Roanoke
To get the truth out of a political gun-for-hire, it is always best to catch him when he's unemployed. When not obliged to peddle the platitudes and fictions of the poll-tested mediocrities to whom such a one is often yoked, he may revert to speaking English straight. Not that Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, most recently of John Edwards's abortive presidential run, has ever let employability get in the way of blasting the truth, or his peculiar version of it, from a sawed-off double barrel.

In addition to his first and highest calling--as a lethal hunter whose ideal day involves sitting still as a sniper up a tree in a deer stand in the Blue Ridge mountains--Mudcat is a Democratic rural strategist, in a year when the Democratic nominee badly needs a rural strategy. The rumbling, foul-mouthed Jeremiah Johnson of the campaign trail, Bard of the Bubbasphere, Mudcat has worked his voodoo, with varying results, for everyone from former governor Mark Warner of Virginia (win), to failed presidential candidates Edwards and Bob Graham, to Virginia senator and vice-presidential prospect Jim Webb (who won, with the help of liberal turnout in Northern Virginia and George Allen's "Macaca" implosion).

Mudcat is no technocrat, describing himself as "more Bagger Vance than Karl Rove," occasionally telling his candidate to go to a five-iron, while mostly providing "spiritual uplift." He'll do anything for his guy, from slapping his face on a stock car, to choreographing back-country barnstorming tours that sop up bubba attention with the likes of his

Working for Edwards last year, Mudcat took it upon himself, when dealing with a skeptical Boston Globe reporter, to rename Edwards's "Economic Fairness for the North Country" tour the "Let's Help John Edwards Screw Those Who Screwed Us" tour (the screwers, in this case, being the NAFTA-loving Clintons). Two years ago, in a panel discussion at the Daily Kos convention, Mudcat nearly set the drapes on fire in front of a roomful of netroots nerds when debating Thomas Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie. Schaller holds that Democrats should write off the South as unwinnable because of the forces of race and religion. His thesis prompted Mudcat to extend a standing social invitation: "Kiss my Rebel ass!"

A few years back, he joined forces with the Commonwealth Coalition, a group trying to torpedo an anti-gay marriage amendment in his native Virginia. Mudcat, who loves the ladies almost as much as he loves killing big bucks, agreed to take the gig only if he could persuade the bubbas in language they could relate to. He thundered to the Roanoke Times: "I'm pretty sure I ain't a queer. And I've never had queer thoughts, but I do have several queer buddies who called me and asked me to help. I think it's blasphemy to put this on the ballot and try to divide God's children for political gain. God loves them queers every bit that he loves the Republicans."