ROB MILLER, CANDIDATE

The other day I got an unexpected phone call. The voice on the line was a pleasant tenor that I didn't recognize. Turned out it belonged to a youngish man named Rob Miller who is running for Congress in South Carolina against the infamous Joe Wilson.

Wilson, you'll recall, is the cretin who disgraced himself and the Congress by shouting "You lie!" at President Obama during the president's State of the Union address. I'm quite sure that that was a tactic worked out by leaders of the Republican caucus and not something spontaneous on Wilson's part, which makes it all the worse.

Miller was just touching base with his far-flung campaign contributors. I had sent him twenty dollars several times, because it can help a little and as a gesture of solidarity. I don't like what Joe Wilson stands for, including his unprecedented affront to the presidency. It's too much of a piece with what's happening on the right these days.

Miller sounds adult, confident, friendly, on top of things. He was a Marine for 13 years and served two tours of duty in Iraq. Not exactly a pinko hippie. He ran against Wilson the last time and got 46.4% of the vote, which made it the closest race in that district in 20 years. He is running now with much more money than before, thanks to Wilson's outburst. Teabaggers and such have donated great sums to Wilson because he's their kind of office-holder: the kind who makes office-holding seem like a job for buffoons and dirty-tricksters. But, angered at Wilson, people from all around the country have put $2 million into Rob Miller's coffers, making him very competitive.

He told me during our brief chat that Wilson is getting primaried. The opponent is a small businessman named Phil Black, who Miller identified as a moderate Republican. It seems they have some of those in that district. He said Black's preference for healthcare is "Medicare on steroids." Black isn't young and I don't know how much of a politician he is. From his website, I suspect he's a nice man. He probably won't win, but, as Miller said, he's making Wilson spend some of that big financial pile now. That's good. And Miller is unopposed for the Dem nomination.

A way to check these candidates out, if you've a mind to, is to go to http://politics1.com/ and choose the link at the top of the webpage that's about state and federal candidates. And if you should have the urge to send a few bucks to Rob Miller, who might make a fine Congressman, I hope you'll yield to it. He is an example of the kind of person who should be in Congress, just as Wilson is an example of the kind of person who shouldn't be.

When a Congressman hollers "Yew lah!" at the president of the United States when he's addressing the Congress, the answer by Americans who are real patriots is going to be "Yew dah!" - not biologically, which is what some teabaggers have threatened Congressmen with, but electorally. That's the way we do it here, by golly.