Anyone Want To Run Against ConservaDem Adam Schiff In A Nice Blue L.A. District?

Adam Schiff- totally wrong for his new district

When some of the country's "gayest" and gay-friendliest neighborhoods-- West Hollywood, Silverlake, Atwater, Los Feliz, Hollywood-- were redrawn into Adam Schiff's congressional district last year, you would have thought the long-time homophobe suddenly discovered he had 5 gay sons and a long-lost lesbian sister. From someone routinely and gratuitously voting against LGBT community interests, Schiff was suddenly treating gay people as though they were Armenians-- i.e., with respect, reverence and deference-- when he was the congressman with the district with the most Armenians outside of Yerevan. Now he has more gays in his district than San Francisco does!

First thing to go was his membership in the KKK-like, viciously homophobic Blue Dog Caucus. Now he's in the "cleaned up" version of the Blue Dogs, the reactionary New Dems, a corporately-funded Republican wing of the Democratic Party. CA-28 only give Romney 26.5% of it's vote; that's what you call deep, deep blue. It's not a district that needs a conservative Democrat as a congressman to hold it against a Republican. No Republican is ever going to win in this district (although Mark Foley was asking around about running in it recently). Schiff makes no sense in this district. His career-long ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is a very mediocre 81.33. Karen Bass, who represented the area before he was dumped into it, has a 94.68 score, much more in line with where the district's residents are politically. This session, Bass' score is 100% and Schiff-- even trying as hard as he can to "be" more progressive-- still has only managed a crappy 83.33.

It's also worth mentioning that Schiff is a dedicated, bloodthirsty warmonger-- in a distinctly anti-war district.

Though I live in the district, I'm glad I'm not the only one keeping score. The highly successful anti-incumbent super-PAC, Campaign for Primary Accountability, has officially put Schiff onto it's short-list of targets for 2014. The group's spokesperson, Curtis Ellis told The Hill this week that Schiff would be a likely target if he draws a challenge.

“Adam is a guy who you could kindly call a center-right, almost Blue Dog-type guy, and as a result of redistricting he’s in one of the brightest blue districts in America. He’s running very hard to get an extreme makeover, House of Representatives edition, to make himself more likable to his constituency. We hope someone steps forward there who’s more truly representative of that district,” Ellis said.

  “We are looking, hoping and praying for a challenger. We can’t recruit candidates ourselves, but that’s one where we’re hoping to see a good challenger stepping forward.”

...The super-PAC targets incumbents of both parties its research shows are unpopular in their districts but unlikely to face a tough race because their districts are safely Democratic or Republican.

When confronted with Ellis' comments Schiff had his flack go out with a prepared statement: "We don't believe that residents in our district will respond well to a group of right-wing Texas billionaires trying to tell them who should represent our community." Excellente-- almost word for word what Schiff's Blue Dog colleague Tim Holden said last cycle... before progressive challenger Matt Cartwright ended his political career ignominiously.