Digby, Howie Klein, Robert Greenwald and myself co-hosted a blogger get together at Brave New Films Tuesday afternoon to meet with a true progressive candidate named Tom Geoghagen. He's running to grab Rahm Emanuel's vacant seat in IL. and and showed off his progressive chops big time. He was very impressive as he spoke about many issues that would have a huge impact on America if he's able to win that seat. He's a real leader, not some yes man and as a labor lawyer he knows what's been happening to working class families all across America. He touched on an interesting concept that I haven't heard any one else touch on.

Since we've spent so much money bailing out the financial institutions, Tom thinks that working families should get the same consideration when it comes to their own credit record and with some help they should get the same fresh start as the banking industry was given. Without the private jets and huge bonuses of course.

After he spoke for about 30 minutes and then a Q&A, Robert and Howie grabbed me unexpectedly and off I went into the studio with Tom to ask him to explain in simple terms what the Employee Free Choice Act really is since there's so much misinformation littering the airwaves about it by the corporate elites.

It's insane watching the right wing freak out over the fact that all this act does is give the employees and not the employers the choice of how to unionize. That's it. In this video, Geoghagen gives a very straight forward answer that dispels a lot of the anti-union nonsense that the Orrin Hatches of the Republican party are spewing. After meeting him, listening to him and speaking with him about the issues, I'm convinced he's an excellent choice for Rahm's seat and is a person that I am fully endorsing.

Howie writes:

Yesterday I got to hear author and congressional candidate Tom Geoghegan speak live. Robert Greenwald and the folks at BraveNewFilms hosted a blogger get-together for the progressive candidate running in Illinois' 5th CD. I knew he was already a good candidate from his writing and from trusted friends in Chicago; that's why we endorsed him and added him to our ActBlue page. But seeing him live... it's like the difference from hearing a band's recorded songs and seeing a live concert.

Katha Pollitt called him "the next Paul Wellstone" in The Nation and Thomas Frank wrote that he's a "true reformer" in the Wall Street Journal. This morning Don Rose endorsed his candidacy in the Chicago Sun-Times.