DCCC Runs More Ads Tailor-made For Attacking Reactionaries... Of Either Party

Oklahoma obstructionist

Last week the DCCC targeted 6 vulnerable obstructionist Republicans-- Mike Castle (DE), Ken Calvert (CA), Bill Young (FL), Thaddeus McCotter (MI), Charlie Dent (PA) and Mike McCaul (R-TX)-- for voting against middle class tax cuts. Give a listen to the one they ran on southern California radio stations to let Calvert's constituents know how he voted:




At the time we mentioned that the ad could have been equally effective if run against any of the 13 Blue Dogs who voted exactly the same way Calvert and his obstructionist cronies voted-- like Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN), for example, a "Democrat" who has voted more frequently with the GOP on core issues this year than with the party that represents ordinary working families.

Joe Donnelly represents an Indiana district that leans Democratic. Obama won it with 54% of the vote. But Donnelly consistently opposes Obama's entire agenda for change. He doesn't deserve to be re-elected. Even if a more horrible Republican wins in 2010, in 2012 there will be at least a chance a moderate Democrat will take back the seat... [T]he ad would be just as effective if it were to run in South Bend, Elkhart and Kokomo and pointed out Donnelly's voting record.

This week the DCCC is targeting more venal, obstructionist, slimy, evil Republicans who vote against hard working American families. In fact this week these lowlife Republicans are getting their comeuppance because they voted against "increasing funding for veterans’ health care and other benefits by more than 11 percent." Sick, right? Only a Republican could be so crass as to have sent young American men and women to fight in overseas wars and then to deny them adequate health care. Well, almost only a Republican.

A DCCC representative said that "Representative Don Young’s rhetoric about supporting our veterans doesn't match reality when he rejected a budget that strengthens the health care and other benefits America's brave veterans earned through their service and sacrifice. Representative Young put loyalty to party leaders before loyalty to America's veterans who served and sacrificed for our country. The last thing veterans need is more of Representative Young’s just say no ways.”  Amen! Every word is true-- true about Don Young-- and true about Joe Donnelly.

I mean Joe Donnelly voted exactly the same way Young did, no difference at all. As the DCCC pointed out, the 2010 Budget Resolution, which passed 233-196-- without a single Republican vote-- "honors our veterans by providing an 11.5 percent increase in funding for their health care and other benefits" and provides "$53.3 billion in appropriated funding for veterans’ programs, which amounts to a $5.5 billion (11.5 percent) increase over the 2009 level. It supports the President’s budget by ending the Bush Administration’s ban on enrolling modest-income veterans into VA health care. It also increases funding over 2009 levels for the VA to research and treat mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injuries."

The DCCC is right in letting Don Young's constituents know he voted against these things. Don Young doesn't deserve to be re-elected next year. And neither do John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL), Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS), Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL), Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD), Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC), Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID), Harry Mitchell (Blue Dog-AZ), Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA), and Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS), all of whom joined Young and the other 175 Republicans voting against it.

By all means, let's get rid of obstructionist Republicans who are voting against our vets. But let's not let equally guilty Blue Dogs off the same hook. Democarts are howling mad today because a right wing Republicans like Randy Forbes (R-VA), Todd Akin (R-MO) and Doug Lamborn (R-CO) are savaging Defense Secretary Robert Gates' proposals to modernize the security forces of this nation in ways that their Military Industrial campaign contributors find inconvenient. And yet when Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), one of the most reactionary members of Congress from either party, attacked Gates using Republican talking points-- and forgetting to mention the $54,800 he has taken from war contractors-- there isn't a peep. Boren played up to his Republican allies'-- he's obviously on the verge of jumping the fence, as he should have long ago-- by calling the Obama administration soft on defense and questioning their commitment to national security.

I'm all for going after the worst of the Republicans, but let's not be hypocrites about it like the DCCC. Democrats like Joe Donnelly, John Barrow and Dan Boren are also obstructionists fighting for the status quo and against President Obama's agenda for change. The Blue America PAC is a place where we fight to elect progressive Democrats and a place where we fight to defeat reactionary Democrats. Last year we helped Donna Edwards beat a corrupt reactionary Democrat in Maryland, Al Wynn, and we started campaigns we mean to finish against John Barrow and Chris Carney.


UPDATE: Obama Weighs In For Veterans

It wasn't a political speech. He didn't urge people to work for the defeat of any of the anti-military personnel Republicans-- i.e., the entire Republican House caucus from John Boehner and Eric Cantor all the way down the food chain to little Patty McHenry and Ken Calvert-- nor did urge his fellow Democrats to take action against the handful of Democrats like Boren and Barrow who also betrayed our veterans and who are actively working against the president's agenda for change. I wish he would.