How Beltway Insiders Like Chuck Schumer Are Stinking Up The Democratic Party

The internet has freed grassroots campaign contributors from having to contribute money through the extraordinarily corrupt Beltway campaign organizations-- the DCCC, the DSCC and the DNC-- by making it easy and convenient for anyone to contribute directly to a candidate of his or her choice without going through establishment gate-keepers with suspect agendas of their own. The establishment, which has been apoplectic at the loss of power inherent in grassroots candidates being able to fund without them, struck back with a systematic campaign of undermining the new model. The DCCC and DSCC, particularly sell e-mail name as widely as possible and encourage their own candidates to "burn the lists," over-use them so that small donors get hundreds of annoying, content-free e-mails a day.

Modern day ward-heelers and latter-day Tammany Hall bosses like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Steve Israel, Chris Van Hollen, Jon Tester and Chuck Schumer haven't been telling the donors they sucker into contributing to their organizations that they now sometimes use more of the contributions to fight primary battles on behalf of their conservative establishment candidates against popular Democratic front-runners than against Republicans. Although the Democratic committees are doing this kind of thing everywhere in the country, two of the worst examples involve the DSCC in Pennsylvania's Senate race and the DCCC in Santa Clarita's House race. Chuck Schumer is trying to shove C-level political operative Katie McGinty down Democratic voters' throats over far more competent, electable and independent-minded candidate Joe Sestak. All polls show Sestak as more popular and more likely to defeat Republican incumbent Pat Toomey. But he refused to bow down to Schumer-- "when I say jump, all you say is 'how high'"-- the way that comes naturally to a hack like McGinty (a former fracking lobbyist).

Schumer must have been chewing on his leg when he saw the endorsement of Sestak yesterday in the Philadelphia Inquirer, an endorsement that refers to his own unpopular interference in Pennsylvania's primary. "Sestak's refusal to be put into a partisan box may have contributed to his inability to get the endorsement of some Democratic heavyweights. But demonstrating his willingness to put principle above party may improve Sestak's chances in a second contest against Toomey, who beat him by only two percentage points in 2010."

Out in California, in a newly blue district with a weak Republican Tea Party incumbent, the Democrats in the Antelope Valley, Simi Valley and Santa Clarita overwhelmingly chose progressive former marine, policeman and local elected official Lou Vince as their candidate. Despite mammoth pressure from the DCCC and other corrupt party elites, Vince got the endorsement of the state Democratic Party-- by a huge margin-- over some random rich lawyer from Orange County the DCCC and Zoe Lofgren parachuted into a district he had never even set foot in before he declared his candidacy. Instead of accepting the will of the local and state parties, Lofgren, Pelosi and Steve Israel launched an all-out war against Vince, who they insist is too progressive (i.e., he endorsed Bernie), spending DCCC resources to boost their establishment shill, Brian Caforio. The DCCC has gone so far as to call and threaten labor unions officials on the verge of endorsing Vince in order to curtail his fundraising. They even called a state senator and told him to pull his endorsement; he politely told them "fuck off."

So what the DCCC and DSCC are both doing is going to low-info contributors and asking them for money to defeat Republicans in November but then turning around and using the money-- in Pennsylvania all of the money-- to defeat popular Democrats, virtually guaranteeing GOP victories in the general election. You wonder why the Democrats can't win in Congress? Look no further than Schumer and-- I'm sorry to say-- Pelosi and her series of corrupt, incompetent DCCC chairs from Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen and the current losers, Steve Israel and Ben Ray Luján. If you want to help specific progressives win in November the thermometer on the left is for Senate races and the thermometer on the right is for House races: