THE FIRST ALT WEEKLY PUBLISHER IN THE HOUSE? I’m sorry, but this guy does not sound like a conservative Democrat:

John Yarmuth, Democratic candidate for U. S. Congress from Kentucky’s 3rd District, brings a lifetime of involvement in public affairs to the campaign. John is the founder and executive editor of the Louisville Eccentric Observer, best known as LEO, a 15-year-old newsweekly serving the Louisville, Kentucky metropolitan area. A native of Louisville, Yarmuth is a 1965 graduate of Atherton High School, where he was student government president, and a 1969 graduate of Yale University, with a degree in American Studies. From 1971-75 he was a legislative aide to U. S. Senator Marlow Cook. Cook, a Republican, was the second member of Congress to call for Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. In 1976, he founded Louisville Today magazine, which he published until 1982. During that time, Yarmuth also published City Paper, an alternative newspaper…

Yarmuth is also the founder and president of the Center for Kentucky Progress, a progressive think tank on Kentucky issues.

In 2004, Yarmuth was named “Person of the Year” by the Louisville Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.

In addition to the Kentucky Golf Association, Yarmuth serves as a director of the Jewish Community Center, the Society of Professional Journalists, Planned Parenthood, and the Louisville Forum.

And his victory, over Anne Northup in Kentucky 03, is one of the less expected ones.

–Garance Franke-Ruta

Garance Franke-Ruta is a former senior editor at the Prospect. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She was a 2006 recipient of a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University.