Joel Pollak for Congress? Now That's Some Change I Can Believe In!

I must be getting old. Earlier I blogged about Scott Brown, who I knew from way back in high school. Today, I'll be talking up someone who really ought to be in office already. My old co-worker, Joel Pollak, is running for Congress in Chicago against Ms. Jan "Single Payer" Schakowsky. Joel, a naturalized U.S. citizen from South Africa, delivered some rather powerful speeches assailing President Obama's disastrous policy. You can read them and see them at his campaign website here.

Joel and I cross paths when I was a researcher for Alan Dershowitz back in my Massachusetts days. At the time, I was struck by how knowledgeable and active Joel was at Harvard Law School. Everything that there was to be run, Joel seemed to be running it, always expertly. He gave great comments in one of the Dershowitz's seminars I attended. At the time, I had little idea that he was political and apparently before the McCain campaign, he was a Democrat. (Many Dershowitz RAs, contrary to popular opinion, are right leaning or moderate.)

Unlike some of the other RAs, I didn't get to know Joel as well as I would have liked, but all the more I found him charming. Joel was a consummate gentleman. He was gracious enough to invite me, and a friend, to see Tony Leon, the former opposition leader of South Africa, speak before a gathering of African lawyers. He never once made me, a high school student, feel as anything other than a colleague.

Leon's message was about the Democratic Alliance, South Africa's major opposition party and how it might be the way forward for African politics. Essentially a classically liberal party, it had Lincolnian vibes permeating it, stressing natural rights, non-racialism, and liberty.

Joel has been writing for Big Government.com, where he's been writing some great posts. Above you can see him challenge Barney Frank and becoming a YouTube sensation. You can listen to him here, making the argument against our old boss, Professor Alan Dershowitz, that Obama has betrayed Israel. Be sure to read The Politico article on him, too!