Did You Contribute To The DCCC This Year? Here's How Steve Israel Plans To Flush Your Money

Michigan progressive, Arkansas conservative-- guess which one the DCCC is backing

A few days ago, Steve Israel announced the DCCC had already reserved $43.5 million in TV and radio ad buys in the races the DCCC was getting serious about. First on this list-- alphabetic by state-- was AR-02, a seat that opened up when Karl Rove acolyte Tim Griffin announced he wanted to retire from Congress so he could spend more time raising his children… and stayed open when Griffin decided he was just kidding about raising the kids but had decided to run for Lt. Governor instead.

AR-02 includes all of Little Rock and Dog Town (North Little Rock) plus Conway, Benton and Saline. Of the 7 counties in the district, only Pulaski (Little Rock) voted against Griffin's reelection last cycle. The R+8 district gave Obama 44% against McCain and 43% against Romney. Last cycle, Obama won Pulaski with a strong 55-43%. Here's how Obama did in the other counties:

• Conway- 39%
• Faulkner- 33%
• Perry- 30%
• Saline- 27%
• Van Buren- 28%
• White- 22%

Welcome to AR-02. Maybe when Hillary is the nominee… but not this November-- and not with the conservative former mayor of Dog Town, Patrick Henry Hays, as the nominee-- despite the $625,000 Israel has reserved for some cookie cutter insipid DCCC ads on Little Rock broadcast TV between October 21 and November 4.

Now let's take a look at a district Israel is studiously ignoring, even though it would be FAR easier to win than AR-02. Again-- MI-06, Fred Upton's district. The PVI is R+1 and in 2008 Obama won the district substantially-- 53-45%. Israel followed up that big 2008 win for the president by undercutting and sabotaging the Democratic candidate, Mike O'Brien. He worked harder starving O'Brien for cash-- and saving his pal Upton's ass-- than he did trying to win the House back-- MI-06 being a logical place to start… except that Israel's moronic Center Aisle Caucus "prevents" him from ever taking on any of his "frat" brothers like Upton.

In 2012, favorite son Mitt Romney beat Obama in MI-06, barely-- 50-49%. This is how Obama and how Senator Debbie Stabenow did in the 6 counties that make up the district:

• Allegan- 40%/42%
• Berrien- 46%/46%
• Cass- 43%/43%
• Kalamazoo- 56%/57%
• St. Joseph- 43%/47%
• Van Buren- 50%/53%

How could someone look at AR-02 and MI-06 and say, "I'll invest all my money in AR-02 and ignore MI-06?" They can't… not if they have a shred of integrity.

But let's compare the political positions, each candidate has posted on his website. Maybe there's a hint there why Israel is all in for Hays and ignoring Paul Clements.

When Hays made his initial announcement last fall, one of the first things he said was that the first thing he's going to do when he's in Congress, was "go find a Republican and make a friend out of him." That shouldn't be too hard; he could hand out his official issues page and plenty of Republicans will want to cozy up to him. For example, he ends the page by declaring that he "strongly supports the completion of the Keystone pipeline." And that isn't all he supports: "As a gun owner himself and a member of the NRA, Patrick Henry Hays understands that gun ownership is an important part of Arkansas tradition-- and the right to bear arms is guaranteed by our Constitution. In Congress, Hays will oppose any law, including an assault weapons ban, that would take guns away from law-abiding citizens." And then there's shrinking the government, near and dear to all conservative sociopaths who want to make sure the government can't protect citizens from the rich and powerful predators who back them: "The skyrocketing national debt is unacceptable. Washington needs to learn how to balance its budget the same way we do." Sounds just like… a Republican.

Paul Clements' issues page sounds a lot more like what a Democrat should sound like-- and a lot more like what scares the crap out of corporate whores and careerists like Steve Israel. A few examples:

Climate Change

Climate change is the greatest threat to Michigan and to the world in the 21st century. We need to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius, but this takes a strong international agreement limiting greenhouse gas emissions in each country. Such an agreement can only be reached with American leadership.

Recently Michigan has seen failures of apple and cherry crops, Lake Michigan at historic lows, some of the hottest and driest summers in our history, and increased flooding from stronger storms and heavier rainfall. These and other influences from climate change are likely to get worse. With runaway climate change we could lose half our species of plants, trees, animals and birds. West Michigan could have a climate similar to West Texas by the end of the century, with summers seven degrees Fahrenheit hotter than today. But around the world it would be even more disastrous. Runaway climate change is likely to cause droughts and floods that drive millions from their homes, collapsing governments, and wars over water and other resources.

The technology exists to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius. Southwest Michigan must lead in manufacturing based on this technology. America must take the lead to negotiate an international agreement, address the harms from climate change, and develop the technologies for a clean energy future.

Preserving Our Democracy

We need to defend each citizen’s full representation in our democracy. Since gerrymandering undermines democratic representation, voting districts should be defined by objective non-partisan groups rather than by political parties. Citizens should be able to vote without waiting for hours in lines to use antiquated and unreliable technology.

The political power of concentrated wealth undermines democratic participation, so we should implement stronger campaign finance laws, increase publicly-funded elections, and overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, if necessary, with a constitutional amendment. To strengthen democratic participation we should improve education, link the minimum wage to inflation, and reform our criminal justice system.

Banks

In the economic crisis of 2008 American taxpayers bailed out several failing banks because they were too big to fail. If they had failed, the recession could have turned into a second Great Depression. But in saving the economy we taught the banks that they need not suffer the consequences of bad decisions. The federal government, however, did not learn its lesson. Today once again we have several banks too big to fail, partly because of the banks’ influence on Congress and the administration. At the same time, many community banks are struggling to stay afloat. In our democracy, banks and other large corporations sometimes tilt the economic playing field by helping to write its rules, but for our economy and democracy we need vibrant small businesses. We should have no bank too big to fail, and we should adjust banking regulations and lending rules to support community banks.

Environment

In America and around the world we are “mining” natural resources such as water supplies, fisheries, and forests. We are withdrawing more each year than nature regenerates. Also, polluters and others who harm the environment usually do not pay the cost of their pollution.

We should move toward full cost accounting, taxing polluters for environmental harms. For example, coal-based power plants should be taxed for the health effects from their pollution, and nuclear energy and natural gas companies should be held liable for accidents and other harms they may cause.

Michigan is blessed with great lakes, forests, rivers and wildlife. It is our responsibility to sustain these blessings for future generations.

Education

Education is the foundation of our democracy and our economy. Building American education should be a national strategic priority.

Every child should have access to high quality pre-school.

Standardized tests are an important tool, but the over-emphasis on standardized tests in the last decade has been a disaster. Similarly, while it can be healthy to have some charter schools, public schools are and should remain the bedrock of American education. The headlong rush to charter schools as an “easy answer” has been a mistake.

We should give parents, teachers, and administrators the information, tools, and resources for building excellent schools. We should educate our children for productive employment, lifelong learning, good health, and active citizenship. We should help teachers to incorporate new technologies in their teaching in meaningful ways. Parents, teachers and administrators should be involved in setting and enforcing standards.

American higher education is the best in the world, but for many it is becoming unaffordable. We need to find alternatives. College must be affordable for all and hardworking graduates should not be crushed by mountains of debt.

Israel has every intention of doing to Paul Clements what he did to Bill O'Brien, crushing his campaign and starving him of resources, while he wastes it on conservatives in beet red districts like AR-02, that he lost in 2012 and he'll lose even worse in 2012. If you'd like to thwart Israel's dangerous plans, you can contribute directly to Paul Clements' campaign here on the Blue America ActBlue page. Still not persuaded? Listen to Alan Grayson:



California Update-- Raw Data

We looked at vote by mail as of 11:26 PM Thursday for our three key districts

For CA-25 there were 18,867 votes in (from 14,285 households)

So who voted so far?

7,358 likely Democratic voters
9,286 likely Republican voters
3,242 Independents
2,580 Decline to State

Age 18-24-- 932
Age 25-34-- 1,403
Age 35-44-- 1,447
Age 45-54-- 2,800
Age 55-64-- 4,365
Age 65+ -- 7,920

52.0% female

For CA-31 there were 18,623 votes in (from 13,439 households)

Who voted so far?

8,490 likely Democratic voters
8,096 likely Republican voters
2,916 Independents
2,327 Decline to State

Age 18-24-- 423
Age 25-34-- 859
Age 35-44-- 1,257
Age 45-54-- 2,250
Age 55-64-- 4,511
Age 65+ -- 9,323

54.3% female

For CA-33 there were 24,557 votes in (from 19,370 households)

Who voted so far?

12,369 likely Democratic voters
9,042 likely Republican voters
4,793 Independents
4,121 Decline to State

Age 18-24-- 729
Age 25-34-- 1,836
Age 35-44-- 2,035
Age 45-54-- 3,219
Age 55-64-- 4,616
Age 65+ -- 12,122

51.3% female