At least the War in Iraq is producing something: New Democrats.

As this Boston Globe article points out, six veterans of the Iraq war were apparently so inspired by their time fighting in Dick and George's Excellent Adventure that they've come home and decided to run for congress... as Democrats.

While fighting in Iraq, a private asked Captain Patrick Murphy why US forces were in the Persian Gulf nation, and was told it didn't matter; there was a job to do and just try to return home safely.

''That wasn't the time to question our government," Murphy recalled.

Now, however, Murphy and five other veterans of the war are asking questions about President Bush's policies in Iraq as part of their broader Democratic campaigns to win congressional seats in next year's elections.

Anyone care to take bets on how long it will take the wingnuts to start calling them "unamerican traitors", etc.?

A key member of this gang, as CNN reports, is a name we've already seen. Paul Hackett, who came within a couple percentage points of taking away a GOP House seat in Ohio this summer (in a heavily Republican district) is going to take on Mike DeWine (R - Ohio) in 2006.

Spokesman David Woodruff, who served as Hackett's campaign manager in his special election campaign for the 2nd District House seat against Jean Schmidt, confirmed Hackett's run Monday evening. Hackett had spent the last month hinting at a run against Ohio's senior senator, who is in his second six-year term.

If Hackett was able to come that close to unseating a GOP congressman in one of their strongholds, I was hazard a guess and say that he stands a very good chance of snatching that seat away from the Republicans in a statewide race. That's one of the roughly seven that will need to change hands in the Dems' direction next year. Another very likely candidate at this point is Rick Santorum's seat.

If progressive voters (and bloggers) continue to work on the 2006 race on a state by state, local issues fashion, the is more than just a possibility at this point. I hate to get my hopes up, particularly when we still haven't seen any substantial reform of our voting process and the GOP seems to control all the companies that make the voting machines, but the Senate is looking more and more blue to me every day.