Why Cry Over A Blue Dog Loser?

It would have made more sense for Matheson and McAdams to run as Republicans

[Note: This post is for progressives, not for garden variety Democrats or corporatists.] There’s one district in Utah-- the 4th-- that looks winnable for a Democrat. The last Democrat from the district, Jim Matheson, was an ultra-reactionary Blue Dog who made a career out of voting with the Republicans on crucial matters. In 2013, after he announced his retirement, I wrote a “good riddance” post that noted that Matheson was one of the worst-- if not the worst-- Democrats in Congress. He was the Kyrsten Sinema of his day. Aside from voting more frequently with the GOP than any other Democrat in 2012-- his crucial vote ProgressivePunch score was a ghastly 23.13 (tied with fellow Blue Dog John Barrow and worse than 5 conservative Republicans!)-- Matheson was a corrupt insider who traded his votes away to the corporations that financed his sleazy career. The only reason he was able to hang on is because enough slow-witted Utahans thought he was his father, popular and well-respected Utah Governor (1977-'85) Scott Matheson. In 2012 Mia Love came within 768 votes of beating him. The final score was 119,803- 119,035. He didn’t want to face her again so the 53 year old career politician announced he would be retiring at the end of the term. Love had held the seat since 2015 when she beat hapless Blue Dog Doug Owens who tried to replicate Matheson but without the Matheson name.

When looking at who to run there, the DCCC immediately decided only a Blue Dog could win. You know… because… Matheson. But if Democrats in Utah wanted to vote for a conservative, they’d vote for a Republican. Democrats in Utah don’t like being stuck with Blue Dog candidates. In the 2016 presidential caucuses Bernie swept the state. He took 61,333 votes (79.3%) to Hillary's 15,666 (20.3%). Look at those numbers again; there is a message there. In Salt Lake County, he didn’t just beat Hillary, he also beat Trump-- by a lot.

• Bernie- 35,610
• Trumpanzee- 6,542

Only the DCCC could imagine that people who picked Bernie over Hillary and Trump-- he had more than twice as many votes as both of them together-- would want some reactionary Blue Dog. But… that’s the DCCC. By the way, they tried the same thing in Maine’s second district, hoping to persuade primary front-runner Jared Golden to join the Blue Dogs. A progressive fire-brand, he laughed and threw his lot in with the Congressional Progressive Caucus instead. The DCCC backed away from the ME-02 primary and Golden won it anyway and went on to win the general election too with minimal help from them. (The DCCC and House Majority PAC spent around $2 million in Maine, while the NRCC and Ryan’s shady SuperPAC spent over double that smearing Golden.)

In Utah they didn’t have to try to persuade Ben McAdams to become a Blue Dog. He is a Blue Dog and ran his campaign as one, with the backing of the DC Blue Dogs. So now McAdams is in Washington with the freshmen class, taking pictures and signing onto the right-wing anti-Pelosi letter, pretending to have been elected… while Mia Love’s vote total creeps high and higher and has now overcome his own. He may win; she may win. It doesn’t matter. The Democrats have the majority-- by a lot-- and they don’t need Ben McAdams. In fact… if he wins you can count on him to be relentlessly pushing the caucus further right on every issue, working to water down progressive legislation and always voting with the GOP. Want to pass Medicare-For-All? $15 minimum wage? Free state college? Mia Love won’t vote for any of that-- and neither will Ben McAdams, but he can do the efforts a lot more harm than she could. I am happy to see him losing.