DownWithTyranny!: Michael Douglas Gets It Right

Michael Douglas has been a generous political contributor over the years. He's given to real progressives like Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean and Russ Feingold, to conservatives like Bob Kerrey, Joe Baca, Adam Schiff and Max Baucus, and to corporate career Dems like Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt. Mostly, though, he just likes Democrats and has given tens of thousands of dollars to Beltway Democratic committees like the DCC, DNC and the DSCC. In a letter he sent out yesterday-- on behalf of the Council for a Livable World-- he pointed to 3 crucial Senate races. I was surprised by the choices: Shenna Bellows (ME), Jeff Merkley (OR) and Bruce Braley (IA)--n that order-- because that isn't the priority the DSCC is pushing. The flaccid DC-oriented flap-dog organizations of the Beltway Democrats-- which would rather, for one reason or another, be part of Team Blue than live up to their own organizations' principles-- are all about pushing conservatives like Mark Pryor (AR), Mary Landrieu (LA), Sam Nunn's daughter (GA), Allison Lundergan Grimes (KY), Kay Hagen (NC), and Mark Begich (AK). Races with progressives like Bellows, Merkley, Braley and South Dakota's Rick Weiland (who Douglas and the Council for a Livable World missed) have been, at best, on the back burner for a tragically-led post-Patty Murray DSCC.

"This November’s elections are just a few months away, and there is a very real chance that Republicans may win the Senate. A Republican-controlled Senate," wrote Douglas, "would be terrible news for U.S. national security. Imagine what the GOP could do to reverse all of the progress made in the last few years-- kill the New START treaty, torpedo negotiations with Iran, and ramp up nuclear spending to Cold War levels and beyond."

Douglas and the Council for a Livable World then highlighted the three candidates:

SHENNA BELLOWS (D-ME) is quickly becoming a heroine for progressives around the country-- she’s been called the Elizabeth Warren of civil liberties. Bellows built a career working as a grassroots activist on issues such as marriage equality, civil liberties and limiting drone strikes. Now, she’s channeling that experience, and her strong support for nuclear arms control into an impressive grassroots campaign to beat Republican Senator Susan Collins.

JEFF MERKLEY(D-OR) was identified by Council for a Livable World in his first race for Senate as a rising progressive hero. In just one term, he’s proven that to be true, helping to pass the New START treaty, bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and reform the filibuster. But in a sign of the changing political tides, Merkley’s once-safe seat is now being eyed by Republican Monica Wehby, who’s making Merkley’s re-election tougher than anticipated.

BRUCE BRALEY (D-IA) is a staunch progressive who’s done great work in the House of Representatives as a champion of the middle class, veterans, and others who need a strong advocate in Congress. Now, in his first run for Senate, he’s facing a slate of far-right Republican challengers. And what’s worse, the billionaire Koch brothers are pouring money into the race in an effort to turn the seat red.

Blue America has only endorsed 5 candidates this cycle, two well-proven, progressive incumbents and three challengers including the 2 races that will determine whether or not the Republicans win control of the Senate, Shenna Bellows and Rick Weiland. If conservative voting records by vulnerable Democrats like Mary Landrieu (LA), Mark Pryor (AR), and John Walsh (MT) make it hard for you to get worked up about Democrats whining that they could lose the Senate in November, Bellows and Weiland are the antidote, two races the corporate Beltway Democrats have studiously ignored but who, much to the chagrin of laughable would-be power brokers like Guy Cecil, are breaking through the clutter anyway. Bellows, a civil liberties dynamo and former Executive Director of the Maine ACLU, and Weiland, a folksy prairie populist inspired by George McGovern, Paul Wellstone and Warren herself, have steep paths to victory. But where you would once hear only, "you're crazy; that's impossible," now you sense people are taking a second look, paying attention. Most of the Democrats in the Senate, including all of the good ones, from Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Brian Schatz, Mazie Hirono, Tom Harkin and Jeff Merkley to Elizabeth Warren, Barbara Boxer and Ed Markey have already endorsed and donated to Weiland. It is nothing but the pigheadedness of Guy Cecil that is keeping Rick from being endorsed by the DSCC. Cecil already gave up trying to hold back Bellows and finally allowed the DSCC to endorse her. Her problem is that she's running against fake "moderate" Susan Collins, who Democrats count on to help out once in a while, usually when Republican leaders don't really care that much.

Recently , writing for The Nation, John Nichols, moved the narrative along for Bellows, who has yet to be endorsed by even one U.S. Senator, but is piling up an impressive array of national grassroots organizations behind her. His first sentence should get anyone to pay attention: "The woman who could be the future of progressive politics in America is sitting at the back table of an Indian restaurant in Portland, Maine."

Bellows knows she can’t match the millions her opponent, three-term Senator Susan Collins, has banked-- or the millions that wealthy donors are ready to spend in Maine and other states to make Mitch McConnell the Senate’s next majority leader. The Democrat is satisfied if the Mainers she calls give $5. That’s because Bellows isn’t really dialing for dollars. She’s dialing for activists. “We had over 200 volunteers gathering signatures in Maine to put me on the ballot. They were talking to friends and family members about who I am and what our campaign represents,” she explains. “We then invited the signature-gatherers to speak on my behalf at Democratic caucuses. So we had 100 volunteers speak at 150 different caucuses across the state. This is the movement that we are building: a movement for social justice, environmental justice and economic justice. And it’s working.”

Bellows began her run against Collins-- who despite her “moderate” label has drifted with her party to the right on economic and social issues-- as an off-the-radar challenger. The 39-year-old former head of the Maine ACLU had no money, little name recognition, and a set of principles and positions that sometimes put her at odds with top Democrats. Bellows runs left on healthcare (she’s for single-payer) and climate change (don’t get her started on the Keystone pipeline), yet she makes common cause with libertarians on marijuana legalization and privacy rights. She speaks comfortably of building coalitions with independent-minded Tea Party activists against cronyism and corruption. Bellows believes in pushing political boundaries, and in Maine-- with its history of electing independent governors and senators-- it seems to be working. The challenger turned heads when, with those $5 donations from working-class Mainers, she outraised Collins in the last quarter of 2013. Even skeptics have begun to note the ease with which this first-time candidate-- the daughter of a carpenter and a nurse, whose home had no electricity during much of her childhood-- makes connections with disenfranchised and disengaged voters. Bellows has gained endorsements from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (which calls her “the Elizabeth Warren of civil liberties”), Democracy for America, MoveOn and, belatedly, at the end of March, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

This year’s fierce competition for control of the Senate is generally framed in terms that make sense to Washington operatives: cash on hand, famous names, carefully crafted talking points. By those measures, Republicans are thought to have the upper hand in most of the thirty-six contests that will be decided in an off-year election where turnout is down and the Koch brothers’ spending is up. If Democrats are going to upset this calculus, they’ll need unexpected wins in unlikely states. That means they’d better start considering contenders who have tossed aside lame messaging memos in favor of grassroots organizing. Like South Dakota Democrat Rick Weiland, who is well on his way to visiting every one of that state’s 311 towns, Bellows is focusing not just on Maine’s Democratic-leaning cities but on rural areas. She’s already identified supporters in 366 small towns, and the numbers are rising.

Bellows is determined to organize her way to the Senate. With the ACLU, she got Maine Democrats and Republicans working together to pass legislation requiring warrants for access to cellphone records. When Maine Republicans eliminated same-day voter registration, she co-chaired the 2011 Protect Maine Votes coalition, which put it on the ballot and secured a landslide vote to restore it. A year later, with Mainers United for Marriage, she helped organize the referendum campaign that overturned a 2009 ban on same-sex marriage. “No one thought we could win. Outside political observers said, ‘It’s too soon-- you just lost in 2009,’” Bellows recalls. “We said, ‘We know we have the right message, we’re on the right side of history, and we have a highly organized field plan to win.’ And we did. This is a very similar campaign. It’s a David and Goliath race, but we know we have the right message. Most Mainers think we should raise the minimum wage. Most Mainers are concerned about climate change. Most Mainers think we should restore civil liberties.”

As she talks through her organizing strategy, Bellows reminds me of a former farm organizer who ran an impossible campaign for a Minnesota Senate seat in 1990. When I mention this, Bellows doesn’t miss a beat. “Yes,” she says. “And Paul Wellstone won.”

Nichols was incorrect about one thing. He described Rick Weiland as "well on his way to visiting every one of that state’s 311 towns." He completed the last town, tiny Hudson (pop. 296) on Tuesday. If you don't live in one of those 311 towns and you want to check out what Weiland is all about, you could go to his campaign website. There, the first thing you will see on the very top of the page is a this statement:

The first bill Rick will introduce in the Senate os a Constitutional Amendment that reads: So that the votes of all, rather than the wealth of the few, shall direct the course of this Republic, Congress shall have the power to limit the raising and spending of money with respect to federal elections.

Rick grounds his populist message in a clear call to get Big Money out of politics. It's a popular message with ordinary voters, if not with the Beltway Establishment.

Elizabeth Warren isn't going to transform America alone. Susan Collins and Mike Rounds are impediments to what she's trying to do to move the ball down the field. There is no doubt which team Rick Weiland and Shenna Bellows will be playing for-- the team that supports the ordinary working families in their states and this country. You can help both win these two uplifting battles here on the Blue America ActBlue Senate page. Taking our country back is a theme that can be used on both sides of the aisle, but among progressives, it means stopping the plutocrats and oligarchs from further eroding American democracy.