DownWithTyranny!: How Steve Israel's Democratic Mystery Meat Candidates Alienate Democratic Voters

Yesterday we saw that may more Americans have been leaving the two corrupt Beltway political parties and re-registering as independents. As Emma White pointed out, independents "are skeptical of the political system and doubt that it will produce outcomes that satisfy them." Moments later Rocky Lara, a garden variety Steve Israel mystery meat candidate who has exactly no chance whatsoever to win in her. happily announced she had been endorsed by Israel's band of right-wing fake Dems, the Blue Dogs.

She somehow tried blaming incumbent Steve Pearce, who is at least up front about his conservatism and anti-worker bias. "I am honored to receive the endorsement from the Blue Dog Democrats who share my commitment to fiscal conservatism and willingness to put partisan politics aside to move southern New Mexico and our country forward," Lara said in the release. "The partisan bickering in Washington is leaving southern New Mexico’s middle class families in its wake, and Congressman Pearce has spent his career adding to the dysfunction."

NM-02 has a PVI of R+5 is pretty safe territory for Pearce if the Democrats continue to run Republican-lite candidates like Lara against him. So far this cycle he's raised $1,251,941, spent $501,077 and is sitting on a war chest of $1,350,141. Lara raised $682,731, spent $175,855 and has $506,877 cash-on-hand. In 2012 Pearce won reelection 59-41, far outpacing Romney's 52-45% win over Obama. Pearce won 14 of the district's 19 counties. Israel, who favors his fellow Blue Dogs over normal Democrats, added Lara, despite her lousy fundraising numbers, to his ridiculous Red-to-Blue program. He will probably waste close to a million dollars on her hopeless race. She has also been partially endorsed by EMILY's List, which has endorsed a record number of worthless anti-worker conservatives this year, like Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), Ann Callis (IL), Gina Raimondo (RI), Mary Rose Wilcox (AZ), Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL), Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL), Norma Torres (CA), Michelle Nunn (GA), Ann Kuster(New Dem-NH), Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ) and, probably worst of all, Colleen Hanabusa (New Dem-HI).

If the plumbing were right, there's no doubt EMILY's List would endorse Arizona Blue Dog Ron Barber as well. He's one of Congress' most wretched Democrats and in a constant battle with John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX) and Sinema for the right to show that they have voted the most frequently with Republicans against core Democratic values. Here's how the half dozen worst Democrats line up, according to their ProgressivePunch crucial vote scores for the 2013-14 session:

• Kyrsten Sinema- 34.54
• Pete Gallego- 33.17
• Ron Barber- 29.90
• Mike McIntyre- 28.64
• John Barrow- 26.24
• Jim Matheson- 26.24

And Barber doesn't just vote with the Republicans. He uses their bullshit talking points to attack fellow Democrats. Like President Obama. He jumped right on the opportunistic band wagon this week to run to any TV station that would take him to whine that President Obama is not doing enough to secure the border and that his constituents are in danger.

Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), a member of the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats, stressed to CNN that "this problem has been going on for a long time."

"And now it’s been exaggerated by this humanitarian crisis that we have with thousands of children coming into Texas and into my state in Arizona," Barber said. "I’ve been pressing for changes in our border security strategy and policy, and for us to fix the broken immigration system. As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, I’m very pleased that we have a very strong bipartisan effort there… "The people that I represent who live and work along the border, the ranchers, the businesspeople, folks who have retired and are living down there every single day, they feel unsafe in their homes because the drug cartels are coming through their land, bringing drugs, heavily armed and putting our constituents in danger. We need to stop that," he said.

"And one of the things we need to do is to have more troops, more Border Patrol agents on the border, more technology on the border. I’ve been pressing for that since I got here. And hopefully, now-- unfortunately now, because of this crisis, we’re finally getting the attention of Washington and the White House."

Barber also said the 2008 law providing extended immigration proceedings for illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico and Canada "needs to be modified."

"We need to modify the law so that these children who are coming here from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are able to be returned home expeditiously. Their parents need to have them back with them because these children are facing danger when they come across Mexico on the top of freight trains," he said. "They’re in a situation here in Arizona that’s creating immense pressures on my community and the people that I serve. We need to be able to get them back home. And that law is unfortunately standing in the way."