East St. Louis alternates between hilarity and tragedy. When I younger, a judge ruled found in favor of a claim against the city, and awarded the claimant the courthouse, itself. Lately, the big scam has been the way Democrats attempted to murder people who threatened to expose their massive vote fraud scheme there.

I've met Carl Officer, former Democratic (needless to say) mayor of East St. Louis, and thought he was a great guy, despite the many problems his town has. He just seemed to be a man of character, doing the best he could in hard circumstances.

So I'm pleasantly surprised to see this:

Ellis had been a top aide to Mayor Carl Officer in the 1990s, and previously served 18 months in prison for using his position in city government to get kickbacks. He eventually found his way back to power in City Hall.

When Officer returned to the mayor's office in 2003, their relationship was "strained," Ellis said. Officer has recently supported some Republican candidates. For that, Ellis said, he wants Officer out of power.

Look, I thought Officer was a wonderful guy. He took time out from his job, on a Friday night (which would have been his personal time) to come and speak to a bunch of mostly-white Christian college kids at an elite institution across the river. He was candid about his city's problems.

There were always some great people I liked in the Democratic party (even after I started to become more conservative) -- some people had character whether or not I agreed with the Democrats' policies. It's a shame (or is it a good thing?) those good people are increasingly being driven from that party. But it's definitely a good thing they're sensible enough to see what's going on.

Yet the million-dollar question is whether the Republicans are going to provide a viable alternative. At the Senate level, as this week's failed anti-pork vote demonstrates, perhaps not. But there's still room to start/keep changing things at the local level, things which have an immediate impact.

It was the oddest thing to me: Over in St. Louis, Missouri, the poor would support Democrat after Democrat, and each would do nothing to solve the city's problems. And yet the loyalty remained. How could they have done worse by electing a Republican?

But they blindly supported the same policies which kept so many in poverty so long. It has been time for a change for half my life now, to introduce some competition and get both parties competing for their votes, instead of showing the same stubborn blind loyalty to a party could could care less about helping them out.