Does Schumer Actually Want To Win Back The Senate? So Why Is He Behaving As If He Wants To Lose?

In the video above Frackenlooper explains over and over again why he shouldn't be running for the Senate. He was sure right when he said "I’m not cut out to be a senator... It’s awful hard to imagine that I could be successful in a Senate campaign or as a senator." If he's elected he'll be a disaster in Congress. No one really wants him there except Chuck Schumer who recognizes another corporate scumbag like himself. And to Frackenlooper it's a consolation prize after bombing in his "presidential" run-- his average approval when he dropped out being 0.3%.

As you may know, Blue America has endorsed Andrew Romanoff, the former Colorado House speaker who has been leading in the polls and who is leading on every single important issue. Those issues, however, are not issues Schumer wants being pushed in the Senate. Yesterday, Romanoff e-mailed his followers and told them that two new stories had just broken about the Colorado Senate race. "One shows some of the nation’s most powerful corporate interests are bankrolling not only Cory Gardner’s campaign but also the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee." Don't be surprised. That's who Schumer has always been-- and will always be. (I knew him back in high school. That's the kind of piece of crap he was then too.)


Yesterday RL Miller, founder of Climate Hawks Vote, wrote something smilier to what most people are saying about this race: "The DSCC shouldn’t be putting its thumb on the scale. The Democratic primary voters of Colorado are the ones who ought to decide who represents them-- not DC insiders thousands of miles away." Her organization is not what you would call a big Frackenlooper support group. "His record is abysmal. He mothballed clean energy programs, actively promoted oil and gas interests with outright fabrications and lies (promoting regulatory capture and dysfunction in COGCC, CDPHE, Dept Natl Resources, Air Quality Commission), ignored climate realities, and moved our state backwards in terms of conservation of water, protection of air, water, soil, health and climate stability. His support for fracking is indicative of his lack of understanding (hopefully) or just lack of regard for the issues concerning climate change that are [affecting] us as we speak. Hickenlooper … has worked tirelessly to serve powerful special/ industrial interests at the cost of the constituency he purports to serve. John Hickenlooper fights against progressive values everyday. He has no interest in fixing the many problems we have, but only in maintaining the status quo. [Hickenlooper] sold us out to the oil and gas industry for fracking. He is in bed with big oil and gas. I want to see him gone from Colorado politics. He pretends that he brought Colorado into clean energy but the opposite is true. We can’t trust him to support the planet or the people of Colorado. That he drank the fracking fluid says it all. Climate Hawks Vote is not endorsing just yet, but better alternatives to pro-fracking John Hickenlooper exist. Although the field is fractured, Andrew Romanoff is beginning to emerge as the climate hawk alternative to Hickenlooper. We will be following this primary closely and look forward to engaging this fall as we continue our formal endorsement process."

A plurality of people polled want Romanoff and they really DON'T want Frackenlooper

"The second story," wrote Romanoff, "shows the DSCC has spent the past six months blackballing our campaign-- threatening to punish any firm that does business with us. Why? Because I’m fighting for a Green New Deal and Medicare for All-- priorities that don’t sit well with the party bosses and powerbrokers in DC."

Yesterday Aída Chávez and Akela Lacy were calling out Schumer's slimy DSCC in The Intercept. Even before Frackenlooper was driven out of his absurd presidential run Schumer was already pressuring consultants and vendors not to work for him on pressure of being blackballed by the DSCC.

“They’ve made it clear to a number of the firms and individuals we tried to hire that they wouldn’t get any business in Washington or with the DSCC if they worked with me,” Romanoff said. “It’s been a well-orchestrated operation to blackball ragtag grassroots teams.”

At least five firms and 25 prospective staff turned down working with his campaign, said Romanoff, who has raised more than $1 million in individual contributions so far. “I spoke to the firms, my campaign manager spoke to the staff prospects,” he said. “Pretty much everyone who checked in with the DSCC got the same warning: Helping us would cost them.”

A consultant who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity said that their firm had been far along in talks to work for Romanoff when they got word that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the DSCC weren’t happy. The firm was told by a top DSCC staffer that they “absolutely under no circumstances could work for Andrew Romanoff, so we withdrew our offer to be his consulting firm.”

The DSCC is using an “unquestionably far more heavy-handed approach this year than they have in previous cycles,” the consultant said.

Earlier this year, the DSCC’s companion organization in the House, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, made it official policy to cut off funding and vendors to Democrats who challenged incumbent Democrats. Putting the policy in writing ratcheted up what had been more of an informal understanding in prior cycles. But if the DSCC’s intervention in Colorado is any indication, the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm is taking the blacklist one step further, by discouraging consultants from working not only for challengers to incumbent Democrats, but also for progressives running against the establishment’s preferred candidate in a seat currently held by the GOP. In Romanoff’s case, the DSCC did so before it had been clear whether Washington’s choice, Hickenlooper, even planned to run.

It’s still early in the cycle, and while some candidates are getting their Senate campaigns off the ground, others are still deciding whether to jump in. Individuals connected to a handful of campaigns across the country said they’ve heard about interventions by national Democrats, either in the form of the DSCC pressuring consultants not to work with progressive candidates, or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling people not to run for office in the first place.

“First they came for the House candidates; now they’re gonna come for the Senate candidates,” said Heather Brewer, who is managing the Senate campaign of New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a progressive who was snubbed by the DSCC, which made an early endorsement of Ben Ray Luján, a member of House Democratic leadership. “It’s not rocket science to see where this is heading.”

“They’re threatening people’s livelihoods, if people dare break with what the insiders in Washington want,” Brewer added. “It’s extortion.”

Schumer’s office directed questions to the DSCC, which is officially run by Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, but known to be controlled by Schumer, whose piloting of the committee in 2006 and 2008 reclaimed the Senate for Democrats and then gave them a brief filibuster-proof majority. “We do not have a policy of preventing firms from working with candidates,” a DSCC spokesperson told The Intercept in an email. “In our role as a campaign committee focused on winning Senate seats, we have ongoing conversations with strategists and advisers about battleground races.”

...In a Hill TV interview (below) with Krystal Ball, presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed progressives’ frustration. “I think you let it play out,” he said of the DSCC’s endorsement of Hickenlooper. “This is obviously a major debate within the Democratic Party. Those who think that so-called centrist candidates backed by folks who have a lot of money may be able to win over some moderate Republicans-- that is the future. I disagree. The future of the Democratic Party is to greatly expand the base, increase voter turnout, especially with young people, speak to the needs of working people. I believe there are some people who voted for Trump who, in fact, if given the option of a progressive agenda, will vote with us.”





North Carolina state Sen. Erica Smith, who’s leading the latest polls in her bid against Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, said she has reason to believe that the DSCC is doing similar things in her race. The committee told her that it isn’t yet endorsing in that race, and that it’s not helping any candidates fundraise-- but there are whispers that the DSCC might support her potential primary opponent Cal Cunningham, whom it has backed in the past.

“It seems clear to me that there is a question of integrity or lack thereof,” Smith said. “This brings to question who’s telling the truth. And there’s an appearance to me that Senator Schumer is trying to purchase-- trying to buy a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina. That is not going to go well for the constituents that I serve. And I am very much opposed to that. New York and North Carolina are extremely different.”

Smith’s campaign manager Jonathan Lucas said he had been directly pressured by people he described as veteran, well-connected establishment Democratic operatives in North Carolina not to work with Smith, and that he’s faced similar pressure in years past while working on other races in the state. Given the makeup of Cunningham’s donor base, Lucas believes that pressure originated from the DSCC and Schumer, because a significant portion of Cunningham’s donors have links to the Senate minority leader.

“I had a number of influential ‘establishment’ Democrats tell me it was a mistake to work for her, she will never be the nominee, etc.,” Lucas said in a statement, referring to Smith. “Well, I have never been an establishment consultant. I met her and I am not only convinced she will win, but that she is exactly the type of candidate that we need right now. One that Schumer and the establishment fear because her vote is not for sale.”

No matter what else, you can always count on Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to pick the corrupt corporate conservative in any primary anywhere. If he's behind Cunningham, it simply means Smith is the better candidate. In Iowa, he's pushing Theresa Greenfield, which automatically means Mike Franken is a better candidate. Franken is an admired 3-star admiral, who requested retirement in late 2017, and is more progressive on the issues, across the board, than Greenfield, who, you probably remember, was caught cheating and lying-- Schumer's kind of candidate-- last time she ran and could never beat Joni Ernst. We're just getting to know Mike now but you can contribute to Andrew Romanoff's campaign and Maggie Toulouse Oliver's campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 Senate thermometer on the right. I have a feeling, Mike Franken will be on that page pretty soon as well.