How Arkansas Extremist Tom Cotton Pissed Off Top Chef Tom Colicchio

With Steve Israel's policy of never targeting GOP leaders, policy makers and committee chairman keeping the DCCC out of the MN-02 race that pits progressive Mike Obermueller against reactionary incumbent John Kline-- chair of the powerful and destructive House Committee of Education and the Workforce-- Blue America was over the moon that Bill Maher has stepped into the breach. Maher is bashing Kline up but good and bringing his repulsive anti-family record to the attention of voters in southeast Minnesota. This was a Maher tweet from early Thursday morning:

Blue America is working the positive side of the street (for a change), talking about why Obermueller is a better candidate than Kline from a policy perspective and what a natural district MN-02 would be to flip, despite Steve Israel's intent on protecting Kline again. (Obama won the district against McCain by 10,000 votes and beat Romney in a squeaker by around 300 votes!) Al Franken is on the ballot this year and he's substantially ahead of disreputable bankster/GOP crackpot Mike McFadden who is struggling in the polls to get to 40%. (You can help Obermueller's grassroots campaign here.)

And, of course, Maher isn't the only celebrity out talking sense about midterm races this cycle. Up top is an excellent segment from Chris Hayes' Wednesday night show featuring Top Chef Tom Colicchio. TV viewers may know him as the positive, no-nonsense head judge on every season of Bravo's Top Chef, and foodies know him as the founder and executive chef of the Gramercy Tavern (NYC) and founder of Craft (NYC, L.A., Dallas, Las Vegas, San Francisco) and the winner of 5 James Beard awards. But he's also been one of the most stalwart political fighters for healthy and sustainable food policies in America. Wednesday night he was on with Hayes explaining why Tom Cotten is a terrible choice for the Arkansas Senate seat currently held by Mark Pryor. It made me wonder if other celebrity chefs are politically active.

I would bet that a dick like Robert Irvine is a Republican but he's a Brit so there's no way to be sure. He did make a bunch of bogus claims that you would generally expect from conservatives, not normal people-- being a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, receiving a Scottish castle from the Queen, being a White House chef and making Princess Di's wedding cake, all false-- and cheating investors out of their money, another very right-wing move. The one actual Republican among the celebrity chefs I could find was Texas meat cooker Tim Love. I wouldn't eat in a restaurant associated with him anyone-- nor with Irvine. Celebrity chefs who have been supportive of Democrats, besides Colicchio, include Alice Waters, Rachel Ray, Elizabeth Falkner, Bobby Flay, Marcus Samuelsson, Mario Batali, Jean-Georges Vongerichten (a major Obama bundler) and Daniel Boulud.

Remember, the best chance the Democrats have to keep conservative Mark Pryor in and neo-fascist closet case Tom Cotton out seems to rest with making Arkansas voters wonder why the rest of their congressional delegation-- 4 Republicans and Pryor-- voted for the Farm Bill while Cotton joined extreme right-wing ideologues from other states to oppose it. So who was right, voters are supposed to wonder, Senators Boozman and Pryor and Congressmen Womack, Griffin and Crawford… or a Tom Cotton who's happy to see taxpayer money flow into the coffers of his own family farm while voting no on a Farm Bill that everyone else in Arkansas sees as a reasonable compromise?

The most recent legitimate poll, from Suffolk University last week, shows Pryor leading 45-43%., even though 37.4% of respondents admitted their most trusted source of news is Fox. The polling analysis memo offered an interesting word association question for Cotton in which the top scoring words were "dishonest," "untrustworthy," "crook" and "dislike him." They didn't test for closet case or gay. Pryor's #1 word association, by far, was "like him."

This was Colicchio's OpEd for Food Policy Action:

The food that feeds our families and supports our agriculture industry is affected every day by the decisions that elected officials make in Washington. Members of Congress regularly vote on policies that affect the quality, availability, and sustainability of our food supply. And yet, there has been very little attention to bringing transparency and accountability to that discussion.

As someone who has spent his life in the food business, I firmly believe that when citizens enter the voting booth, they need to be as informed about food policy as they are about a candidate’s views on job creation, foreign policy, and social issues. Unfortunately, in Arkansas right now, we have a classic example of what’s wrong with the political discourse around food in this country.

U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, who is running for Senate, released a campaign ad that misleads voters and misconstrues the facts about the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill is a critically important law that shapes food production, determines nutrition assistance, and supports farmers, among other things. Sadly, Rep. Cotton’s ad wrongfully accuses President Obama of “hijacking the farm bill and turning it into a food stamp bill,” which simply isn’t true.

But don’t take my word for it. the Washington Post called the ad’s claims “invented history,” and the non-partisan fact-checker Politifact gave the dubious ad its “Pants On Fire” rating, which is the equivalent of an “F” on a high school report card. The truth is, SNAP (a.k.a. food stamps) first became a part of the Farm Bill during the Great Depression, and has been included in every Farm Bill that has become law since 1973. It has been supported by Members from both sides of the aisle for decades.

Today’s voters deserve better. We’ll never be able to improve food policies in this country if our leaders distort and distract instead of discuss and debate. Voters need information, which is why I co-founded Food Policy Action, a non-partisan organization dedicated to bringing light and accountability to the food debate.

Every year, Food Policy Action puts together a Legislative Scorecard to help voters get the information they need to know exactly how their elected officials vote on these important issues. You can find more information about the scorecard at www.foodpolicyaction.org.

Last year, Rep. Tom Cotton scored a 0% on the Legislative Scorecard. In other words, on every single vote that touched upon sensible food policy, Rep. Cotton voted the wrong way. In light of this score and his blatantly false ad, I know this much to be true: the public deserves better. It’s up to voters to make sure Rep. Cotton gets the message.