Can The Democrats Find A Worse Candidate Than Joe Manchin Or Ben Nelson? Try Joe Donnelly

This year there have been a baker's dozen Democrats who have consistently voted with Boehner and Cantor on almost every big issue. Dan Boren is, by far, the worst-- with a ProgressivePunch score of 15.15, worse than 2 dozen Republicans. The next most reactionary Democrats, all Blue Dogs of course, are Mike Ross (AR), Jim Costa (CA), Jason Altmire (PA), Collin Peterson (MN), Henry Cuellar (TX), Jim Matheson (UT), John Barrow (GA), Ben Chandler (KY), Dennis Cardoza (CA), Tim Holden (PA), Mike McIntyre (NC) and Joe Donnelly (IN). When you take the district's partisan tilt into consideration, though, Donnelly, who represents a Democratic-leaning district (his constituents went for Obama over McCain 54-45%) drops to the very bottom of the pile. His -42.93 score trumps Boren's negative 40.89. So who has the Democratic Party decided to move up the Beltway political ladder? Yes, virulently anti-Choice, antigay, pro-corporate Joe Donnelly. A.P. reported yesterday that Donnelly will announce a run for Lugar's Senate seat today.

Two Democrats with firsthand knowledge of Donnelly's plans told The Associated Press that the congressman is entering the race because he believes that Lugar will lose a Republican primary offering him a path to the Senate. Lugar is facing a strong challenge from his right, State Treasurer Richard Mourdock.

The Democrats spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to pre-empt Monday's announcement.

By entering the race, Donnelly-- who also weighed a run for governor-- gives national Democrats a recruiting victory. No other Democrats have entered the race. Donnelly's supporters believe he can clear the Democratic primary field.

A recruiting victory? Don't Democrats ever learn? Because of conservative corporate shills like Donnelly, Democrats and left-leaning independents didn't bother turning out in the 2010 midterms. "There is no difference between the two parties" may not be true where you're from, but it is true in Donnelly's case. And if Lugar does win renomination, a case could be made that he would actually be a better choice than Donnelly!

Yesterday, coincidentally, I was trying to find the worst corporate shills in the Democratic House delegation. I decided to see how many who have voted against the DISCLOSE Act (H.R. 5175) had also voted for the Republican effort to end voluntary public funding for presidential elections (H.R 359). Only 4 Democrats had voted the corporate line on both, Donnelly being one. But it's hard to find any issue that distinguishes the two parties where Donnelly comes across unambiguously as a Democrat. Even if you forgive him for being fanatically anti-Choice (I don't)-- he is also fanatically anti-contraception, voting against Planned Parenthood all three times the GOP tried to kill it since 2007. And if you, for whatever reason, think marriage equality is too radical for Indiana, what about Don't Ask Don't Tell? A clear and overwhelming majority of Americans agreed with the Democrats-- and the Pentagon-- that that bigoted anti-gay rule was outdated and dysfunctional. But not Donnelly. He was one of only 26 Democrats who fellow Blue Dog Patrick Murphy couldn't persuade that it was time to give up on DADT. Even 5 Republicans voted to end the discredited policy. It passed 234-194 with Joe Donnelly once again on the wrong side of history. It's absolutely perverse for the DSCC to even consider recruiting a slouch like Donnelly who will do nothing but confuse voters about which party stands with working families and which party stands with Big Business. In fact just last week, the GOP brought up 3 bills rewarding Big Oil-- and Donnelly was one of the few Democrats to vote with the Republicans all three times. He was also one of the few Democrats who ran TV ads attacking Nancy Pelosi and Democratic energy and immigration policies in last year's midterms. If you think Ben Nelson and Joe Manchin and Blanche Lincoln are good Democrats, you'll love Joe Donnelly in the U.S. Senate as well.