Steve Pougnet-- Better Than Mary Bono Mack, For Sure... But A DFA Candidate? What A Joke!

A couple years ago I got into an unpleasant spat with the folks at EMILY's List. Without reliving the whole yucky episode let me just say that, with the encouragement of reactionary DLC frontman, Harold Ford, Jr, they endorsed a truly horrible corporate shill, Nikki Tinker, for a House seat held by a decent liberal, Steve Cohen. Tinker was the right color for the mostly black district and had the right plumbing for the women-oriented EMILY's List. That her policies and demeanor were far to the right of what Democrats expect from their candidates didn't come into the decision to endorse her. In the end-- like a day before the primary-- EMILY's List, embarrassed, even mortified, had to withdraw the endorsement after weeks of Tinker's divisive anti-Semitic campaigning. Tinker still had the right plumbing-- and EMILY's List still didn't care a bit about the innate conservatism of her political agenda-- but too many nice Jewish ladies make up the financial backbone of EMILY's List for them to let the overt anti-Semitism slide.

It's uncomfortable to tell a woman's group they're making a grievous mistake by endorsing a woman over a man, even if the woman is a terrible candidate and the man would be a far better representative of the issues that make women's lives better. I have less problems doing that with gay groups who would rather endorse crappy gay people than awesome straight allies. Next week Blue America will be explaining why we we're endorsing David Segal for the open House seat in Rhode Island over openly gay Providence Mayor David Cicilline. This week, though, there's a much tougher race we need to talk about, the one in the Riverside County, California, pitting GOP clothes horse and robot Mary Bono-Mack, the incumbent who inherited the seat when her husband, Sonny Bono died in a skiing accident-- and half the district mixed her up with Cher-- against the popular gay mayor of Palm Springs, Steve Pougnet. The first time I wrote about Steve, in March of 2009, I was gushing and enthusiastic-- not just an openly gay member of Congress, but one who is legally married to his partner and with two adopted children! And if I lived in CA-45, I would surely be voting for Steve in November. He's a better candidate than Bono-Mack in every single conceivable way. But I don't live in CA-45 and instead I'm looking at a wonderful and well-meaning gay civil rights group, Stonewall Democrats, endorsing him and pushing him in the DFA Grassroots All-Stars poll. Right after their letter, Pougnet shot to the #4 position, just behind fellow California candidates Beth Krom, Bill Hedrick and Ami Bera. Pougnet doesn't belong on that list at all. He's the only one on it who isn't a progressive. He's the only one on it who, in fact, is likely to join the hateful Blue Dog Caucus. I'll come back to that in a second. First the letter from the Stonewall Dems:

When I first heard about Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet’s campaign for Congress in California’s 45th District, I got very excited about the prospect of increasing the number of out Members of Congress-- and doing it with a candidate who has years of solid, problem-solving experience serving the people in and around Palm Springs. When elected, Steve will also be the first Congressman who is legally married to his partner and has children.

Steve is one of our ElectEquality candidates now and we’re thrilled to be helping him in any way we can to unseat Republican Mary Bono-Mack. Steve has been chosen for the DNC’s Red-to-Blue program because they feel-- like we do-- that not only is Steve the right candidate for the job, he also has a very good chance of winning.

Steve is already one of our ElectEquality 2010 candidates. With just a quick click of the mouse, you can help Mayor Pougnet become an All-Star.

Steve is one of the ten finalists (and the only openly LGBT one), in Democracy for America’s “Grassroots All-Stars” poll, a project that allows the candidate with the most online votes to receive support from DFA’s PAC and its network of supporters. With your help, we can help him win this crucial endorsement. A Pougnet win in November sends a message to Republicans everywhere that casting pro-equality votes only part of the time is simply not good enough. Vote for Mayor Steve Pougnet and help put him on the road to victory!

The benefits of this endorsement include:

• A fundraising email from DFA Chair Jim Dean to all DFA members, with a $20,000 commitment
• In-state crowd-sourcing emails for volunteer events with a commitment to raise 500 volunteer hours from DFA members in the All-Stars' home state
• At least one national volunteer e-mail to over one million DFA members with the commitment to deliver at least 200 national phone bankers.
• A $5,000 contribution from Democracy for America PAC.
• Appearances by DFA Chair Jim Dean at available campaign events

As you can imagine, the competition among the All-Stars is intense and Steve needs all the votes he can get. You can vote from each of your email accounts, but can only vote from each one once. Also, once you've voted, tell your friends and family through Facebook and Twitter that you voted for Steve to become a DFA All-Star!

Voting ends on Sunday at midnight (Pacific time), so don't wait.

I spoke with Pougnet last year and was pretty disappointed. He's great on gay issues, of course, but other than that... well, he's better than Mary Bono-- but far from a progressive. How far? He told me he would consider joining the Blue Dog Caucus if he's elected in November. That makes him ineligible for a Blue America endorsement, of course, but I couldn't help but ask him more about it. I asked him if he was aware that the only Democrats-- a dozen of 'em-- who were so homophobic that they actually refused to even vote for the Hate Crimes bill were all Blue Dogs. He doesn't care. I walked away with the impression that the guy's weak, confused, frightened and devoid of character, exactly what we don't need in the Democratic House Caucus-- and exactly the kind of easy to manipulate shill the DCCC thrives on. And, of course, he's one of theirs. He's not one of ours... no matter how upfront he is about his sexuality.