DCCC Is Forcing Crappy Status Quo Candidates In Districts That Voted For Bernie Over Hillary-- CO-06

This morning Lee Fang broke a story at The Intercept that we touched on back in January-- basically how the Democratic establishment is trying to crush progressive CO-06 candidate Levi Tillemann in order to push their corrupt conservative candidate Jason Crow. The story stars Steny Hoyer and if it reminds you of what the DCCC did to Laura Moser in Texas, it should... for more reasons that are apparent.

Last year Pelosi (along with her incompetent DCCC chair, Ben Ray Lujan) were forced to allow the Democratic House conference to elect the leaders of the DCCC. No one ran against Lujan. And only one member ran for vice chair in each region. So... more an election in a dictatorship than in a democracy. In the region that includes Colorado and Texas, Jared Polis was the candidate and the new regional vice chair. But his interest in doing the job was exactly zero since he is running for governor of Colorado. There are at least half a dozen GOP-occupied winnable seats in the region-- and no regional vice chair. That's bad. Polis finally did the right thing and resigned. But Lujan and Pelosi have adamantly refused to replace him. They promised "soon" but it's been over a year and they've allowed the corrupt conservative staffers to run the show-- ergo: the Laura Moser scandal and now the Levi Tillemann one.

Lee Fang:

The secretly taped audio recording, released here for the first time, reveals how senior Democratic officials have worked to crush competitive primaries and steer political resources, money, and other support to hand-picked candidates in key races across the country, long before the party publicly announces a preference. The invisible assistance boosts the preferred candidate in fundraising and endorsements, and then that fundraising success and those endorsements are used to justify national party support. Meanwhile, opponents of the party’s unspoken pick are driven into paranoia, wondering if they are merely imagining that unseen hands are working against them.

Hoyer bluntly told Tillemann that it wasn’t his imagination, and that mobilizing support for one Democratic candidate over another in a primary isn’t unusual. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., chair of the DCCC, has a “policy that early on, we’d try to agree on a candidate who we thought could win the general and give the candidate all the help we could give them,” Hoyer told Tillemann matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, I’m for Crow,” Hoyer explained. “I am for Crow because a judgment was made very early on. I didn’t know Crow. I didn’t participate in the decision. But a decision was made early on by the Colorado delegation,” he said, referencing the three House Democrats elected from Colorado.

“So your position is, a decision was made very early on before voters had a say, and that’s fine because the DCCC knows better than the voters of the 6th Congressional District, and we should line up behind that candidate,” asked Tillemann during the conversation.

“That’s certainly a consequence of our decision,” responded Hoyer.

“Staying out of primaries sounds small-D democratic, very intellectual, and very interesting,” said Hoyer. “But if you stay out of primaries, and somebody wins in the primary who can’t possibly win in the general,” the Maryland representative said, citing the surprise victory of Democrat Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate election, “I’m not saying you’re that person.” But staying out of primaries, he argued, is “not very smart strategy.”

...During the conversation, Hoyer asked Tillemann to leave the race multiple times and make way for Crow. “You keep saying I would like you to get out of the race, and of course that’s correct,” Hoyer said, adding that he hoped Tillemann would refrain from criticizing the party’s chosen candidate if he decided to stay in.

The party, notably, has a poor track record in selecting candidates that can win the general election.

...In races in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Texas, Nebraska, California, and beyond, progressive candidates are finding that the DCCC has mobilized support for moderate candidates with access to early campaign cash at the expense of progressives. As we’ve reported, many first-time candidates are told by the DCCC that before they can even be considered, they have to perform the “rolodex” test to show they can raise $250,000 or more from the contact list on their phone.

...For the 2018 midterm cycle, the party has not only courted moderate Democrats and formed a renewed partnership with the conservative Blue Dog caucus for candidate recruitment, but has discouraged candidates from embracing populist ideas, such as single-payer health care.

For Tillemann, however, the party’s closeness with the corporate elite is the very reason why the DCCC continues to lose general elections.

“They squash progressive candidates. They destroy the diversity of ideas in their caucus. They keep ideas like ‘Medicare for All,’ free community college, or impeaching Donald Trump from having a significant role in the national conversation,” says Tillemann. “The issues that resonate most with voters are not the issues that the DCCC is telling candidates to focus on.”

Is he worried that even if he is successful in his campaign, that he’s already betrayed one of the most powerful Democrats, making him an outsider as soon as he arrives in Washington?

“To a certain extent, people like Elizabeth Warren and people like Bernie Sanders have been ostracized by the party, and they have been marginalized by the establishment to the extent that is possible,” says Tillemann. “But the fact of the matter is that the people are crying out for genuine leaders, and the people are crying out for a solution to inequality and systemic injustice, and to the extent that I am fighting for those solutions, then I think there will be a powerful constituency for that.”

“I’m proud to be on the side of truth,” he added. “I’m proud to be on the right side of democracy, and I’m proud to be on the right side of free and fair elections.”

Crow applied for-- and got-- an endorsement from the corrupt, Wall Street owned nd operated New Dem PAC. It fits him well, considering his background as an attorney who made a living protecting payday lenders and other vultures who preyed on working families. He was also added to the DCCC's list of shame, the Red to Blue page.

This is a district, represented by Republican Mike Coffman, that should have flipped blue years ago. DCCC interence prevented that. Obama beat McCain in the district 175,487 (54%) to 147,091 (45%) and then beat Romney 182,464 (52%) to 164,398 (47%). In 2016 Trump was rejected by CO-06 voters and Hillary beat him 50.2% to 41.3%. Meanwhile, Democrats in the district were clear in the 2016 caucuses that they wanted a progressive like Tillemann, not a conservative like Crow. In all three counties that make up CO-06 Bernie won, not Hillary.

• Adams- 61.0%, Hillary- 38.3%
• Arapahoe- Bernie- 53.0%, Hillary- 46.3%
• Douglas- Bernie- 49.7%, Hillary- 49.6%

The folks in the district want real change and real reform, not a status quo nothing candidate with a biography like Crow. They're not looking for an establishment character who will have trouble holding the seat-- part of the New Dems, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- who will probably be swept away in the next midterm.