Democrats Against Your Cable Company Treating You Terribly

As you probably know, Blue America endorsed Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu over Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul in the New York State gubernatorial race. Last night we sent this letter to all Blue America members. Give it a look and if you do contribute-- regardless of amount-- you automatically become a Blue America member. Our goal is to do what conventional wisdom-- the brain surgeons who laughed when anyone suggested David Brat would beat Eric Cantor-- says can't be done: replace Andrew Cuomo with a progressive icon even before he's indicted on corruption charges and New York winds up with gutless conservative Kathy Hochul as governor.

Almost every week, we write to you about a great Democrat who deserves your support. This one's different, and here's why. It's not that Zephyr Teachout isn't a great candidate and a great progressive; she is. She was the online organizing director for Howard Dean's antiwar Presidential run more than ten years ago, and since then she's gone on to a remarkable career as a law professor, scholar and anti-corruption advocate. Her work has even been cited by the Supreme Court's dissent in Citizens United, and she has been a general thorn in the side of power.

And it's not that her opponent is any good. Andrew Cuomo, the conservative New York Governor, is as bad as they come. He's a Democrat, I guess, but that hasn't stopped him from what looks like witness tampering in an anti-corruption panel he himself convened. He's bad. And he's a Democratic incumbent who is quite vulnerable to just the kind of challenge that Zephyr's bringing.

If you're already convinced, you can donate here.

But if you want to know more, well, this one's different because Zephyr is promising to do something that no other politician can credibly claim to do: Stop the merger of Comcast and Time Warner cable.

Yeah, you heard me. And she means it.

Zephyr Teachout isn't just saying she worries about inequality, she's going to tackle it at the root. She'll go after corporate power directly. If Comcast buys Time Warner cable, one company will control one third of all internet and cable access in America. That's wayyyy too much concentrated power for one CEO. By stopping this, we can reverse the corporate consolidation trend that good old Ronald Reagan kicked off in the early 1980s.

So how will Zephyr do this? Good question!

New York has what's called a Public Service Commission, and this commission can prevent Comcast from buying Time Warner cable in New York state. And since a lot of Time Warner cable is mostly in New York, that would make this merger really hard to complete. If Zephyr wins, this will be a blow to the corporate agenda, and to cable company monsters everywhere.

Imagine that. All those irritating customer service calls to your cable company, random billing charges, times your repairman doesn't come, and just generally unpleasant experiences-- you can get revenge by supporting Zephyr. You can strike back, for real.

Please consider Donating here.

She's already filed a complaint with the Public Service Commission on the Comcast-Time Warner merger, so she's on the record.

There's more. Zephyr will implement full public financing of elections in New York state (like Cuomo promised and failed to do), and make New York a model for anti-corruption government. She'll stop Amazon from destroying the publishing industry using antitrust tools at a state level, and she'll move New York to renewable power.

She'll change the Democratic Party. For real. This is a big one.

Help out.