Queens accent). Calvert obeyed and went totally MAGA. Then in ’21 came the redistricting, and Calvert lost his comfortable 62-38 edge. He was moved to CD-41, currently represented by Mark Takano, a Dem (Takano is running in CD-39), and CD-41 is now a by-god swing district.

But wait, it gets better. Ken Calvert’s new district is only half California redneck. The other half, new to him, is the Palm Springs area. To those who don’t know, Palm Springs is dominated by the largest LGBTQIA+ community in the country. He doesn’t fit in at all. No one east of Banning is going to vote for him.

And his Democratic opponent? Will Rollins, a young, energetic former federal prosecutor who brought many a 1/6 insurrectionist to justice. My sister calls him “eye candy”. And you can see from the photo of him and his partner, Paolo, that she isn’t far off.

Calvert is flush with corporate funding, chiefly oil companies to the tune of over half a million. He hasn’t held a town hall in 10 years. Will depends on small-dollar donors, and has gotten the attention of the DCCC. But if you wanted to support Will I don’t think he’d mind. Go here.

And yes, I buried the lede again.