Event: My favorite senator tonight.

In 2006 I wrote Debbie Stabenow a scathing letter denouncing her support of the Military Commissions Act and pledging to write in a candidate symbolically instead of her or her Republican opponent. Since then, she has recanted her vote on that issue (one of only a few senators), and her record has been one of the most impressive in the senate. She has all the idealism that represents this party at its best, and an obstinacy that flies in the face of the wimpy Democratic leadership; she is practical in a pure Michigan tradition of reconciling drastically different constituent needs.

I wrote six democratic senators a letter last night asking them to vote down a bill that pandered to the banking industry: they are Clinton, Durbin, Levin, Obama, Schumer, and Stabenow.

Of these, only Stabenow voted the proposal down.

Thank you, Debbie Stabenow, for voting with clarity, sense, resolve, and restraint, and for recognizing Michigan residents before the panic machine that has been driving our domestic policy this week.