The Democrap Establishment Still Doing What They Like Doing Most: Resisting the Resistance

Frank Schaeffer is continuing his roadtrip, meeting progressive congressional candidate and filming them as introductions of the best candidates running. Last we caught up with him was in Lewiston, Maine where he spent a day Jared Golden, the progressive candidate running for the swing district that isn't the Portland coastal area. From there he headed off to Omaha where he met with Kara Eastman. Please watch the video Frank did up top.On his own blog he introduced Kara by noting that she's "a trained social worker who runs Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance (OKHA), a non-profit dedicated to securing healthy home environments for kids and their families. Kara is a political outsider with real leadership experience who knows how to create policy, prepare and stick to a budget, and always puts people first. In addition to OKHA, Kara also led Extra Hands for ALS, whose mission is to fund research for Lou Gehrig’s disease. Kara cares about the environment and is often referred to as a 'climate hawk' by her supporters. Kara is incredibly passionate about her work and here’s something that blew me away when I spoke with her; when I asked her why she was running, she told me plain and simple, 'I am running because I am desperate–not desperate for a job, but desperate for our country–and in particular for our kids…I want to make a difference.' Kara wants to create an environment where people can be themselves and thrive. She wants to create the America that she tells her daughter about; where people care for one another, value innovation and diversity, and you can become what you want to be."

If you've been paying any attention since around 2006 or so, DWT has been blasting away at how the DCCC, and the Democratic establishment in general, rigs primaries against progressives in favor of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- Blue Dogs, New Dems, "ex"-Republicans, self-funders, anti-Choice freaks, homophobes... the whole panoply of candidates who make voters scratch their heads and say "what's the difference?" Nothing deflates turnout from the Democratic base like the DCCC and EMILY's List and associated groups offering a lesser-of-two-evils strategy. It doesn't work but the DCCC is incapable of learning the lesson. Sure, their shit candidates can be sometimes swept into office-- as they were in 2006-- but in the next midterm they are invariably swept back out of office (as they were in 2010) when Democratic voters realize they've been tricked-- and stay home in droves.

That's how Kara Eastman's current primary opponent, conservative "ex"-Republican Blue Dog Brad Ashford, wound up a one-termer. I'm usually the only one writing about this. But yesterday two big-time investigative journalists, Ryan Grim and Lee Fang, blew the whistle on the DCCC's primary rigging. "Candidates", they wrote, "who signed up to battle Donald Trump must get past the Democratic Party first."

They started with how the DCCC and the wretched EMILY's List are working to rig the election for some sad sack corporate shill in PA-16 and against the exciting progressive, Jess King. Normally, "the trio of groups that represents the party’s central authority"-- the DCCC, EMILY’s List and End Citizens United (which has nothing whatsoever to do with ending Citizens United and is just a DCCC/DSCC scam operation to vacuum up grassroots money from the unsuspecting). The New Dems and Blue Dogs often join them, in the cases of Angie Craig-- a pathetic candidate in Minnesota not only did the New Dems join in, so did a very confused an undependable Congressional Progressive Caucus.

End Citizens United, an ostensible political reform group, was founded in 2015 by three consultants from Mothership Strategies, all veterans of the DCCC. End Citizens United has since paid Mothership Strategies over $3.5 million in fees, according to Federal Election Commission records. In its first few years, other campaign finance reform groups grew suspicious of the PAC, which they referred to as a “churn and burn” group dedicated to raising money by blanketing email lists with aggressive solicitations, a hallmark of the DCCC’s own email strategy. That reputation began turning around the last two years, as the PAC began putting significant money into important races and working more collaboratively with other groups in the space.

But its pattern of endorsements remains closely aligned with the types of candidates backed by the DCCC, though End Citizens United is often far ahead the party. (In 2016, End Citizens United backed progressive Zephyr Teachout, while the DCCC lined up behind her opponent, one of the few instances of the two diverging.) The PAC’s entry into the Minnesota race is particularly odd, given that Craig, while at the medical device company St. Jude Medical, directed the firm’s political action committee in the 2012 election cycle, after spending the previous six years on its board. The goal of the PAC was to buy influence with Republican and Democratic leaders, as well as members of the tax-writing committees, in pursuit of repealing the medical device tax that was a key funding mechanism of the Affordable Care Act. The effort eventually met with significant success.

While she ran it, the PAC spent heavily on Republican politicians, directing funds in the 2012 cycle to Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch, Scott Brown, Mike Enzi, Richard Burr, Bob Corker, and John Barrasso. Then-Speaker John Boehner and presumed-future-speaker Kevin McCarthy, as well as the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, all got money from Craig’s PAC.

This, then, was the résumé that earned the support not just of the DCCC and EMILY’s List, but also of a group publicly committed to campaign finance reform. It’s as dissonant as the group’s support for Jason Crow in Colorado, a DCCC-backed candidate who works at a powerful law and lobbying firm.

A DCCC official, asked about Craig’s time running the corporate PAC, said it was unfair to accuse a married lesbian raising a family of being part of the political establishment, and that her business success was an asset, not a liability.

End Citizens United also stands by its endorsements of Craig and Crow. “Angie pledged to fight for reform, advocated for the public funding of elections, and ran a grassroots campaign with the support of many progressive organizations and local elected officials,” said End Citizens United’s Communications Director Adam Bozzi.

“Angie lost in 2016 by a narrow margin of 6,000 votes,” Bozzi added. “Unlike many House challengers in 2016, she was able to match the Democratic performance at the top of the ticket. Angie ran a strong campaign, in a tough district, in a difficult year for Democrats in Minnesota.”

“All Jeff talks about is political reform, so that was a shot to the heart,” said Rosenow, Erdmann’s campaign manager, on losing the endorsement. “If your goal is to get money out of politics, how in the fuck-- I’m sorry, how in the hell are you backing someone who ran a corporate PAC?”

The DCCC still blatantly lies about not getting involved in primary battles. They do it everyday and in everyday. And the whole purpose is the kill progressives in the cradle. Their own Red to Blue website currently lists 18 carp candidates they are backing, almost all of them also backed by the New Dems and/or the Blue Dogs and almost all of them in hot races with progressives. As Grim and Fang reported, "the Democratic Party machinery can effectively shut alternative candidates out before they can even get started. The party only supports viable candidates, but it has much to say about who can become viable." Let's look at 4 of the races the DCCD is fucking up that Grim and Fang singled out:

• AZ-02 (Tucson)

Last year, former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, a tough-on-immigration candidate who previously represented a northern Arizona district, bought a house to run for this Tucson-area seat. The DCCC, Emily’s List, End Citizens United, and other PACs coalesced quickly behind her campaign, ignoring a spirited challenge from former Assistant Secretary of the Army Mary Matiella. “A candidate’s viability is judged too quickly and too narrowly,” Matiella, who could be the first Latina to represent Arizona in Congress, told The Intercept. “The ability to immediately post a six-figure quarter isn’t just the primary consideration, it’s the only one. That kind of artificial barrier to political involvement is going to disenfranchise not only qualified candidates like myself, but thousands of new and optimistic voters the party should be engaging.” Matiella is backed by Justice Democrats, Democracy for America, and Project 100.

• KS-04 (Wichita)

In April, the political world turned bug-eye on Wichita, Kansas, as the results of a special election to replace Mike Pompeo came rolling in. For a tense stretch of time, it looked like James Thompson, running on a progressive platform that hewed closely to that of Sanders, might just pull off an upset in the heart of Koch Industries country. He wound up about 7,500 votes short, but immediately announced his plan to run for the same seat, this time against the Republican incumbent Ron Estes, in 2018. Washington Democrats were not particularly enthused about his chances. “I have never heard hide nor hair from the national party about the race,” Thompson said. His primary opponent, Laura Lombard, who moved back to the district from Washington, said she’s been in touch with the DCCC, but the party doesn’t like the odds of winning the district and isn’t helping in the primary.

Thompson is not clamoring for party support. “From what I’ve seen of the DCCC’s help, they want a bunch of promises made you’ll raise X amount of money, and you’ll spend this amount on TV ads.” he said. “At this point I’m not interested in having the DCCC, which has a proven losing record, try to come run my campaign.”

• NE-02 (Omaha)

The Democratic Party has largely lined up behind former Rep. Brad Ashford to take back this Omaha-based seat. The DCCC and other PACs have provided resources and endorsements to Ashford, who compiled one of the most conservative voting records for any Democrat in the House during his time in office. Kara Eastman, another Democrat competing in the primary on a populist campaign of single payer and tuition-free college, said that, after inviting her to candidate week, the party has attempted to shut her out of the campaign. “Well, we have been in contact with people from the DCCC since we started the campaign, and I was told that they would be remaining neutral until after the primary, and now it’s clear that’s obviously not the case,” Eastman, who has raised more than $100,000, told The Intercept. Eastman is backed by Climate Hawks Vote, at least three local unions, and some local party officials. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was founded in 2009 as a small-dollar alternative to the DCCC, is leaning toward planning to endorse her. In 2017, the national Democratic groups shocked Nebraska Democrats by pulling support for mayoral candidate Heath Mello over his past votes for bills to ban abortions after 20 weeks and the requirement that an ultrasound is used on a woman seeking abortion. Ashford, as a state legislator, voted for the same two bills, while Eastman is running on a solidly pro-choice platform. But that hasn’t prevented national Democrats from rallying behind Ashford. Last year, DNC Chair Tom Perez, in the wake of the Mello controversy, drew a line in the sand, saying that “every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.” But that hasn’t prevent national Democrats from rallying behind Ashford. An EMILY’s List spokesperson said the group is monitoring the race but has yet to weigh in.

• CO-06 (Denver suburbs)

This suburban seat has long been an elusive Democratic target. One candidate for the district, clean energy expert and entrepreneur Levi Tillemann, charged that Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, pressured him to get out of the race in favor of Jason Crow, a veteran and partner at powerhouse Colorado law and lobbying firm, who is backed by the DCCC, the local Democratic congressional delegation, and End Citizens United. In a response to an inquiry from The Intercept, Hoyer did not deny pressing Tillemann, and said that he is “proud to join countless Coloradans in supporting Jason Crow in Colorado’s 6th District.” Not all Democrats are on board with the party’s strategy, though. State Party Chair Morgan Carroll protested the DCCC’s support for Crow over Tillemann, writing on Facebook, “The DCCC verbally said they would be neutral and in practice just endorsed one of the candidates in CD6.” Tillemann comes from a long line of political heavyweights in Colorado and moved back to the state to run.

Last week, we looked at how slimy corporate whore Steny Hoyer was in Colorado trying to rig the election in the 6th district for one of the DCCC's worst recriuits of 2018, a completely crooked lawyer named Crow, and against progressive reformer Levi Tillemann. Last night, Tillemann read the Grim-Fang story and this is what he told us about primary rigging in his district:

It didn’t have to be this way. After the controversy surrounding our 2016 presidential primary, the Party ought to have remained impartial during all Democratic primaries. Local leaders have, but unaccountable power brokers in DC have decided to try and rig the system and disenfranchise the voters of CD-06. That's wrong.

When political insiders want to rig an election they don’t stuff ballot boxes, instead they rely on backroom deals, super PACs, campaign contributions, pressure and threats. That's what's going on here, and it extends well beyond Colorado’s 6th District to races across the country where the DCCC has decided to try and push out progressives in favor of more 'controllable' Democrats. That is why I am speaking out.

I believe in the power of democracy. Testing ideas and candidates through a hard-fought primary makes us stronger. Making people feel like their vote doesn't matter leads to disengagement. I have always been deeply committed to running a campaign focused on the values and issues. I will fight Trump and the GOP every step of the way as they try to dilute minority influence through gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and voter suppression. But I will also fight the DCCC if they try to turn Democratic primaries into nothing more that a pep-rally for anointed insiders nationwide. The DCCC would do well to remember that voter access, free and fair elections, campaign finance, and good government are Democratic values; calling out violations of Democratic values by people we usually agree with isn’t mudslinging, it’s integrity.

Bob Poe is an old friend, the former chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. When he ran for Congress in Orlando last cycle, the DCCC backed a conservative go-along-to-get-along pointless careerist with no political point of view. He also read Grim's and Fang's piece today, shook his head and said "Some things don’t change. Gutless wonders! [The DCCC] never learns the lesson that if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got."

Democratic party officials are not, by nature, moved to deep reflection by election losses. They have a plan and they’re sticking to it. The bad news for grassroots activists is that the Democratic Party’s leaders cannot be reasoned with. But they can be beaten.

If Democratic leaders are getting the sense that 2018 could be a wave election much like 2006, it’s worth looking at the last time the party swept into the House. The DCCC that year was run by Rahm Emanuel, who institutionalized the practice of only endorsing candidates with a demonstrable ability to either fundraise or pay for their own campaigns. Democrats that year beat 22 Republican incumbents and picked up eight open seats that had previously been held by Republicans. Because winners write history, the strategy has become conventionally accepted as wisdom worth following. But taking a closer look at the races themselves suggests the DCCC was flying blind.

In New Hampshire, for instance, the DCCC backed state House minority leader Jim Craig over local activist Carol Shea-Porter, in a classic establishment-versus-grassroots campaign. The conventional wisdom suggested that Craig’s endorsements, his moderation, and his ability to fundraise were what was needed in the district. Instead, Shea-Porter took a firm stand against the war in Iraq and organized an army of foot soldiers on the ground. Vastly outspent, she smoked Craig by 19 points in the primary.

The DCCC, in its wisdom, wrote her off, declining to spend a dime on what they saw as a lost cause. She spent less than $300,000 and, on the back of progressive enthusiasm, won the general election. She is retiring in 2018.

In California, the DCCC backed Steve Filson, a conservative pilot, against Jerry McNerney, who Emanuel believed was hopelessly liberal. After McNerney beat him in the primary, a peeved Emanuel said the DCCC wouldn’t be helping him in the general. A coalition of environmental groups got behind him instead, and McNerney won anyway.

In upstate New York, Emanuel went with Judy Aydelott, a former Republican who was a tremendous fundraiser. She was crushed by environmentalist and musician John Hall, after which the DCCC shunned the race as unwinnable. Hall won.

...It can be difficult for challengers to go up against the party because it is often hard to tell how or if the party is taking sides. Short of a public statement, candidates are left to quiz donors, consultants, or other operatives who might be in the know.

Steve Cohen, a Democratic representative from Tennessee, learned that lesson in a roundabout way. Much to Emanuel’s displeasure, Cohen ran a far-to-the-left campaign in 2006 and won a Memphis district. A white man in a minority-majority district, he was presumed to be a one-termer and drew a well-funded challenger in 2008, Nikki Tinker. (She won the endorsement of EMILY’s List, which tends not to endorse candidates against incumbents, even anti-choice ones like Dan Lipinski in Illinois.)

Cohen suspected that Emanuel was working against him but had no firm evidence, until one day he was having breakfast at the bar in Bistro Bis, a Washington restaurant, after Tinker had announced her bid. He saw Tinker in the restaurant-- and then he saw Emanuel. “Rahm came in and walked around and saw me and danced around, like doing a pirouette, like he had to pee or something, dancing on his toes,” said Cohen, describing the jittery reaction of the Chicago pol who had famously studied ballet as a young man.

Cohen left the restaurant for about five minutes and then returned to find Emanuel and his opponent dining together. “I caught Rahm,” Cohen said.

Tinker wound up running a campaign widely condemned as anti-Semitic. Cohen is now in his sixth term; Emanuel is the mayor of Chicago.

But the party’s inability to rethink conventional tactics creates an opening for progressive challengers. The party, like the media covering House campaigns, is relentlessly focused on 23 particular House districts where Clinton won, but the seat is still held by a Republican. Those seats, the party believes, belong to Democrats and are theirs for the taking. That was the strategy in 2006, too, as Emanuel dug in on the 18 seats in districts Kerry had won in 2004 but still were represented by Republicans.

Those seats were toss-ups, and despite Emanuel’s vaunted tactical genius, he did barely better than flipping a coin, winning 10. Democrats won 10 more seats in districts George W. Bush had carried with between 50 and 55 percent of the vote. They won seven in races where Bush pulled in 55 to 60 and won three upsets where Bush had won 60 percent or more of the vote just two years earlier. In other words, a third of all the Democratic pick-ups came in races where the party had been crushed two years prior and was paying little attention this time around. “Back in 2006, a strong argument can be made that Rahm was in the right place at the right time with the wrong strategy,” said Podhorzer, the AFL-CIO’s strategist who worked on the ’06 campaign.

The same pattern held in the Virginia House races in November, in which the party focused on a handful of swing districts, only to see stunning upsets across the state-- epitomized by a Democratic Socialists of America-backed nobody unseating the House minority leader, and transgender journalist Danica Roem knocking off a legendary bigot.

Those types of candidates in 2006 were boosted not by the DCCC, but by outside groups like the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org, which was at the height of its power. This time around, there’s no shortage-- well, there’s always a shortage-- of outside groups that can come into a race and lift a candidate up. The explosion of grassroots energy post-Trump didn’t just create new candidates, it made new groups, too. That means candidates who get shunned by the DCCC still have the possibility of connecting to an organized faction of Democrats who can make their race viable.

...The DCCC, notably, hasn’t yet added any Democratic candidates in California-- where there are multiple crowded primaries for competitive seats-- to its Red to Blue list. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., the western regional vice chair of the DCCC, has discouraged the party from taking sides in contentious primaries. “We’re not placing our thumb on the scale in these primaries,” said Marc Cevasco, a spokesperson for Lieu.

But the increased party primary meddling in races in other parts of the country has come at a time when the DCCC is increasingly wedded to congressional moderates. In somewhat of a reprisal of the Emanuel strategy, the DCCC is leaning on business-friendly Democrats to take back the House.

For the first time since 2006, the Blue Dog Coalition, the right-leaning Democratic group that prides itself on promoting socially conservative, business-friendly lawmakers, has worked with the DCCC to select the party’s candidates for the 2018 midterms.

The new collaboration is a stunning reversal for a party that has seen a groundswell of support for progressive ideas-- such as a $15 minimum wage and single-payer health care-- that are staunchly opposed by the Blue Dog wing of the party. Operatives from the DCCC meet on a weekly basis with the Blue Dogs to discuss recruitment and how to best steer resources to a growing slate of centrist Democratic candidates, according to Politico.

“The DCCC recognizes that the path to the majority is through the Blue Dogs,” Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., chair of the Blue Dog PAC, told Politico.

For party officials concerned about raising cash, Blue Dogs are a safe bet. Public disclosures with the Federal Election Commission show that the Blue Dog PAC is fueled by the biggest spenders on congressional campaigns on K Street, the term Washingtonians use colloquially to refer to a center of lobbyist shops. PAC money from the National Mining Association, AT&T, McKesson, Comcast, the National Restaurant Association, and other business interests have buoyed Blue Dog PAC coffers, which are spent recruiting and financing moderate Democrats.

But there is more than one way to raise big money. As for Jess King, a DCCC official said that the Pennsylvanian wasn’t invited to candidate week in Washington because her campaign has not been in close touch with the national party, and that party support is a two-way street. But by the party’s favorite metric-- fundraising-- going it alone hasn’t hurt her. In the fourth quarter of 2017, relying on small dollars, King added another $200,000 to her war chest, bringing her above $300,000 for the first year.

Her fundraising broke a record last held by Christina Hartman.

Now is the time when these primaries are going to be won or lost. The DCCC is pouring resources into the races to defeat progressives and advantage their corrupt conservative candidates. As you know, Blue America doesn't support or endorse New Dems or Blue Dogs and, historically, we're usually the ones first backing candidates like Carol Shea-Porter and Jerry McNerney back in 2006. We frequently get behind progressives who find themselves pitted against the worst of the DCCC recruits like Brad Ashford and Ann Kirkpatrick. Please consider contributing what contributing to the progressive candidates on the page that the thermometer on the right will take you to. There's not a single one the DCCC has endorsed, at least not yet. Please help us shove a dozen of them up right up their corrupt asses.