I love electoral democracy.  I really do.

Unlike the Howard Beale character in the classic film Network, who said "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" -- the best thing we can do when we feel like Beale is to run for office or support someone who will better represent our views than the rascals sitting in the local, state or federal legislature.

The good news for democracy is that this is happening all over America as we prepare for the 2006 election season.  

The media have generally abdicated their  responsibility to write and broadcast meaningfully about the people's business (aka government at all levels), and the electoral process by which the people decide who will govern and how (aka, democracy). But the great news is that there are real issues, robust candidates and popular movements busting out all over with the unabiguous intention of reviving, restoring and renewing electoral democracy after decades of doldrums. It is refreshing and encouraging to see -- even if you won't hear much about it from the kind of corporate news media that so infuriated Howard Beale.

It is with this kind of fighting democratic spirit that Charon Asetoyer, Executive Director of the Native Women's Health Education Resource Center in Lake Andes, South Dakota, has declared her candidacy for the State Senate. Some friends sent me an email and a press release about her candidacy, and I will share it with you on the flip.

Asetoyer has been getting a lot of national press recently. She appeared on the national radio program Democracy Now with Amy Goodman to discuss South Dakota's draconian antibortion legislation -- and efforts to provide abortion services on soveriegn Native American territory. She was also featured in an AP story about intimidation aimed at Native American voters. Last year she was honored by Womens eNews, an international online news service, as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century. Asetoyer is running as a prochoice, prowomens health Democrat in a state where the (mostly) Christian Right, Republican political establishment wants to use the new antiaboriton law as a vehicle to try to get  Roe vs. Wade overturned.  

Well, Charon Asetoyer is one candidate who is not going to take this anymore.