Weak, Confused Democrats Are Useless-- Meet Ann Kuster

Before she was elected last year, Ann Kuster presented herself as a fighter for working families and for a progressive vision of America. When she got to Congress, she joined the Progressive Caucus and there was no reason to believe she would behave any differently than she promised New Hampshire voters. She fell in with the DCCC crowd and started voting more and more conservatively. As my friend Zaid pointed out yesterday, "A Democrat can call themselves conservative a million times but if someone wants to vote for one they'll vote Republican." (if you want a more thorough explanation, watch this Alan Grayson video.) In any case, Kuster kept voting against the progressive vision she campaign on, quit the Progressive Caucus and joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems.

Her crappy voting record-- especially in comparison to Carol Shea-Porter's in the nest district-- hasn't gained her the support the DCCC promised her from conservatives. But it sure has lost her the support of the progressive base that elected her. Many won't voter for her again, and that's already being reflected in polling. Following Steve Israel's advice to rebrand herself as a New Dem is not paying off among Democrats in a blue district. NH-02, essentially the western part of the state, has a PVI of D+3, prohibitive territory for the modern Republican Party. Obama won there in 2008 (56%) and last year (54%). His 190,413 votes helped pull Kuster over the winning line (169,275 votes). But even without him on the ballot, Kuster, who has a no-name Tea Party opponent, isn't likely to lose next year. Unless Democrats stay away from the polls to protest her GOP-lite approach to governance.

The contrast with Carol Shea-Porter is unavoidable. Shea-Porter, a far more independent-minded congresswoman, represents the much redder part of New Hampshire (PVI is R+1 and Obama only scraped by with 50% of the vote last year). But Carol, unlike Kuster, has stayed true to everything she campaigned on-- despite having to fight a likely rematch with former Rep. Frank Guinta. It's why Blue America picked Carol as one of our two-- and only two so far-- progressive incumbents in need of help this year. It's worth mentioning that the Republicans are probably going to have a bitter primary battle in NH-01. Guinta is a dyed-in-the-wool, tri-corner-hat teabagger and he publicly backed the government shutdown. He's also a vicious homophobe and anti-Choice fanatic. His opponent, University of New Hampshire business school dean Dan Innis, is married to a man, says abortion is between a woman and her doctor and did not back the government shutdown. Now, back to that Granite State Poll.

The WMUR Granite State Poll shows that in the 1st Congressional District, 42 percent of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., compared to 28 percent with an unfavorable opinion.

The survey of 330 randomly selected New Hampshire adults was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center by landline and cellphone from Oct.7-16 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.4 percentage points.

In the 2nd Congressional District, the picture isn't as good for U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H. The poll shows that 23 percent have a favorable opinion of her, while 28 percent do not.

...In the 2nd District, former state Sen. Gary Lambert is the only Republican to have declared a challenge to Kuster. The poll shows that he's not well known, with 5 percent of adults having a favorable opinion of him and 4 percent with an unfavorable opinion.

Despite Lambert being a virtual unknown, the poll shows him in a tie with Kuster, with both having 33 percent support.

The survey shows that Democratic support could be a problem for Kuster, with 62 percent of likely Democratic voters saying they would support her if the election were held today.

As for that pathetic performance on the video above… does that look like the kind of fierce, bold progressive you can count on to stand up for your values and ideals? It's just… sad.