IS THERE A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CORRUPT REPUBLICAN WITH AN "F" AND A CORRUPT DEMOCRAT WITH A "D"?

If you've been following this blog for a while you'd probably guess that I'm a Democrat. You'd be wrong. Not that I'm a Republican-- not by a LONG shot. And I usually wind up voting for the horrible candidates the Democratic Party puts up. The last Republican I supported was John Lindsay, who eventually switched and became a Democrat, when he ran for mayor of NYC as a progressive energetic reform Republican against a tired, conservative machine hack the Dems put up (Abe Beame). Looking through the blog pages you'll see attacks against everyone connected to Bush's illegitimate neo-fascist regime and attacks against legitimately-elected Republicans like DeLay, Cunningham, Pombo, Taylor, Lewis, Burns, Schwarzenegger and so on. It wouldn't be too far of a jump to assume I'm endorsing every horrible jackass the less-corrupt/less-corporate/less-militarist Democrats endorse. But that wouldn't be true. I have as much scorn and contempt for reactionary and corrupt Dems as I do for Republicans. Lieberman may be an advocate for good environmental policies but, overall, he still gets a failing grade. He defeated a far more progressive Republican (and a far less corrupt one) to first win his Senate seat. It may be hard to find Democrats as bad as Lieberman-- but it isn't impossible. I'm not going to start talking about his atrocious Senate colleagues today, reactionary swine like Biden and the 2 Nelsons, for example, or Dianne Feinstein and her bagman husband. Let me restrict myself to the House.

Before blogs-- let alone blogswarms-- were a factor, my friends are I raised as much money as we could for a seemingly progressive Democrat, Adam Schiff, to run against the hideous fascist Republican incumbent James Rogan. Rogan has been one of President Clinton's tormentors in the right-wing trumped up impeachment drama and he really deserved a far worse fate than just losing his seat. But, wow, were we all overjoyed when Schiff took over. We were overjoyed until he started voting. He's not nearly as bad as Rogan, of course, but he's still a dogshit Bush-supporter in disguise.

Remember how excited everyone was when Melissa Bean whooped the old right-wing pervert Phil Crane last year? Big cheers-- until she started voting. She voted EXACTLY how the execrable Crane would have voted on almost every important issue, from giving Bush the power to attack Iraq, to approving Bush's pro-corporate tort "reform" law and his pro-corporate bankruptcy bill to being one of the two deciding votes that allowed the horrible CAFTA legislation to pass. Why did I send her a check? You can be sure I won't make that mistake again. And she's not the only one. Recently THE NATION did some digging into the voting records of what they dubbed The Bush Democrats. When we decide who needs funds for their races next year, make sure you think about genuine progressives first and foremost and leave off the reactionary assholes like Melissa Bean (D-IL), Jim Matheson (D-UT, yes a Democrat is Utah-- better than any Repug they'd vote in but still voting EXACTLY how any Repug would vote in virtually EVERY substantive battle), Dennis Moore (D-KS), John Tanner (D-TN), Jim Cooper (D-TN), Henry Cuellar (D-TX). And almost as pro-Bush as those Democrats-in-name-only are reactionaries like Ike Skelton (D-MO), Jim Moran (D-VA), Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), Norm Dicks (D-WA), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), William Jefferson (D-LA).

Some of these Bush Democrats are gonna be in tough races next year, especially Bean, Matheson and Moore, all of whom are in red-trending districts. I hope they win so they can vote to organize the House in such a way that puts in Democratic committee chairmen and Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. But if they do, let them find their funds from reactionaries like themselves. On the other hand, some of these Bush Democrats-- particularly Dicks, Hinojosa, Jefferson, Meeks, Moran, Ortiz-- are in Democratic districts and could safely be taken down in primary battles if progressive and populist candidates run against their corrupt corporate asses.