Will Grassroots Democrats Rise Up And Throw The Bums Out? Progressives In Alabama!

Russ Feingold's PAC, Progressives United, fired a shot across the bow of corrupt Beltway ConservaDems, directly putting Steve Israel and the DCCC on notice that out in America, grassroots Democrats are fed up with supporting fake Dems who vote with the GOP... and even more fed up with Machiavellian characters-- or, as Pelosi put it, operatives with reptilian tendencies-- who instruct vulnerable and naive freshmen to vote with Boehner and Cantor on key issues. Recall that strategy devastated the Democrats in the 2010 midterms-- in which they lost an historic 62 seats, the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse-- and Israel and his DCCC brain surgeons are trying to replicate it exactly for 2014. Feingold's message:

If you and I want to stop radical House Republicans from trampling on our most vulnerable citizens, we need to elect strong progressive challengers who will stand up for our bedrock values-- like protecting Social Security benefits.

Yet we've seen troubling signs that the group responsible for winning Democratic House races won’t stand up to the Social Security benefit cuts in the budget proposed by the White House.

If true, this is an outrageous, cynical strategy from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)-- and it sure won't advance the progressive values the Democratic Party purports to champion.

Would it really be worth working all-out to replace your Republican congressperson with a so-called "Democrat" who would be willing to slash crucial benefits for hard-working Americans? Progressives need to speak out now-- while we have a strong hand in shaping the next crop of House candidates.

Tell the DCCC: support Democratic candidates who will firmly stand against any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Social Security isn't just one of the most successful public programs in our nation's history. It's also overwhelmingly popular-- meaning that Democratic candidates for Congress face no risk by defending it in the face of attacks from either party!

Unfortunately, the DCCC seems more concerned with appealing to Washington, D.C. pundits than standing up for the benefits Americans have earned from a lifetime of work.

They need to get their priorities straight.

...It's just plain wrong not to speak out on fundamental progressive values -- especially when progressives in Congress have stood as a bulwark against extreme ideas to slash essential benefits time and again.

We need to send a message to the DCCC that we won't sit by while they recruit corporate-lite candidates to run for the House.

And it isn't just Feingold and the folks at Progressives United who are concerned that the Beltway Democrats are looking and sounding more and more like the Beltway Republicans. "They have more in common with each other than they do with real Democrats outside the Beltway," one Democratic state senator here in California told me-- and not admiringly. And even in Alabama, Democrats are getting fed up with the self-serving Establishment careerists. Mark Kennedy resigned as chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party yesterday. He's been chairman for two years and he's sick of it... and his family founded it! His great, great uncle-- maybe another great in there-- Thomas Hill Watts, was Attorney General for the Confederacy and Alabama's 18th governor. And, Watts helped found the Alabama Democratic Party after the Civil War.

Right after resigning, Kennedy announced he's "forming a non-profit foundation to support progressive Democrats fed up with the years of failure by the Alabama Democratic Party to offer voters little more than watered down Republican Party rhetoric and what Kennedy calls the politics of fear."

The name of the new organization will be the Alabama Democratic Majority and Kennedy will be its chairman.

The foundation hopes to do what the Democratic Party in the state has not done, namely build and develop a broad base of donors and use the dollars they give to identify, support and elect Democrats.

To say that will be a daunting task is to understate the challenge. In the last 27 years only one Democrat-- Don Siegelman-- has won a race for governor and he was defeated for a second term. All nine justices on the Alabama Supreme Court, where Kennedy once served, are all Republicans. So are all the judges on the state's appellate courts. In the Legislature, the GOP hold super majorities in both houses making it almost impossible for Democrats to have much impact unless the GOP is divided on an issue. Currently no Democrat holds a state-wide elected office.

Kennedy said the only way his party can matter again is to reinvent itself, rebrand itself and reach out to a new generation of young Alabamians not caught up in the state's old divisions. The party must also appeal to an aging generation who need a state government that will support efforts to bring better medical care to seniors and the poor.

Kennedy said he has become convinced in recent months that his party as currently constituted cannot do the work of rebuilding itself.

Kennedy does not flinch when told that it sounds like what he is doing is creating a new Democratic Party.

"I hope so," said Kennedy quietly. "My great, great, great uncle-- I think its three greats-- helped found the Alabama Democratic Party and it had a long run."

Kennedy said what now passes for the Democratic Party in Alabama has lost its way at a time when many Alabamians more than ever need an alternative to a Republican Party that protects the rich and powerful and who sees a majority of hard working people who need government on their side as takers.

"We don't need two Republican parties in Alabama and for too long the Alabama Democratic Party has offered to voters a kind of water-down version of the GOP," said Kennedy.

What is worse, said Kennedy, the party has failed to articulate what it means to be a Democrat.

"We have been too willing to run from why we are Democrats," said Kennedy.

And what does it mean to be a Democrat, Kennedy was asked.

"First, we are an inclusive party made up of all of us: men and women and that means women who work in the home and those who leave it each day to work at jobs to support their families," said Kennedy. "We are black and white; we are Hispanics and native born Americans, straights and gays, conservatives and progressives, old and young."

Secondly, Kennedy said Democrats he hopes to rally to a renewed party will be those who see government not as the enemy but as the people themselves.

"I'm weary of the demagogues in both parties who say we've got to get government out of our lives, that our government is the enemy," said Kennedy. "The truth is the government is us. It's the Social Security check so many of us have earned and depend on. It's the police officers who protect us and the paramedics who come to help us when we are hurt or sick. It's our public schools that we have entrusted with our children's education. It's our men and women in service who risk their lives to protect us from those who would seek to destroy our country."

Kennedy said as long as the Alabama Democratic Party is held hostage by old factions and special interest groups that put first what is best for them, the party will only grow weaker.

"The party must change if it is to grow and be relevant again," said Kennedy. "I came to see that my vision for the party was simply not shared by a majority in leadership positions in the party."

Kennedy said it's well past the time when politicians should stop doing what politicians in both parties have done for generations, namely seeking votes by preying on people's fears.

"What we want to do is support candidates who will appeal to our hopes, not our fears," said Kennedy. "We saw Governor Wallace do that and he was a Democrat. We see Republicans do it today over the debate on immigration and we see both parties doing it in the debate about guns."

Kennedy knows his foundation will come under attack from status quo Democrats and Republicans.

"I'm sure we will be attacked and it will come from people who have failed the party and failed the state, and who have failed to articulate a vision for the party and the future because they don't have one," said Kennedy.

South Union Street reported that "lawmakers at the event included Sen. Linda Coleman, D-Birmingham and Reps. Richard Lindsey, D-Centre; Johnny Mack Morrow, D-Red Bay and Rod Scott, D-Birmingham. Former first lady Marsha Folsom introduced Kennedy at the event-- which had the air of a campaign kick-off-- saying that she, former Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. and the “Folsom wing” of the party were behind the new organization." As we've been telling you for several years, stop supporting the DCCC with contributions. Send donations directly to progressives who support your values and principles-- like these candidates.