Steve Israel Cedes Another Swing District To The Republicans Without A Fight-- This Time In Florida

Do you want to be in a party where corrupt scumbags like this call the shots?

Rahm Emanuel loved recruiting Republicans to run for Congress as Democrats-- Republicans who would then join the Blue Dogs and New Dems and vote with the GOP on crucial legislation... until voters wised up and defeated them. Steve Israel, a pale shadow of Emanuel, likes doing that even more. And he just did it again. After losing Alex Sink the FL-13 special election to a corrupt, unknown K Street lobbyist, David Jolly, Israel tried recruiting self funder and ex-Wall Street bankster, Joel Cantor, who lives primarily in Telluride, Colorado. Once they figured out that wouldn't work, Israel had the pathetic local Democrats bully and threaten Pastor Manuel Sykes, widely admired head of the St. Petersburg NAACP, out of the race-- to make room for Israel's latest Republican find, Ed Jany.

Sykes was the only announced Democratic candidate in Pinellas County's 13th Congressional District, but he said Wednesday he has now decided not to run after all.

In the voicemail, Mark Hanisee said party officials had spoken to the offices of two key Democrats, former congressional candidate Alex Sink and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman.

"Neither one of them are endorsing you, nor is the (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee). They have another candidate," Hanisee said. He added, "You better hold off, or, like I told you Sunday night, you are going to be persona non grata. Take that to the bank. That's telling you the gospel truth. You're going to be getting a call from Rick Kriseman, if you haven't already, telling you to back off. Have a nice weekend."

Sykes said the comments disappointed him, and "the party needs to be purged of these kinds of hindrances to its progress and progressiveness." He said all candidates should be allowed and encouraged to run.

Angela Owens, an attorney who was working with Sykes' campaign, said she listened to the recording and found it "appalling."

"It was shocking to me … because it's against the rules," Owens said. "Aren't they supposed to support Democratic candidates?"

This kind of thuggish behavior has been standard operating procedure for the DCCC going back to Rahm Emanuel's day when he and Steny Hoyer did the exact same thing to Dave Lutrin, the Democrat and teachers union member who was running against Mark Foley. But Rahm knew something no one else knew, namely that Foley was having sex with the congressional pages. Instead of turning him over to the police, Emanuel (and Hoyer) got to work recruiting a Republican, Tim Mahoney, and then beating up on Lutrin 'til he withdrew. THEN-- when it was too late to get Foley's name off the ballot-- Rahm let the information leak that Foley was an active child predator. Rahm never went to jail, although several young boys were molested in between the time he found out what Foley was up to and when it was too late for Florida ballot changes. Sordid and shameful... and Rahm is now the mayor of Chicagoland. And the DCCC is still chasing Democrats out of Democratic primaries so they can make room for conservatives willing to switch their party registrations (if not their principles or policy agendas).

Israel makes me want to throw up. He's wrecked the Democratic Party brand by recruiting worthless mystery meat candidates who don't stand for anything at all. Jany can't even run as a Democrat. Peter Schorsch Friday morning:

Unable to find a candidate registered long enough to run as a Democrat in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced this afternoon that it is supporting Colonel Ed Jany.

Jany will have to run as an NPA candidate, with the support of the Democratic Party, because a recently-enacted election law requires candidates for all offices to be registered with the party they are running under 365 days prior to qualifying.

Jany filed his qualifying paperwork with the Florida Division of Elections this morning. Jany will face Republican incumbent David Jolly, who won a special election for the seat on March 11... Steve Israel, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says the Democratic party is throwing its full weight behind Jany.

Predictably, the NRCC is calling Jany’s entrance into the race a “humongous recruiting fail by Nancy Pelosi and the DCCC" and, of course, they are correct. This is a winnable district for a real Democrat, not some mystery meat screwup that listens to Israel's idiotic bleating about hiding progressive values and principles. Those kind of candidates lose... even if the DCCC and their state party shills are able to clear the field for them so they don't have to face actual Democrats in primaries. This is a lost district now, probably for a good long time, even though Obama beat McCain there 51-48% and then beat Romney 50-49%. Whoever is appointed the next chairman of the DCCC-- hopefully being sufficiently reptilian won't be the only qualification-- will have to rebuild on the rubble and smoking ashes Israel is leaving behind.

The discord Israel's idiotic tactics are engendering among Pinellas County Democrats absolutely guarantee the DCCC has lost another blue-leaning seat in November.

The backlash against a voicemail left by Pinellas Democratic Party Chairman Mark Hanisee might be measured next week by empty chairs at the annual Kennedy-King fundraising dinner.

"If you're a person of good conscience, you should boycott it," the Reverend Manuel Sykes told FOX 13 News Friday. "Because this is the Kennedy-King dinner."

Sykes, who is also president of the St. Petersburg chapter of the NAACP, withdrew his candidacy Friday to oppose Republican Congressman David Jolly in next November's election.

Sykes claims Hanisee told him an African-American could not win in Jolly's predominately white district.

...[T]he pastor's complaints are partly political, and partly racial. As for the former, "They want to anoint a candidate, and they want to bully other candidates out of the race," Sykes said.

But on a deeper level, "It's an additional experience now, and additional knowledge of what really goes on and about how people really feel about minorities when it comes to certain plateaus, politically and otherwise."

..."By doing this before [the primary] you're snatching that power away from the voters to decide for themselves who their representative should be," Owens explained.

The racial overtones also disturb her.

"Black and brown people, we need to stop allowing the Democratic Party and everybody else to use us to garner votes for them, and turn on us like rabid dogs when we cut straight to the chase and run for office ourselves," Owens said.

Sykes, a long-time Democrat, now agrees.

"They don't expect us to vote and those that do, they expect us to vote Democratic. And so that says that there's no real respect there," Sykes said.