Donna Edwards To Helm The DCCC's Red To Blue Program

I'm still in the beginning on the awesome new book by Elizabeth Warren, A Fighting Chance. I just read a few pages every night before going to bed and then meditate on it as a lesson of the day. I'm reading about her focus on bankruptcy and how her academic peers-- and the entire Establishment-- defined bankruptcy as a kind of moral failure for the men and women who had been forced into it, often through the kind of medical catastrophe that could devastate any family. People filing, her research showed, weren't "lazy bums"-- the preconception-- but, more often than not, ordinary families.

My meditation last night led me to the original struggle Donna Edwards led against an entrenched conservative Democrat, Al Wynn, a backer of a predatory Republican bankruptcy bill sponsored by the avaricious banksters. Donna mobilized the netroots like no one had ever done before. Her Maryland race was a model of what could be. The Establishment lined up behind Wynn, and not just creeps like Steny Hoyer and his K Street allies. More than a few progressives working for Edwards had their hearts broken when Nancy Pelosi hosted a high-profile fundraiser for Wynn in Silver Spring.

A few days before that fundraiser I was feeling pretty bitter: Let me lay it right on the line, I wrote at the time. A couple of months ago when Bush flew to Seattle to do a fundraiser for rubber stamp hack Dave Reichert, the blogosphere dug deep and helped Darcy Burner outraise Bush and Reichert. How different is it for another creature from Inside the Beltway, Madame Off the Table, to be headlining a fundraiser for one of the most treacherous and sleazy Democrats in Congress, Al Wynn? Wynn has no Republican challenge. Pelosi is shameless-- and quickly losing all credibility. She is there to make sure Wynn can beat a brilliant, energetic and progressive real Democrat, Donna Edwards. If Donna Edwards were in Congress instead of Al Wynn, Maryland would have one of the nation's sharpest public policy minds at work for it. And America would have someone who understands what a progressive is and understands that the role of government is not just self-enrichment for officials.

The same week, I wrote that Pelosi had chosen that weekend to host a bevy of corrupt lobbyists and Establishment insiders in Silver Spring who were supporting Donna's opponent, one of the most reactionary and bribery-prone Democrats in Congress, Steny Hoyer protege Al Wynn.While Pelosi and many of the worst elements of American politics were planning their gala fundraiser for Wynn, Donna was being honored for her years of commitment and service to the environment with the 2007 Conservationist of the Year Award from The Maryland Chapter of Sierra Club.

Today Matt Stoller works as a legislative aide to Alan Grayson-- another insurgent progressive, like Donna, who beat the Establishment in the primary and went on to win a House seat. Back then, Stoller was a blogger, activist and organizer and he was on the ground with the Edwards campaign.

Obama and Edwards Lobbying Bashing: Al Wynn Takes the Money
By Matt Stoller

I guess I see the reason that Edwards and Obama keep bashing lobbyists. Tomorrow, Al Wynn is having a fundraiser at the office of nuclear industry giant Entergy at 9am. Entergy is a huge Bush-Cheney backer, with former Republican Congressman and current pharma head (and Wynn donor) Billy Tauzin on its board.

The invitation, which you can see above, says in a large font 'Honoring Rep. Al Wynn, Committee on Energy and Commerce'. This Democratic primary is about change, and there's going to be a media event and protest outside Wynn's office tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I'm going out to 101 Constitution Ave right near the Capitol at 9am. While I can't get to New Hampshire, change is everywhere, even outside of lobbyist and energy company offices in DC.

This morning when I woke up-- after my bankruptcy/Al Wynn/Donna Edwards mediation-- I saw the announcement that Donna had been named the head of the DCCC's Red-to-Blue program. I wrote her a short note of congratulations. I haven't put much credence in the program since Rahm Emanuel made it into a vehicle for stocking the Democratic caucus with conservative corporate shills in his own image. Steve Israel has certainly tried continuing that ugly agenda-- on steroids (although he mostly fails, as he does with everything he tries). Maybe it's worth noting that when a minority of Democrats-- all the regular Blue Dogs and corporate shills-- crossed the aisle to vote for the Wall Street-GOP bankruptcy bill, it wasn't just Al Wynn who was sealing his fate... Steve Israel was, of course, one of the traitors too-- as was Steny Hoyer. Almost all of those disloyal Democrats have, like Wynn, since been defeated and Hoyer and Israel are two of the only survivors, although Allyson Schwartz in the EMILY's List candidate for governor of Pennsylvania now and Ron Kind is the head of the New Dems

When Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the head of Red-to-Blue she went so far as to actually endorse three Miami-Dade Republicans, her corrupt cronies Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers, instead of the three Democrats running that year.

I have every reason to believe Donna will turn things around at the DCCC, at least to the point where it is no longer the engine of conservatism and corruption that Emanuel and Israel turned it into. According to ProgressivePunch, since Donna first beat Wynn and came to Congress, her crucial vote score has been 95.79, the 6th most progressive in Congress, fractionally ahead of Keith Ellison's 95.43 and even ahead of progressive icons like Barbara Lee, John Lewis, Jerry Nadler, George Miller and John Lewis. She isn't the loudest and she isn't disruptive but she's been steady and has always had her eye on the prize. I really do expect a different kind of Red to Blue, one at least ideologically neutral.