WHY JERRY McNERNEY'S AND JAN SCHNEIDER'S PRIMARY RACES ARE SO IMPORTANT FOR PROGRESSIVES

There are two extremely important primaries coming up, one in a couple of weeks, June 6, in California and one on September 5 in Florida. Both states have full slates of Democratic candidates, some of whom I'm very excited about. I want to see Rick Penberthy win in FL-05 (a rural Florida district north of Tampa) so he can beat right-wing whacko Ginny Brown-Waite and I want to see Charlie Brown win in CA-04 (in the extreme northeast of California) so he can take on one of the most corrupt villains ever to stalk the halls of Congress, John Doolittle. In fact, there are lots of important races in each state. But I've chosen these two today for a very specific reason.

Jan Schneider and Jerry McNerney have a few things in common. Both are progressive, independent-minded, serious candidates. Both are grassroots-supported candidates. Both did extremely well against lavishly-funded, entrenched incumbents in 2004-- in races written off by the DCCC as "hopeless." And both are fighting for their lives-- against the same enemy: Rahm Emanuel and the Inside-the-Beltway Democratic Power Establishment!

Huh? Rahm Emanuel, head of the DCCC is supposed to make sure Democrats win in November. How can he be fighting against Jerry McNerney, who was overwhelmingly endorsed by the California Democratic Party convention and Jan Schneider, who did better against Katherine Harris in 2004 than any Democratic challenger did against any Republican incumbent in the state of Florida? I'm damn glad you asked.

Let's start with Jan's race for the now open-seat in Florida. (Katherine Harris who may wind up in a mental institution or a penal colony but certainly not in the U.S. Senate, abandoned the seat to run a pointless and doomed campaign against conservative Democrat Ben Nelson.) Since Jan almost beat her last time and has tremendous name recognition in the district, she would have a great chance against a non-incumbent Republican. Emanuel, recognizing an independent thinker and a progressive when he saw one, endorsed a pro-Business, ex-Republican banker, Christine Jennings, who, unlike Jan, has nothing much to say about any of the important issues of the day other than DCCC-manufactured pabulum. I called Jan to ask her what's up with that.

"It's very uncomfortable for me"-- and I could hear the palpable pain in her voice-- "to be fighting the Democratic Party because I've been a Democrat all my life." (Perhaps that Jennings is a convert from the Republican Party adds to a feeling of abandonment by the Democratic hierarchy.) When she started telling me what the DCCC has been pulling on her it reminded me of what the Inside-the-Beltway power elitists had done to derail Paul Hackett's campaign in Ohio a few months earlier and what I had just witnessed them do to Dave Lutrin in another Florida district down the road.

When I asked Jan why Emanuel and his lord chief executioner, Steny Hoyer, would do all this stuff to her and treat her with such disrespect she was frank and to the point. "I'm too independent-minded for them. And she [Jennings] has more money. But the last time we were in a primary she spent over half a million dollars and I spent $146,000 and I wound up with 48% of the vote and she got 38%" (in a 4-way race which included 2 further left candidates). Right now the DCCC propaganda is trying to emphasize the inevitability of a Jennings primary win (which everyone believes-- except the people in the 13th CD). One way they do that is to constantly point out how Jennings raises a lot more money (although $305,000 of her $400,000 total was money she put into the campaign herself). And even with that sleazy worm Hoyer calling her funders and trying to convince them to not donate to Schneider, she had raised around $70,000 when I spoke with her early in March. Since then Joe Trippi and Dan Walter have come aboard and Jan's campaign is looking very good. As it should; she's an incredible woman with tremendous accomplishments and a great deal of talent. A successful attorney and author, Jan graduated with honors from Brown University and did postdoctoral work at Columbia University and Yale (where she earned a Ph.D and a law degree. She is a thoughtful, instinctive progressive whose website, unlike her opponent's, delves into all the big issues voters might want to know about before they decide who they want representing them.

Jerry's story isn't identical-- but the insidious and revolting role of the Washington Insiders in the race is. In 2004, in response to the urging of his son Michael, who had enlisted in the Air Force after 9/11, Jerry entered the race for Congress as a write-in candidate because the Democratic Party had written-off the district as too difficult to bother wasting money on. Out of NO WHERE, Jerry received nearly 104,000 votes in the general election the most votes ever received by a challenger to the execrable Pombo. 

So along comes 2006 and what does the DCCC do? Do they get behind Jerry McNerney and his huge base of support in CA-11 to help him beat Pombo? No way-- Jerry opposes the occupation of Iraq; Jerry is a progressive; Jerry is a populist; Jerry is independent-minded and has no intentions of serving any political bosses from either side of the aisle, not someone named Tom and not someone named... just pick any Dick or Harry out of a hat... like Rahm or Steny. So instead of capitalizing on the groundwork that has been laid and helping Democrats in the San Joaquin Valley rid themselves-- and the nation-- of one of the half dozen most corrupt and corrosive influences on issue after issue that has come before Congress, the DC Insiders recruited and anointed an ex-Republican, pro-Business uninvolved mediocrity who they know will be a good little pawn if they can get him the job.

Fortunately, California Democrats don't cotton to this kind of stalinist bossism and the state Democratic party convention endorsed Jerry with 75% of the vote. Jerry has also been endorsed by the California Labor Federation (the umbrella group for labor in the state, and includes both AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions), by SEIU (The California State Council of the Service Employees International Union) and by a dozen other unions, as well as by virtually all the district's Democratic clubs. His opponent, on the other hand, has been endorsed by a cabal of Inside-the-Beltway power brokers, the bottom feeders of the Democratic Party who Emanuel was able to whip into following his lead.

This are two important races. They're important because they could lead to the replacement of exceptionally bad Republican rubber-stamp extremists with two exceptionally visionary and committed, unbossed true blue Democrats. June 6 in California and September 5 in Florida are really important days. If you live in either district, both campaigns need volunteers. If you live outside the districts, both campaigns can use your prayers and... a little blue love if you're feelin' flush.