SALENA ZITO: Why Mudcat Matters:

If Mudcat Saunders were running things he would never have approached bringing his beloved Democratic Party together by uninviting one faction of the divided party.

“Well, that would not have been my tactics, if your party is divided, well how do you bring it together if you don’t invite all sides?” he asks, confounded by the decision.

But that is exactly what they did to Saunders, a legendary Democratic operative with a deep southern drawl, commanding presence and a fierce loyalty to his party, despite its sharp turn left, beginning along the fringes with Al Gore.

Saunders is the Democrats’ outspoken liaison between progressive candidates and rural voters to help them soften their message to longtime Democratic voters who still like God, guns and find themselves in a church pew every Sunday. He was unceremoniously uninvited to the very event that was supposed to bring rural and progressive Democrats together ahead of the governor’s race this year.

They don’t care that you’re a loyal Democrat, Mudcat. And they don’t want to reach out to people like you. They just hate people like you. If they had their way, there wouldn’t be any people like you.