Contested Elections Are Important For A Real Democracy-- Or Are We Russia Already?

Yeah, that's Sean Duffy on the right... helping wreck America with impunity

Funny how elections focus the minds of politicians-- or at least elections where there is real opposition. when the incompetent boobs who run the DCCC announced there would be no targeting of Republican congressmembers in Wisconsin in 2018-- not of Paul Ryan, of course, but also not of Sean Duffy and Glenn Grothman-- all 5 Republican members from Wisconsin relaxed... and stopped worrying about voting for policies far to the right of what would make sense for their mainstream constituents. The other day, Duffy went on CNN and brazenly defended Donald Trump, Jr. conspiring against America with the Kremlin, in other words treason. "I don't have an issue with it," said Duffy, knowing there would be no electoral consequences for himself. "There's nothing wrong with that. That's not a crime... I have no problems with what Donald Jr. did, and I don't think any prosecutor would either."

Duffy represents a traditionally progressive district in the northwest part of the state that stretches from Wausau to the suburbs of Duluth. In 2008 Obama beat McCain 53% to 45% and in 2012 Obama lost to Romney 51-48%. Dave Obey served as congressman from WI-07 from 1969 to 2011, when he retired and the DCCC lost the district to Duffy. They didn't back the progressive Democrats who ran against Duffy in 2014 or 2016 and so far this cycle there is no Democratic candidate-- all the prospective candidates citing DCCC hostility as a reason for not running, despite the urgency of having candidates run down-ticket to help reelect Tammy Baldwin. Not to mention, keeping the party from completely atrophying in the district. Atrophying of local parties, I'm sorry to say, is the only thing the DCCC has regularly accomplished since Pelosi started calling the shots there.

Anyway, with no opponent, Duffy is free to vote in lockstep with the Trump Regime and to go on TV and promote the nonsense and lies that the Regime is built on. The congressmembers who are being targeted in the 2018 cycle are far more likely to oppose Trump and to not make crackpot statements defending treason. Look at Scott Taylor in Virginia for example, He was also on CNN this week talking about Don Jr's treason with the Russians. Trump narrowly won his Virginia Beach/Williamsburg district-- 48.8% to 45.4%-- but there are already 3 Democrats vying for the nomination to oppose him. And Taylor's CNN appearance was very different--much more mainstream-- than Duffy's. He expressed his frustration with with the bobbing and weaving the Trump regime-- and Trump family-- have been displaying in their attempts to coverup the treasonous behavior.

"The reality is, if you had some meetings, if you met some folks ... say what you've done, get it out there. But yeah, it gets frustrating when you have this. Because I do think that some of this is really overplayed and I think ultimately folks that are on the streets-- American people-- don't care. They're over it," Taylor said on CNN's The Lead.

...Taylor also criticized Congress' handling of the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential race in favor of Trump, saying that neither Democrats nor Republicans have taken meaningful steps to deter future efforts to meddle in U.S. elections.

"What you have to have here is a policy; A policy that says to other nations they will not interfere in our election," he said. "A Monroe Doctrine in cyber, if you will. That's missing from this debate and that's very unfortunate, both on the Democrats and the Republicans."

Another Republican who is going to have a tough reelection bid, Leonard Lance, voted for TrumpCare in committee, but when his constituents went wild he switched and voted against TrumpCare when the final vote came in the House. He has been regularly running to Chris Hayes' show on MSNBC to complain about Trump. Watch what Hayes did to him on Friday evening:



It would have been a far different conversation if Sean Duffy was Hayes' guest, of that we can be very sure. In a democracy, contested elections aren't just important to pick our representatives but also to hold them accountable for their behavior. That isn't something Sean Duffy-- and scores of other Republican incumbents-- have to worry about from a DCCC that has been utterly mishandled by Nancy Pelosi from the moment she got control of it. And there are some thing Pelosi is good at. But she's in a 100% safe blue district-- Hillary beat Trump there 86.2% to 8.7%-- and she is utterly clueless about how elections work-- as are the entire upper echelon of the Democratic congressional leadership. Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn and Crowley don't understand electoral politics-- which is reflected by DCCC strategies. They all desperately need primaries to sharpen their own focus.