Chris Hayes Bucks The Democratic Beltway Machine And Books Independent-Minded Candidates On His Show

Progressive candidates are always calling me and asking me how they can get on national TV shows. I always suggest they call the DCCC. And they always laugh. The DCCC won't book independent-minded progressives. In fact, they won't even give them the contact information for the show producers and bookers. Most of the producers and bookers-- like almost every single one of them-- are in the tank for the Machine. I love that Ed Schultz books whichever candidates he likes despite what the DCCC demands. And yesterday Chris Hayes did the same thing, booking a candidate the DSCC doesn't give a hoot about, Maine progressive Cynthia Dill, who's running for the Senate, two very independent-minded progressive Democrats the DCCC is aggressively ignoring-- Rob Zerban (WI-01) and Nate Shinagawa (NY-23)-- as well as two progressive candidates for open seats, Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09), and Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08)-- who the DCCC is backing. And then Chris led the discussion into his own narratives, not the Beltway narratives. All the candidates, for example, endorsed Medicare-for-all, which is very much not a DCCC-approved position.

Go, Chris! President Obama... not so much. I'm not going to speculate on who he wants in control of Congress or why. But he sure isn't doing anything to help Democrats win seats. Presumably he'll have some coattails in some districts and that will help, but he's not campaigning for them or with them and not helping with finances. "At rallies," the Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler reports, "Mr. Obama seldom urges supporters to volunteer-- or even vote-- for other Democrats running for office. Sometimes, he mentions other politicians in the room without noting that they are seeking re-election. He rarely shares the stage with other candidates."

Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal advocacy group Campaign for America's Future, sees risks in the president's approach. He says it will be all but impossible for Mr. Obama to accomplish his goals in a second term if he doesn't have a Democratic Congress.

"He has a rap he uses all the time on the campaign trail about this being the election that will break the stalemate in Washington. But when you look at it, it sounds like he's just talking about getting him re-elected," Mr. Hickey said. The better course, he said, would be for Mr. Obama to tell voters: "Send me a Congress that can do the big things that need to be done."

Some other supporters agree. "It's not just about the president,'' said Kim Kennedy, 50 years old, a neighborhood team leader for the Obama campaign in Westerville, Ohio. "It's about the down-ticket people, also … so the president can work on his agenda and get things down." In August, she went to a rally for Mr. Obama in Columbus, where he didn't mention Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who faces a re-election race of his own.

You can contribute to campaigns for two of Chris' guests, Rob Zerban and Nate Shinagawa, here at the Blue America page that deals with Democrats running for the House who support Prosperity Economics and oppose the kind of Austerity agenda that the GOP is pushing and that President Obama seems a little too eager to compromise on.