Still the One (for Dems?)

Back in 2006, I wrote the first national stories on a longshot Dem candidate for Congress in a normally GOP district a little up the Hudson from where I live.  He was John Hall, who I met back in the 1970s when he wrote a couple of pieces for my old magazine Crawdaddy.  He was at the time the leader of the popular rock group Orleans.  Later he helped organize the fabled No Nukes concert and got involved in schools and environmental issues in the Woodstock-Saugerties area. 

My pieces in 2006 helped draw attention to his race in the primary and he had already lined up fundraisers with old pals Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Earle and Pete Seeger.  He won the primary in an upset, then beat the GOP incumbent.  Unfortunately, he was defeated in the Tea Party surge of 2010.  Now that seat is up for grabs again, with Hall not running, and NYT has just posted an overview.  The Dem candidate is a rare openly gay challenger.