Over in East Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district, there is a rare opening for progressives. The district’s current representative in Congress, right wing Republican Zach Wamp, is retiring from the seat in order to run for Governor of Tennessee. Paula Flowers, a Democrat, has begun a campaign to earn the right to represent the district. Is this an opportunity for the district’s progressives to finally gain a voice in the House of Representatives? Don’t bet on it.

Paula Flowers is running for Congress on a decidedly anti-progressive platform. She’s in favor of shrinking the size of the federal government, and for allowing big oil companies to start drilling along radically expanded areas up and down America’s coastlines, offering a rather indiscriminate energy plan she calls “do it all” that includes spending more money on the hoax of “clean coal”. Flowers is calling for legislative efforts to deal with climate change to be slowed down – even before they’ve begun.

Paula Flowers is not only against single payer health care plans, she’s against a public option as well. Flowers is even against a bill that allows states to opt out of participation in a public option system. It seems that whatever effective health care reform plan has been proposed, Paula Flowers is against it. She prefers that we continue to operate under the same old private insurance companies that have been abusing their members’ trust for decades.

Flowers is evasive on other issues. She is unwilling to commit to defend Social Security from Republican schemes for raiding the trust fund. Neither will she agree to progressive solutions to the failed war in Afghanistan, saying that she still “will need additional information” before taking a stand – as if eight years of escalating problems with the occupation have not provided enough information for her to make an informed decision.

It seems that the 2010 congressional campaign in Tennessee’s 3rd district will offer voters with a sad choice: Vote for yet another right wing Republican, or vote for change with a right wing Democrat. The rest of us, who live outside the district, are facing an equally unappetizing prospect: If more Democrats like Paula Flowers decide to run for Congress, the right wing Blue Dogs will continue to be able to set the agenda of the Democratic Party, thwarting progressive attempts to guide the United States toward a more positive future.