Conservative Democrats Like Stephen Lynch Have No Clue Why People Decide To Vote For Democrats

You know the old saying, "If you stop lying, I'll stop calling you a liar"? Conservative Democrat Stephen Lynch (MA), who was primaried by labor activist Mac D'Alessandro, was whining yesterday that by exposing anti-family shills like himself to voters, it hurt the Democratic Party.

Clearing primaries for members and discouraging liberal groups from spending against incumbents should be a priority for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he said. “It would definitely help, I think. You need to talk to those groups.”

Blue America endorsed D'Alessandro and supported his bid against Lynch, the most conservative Member of Congress from his state before Scott Brown was elected. A widely disliked anti-choice shithead who made a desultory attempt to win Kennedy's seat, Lynch was one of the only non-Blue Dog Democrats to oppose the healthcare bill.

Lynch, a fave of the same corrupt corporate interests who support Republicans, had a hefty war chest and beat D'Alessandro 41,941 (65%) to 22,663 (35%) and went on to overcome nearly nonexistent Republican support in November, beating Vernon Harrison 156,079 (68%) to 60,120 (26%). Yesterday he told The Hill that "liberal groups need to stay out of Democratic primaries if the party is going to retake the House majority," showing an incredible lack of understanding of what it means to be a Democrat.

In Lynchland, being a Democrat means very little: wearing a blue T-shirt, pushing along a non-ideological opportunistic career pathway and giving lip service to whatever looks like a winning issue in the district. He doesn't understand that people become Democrats because of a shared set of beliefs, because he doesn't share them.

“There was a lot of money spent against Democrats by Democrats. That contributed to the scale of our losses... I think if we had avoided that, we would have saved, maybe, six or eight more seats,” said Lynch. “I don’t think it would have stopped the overall result, but maybe six or eight seats” could have been held.

Clearing primaries for members and discouraging liberal groups from spending against incumbents should be a priority for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he said. “It would definitely help, I think. You need to talk to those groups.”

The conservatives he singled out were all shitheads like himself who were strenuously opposed by Blue America. He seems particularly upset that Blue America helped defeat Alabama Blue Dog Bobby Bright, who voted more frequently with the GOP than any other Democrat in the House, including on virtually every important contentious bill. He also bitched about corporate shills Zack Space and Katrina Swett.

[T]he SEIU encouraged its members in Ohio’s 18th district to “skip-a-Space” on their ballots and not vote for Rep. Zack Space because of his opposition to healthcare reform. The two-term Democrat was subsequently defeated by Republican Bob Gibbs.

Liberal groups also targeted Alabama Democrat Bobby Bright because of his opposition to the healthcare reform bill. The group Blue America PAC spent almost $50,000 against Bright-- in the general election, according to records compiled by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit watchdog group.

And in New Hampshire, liberal groups helped Ann McLane Kuster defeat establishment-favorite Katrina Swett in a bruising 2nd District Democratic primary. Kuster went on to lose to Republican Charlie Bass in a tight vote.

No mention of the fact that the big-spending Lieberman ally Swett only took 9,310 votes in the primary, a pathetic 29%, after spending $2,310,360 and probably draining off enough money from Kuster to throw the general election to Republican Charlie Bass. Maybe he should ask conservative Democrats to stop interfering in Democratic primaries and run in the GOP ones instead.

This morning the DCCC started running ads against vulnerable Republican Members of Congress in 19 districts. With the exception of Thad McCotter (R-MI) and Dave Reichert (R-WA), all are held by freshmen.

These 19 districts are must-wins for them in two years, and all but two members on the list are freshman. Many of them, such as Reps. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY.), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), and Joe Walsh (R-IL)-- were surprise wins in 2010 and sit in districts Pres. Obama won in 2008.

The majority of the ads focus on the GOP's plan to cut spending, saying that their member has "a plan to cut education and research by 40 percent that will cost hundreds-of-thousands of jobs and make America less competitive." But there are two noticeable exceptions to that standard script: Reps. David Rivera (R-FL) and. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA).

For the most part it isn't known who will be running against the 19 spotlighted in the ads. Tom Perriello will probably try to win back his seat against Robert Hurt in Virginia. Ditto for Ron Klein against Allen West in Florida and Steve Driehaus against Steve Chabot in Cincinnati. State Rep. Roger Goodman has already filed to run, (perhaps against Dave Reichert) in the Seattle 'burbs. Most Democrats are waiting to see how district boundaries are redrawn before making their decisions and it isn't clear which district Goodman will actually run in since Jay Inslee, in whose district he lives, is likely to run for governor.

Teabagger Ann Marie Buerkle was a surprise victor last November against moderate Democrat Dan Maffei. It came down to a 50/50 split and she took it by a few hundred votes with nearly 200,000 cast. Maffei won in Onondaga County (Syracuse), the biggest in the district, but his 72,323- 62,419 wasn't enough to take him over the finish line in the suburban and exurban parts of a district that Obama won in 2008 with 56% (and that both Gore and Kerry had won narrowly). Maffei has gone to work for some sleazy conservative Democratic think tank, Third Way, and will probably run again. Here's the text of the DCCC ad running today against Buerkle:

Here in Central New York the recession is still hitting hard, good job openings are really scarce. So it was good to hear President Obama’s plan to make the economy work for the middle class again. Invest in education to train our children for the jobs of the future, maintain America’s lead in technology with more research and development, and reduce the deficit with an overall budget freeze. That plan makes a lot of sense.

But Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle supports a plan in Congress that would cut education by 40 percent. And her plan would cut science and technology research by 40 percent, too. Research and development is how we get the new products that create new jobs. How does cutting that help us compete with China and India? It doesn’t make sense.

We should tell Ann Marie Buerkle to work with President Obama to create jobs, instead of supporting a partisan plan that costs jobs.