Better To Declare Victory After Victory Has Come

He's young, he's probably gay and probably a murderer and definitely a fascist... but he's young

Reid Wilson isn't exactly who I look to for good electoral news for progressives, but his post at The Hill yesterday, Wins by young progressives start reshaping establishment, was almost suspiciously, if not downright prematurely, optimistic. "The left wing of the Democratic Party may have lost the war over the party's presidential nomination," he wrote, "but its members are quietly winning battles in states and cities across the country. Progressive candidates have knocked off incumbent officeholders in places such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and New Mexico in recent weeks in elections that are marking the end of an older generation of the political establishment. Those elections may be a preview of the rest of the primary season, when long-serving Democrats find themselves the targets of well-organized campaigns to oust them." Hmmmm... key words: "may be."

There were a few legitimate big wins of national import (Marie Newman in Chicagoland and Kara Eastman in Omaha)-- and, yes there were some nice local races too, where progressives won but he seems to be hung up on "young" as a end-all for, perhaps forgetting that the youngest members of Congress when they were elected included not just AOC, but far right extremists like Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Aaron Schock (R-IL) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), as well as shitbag ConservaDems Harold Ford, Jr. (Blue Dog-TN) and Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL). In this argument, I'm afraid, "age" is over-rated.

At least four Pennsylvania Democratic state legislators lost their seats in last week's primary. Two of the winning challengers in the Philadelphia area scored endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). In Pittsburgh, Emily Kinkead, a progressive making her first run for office, ousted state Rep. Adam Ravenstahl (D), the brother of the city's former mayor.

Two other Democratic incumbents trail their rivals by margins narrow enough that they could be reversed as more ballots are counted.

"I consider myself to be a proud progressive," said Amanda Cappelletti, who beat a sitting state senator to claim the Democratic nomination in a Philadelphia-area district. "I wanted to figure out the best way that I could serve and help people, and this would be a good opportunity to use my skills."

She beat Daylin Leach, the Pennsylvania legislature's "liberal lion" and I'll be happy to see if she's half as good a state senator as Leach has been. I hope so. Because his legislative record is pretty amazing.

In New Mexico, insurgent progressive challengers ousted five moderate and conservative Democrats, including state Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen and state Sen. John Arthur Smith, the chairman of the Finance Committee.

...Advances in technology have allowed progressive candidates to make inroads in big cities once dominated by party bosses, said Waleed Shahid, who directs communications for Justice Democrats, a progressive group that backs insurgent challengers.

"The internet is defeating these political machines. Where 20 years ago you would have to have the blessing of local party leaders just to get on the ballot, now you can have a good social media operation and leapfrog the party leadership and establishment networks," Shahid said.

This year, another progressive, marketing consultant Marie Newman ousted Rep. Dan Lipinski in Illinois's Democratic primary in March.

More surprises are likely ahead. After Ocasio-Cortez upset Rep. Joe Crowley (D) in 2018, progressives have made a point to go after Engel and Clarke.

He wrote that José Serrano (D-NY) and Nita Lowey (D-NY) "opted to retire rather than face what would have been almost certain primary challenges," without mentioning that Serrano is one of the most far left members of Congress and may well be followed by either a Republican pretending to be a Democrat or a garden variety middle-of-the-road Democratic hack. There's also a chance a real progressive like Serrano could win, say Tomas Ramos-- but that will be tough. Lowey's time was up and if Mondaire Jones wins a crowded primary, there will be a real improvement... but that will be no cakewalk either.

"In September, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) will face off against Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse (D), who has proved an adept fundraiser," wrote. Fingers crossed. "The primary challenges are coming as a younger, more progressive millennial generation becomes a potent force in politics." I'm certain Wilson doesn't pay attention at all, but progressive stars who lost so far are almost too numerous to mention, from Jessica Cisneros (TX), Rachel Ventura (IL), Kim Williams (CA), Mark Gamba (OR), Jennifer Christie (IN) and Jim Harper (IN) to Mckayla Wilkes (MD), Nabilah Islam (GA), Michael Owens (GA), Robert Emmons (IL) and Tom Winter (MT), all of whom lost to much more conservative candidates. And that doesn't include the dozens of sad cases who thought copying Bernie's platform, finding a couple of like-minded idealists and then playing on social media all day meant you could win a congressional seat.

"Though Ocasio-Cortez has become the symbol of the rising generation of progressive officeholders," wrote Wilson, "the movement is increasingly looking to down-ballot races both as an avenue for making policy changes at the state level and as a way to build a bench for the future. 'You can feel a change in the focus that grassroots progressives have put on some of these local races, really since 2016. I think part of it came from a recognizing, waking up from the Obama years just how much Democrats had lost,' said Neil Sroka, who directs communications for Democracy for America and also won a city council seat himself. 'The Trump moment exposed the ways in which cities and local offices could be a real buttress against a government that was 100 percent in the control of right-wing Republicans. I think that there has been a real awakening.'"

I don't discount this-- and entirely encourage it all I can-- but Congress is where power to stand up to conservatives like Trump and Biden rests, not on the city council. Yesterday, the American Prospect published an essay by Alexander Sammon, Chuck Schumer’s Very Bad Week-- Corporate Democrats for Senate limp to the finish line. I doubt Schumer is crying; he won his races and we won't hear him whining unless his milquetoast establishment picks lose in Colorado and Kentucky. But so far, he's won them all with the worst slate of Democrats I can ever remember up for Senate. Sammon correctly stated that "Early on in this election cycle, things were going great for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. In nearly every contested Democratic Senate primary, Schumer and his caucus’s campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), got the desired result, either clearing the field of competitors to his hand-picked preference before voting even began or winning comfortable victories. Bloodless centrist Cal Cunningham triumphed in North Carolina over progressive State Sen. Erica Smith to take on shaky Republican Sen. Thom Tillis; Smith had been leading in polls before Schumer made his endorsement. Real-estate developer Theresa Greenfield triumphed easily in Iowa; the Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC spent $6.7 million on her behalf in the primary. Schumer selection M.J. Hegar also cruised over multiple progressives in the Senate primary to take on Republican John Cornyn, though she still must finish the job in a run-off in July. Other races in Arizona and New Mexico saw the Schumer-backed candidate chase out all competition. When Schumer stamps a candidate with DSCC approval, he also marshals big money in support of them. In other words, Schumer doesn’t just get what he wants because he’s good at picking moderates with broad appeal. He just picks people who are inoffensive to the DSCC donor base, and then uses their money to stack the deck in their favor. Bob Moser documented this highly dubious and clearly anti-democratic practice, in great detail, in a recent issue of The Prospect." And now for the speculation and hopefulness we share with Sammon:

[S]everal of Schumer’s high-profile picks are starting to falter, rapidly losing ground to underfunded progressive upstarts just ahead of election day.

The most prominent instance comes from Kentucky, where Schumer intervened in the primary early. Back in February 2019, Schumer was already actively stumping for former fighter pilot Amy McGrath to challenge Mitch McConnell, the case for her candidacy predicated almost entirely on a popular TV ad last cycle that propelled her within 3 points of winning a swing House seat in Lexington.

McGrath is exactly the sort of moderate that only a Schumer could love. Her sales pitch so far has been her willingness to work with Trump once in office, which, if you believe in the Joe Biden campaign, or the Democratic Party at all, is an extremely confounding message. Of course, thanks to Schumer’s minting, McGrath was the immediate beneficiary of an incomparable torrent of cash, which initially prevented any meaningful primary challenge. She’s raised over $41 million, and spent $21.8 million to date. But last November, Charles Booker, a first-term progressive state senator from Louisville, announced a late bid for the seat.

Booker, despite having spent barely $500,000, is now ascending, racking up endorsements from national politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as popular eastern Kentucky sports radio host Matt Jones (an important figure in the state who almost ran for the seat himself) and the Louisville Courier-Journal, Kentucky’s highest circulation newspaper. Despite McGrath outspending him an astonishing 40 to 1, the race is somehow closer than ever, with recent polling showing him within a handful of percentage points. That certainly doesn’t bode well for McGrath’s attractiveness as a candidate.

Booker has assumed newfound national prominence with his participation in Louisville’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations, repeatedly taking to the streets to protest the death of Breonna Taylor at the hands of Louisville PD, and Louisville restaurateur David McAtee by the Kentucky National Guard. McGrath, meanwhile, hasn’t turned out to a single protest. She’s instead training the DSCC’s funding firehose on television buys, hoping to extinguish the flames that are lapping up her campaign ahead of this month’s primary.

Meanwhile, another Schumer pick, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, finds himself embroiled in a new corruption scandal. A local news investigation just uncovered millions of dollars in off-the-books donations from corporations and private foundations to Hickenlooper’s office, dating back almost two decades. The startling revelation shows that during his eight years as governor, Hickenlooper expanded the “public-private partnership” program, which took corporate donations and used them to fund departments and positions in his administration with no oversight.

The donations ran in the millions of dollars during his two terms as governor. Among the biggest donors was Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, one of Colorado’s biggest fracking operators. In one instance in 2017, the company donated $25,000 to the governor’s office, just days after a deadly explosion in the state, caused by a leaky underground pipeline owned by the company. Over the course of four years, Anadarko gave Hickenlooper’s office more than $330,000, money that was then used for government activities, but of which there is little accounting.

Hickenlooper, who already bears the handle “Frackenlooper” for his role in expanding fracking as governor, is taking on Andrew Romanoff for the chance to do battle with Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in November, in what is almost certainly the most flippable Senate seat in the country. Hickenlooper, briefly a presidential candidate, was considered a prized recruit when Schumer talked him into running for Senate. (He’d previously said, “I’m not cut out to be a senator.”) But his reputation on environmental issues, along with this new corruption scandal, has imperiled his chances. Romanoff, former speaker of the Colorado State House, won April’s Democratic Assembly vote in dominant fashion, securing top-line designation in the June 30 primary. Schumer and the DSCC knew that Hickenlooper was weak as far back as August, when they began pressuring consultants from at least five firms not to work with Romanoff, according to The Intercept. If Hickenlooper pulls it off, it will only be because of the fundraising advantage bestowed on him by the DSCC.

Want to help? The 2020 non-Schumer Senate candidates thermometer is just above. Click on it and if you see a name you like, chip in a few dollars. And the House candidates still in there, still fighting to make the House Democratic more-- not less-- progressive, which is clearly the intention of Blue Dog Cheri Bustos and the DCCC. On the right is the 2020 Blue America congressional thermometer. Here's where you'll find the candidates like Jamaal Bowman (NY), Keeda Haynes (TN), Shan Chowdhury (NY), Eva Putzova (AZ), Tom Guild (OK), Hector Oseguera (NJ), Robin Wilt (NY) still working to replace establishment hacks and conservatives in primaries-- as well as progressives like Marie Newman (IL), Jon Hoadley (MI), Audrey Denney (CA), Cathy Kunkel (WV), Kara Eastman (NE), Julie Oliver (TX), and Liam O'Mara (CA), who have already won their primaries and are up against right-wing Republican incumbents.