THE VALUE OF PRIMARIES IS ONLY THEORETICAL UNLESS WE TAKE UP THE OPPORTUNITY THEY OFFER

I don't want to say I'm reading David Sirota's new book, The Uprising. It would be more accurate to say I'm savoring it. I try to parcel it out a little at a time so I don't finish it too soon. Over lunch today I enjoyed his adventures with our old friend Jon Tester (D-MT), now-- thanks in large part to grassroots progressives inside Montana and their allies around the country who told Chuck Lizardman Schumer to stick his head back up his rear when he almost helped Conrad Burns stay in office via John Morrison, a Republican-lite Democrat he tried forcing on Montana-- Senator Jon Tester. It was all fascinating and enlightening and riveting but there's just one little part I want to talk about today, the part about primaries-- and why Insiders hate and fear them so much and how they are the only check the grassroots has on the representatives we hire to work for us in DC. Tester is kind of a fish out of water in the sleazy and corrupt DC environment. And he, unlike his sleazy and corrupt colleagues-- on both sides of the aisle-- thinks primaries are fine. He tells Sirota he thought Ned Lamont's primary battle against Lieberman was "useful." That's a sacrilege in Washington.

In one of his first closed-door meetings with Senate Democrats, Tester says a senator who had recently experienced a tough primary gave a tough speech saying that Democratic bigwigs in Washington must start taking more punitive steps to crush primaries before they happen. [I can see Schumer salivating and sharpening his claws and wagging his tail.] This colleague offered up the tired claim that primaries weaken the eventual nominee for the general election.

"Well, I got up and said 'Hey folks, the primary I went through made me a stronger candidate,'" Tester recounts, adding that the room went totally silent. And then I reminded them that I wouldn't be here if there wasn't a primary, because they [Schumer] tried to pick another candidate!"

At this he cracks a smile, reliving the pleasure of what must have been a great "fuck you" moment.

"Look, I get the motivation for not wanting primaries," he says. "Elections are a real pain in the ass, they cost a lot of money, they take a lot of time, they take a lot of energy, and, quite frankly, they are mentally taxing. But on the other side of the coin is you have the ability to hold incumbents accountable for past voting records and influence them on future voting records-- that's what it's about. That's democracy."

Yes, that is democracy-- unlike the system they have in Arkansas, where 4 of the most conservative and corporately-oriented, anti-consumer/anti-working family Democrats, Reps Marion Berry, Vic Snyder and Mike Ross, as well as arch-reactionary Senator Mark Pryor, have no primary challenge and not even a Republican challenge in the general election! In fact, if you look at which Democrats are up for re-election in November, Pryor is far from atypical, at least in terms of not having a primary to worry about. The only incumbent Democrat who was challenged was the most liberal member of the Senate and he was challenged by an overly ambitious right-wing Democratic congressman, Rob Andrews, who was defeated handily. Tim Johnson (SD), Mary Landrieu (LA), Mark Pryor (AR) and Tester's fellow Montanan Max Baucus all have voted to rubber stamp a great deal of Bush's toxic agenda and are up for re-election. None of them has a primary.

Grassroots activists got behind Donna Edwards this year and ousted corrupt and reactionary insider Al Wynn-- whose backing from Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer included dragooning Nancy Pelosi into a fundraiser for Wynn that made Pelosi look like shit. Ed Fallon put a scare into Blue Dog Leonard Boswell in Des Moines this month. The only feasible primary challenge pitting a people's candidate against an insider corporate shill is next month in Georgia, where progressive state Senator Regina Thomas takes on reactionary Bush Dog John Barrow. Barrow sports a 31.31 rating on the ProgressivePunch Chips Are Down scale, one of only about a dozen Dixiecrats who vote with Bush on contentious substantive matters more frequently than he votes with the Democratic majority. Barrow has been instrumental in helping to forge an alliance between Republican extremists and conservative Blue Dog Democrats that prevents progress on a wide array of progressive issues, particularly of ending the war in Iraq. Regina is campaigning on ending the war and on a whole panoply of basic Democratic issues. Looking at her primary campaign looks like a campaign against a Republican wingnut, not another Democrat. Watch this and then please think about donating to Regina Thomas' campaign: