Cecil! Cecil! Cecil!-- Taking Back The Democratic Party From The Corporate Whores

Today we're kicking off a new day for our Blue America chats. Same time as always-- 11am (PT) but on Tuesday's from now on. And what better way than to start with a populist icon whose grassroots congressional just paid off with gigantic dividends a few days ago. Cecil Bothwell will be joining us over at Crooks and Liars at 2pm (ET). Last week, his classic grassroots organizing and door-to-door activist campaign astounded the political establishment with polling results that showed him knocking off entrenched conservative incumbent, Blue Dog Heath Shuler in the upcoming May 8th primary. Shuler saw the same results and beat a hasty retreat to, suddenly, "spend more time with my family." He actually said that. The 11th CD will never be the same.

Cecil is the Asheville City Council Member who "everyone" said was "too radical" to be elected. But when the at-large primary came around he wasn't just elected-- he got more votes than anyone else in the race. He seemed buoyed when we talked with him after Shuler-- who just months ago tried to rally reactionary Democrats against Nancy Pelosi in a race for House Democratic leader-- hoisted the white flag. "We were confident that we were going to win the primary, based on informal polling across the District. We learned from recipients that someone hired a firm in Raleigh to poll voters here, so my bet is that he was seeing the same results. Now it appears that he has tapped another Blue Dog, his Legislative Director Hayden Rogers, to step into the race. So game on!" Rogers isn't well known in the district but he is on K Street and Inside-the-Beltway. The DCCC would love to talk him into running. Cecil feels confident he could beat him just as he always predicted he would beat his boss.

Cecil is a decidedly progressive Democrat-- a movement progressive-- who has staked out populist positions in favor of federal job creation, single-payer health care and protection of the social safety net, as well as strong support for education. A participant in October's Rebuild the American Dream conference, he endorses "Jobs, Not Cuts!" as a battle cry for middle- and working-class citizens who have been hammered by the Bush recession. Coming from a career in sustainable building and environmental journalism, with more than 20 years spent in a photovoltaic-powered home, he knows the coming green economy from the inside out, and he was one of the thousands of activists who surrounded the White House in November to protest the KeystoneXL pipeline. Although North Carolina is a right-to-work state, he is a member of the National Writer's Union (AFL-CIO) and is unafraid to tell his constituents that unions are essential to introduce democracy into the work place. He is a strong advocate for fair trade instead of our current badly concocted free trade rules, and believes we need to get tough with China over its currency manipulation. Because he believes that black markets always create systemic problems in society he demands immigration reform that facilitates work-permits and a clear path to citizenship, and opposes the catastrophic failure known as the "war on drugs." He has endorsed the Move to Amend and believes that we need to adopt public financing for all elections ASAP.

"We can do better," he tells voters. "And you deserve better. I aim to represent the real people of this District, and I won't take a penny from corporations or corporate PACs." Blue America could hardly hope for a better candidate to back, anywhere. Please consider contributing to a people-to-people campaign that is already paying dividends for progressives in North Carolina. You can do that here at the Blue America ActBlue page.




UPDATE: Best Answer By A Candidate On ObamaCare Ever

Howie: "Many pundits say the presidential election-- which looms especially large in swingin' North Carolina-- will be decided by which side can best persuade voters of their approach to health care. I know you've been a longtime advocate of single payer. Will you now be stuck defending Obamacare? How is this playing out among voters, especially among voters outside Buncombe County?

Cecil: "I'm getting applause every time I talk about single-payer. I defend Obamacare because I believe it has put us on a track to single-payer, and was probably about the best Obama could accomplish, given the Congress he had to work with, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Medical, and so on. It was a huge hurdle to move us to covering most people, and once most people have coverage that will be the new normal. Meanwhile, changes mandated by the plan will begin to squeeze private insurers-- like the mandate to actually spend 85 percent of premiums paid on medical care for the insured (75 percent is more typical now), keeping young adults on their parents policies and forbidding exclusion due to preexisting conditions. If we can keep the GOP from killing the plan, I believe most Americans are going to look back ten years from now and be very happy with what was started during this administration. Even Tea Partiers love Medicare today, and it was originally opposed from the right as a socialist plot."