WHY I DECIDED TO DONATE TO AMY KLOBUCHAR'S CAMPAIGN FOR THE MINNESOTA U.S. SENATE SEAT TODAY
A couple of weeks ago my friend Ruth called me and asked me to donate some money to Amy Klobuchar's Senate campaign. Ruth and I are on the Board of the same public interest group and it's only polite to donate to each other's candidates. And I trust her implicitly. I said "yes." But then I started looking into the race, of course-- remembering when another member of that same board had once asked me to donate to his state's "progressive" governor as the governor ran for the U.S. Senate, only to take my money, win the race and unveil himself as... Zell Miller.
Klobuchar will never turn into a Zell Miller or a Joe Lieberman. She has an admirable progressive record of public service that suggests she's going to be an excellent U.S. Senator. But I found something else that didn't inspire an immediate donation.
Schumer and the contemptible DSCC were in Minnesota working to sabotage Klobuchar's primary opponent, Ford Bell, as they had done to Paul Hackett in Ohio and Chuck Pennacchio in Pennsylvania (and, of course, as they are doing in Connecticut where they are trying to undermine grassroots efforts to hold Joe Lieberman accountable for his unswerving support of George Bush and the corporate agenda). I called Ruth and told her I wanted to hold off until after the primary because, although Amy looked great, Bell looked at least as good and because-- though no fault of Amy's-- I didn't like the anti-democratic DSCC tactics going on in the race. Graciously, she let me off the hook.
Today, however, I will make a donation to Klobuchar's campaign. Yesterday Ford Bell withdrew from the race, lashed out at Schumer, and endorsed Amy. Bell never really seemed to have much of a chance to win. Inside and outside the state, Democrats rallied around Klobuchar and there really was nothing wrong with her. I mean it wasn't a situation like in Pennsylvania where the DSCC was backing a reactionary over a progressive. Maybe Bell was more progressive and more outspokenly anti-Bush, but Amy is no Bob Casey. And as he said himself, "The differences within our party are important, but the differences between Mark Kennedy, George Bush and the needs of America are much greater."
Bell, the "peace candidate" and the insurgent up against the Inside the Beltway slime machine, was finding it impossible to raise money. The DSCC was successful in giving Amy's candidacy the air of inevitability and in scaring off potential contributors to Bell (as they had done when they decided to knife Paul Hackett in the back).
The Minnesota Democratic/DFL party had already endorsed Klobuchar at their official convention last month and Bell's unity move allows her to use all her energy and resources against Mark Kennedy, a Bush rubber stamp looking to move up after an abysmal job in the House. An accountant for the corrupt and disbanded firm Arthur Anderson Kennedy was first elected in 2000, and he has worked hard to build himself a truly awful voting record, that is a picture perfect example of how to serve the needs of corporate special interests while spitting in the face of the needs of your working and middle class constituents. (DMI, in fact, rates Kennedy a big fat zero on issues relating to the middle class and says he earns an F.)
Kennedy's moderate suburban district northwest of Minneapolis looked like it was ready to reject him this year. (Patty Wetterling came close to unseating him in 2004 and is running again for the seat-- now open-- this year.) But, fearing he would lose his job as a congressman, he decided to try for the Senate.
Meanwhile, Amy seems exactly right for Minnesota, a moderate, forward-looking progressive with a much-admired 8 year record as Hennepin County Attorney and a clear and strong vision for helping to clean up the mess Bush and his rubber stamp Senate is leaving behind. She promises to change the course in Iraq, not keep the course, which is what Kennedy has been voting to do. She promises to preserve and strengthen Social Security, not destroy it, like Kennedy has been voting to do. She promises to be a force to reform our massive health care crisis and our long-term energy crisis, not to let Big Business dictate policy the way Kennedy has (while he graciously accepted their
Today Amy launched her first TV spot. It will give you a good idea about why she should be the next senator from the state that gave this country Paul Wellstone. My pal Ruth will be happy because I decided to donate some money to Amy's campaign. If you like to do likewise, please feel free to use ACT BLUE.
FRIDAY UPDATE: AMY MORE THAN HOLDING HER OWN AGAINST KENNEDY
Although she can't tap into the kinds of Big Business sources that buy influence through the GOP the way Kennedy has, Amy's grassroots fundraising efforts are more than paying off. The just-released quarterly report shows that she has nearly as much cash on hand as he does and that she actually out-raised him in the last 3 months! Let's keep it going and make sure we turn the Senate blue.
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 11:14 AM
4 comments
|
Reddit
4 Comments:
Minnesota didn't just give us Paul Wellstone... it gave us Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey as well. Minnesota has an outstanding progressive tradition.
As a Minnesotan, I think my feelings were similar to yours. He was left of Klobuchar, but not enough to make a huge difference, nor was there a huge difference in charisma. He also acted as if Klobuchar was "pro-war", which I thought was inappropriate and undignified. Still, he kept the powerful progressive wing happy with the race, and his endorsement will help keep them there rather than voting Green (Green voters are one of the reasons we have that asswipe Pawlenty for a governor, and that smarmy creep Coleman for a senator).
I think Klobuchar's a fine candidate, generally acceptable to both progressives and the Establishment, and appealing to moderates and swing voters. She'll make a good senator, if not a great one.
Hey, Dave, thanks for recalling Minnesota's tradition of great liberal pols. I hated what Hubert Humphrey became by the time he ran for president in l968 as Lyndon Johnson's buttboy, but that still leaves 20-plus years of the highest-quality public service a person can render--showing what one man can do to make government work for the people.
It seems that no human institutions remain immune from decay from within (something to bear in mind when looking at the world's "great" religions), and the DFL seems to have grown sclerotic even by Paul Wellstone's time--as I recall, the shell of the DFL was pretty openly hostile to him.
Still, Minnesota has a tradition of supplying the nation with politicians of substance, and from what I'm hearing about Klobuchar, I look forward to seeing her take her seat in the Senate.
K
That's a nice summary of what happened, and I hope you'll join in the call for the DFL to reform itself before '08.
It makes NO sense for the party to shut the door on participation before the primary election, and the DFL should own up to the fact that their endorsement process has cost Democrats countless wins in recent decades.
Howard Dean said a week ago that the DNC would never interfere with a state primary. Sadly, Chuck Schumer doesn't report to Howard Dean....
Once I played wonderland, I did not know how to get strong, someone told me that you must have wonderland Gold. He gave me some wonderland online Gold, he said that I could buy wonderland Gold, but I did not have money, then I played it all my spare time. From then on, I got some wonderland money, if I did not continue to play it, I can sell cheap wonderland online Gold to anyone who want.
Post a Comment
<< Home