Is The Democratic Party More Than Just A Vehicle For Careerist Politicians? AOC Endorses Marie Newman Against Lipinski

On Monday I asked my Twitter followers if it is enough for a candidate to just be a Democrat fighting a Republican. A slight plurality said no. Only 16% said "yes, for sure," and another 25% said they would vote for the garden variety Democrat but not contribute to their campaign. Comments including statement that there is no love for conservative Democrats who vote like Republicans, very much what I hope DWT readers will agree with. Last year, just before the Illinois congressional primary, NY Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns wrote that as the primary season was revving up, some Democrats were grappling with the question of what it means to be a Democrat. They began by looking at the tight primary between reactionary Blue Dog incumbent Dan Lipinski and progressive challenger Marie Newman, "When," they reported, "Representative Daniel Lipinski, a conservative-leaning Democrat and scion of Chicago’s political machine, agreed to one joint appearance last month with his liberal primary challenger, the divide in the Democratic Party was evident in the audience that showed up. Mr. Lipinski’s outnumbered supporters were the diminished lunch-pail Democrats that once dominated his Southside district. Those of his rival, Marie Newman, came from the party’s ascendant coalition-- young progressives and women like Elizabeth Layden, a Patagonia-clad teacher who explained her opposition to Mr. Lipinski in blunt terms.

“Because he’s a dinosaur, ’cause he’s a phony, ’cause he’s a Republican who claims to be a Democrat,” said Ms. Layden, 49, who has been making phone calls and knocking on doors to help unseat Mr. Lipinski, a seven-term House member, in the primary race this month. “Hello, women’s rights, and hello, my reproductive rights. Get out of my uterus.”

...[T]he backlash to President Trump’s divisive politics has also fueled a demand by the party’s progressive wing for ideological purity and more diverse representation, a tension that could reshape what it means to be a Democrat.

“This is part of the reason Donald Trump won,” Mr. Lipinski said in an interview, adding, “Democrats have chased people out of the party.”

Martin and Burns walked write into that with their establishment mindset that refers to "ideological purity" when talking about a Blue Dog who is vehemently anti-Choice-- not a little anti-Choice, but all the way, crazy insane, viciously, violently anti-Choice-- anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, anti-healthcare. Dumping Lipinski isn't about ideological purity; it's about defeating a right-wing ideologue who consistently opposes core Democratic Party beliefs and values. Lipinski is very much the enemy, even if he still has a "D" next to his name. (On the ProgressivePunch website, he has an "F" next to his name.)

Lipinski was bequeathed his heavily Polish and Irish district in Chicago around Midway Airport and the South Side by his father, William Lipinski, a former ward boss and representative. The two Lipinskis have held the so-called Bungalow Belt seat for 35 unbroken years.

...Yet there are still elements of the fish-fry-Friday voters, the Catholic demographic that political veterans here still call “white ethnics.”

Wearing a Notre Dame hat and standing apart from the attendees at the candidate forum was Jack Nevin, an Illinois Department of Transportation employee who as a child attended the same parish as the Lipinski family and now lives in suburban Lemont.

“I’m a pro-life guy, born and raised Catholic,” said Mr. Nevin, by way of explaining why he was backing the incumbent. “Win or lose, he’s standing up for his beliefs.”

Ms. Newman used the forum to lash Mr. Lipinski for being out of step with the district, a drumbeat that prompted him to claim she was fomenting “a tea party of the left” that was pushing liberal “fantasies.”

But it is Mr. Lipinski who is testing just how much today’s voters in the Democratic primary contest are willing to accept in a safe seat. In addition to his deviation from orthodoxy on abortion and gay rights, he also opposed the Affordable Care Act and until recently did not support a $15 minimum wage or offering legal status to children brought to the country illegally.

“I am running with the district. I’m not voting against the district,” Ms. Newman said.

Her energetic campaign has drawn the support of a host of Washington-based progressive groups, some of which are funding attack ads and mailers against Mr. Lipinski. And she has lured Representatives Luis V. Gutiérrez and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois to oppose their colleague, a rebuke that has angered some moderate Democrats.

Representative Kurt Schrader of Oregon, who leads the political arm of the centrist Blue Dog caucus, has complained to the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee about the intervention of Ms. Schakowsky and said he would seek a rule change so that members like her who have formal positions on the committee cannot oppose incumbents. “That’s just wrong, and we’re going to change that,” he said.

The Oregon scumbag, Schrader, who now has a strong primary opponent of his own in Milwaukie mayor Mark Gamba, started the move to protect endangered right-wing incumbents that turned into the Cheri Bustos rule that has torn the DCCC apart. Bustos, another reprehensible Blue Dog at the time-- she's switched to being a just as putrid New Dei now-- decreed after taking over the DCCC that any consultant or vendor who works for a challenger to any Democratic incumbent would be blacklisted by the DCCC. (Her entire team has since been fired for racism and homophobia and the DCCC barely exists any longer other than as a contribution vacuum and as Bustos' private political machine. When dozens of caucus members demanded she be fired, she only escaped with her job by agreeing to seek psychiatric help to deal with her own racism, which the DCCC called "insensitivity."

"But," continued Martin and Burns, "the Washington contretemps are just a stand-in for a much weightier debate about the future of the party. Mr. Lipinski, who makes no apology for opposing the health law, has embraced donations from anti-abortion Republicans helping fund a super PAC in his favor and says it is Ms. Newman’s ardent support for abortion rights that is 'extreme' for the district. Ms. Newman is careful to focus on economic issues and inveigh against 'the Lipinski dynasty.' But what animates her campaign are matters of identity that are galvanizing Democrats in the Trump era well beyond Chicago... 'We need to have more diversity across people of color, gender and types of folks,' Ms. Newman said. 'We can’t have all millionaires, billionaires, businesspeople and doctors in Congress.'"

Yesterday, a year on, The Times didn't have the anti-progressive, pro-establishment Martin and Burns update the story but turned to reporter Carie Edmondson instead. The headline was very different too: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez To Back First 2020 Challenger To Sitting Democrat. The story ran early in the morning and before noon AOC had endorsed Marie Newman. "We live in times that demand courageous action," wrote AOC to her supporters, "and those times demand a Democratic Party that is willing to deliver the change that working Americans deserve. But to achieve those ends, we need the Congressmembers who represent deep blue districts to be pushing us towards progressive change, not advancing a Republican agenda... 14-year incumbent Dan Lipinski has enacted a corporate-funded vision of our party, one that has harmed our communities and discouraged working people from participating in politics. While sitting in a D+6 seat in a time of crisis for working families, Lipinski has opposed Medicare for All, and accepted thousands of dollars from lobbyists, large corporations, and the fossil fuel industry. That’s why I’m excited to endorse Marie Newman’s campaign for Congress, and help Chicagoland elect the progressive champion it deserves. Like me, Marie believes that health care is a human right and that families belong together. Together, we will pass a Green New Deal that repairs our infrastructure, revitalizes our workforce, and retrains our workers for a just transition to a post-carbon economy... Where Marie is a proud supporter of universal access to abortion and birth control, Dan Lipinski has a troubling record of curtailing women’s fundamental human rights, and has worked to defund hundreds of women’s medical clinics, all while raking in donations from anti-women’s rights fundraisers. Where Marie has stood with immigrant communities for years, Lipinski refused to vote for the DREAM Act until after her 2018 primary challenge. With the coming threat of climate change, we simply cannot allow for fossil-fuel-funded politicians and their corporate donors to dictate the future our children and their grandchildren will inherit-- especially in a deep blue Democratic district that Hillary Clinton won by 15 points in 2016. Marie Newman is the only candidate in the race refusing corporate PAC money, and the only one we can trust to put working people over profit. While Marie is the clear progressive choice, her race will be anything but easy. Dan Lipinski has a war chest of corporate money, given to him by wealthy donors who want to keep things just the way they are. His status as a 14-year incumbent gives him all types of advantages, like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s decision to blacklist anyone who works for Marie’s campaign... But we know that when big organizing goes up against big money, it’s the people who come out on top in the end. When we knock doors, make phone calls, and talk to our neighbors, we can elect representatives who really represent us, and we can build the world we want to live in. The future of the Democratic Party is in our hands. It starts by electing Marie Newman." She signed her letter "Pa'lante, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."

Edmondson wrote that AOC's "high-profile support amounts to a powerful seal of approval, telegraphed to her legions of ardent liberal fans, on behalf of Ms. Newman, and a reflection of the zeal of the party’s progressive left to leverage its nascent power to continue targeting sitting Democrats... 'Marie Newman is a textbook example of one of the ways that we could be better as a party-- to come from a deep blue seat and to be championing all the issues we need to be championing,' Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview. Of Mr. Lipinski, she said: 'The fact that a deep blue seat is advocating for many parts of the Republican agenda is extremely problematic. We’re not talking about a swing state that is being forced to take tough votes.' [Lipinski] has repeatedly expressed his concerns that it is 'detrimental' for the party to push out conservative lawmakers."

“This campaign is about putting someone in place that is in alignment directly with the district on issues like affordability for the middle class and working families, the Green New Deal,” Ms. Newman said in an interview on Monday, adding that she and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez “share some very similar values.”

But the move also reflects a careful political calculus by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Bronx Democrat. She came to Congress vowing to take down any Democrat she considered insufficiently progressive, but has, until now, refrained from taking on any of her fellow incumbents directly. In challenging Mr. Lipinski, she is targeting an incumbent Democrat, but one who has broken sharply with party orthodoxy, and has already lost the support of some of his other Democratic colleagues.

The House Democrats’ campaign arm in April formally broke committee business ties with political consultants and pollsters who sign on to work for primary challengers, infuriating progressive Democrats. The blacklist, Ms. Newman said, “was a very expensive issue for a while on my campaign.”

Progressive groups and lawmakers, however, have still flocked to support Ms. Newman. Representative Ro Khanna of California, and two Illinois lawmakers, Representative Jan Schakowsky and then-Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez, broke with party leadership in 2018 to endorse Ms. Newman, and Mr. Khanna renewed his endorsement this year. Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois, the chairwoman of House Democrats’ campaign arm, canceled a fund-raiser in support of Mr. Lipinski in May after facing a backlash from the left.

Ms. Newman has also won the support of two candidates in the Democratic presidential primary, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Ms. Warren last week announced twin endorsements of Justice Democrats candidates, backing both Ms. Newman and Jessica Cisneros, who is challenging Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas.

Ms. Cisneros, who was recruited to run against Mr. Cuellar by Justice Democrats and is described by some as the next Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, has yet to win the endorsement of any sitting House Democrat.

“We are so proud that Marie Newman is the first Justice Democrat of this cycle to receive an endorsement from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” said Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of Justice Democrats. “The momentum is growing in our movement to make the Democratic Party fight for solutions as big as the problems we face and create a party that fights for its voters, not corporate donors.”

Until this week, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez had largely focused on helping incumbent freshmen lawmakers, like Representative Joe Neguse of Colorado, a well-liked freshman and member of Democratic leadership whom she will support at a fund-raiser in Boulder this week. In April, she rallied around some of her colleagues who flipped districts President Trump won in 2016, encouraging her Twitter followers to donate to their campaigns.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said that she would continue to assess whether she would weigh in on other primary challenges, but that she had no interest in intervening in competitive races that could tip the balance of power in the House.

“If we’re going to make these changes, they need to come from safe blue seats,” she said.

As of today, Blue America has endorsed 10 progressive candidates taking on reactionary Blue Dogs and New Dems. You can contribute to any or all of their campaigns by clicking on the thermometer above, the same thermometer that helped raise campaign contributions for AOC and Rashida Tlaib in 2018. So far this cycle, there are the candidates we're trying to help-- and their opponents:

• AZ-01- Eva Putzova v Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog)
• CA-16- Kim Williams v Jim Costa (Blue Dog)
• GA-13- Michael Owens v David Scott (Blue Dog)
• IL-03- Marie Newman v Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog)
• IL-11- Rachel Ventura v Bill Foster (New Dem)
• MA-08- Brianna Wu v Stephen Lynch (New Dem)
• NY-05- Shaniyat Chowdhury v Gregory Meeks (New Dem)
• NY-16- Jamaal Bowman v Eliot Engel (New Dem)
• OR-05- Mark Gamba v Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog)
• TX-28- Jessica Cisneros v Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog)