So, How Do You Define Prominent

The McCampaign has released a list of "Prominent Democrats and Independents" who now support him for Pres. This is a plan to make it easier for former supporters of Senator Clinton to step up for McCain, who once toyed with the idea of becoming a Democrat himself.

But the staff at TPM have found that "prominent" may not mean to the McCampaign what it does to the rest of us. They've parsed the list and found a handful of wannbees and not-reallys to fill out a roster. Here's a quick look at a couple.

• Former state Rep. Steve Wenzel of Minnesota. It turns out that he has also had a long history of friendliness to Republicans. In late 2002 he served on the transition team of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who's apparently on McCain's Veep short list. And Wenzel is actually a Bush Administration appointee in the Department of Agriculture, a position he was given back in 2001.

• Clyde Hawes, a county-level official in Missouri. A nominal Democrat, Hawes has been a longtime supporter of the local GOP Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson and her late husband Bill Emerson, who held the seat before she did. In 1996, he bluntly told the St. Louis Dispatch, "I'm for anyone who's conservative" -- not exactly the words of a conventional Democrat.

• Bill Veroneau, former mayor of Concord, New Hampshire. The mayor's office there is non-partisan, and Veroneau himself originally endorsed Republican Mitt Romney for president. Shortly before the primary, he wrote a letter to the editor at the Concord Monitor that started off with this sentence: "Gov. Romney is a good man who is thoroughly honest and transparent about his views and beliefs."

But I think that our favorite is destined to be "Icky" Frye, the most civic-minded man in America, who ran for office just to be a bother to the man who'd given him horns.

Sounds pretty impressive. But it turns out that Frye's credential as a
Democrat is limited to ... well, Frye's wife made a cuckold of him by sleeping
with then West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise (D). In revenge, the humiliated Frye
decided to challenge Wise in the Democratic primary for governor -- which, I'll
have to say is one of the more creative and civically-minded ways I've heard of
to get back at the guy who slept with your wife. Wise decided that things were
getting a little out of hand and without precisely admitting to the affair
decided not to run again. At this point Frye seems to have lost interest in the
job and ended up garnering less than one half a percent of the vote.

The Charleston Gazette tells us that Frye is waiting for the phone to ring now that he's taken the national stage once more.

"Right now, we are waiting to be told what to do for Democrats For McCain.
We will sit back and see how that goes."

I'm betting that Icky gets a job in Internal Affairs. What do you think?