Frackenlooper— This Cycle’s Eternal GOP Cat’s Paw Inside the Democratic Party

Frackenlooper seems to have acquired the template for the anti-“socialism” raving the right was using before FDR pulverized the Republican Party and the conservative Democrats’ so-called American Liberty League. Back in 1936, American voters responded to the conservatives’ dire rantings about “Socialism!!!” by reelecting Roosevelt 27,747,636 (60.8%) to 16,679,543 (36.5%). He won every state but Maine and Vermont— 523 electoral votes to 8. In Mississippi, FDR took 97.06% of the vote and did even better in South Carolina (98.57%). When the dust cleared over Congress, there were 334 Democrats in the House and just 88 Republicans. There were also 13 actual socialists. In the Senate, it must have seemed like the end of the world for the Republicans. Confident that their anti-socialism campaign was finally going to bear fruit, they stepped up the shrill nonsense, lost 5 more seats to the Democrats and ended up with just 17 senators to the Democrats’ 74. (There was also 3 socialists.)

None of that has ever stopped the conservatives and Frackenlooper was out to prove the futility of it again yesterday. Going into the debate last night, Colorado’s detested ex-governor was polling miserably. According to the RealClearPolitics averages, he was backed by 0.3% of national Democratic primary voters, fewer Tulsi (0.8%), Tim Ryan (0.6%), Kirsten Gillibrand (0.5%), Michael Bennet (0.4%), John Delaney (0.4%) or de Blasio (0.4%). The only candidate doing worse than Frackenlooper was Seth Moulton (0.1%). His numbers are too low in Iowa to show up in the averages. Same in Nevada and South Carolina.

But there he was, crazy, dejected. rejected ole Frackenlooper, on Wednesday evening, strutting around the spin room at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami, pretending to be a real candidate, yammering to any reporter who had nothing better to do than pay attention to a desperate madman, that the Democrats will lose if they embrace “Socialism!!!!” A beer brewer by trade, Frackenlooper insists that “The word socialism by itself has a lot of baggage in this country and especially in swing states ... it’s not a winning solution and I continue to say you don’t need massive government expansion to change this country.” Frackenlooper gets his chance to address the whole country tonight— along with Bernie and the other real candidates— from the debate stage, although no one quite understands how exactly he qualifies. There are two other candidates who seem unable to grasp what “democratic socialism” is and who themselves revel in corporate socialism and are staking their chance to break through to 1% by attacking it: John Delaney— who pumped $17 million of his own money into his long and failed campaign— and the other candidate from Colorado, Michael Bennet. Together, though, the 3 anti-“socialism!!!” candidates are polling about 1%.