Why Does The DCCC Allow Adam Putnam To Waltz To Re-election Without Lifting A Finger?

Sometimes it gets very frustrating that even in the best of political environments, like this year's, the DCCC can't really muster a truly national campaign and compete in hundreds of districts instead of just a few dozen. Chris Van Hollen is a tremendous improvement over last cycle's DCCC chair, Rahm Emanuel, who worked very hard to hold down the battlefields and was personally responsible for countless losses, especially close races for progressives where he refused to get involved (Larry Kissell, Victoria Wulsin, Charlie Brown, Eric Massa come instantly to mind-- all of whom have become major priorities for Van Hollen this year.)

Democrats will never get back to the 1936 situation where they held all but 88 seats in the House (and all but 17 in the Senate) if they don't take on more Republicans who have earned, by their records, stiff challenges. Emanuel is a crabbed, nasty, corrupt little man with a small uptight vision. Van Hollen is a step in the right direction. But just a step. One race the Florida Democratic Party and the DCCC should be hammering is in a district just east of Tampa Bay, the twelfth's Hillsborough and Polk Counties, currently occupied by pompous, buffoon Adam Putnam, the #3 rubber stamp in the GOP House hierarchy. He is the walking incarnation of everything Americans have come to hate about the Republican Party. Aside from his shallow ideological outlook on politics and his predisposition to always support corporate special interests over the well-being of the middle class, Putnam has taken a great deal of money from shady corporate operators and has voted exactly how they have asked him to in return. In my book, that spells corruption. In yesterday's L.A. Times Rosa Brooks explains how McCain's ability to escape punishment for his role in the Keating Five Savings and Loan scandals led directly to the current Wall Street meltdown. Florida voters should end Adam Putnam's career now that he's shown himself to be even more corrupt than McCain.

Putnam, who early on was dubbed "that Howdy Doody looking nimrod" by his colleagues, sits on the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises. His activities on that subcommittee paint a gruesome picture of corruption. Instead of living up to the stated objectives of the committee-- to "review laws and programs related to the U.S. capital markets, the securities industry, the insurance industry generally (except for health care), and government-sponsored enterprises, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," he used his position as a fundraising tool with the very people he was supposed to be keeping an eye on! Putnam's subcommittee also "oversees the Securities and Exchange Commission and self-regulatory organizations, such as the New York Stock Exchange and the NASD, that police the securities markets." What did he do? He became the subcommittee's #1 advocate for the irresponsible deregulation that has brought the country to the brink of financial collapse. Putnam led the charge to wreck the federal regulatory agencies that have been carefully put in place to protect the middle class and society at large from the kinds of powerful financial predators who he has been taking bribes "donations" from. This year alone Putnam has taken a whopping $298,340 from the industry that finances insurance and real estate, $40,000 from the securities and investment industry, $35,150 from commercial banks, $30,940 from sleazy lobbyists, $24,050 from shady "miscellaneous" finance operations, $18,000 from finance and credit companies, and another $12,500 from mortgage bankers and brokers. Just this year alone he's taken in close to half a million dollars from the very industries he's supposed to be providing with oversight. That is the definition of corruption. And that alone is why the DCCC should be pounding him.

But on top of that, Putnam has an ideal Democratic challenger, a 22 year Navy vet who understands two things Putnam is clueless about, our nation's security and the struggles of middle class working families. That man is Doug Tudor, an exceptional candidate and independent-minded progressive. I don't know this for certain but I would be willing to bet that Doug hasn't been given even one dime of help from the DCCC or the Florida Democratic Party. As far as they're concerned, Adam Putnam can just skate to re-election.

Putnam, on the other hand, senses the craving in Florida for change and he realizes he could easily become a target of that sentiment. When most members of Congress were trying to deal with the financial catastrophe his subcommittee should have headed off at the pass, Putnam was partying in Nantucket with his wealthy campaign contributors from the Big Banks and Wall Street investment firms-- literally. He was vacationing or hobnobbing in one of America’s most wealthy enclaves, while every news source was reporting that House and Senate leadership was meeting with the President’s people to try to figure out how to keep the country from depression-era misery. And it wasn't just for fun and games; it never is with people in that world. While our country’s economy is sinking further and further into the crapper, Adam was hosting a $2,500 per person “Weekend with Adam” for his fat cat lobbyist buddies. Even though he leads Doug by nearly $1.6 million in fundraising, he felt it was more important to get more cash for himself and his running-scared Republican buddies in the House than take part in bailout discussions. Even though he personally is worth nearly $15 million and could well fund any and all aspects of his campaign, he absolutely couldn’t be bothered to remain in DC and work on the many, many challenges facing his constituents, the actual Florida voters who employ him.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the Democratic political boss of Florida, at least when it comes to Congress. When she insulted Doug at the Denver convention she was showing her contempt for military vets, for regular Americans and for anyone not from her "class" making a populist case. Doug and candidates like him will never get any help from elitist insiders like Wasserman Schultz unless it is forced by the grassroots. This year we forced her to give up on her support for reactionary Republicans Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart and for her close friend Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and she ha snow given her OK for Democrats to help Joe Garcia and Annette Taddeo. Please join me in donating to Doug Tudor today-- even $5 or $10 helps-- so that we send a message to Wasserman Schultz and the DCCC that we expect the Democratic Party to fight bad characters like Adam Putnam. DWT has set up a special page for the best candidates being ignored by the DCCC. Please click on that link and give what you can to Doug Tudor.


UPDATE: WANT TO TAKE SOME ACTION?

Well, the DCCC is sitting on a 40 million dollar advantage over the NRCC. If they were willing to invest just a quarter of 1% of that money in FL-12, Doug would win this race-- absolutely, positively. Next year they'll come crying to use about how they screwed up the way they just did about Larry Kissell, who came within 320 votes of beating reactionary goon Robin Hayes in 2006 but missed out because the DCCC refused to help. If you want to do something, aside from donating to Doug's campaign, please contact Brett Wask at the DCCC and tell him (politely) you'd like to see some action: wask@dccc.org or (202)607-1595. Let's restore representative democracy to central Florida!