There is something refreshing about candidates with different backgrounds. After all, our representatives should be, well, representative. That is one reason I was pulling so hard for Senators Tester and Webb in the last cycle - the Senate needs different resumes.

Before Tester, we did not have a family farmer in the Senate. Before Webb, we did not have an Assistant Secretary of Defense or a Secretary of the Navy. The Democratic Party succeeds by bringing new biographies to the upper chamber.

One candidate I have my eye on this cycle is Jay Buckey, running for Senate in New Hampshire. Jay is a medical doctor, a professor at Dartmouth, a former Major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, and an astronaut - he completed 256 orbits of the Earth aboard the space shuttle Columbia.

When you look at the immense problems we face -- energy security, global warming, health care, Iraq, etc. -- we need these different backgrounds leading us towards solutions. Jim Webb has been a leading voice on finding a way out of Iraq. John Tester understands the struggles of family farmers. Jay Buckey, as a doctor and an astronaut, could be our strongest voice on healthcare and innovation. Since Senator Frist left office, there is not a single Senator with a medical background, nevertheless a Doctor-Professor-Astronaut.

I'm going to follow this race closely. I hope Jay Buckey shows up at YearlyKos so the netroots can meet him, get to know him, and see what he is made of. I am really intrigued with Jay and what he has accomplished - and how he might represent real change.  While I admire the other Democratic candidates, I wonder if Jay may be more adept at helping to solve our problems than those that have spent their years running for political office.

I urge the entire netroots to take a close look at Jay: www.buckey08.com.

Update [2007-7-30 20:22:36 by Jonathan Singer]: When a diary gets bumped to the front page the diarist can lose the ability to update their own post. So I have been asked to pass on the following updates from Mr. Trippi...

UPDATE: As some have pointed out, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is a doctor and Senator John Warner (R-VA) was the Secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974. My mistake.

UPDATE: While I am a Senior Adviser for the John Edwards campaign, this post just reflects my personal thoughts. There are many good candidates in this Senate race -- I just think it is important that people take a close look at Jay. He has a very impressive background that could serve the Senate well.

Over the Christmas Weekend Matt Stoller started a conversation about John Edwards that got me thinking again about the difference between transactional politics and transformational politics.

I had an epithany one day in the middle of the Dean campaign about what made us so different...

Its incredibly simple and defines what I now believe is the essential ingredient in any campaign or candidacy that hopes to be transformational.

All modern campaigns and transactional campaogns are built around a candidate who proclaims to the nation "Look at me -- aren't I amazing?".  

The Dean campaign (and any transformational campaign successful or not) was built around a candidate who proclaimed "Look at you -- aren't you amazing?"

This strikes me as essential.  More than ideology, or any other factor -- true transformational leadership can only come from a candidate who fundmentally gets that it isn't about him/her -- its about us.  

So in terms of 2008 is Hillary capable or realizing that she is not the center of the universe -- that the political world and even her own campaign does not revolve around her?    Obama?  Edwards? Who? Anyone?

The Dean campaign was different not because of ideology or because of opposition to the war -- but because it revolved around its supporters and empowered them.  It was the only campaign in a long time that realized that the people were more important than the candidate.

<James MacGregor Burns wrote "A transformational leader stands on the shoulders of his followers, expressing coherently those ideas which lie inchoate in the hearts of the followers -- and in the process makes his followers into new leaders.">

Al Gore is doing this right now around the issue of Global Warming.   Dean did it in 2004 for President.  Who in 2008?