For William Jennings Bryan, his faith informed his politics most on issues of war and peace. War as a last resort as envisioned by St. Thomas Aquanis' "just war" theory was an everyday reality to Bryan. Bryan fought for equality---a core Christian principle---for workers' rights, for womens' suffrage, and for "We the People" to have a bigger voice than big corporations. He fought for "Initiative and referendum", a way for people to enact their own laws. He fought for the popular election of Senators, campaign finance reform, and against monopolies. And Jesus seemed to have "that health care thing," going around healing people of crippling diseases without asking for a Blue Cross card.

Jesus frames the issue in the Gospels: you cannot serve God and Mammon. In these days when people think you need six million dollars to run a statewide campaign, no wonder politicians buckle to Mammon, hoping for fat campaign contributions.

But it was Bryan who showed a different way. In many ways, Bryan was like a "John the Baptist" for the Democratic party, as he led the way for many of his ideas to become law. Without Bryan, there would have been no Woodrow Wilson, and no FDR, at least in the form we know them. Liberal Republican Teddy Roosevelt even adopted many of Bryan's ideas.

His views were hugely progressive on war and peace, against plutocracy and monopoly, in favor of unions, in favor of women's rights, and he was always ready to blast away at big corporations who squished the "little man." His life asked the question: Is the Democratic party going to serve God or Mammon? Are we going to serve the corporate elites, or "We the People?" Bryan had his shortcomings, but he wasn't afraid of people or corporations with fat checkbooks. McKinley catered to them.

Yes, Bryan lost the Presidency all three times. But he changed the trajectory of American life in a way that a dozen Presidents haven't. And no one could argue with the practical results of populism in Kansas: In 1890 the Populist party took Kansas by storm, "sweeping the small-town slickers out of office and ending the careers of many a career politician. In the decade that followed they elected Populist governors, Populist senators, Populist congressman, Populist supreme court justices, Populist city councils, and probably Populist dogcatchers, too; men of strong ideas, curious nicknames, and a colorful patois." (Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas?, pp. 32-33)

For me a strange moment came when I was attending the annual Washington Days Democrat banquet in Topeka several years ago. I opened the program and saw that one of the sponsors was Archer-Daniel-Midland, a corporate agri-giant that has helped turned many a Kansas farmer into a sharecropper. "Should we be taking money from that outfit?" I silently wondered to myself.

When I saw Senator Jay Rockefeller on C-Span recently blasting those greedy insurance companies who find ways to deny care to people in desperate need, I thought to myself: "Rockefeller can say whatever he wants. He has his own money. Those other poor saps are stuck pimping for Big Insurance to fund their campaigns."

It is a sad state of affairs when only multi-millionaires can speak their minds AND succeed in politics. Now both parties feel the need to "suck up" to The Man---corporate
plutocracy. But before the Democratic party goes too far down that road, shouldn't we try the "Great Commoner's" prescription first?

Wiliam Jennings Bryan would be the first to say that God is not a Democrat or a Republican, and that the important thing is that not that "God is on our side, but that we are on His side." Regardless of your religious views, maybe guys like Bryan and his funniest successor, Jim Hightower, have a point: "Aren't 'We the People' supposed to run the show? It might be worth a try for Kansas Democrats in 2010 and beyond.