Saturday, October 24, 2020

Any Blue Will Do? Screw That!

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Thursday night during the debate Biden accidentally answered "yes" when asked if he favored closing down the oil industry. He had had a senior moment and he didn't mean that, explaining to journalists a short time later that "We’re not going to get rid of fossil fuels. We’re going to get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels." A step in the right direction. But two worthless, reactionary Blue Dogs-- Kendra Horn (OK) and Xochitl Torres Small (NM) immediately distanced themselves from his statement. [Note: the DCCC has already spent over $10,000,000 on these two worthless corporate shills, money that could have gone to electing actual Democrats.]


Blue Dogs and New Dems-- the pro-corporate Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- have shredded the Democratic Party's brand starting... when? When Bill Clinton embraced Wall Street in 1992? When Jimmy Carter was sworn in in 1977 or when JFK became president in 1961? When the conservatives in the party establishment forced FDR to remove Vice President Henry Wallace from the ticket in 1944?


Leaving the Senate aside, let's start with House incumbents. Over 100 of them have "F" grades from ProgressivePunch. 17 have voted more frequently with the GOP against progressive roll calls than with the Democrats! From terrible to worse:
Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- 48.00% with the Democrats
Conor Lamb (PA)- 47.33% with the Democrats
Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- 44.44% with the Democrats
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- 44.27% with the Democrats
Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)- 43.21% with the Dems
Abby Finkenauer (IA)- 41.98% with the Dems
Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- 41.25% with the Dems
Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)- 40.74% with the Dems
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 40.02% with the Dems
Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 39.11% with the Dems
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 39.08% with the Dems
Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)- 34.57% with the Dems
Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- 28.40% with the Dems
Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)- 28.40% with the Dems
Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- 27.16% with the Dems
Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 24.69% with the Dems
Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 23.46% with the Dems
And in case anyone forgot the 2018 DCCC star recruit from New Jersey, Blue Dog shit-eater Jefferson Van Drew, he flipped to the GOP in the middle of the year and has a record of having voted 17.50% of the time with the Democrats.

Post-primary season, the Blue Dogs have 8 anti-worker/pro-corporate candidates they have endorsed. Under no circumstances should you support any of them, not with volunteer hours, not with campaign contributions, not even with votes:
Eugene DePasquale (PA-10)
Gretchen Driskell (MI-07)
Margaret Good (FL-16)
Jackie Gordon (NY-02)
Christina Hale (IN-05)
Josh Hicks (KY-06)
Brynne Kennedy (CA-04)
Sri Kulkarni (TX-22)
And the New Dems have 31 putrid candidates they are backing, each and every one of them having passed the test to prove they will make America worse. This is the list of the 31 candidates to be avoided-- unless you support the idea of corrupt, corporate governance:
Alyse Galvin (I-AK)
Hiral Tipirneni (AZ-06)
Christy Smith (CA-25)
Qualcomm heiress Sara Jacobs (CA-53)-- opposing progressive Democrat Georgette Gomez
Margaret Good (FL-16)
Carolyn Bourdeaux (GA-07)
Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (IL-13)
Christina Hale (IN-05)
Hillary Scholten (MI-03)
Dan Feehan (MN-01)
Jill Schupp (MO-02)
Deborah Ross (NC-02)
Kathy Manning (NC-06)
Pat Timmons Goodson (NC-08)
Amy Kennedy (NJ-02)
Nancy Goroff (NY-01)
Jackie Gordon (NY-02)
Kate Schroder (OH-01)
Eugene DePasquale (PA-10)
Wendy Davis (TX-21)
Sri Kulkarni (TX-22)
Gina Ortiz Jones (TX-23)
Cameron Webb (VA-05)
Carolyn Long (WA-03)
Marilyn Strickland (WA-10)- opposing progressive Beth Doglio

(the New Dem "watch list")

Ammar Campa-Najjar (CA-50)
Kathleen Williams (MT)
Desiree Tims (OH-10)
Hillary O'Connor Mueri (OH-14)
Christina Finello (PA-01)
Sima Ladjevardian (TX-02)
I know half a dozen of these people personally. They all seem... nice. They just have strange idea about what a Democrat is. I've watched Congress long enough to know for sure that I wouldn't vote to put a single one of them in office. That's how toxic it is to be a member of the Blue Dogs or New Dems.


In the next 10 days the DCCC and Pelosi's SuperPAC will spend millions of dollars helping to elect these conservative candidates-- and not much helping progressives. (The ones in blue are the progressives.) These are the candidates that these groups had spent the most (over a million) on before this weekend:
Rep Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)- $7,866,938
Christy Smith- $7,728,919 Includes the spending in the special election she lost)
Rep Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)- $7,621,687
Rita Hart (IA-02)- $5,896,987
Sri Kulkarni- $5,749,664
Rep TJ Cox (New Dem-CA)- $5,320,109
Carolyn Bourdeaux- $5,126,518
Rep Xochitl Torres Small- $4,988,768
Rep Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem-FL)- $4,978,578
Amy Kennedy- $4,830,590
Candace Valenzuela- $4,533,197
Rep Anthony Brindisi- $4,396,328
Kate Schroder (OH-01)- $4,371,004
Rep Kendra Horn- $4,165,196
Rep Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- $4,155,685
Dana Balter (NY-24)- $4,131,598
Rep Ben McAdams- $4,068,280
Rep Andy Kim (NJ)- $3,973,965
Jackie Gordon- $3,649,928
Kara Eastman (NE)- $3,510,587
Betsy Dirksen Londrigan- $3,500,820
Gina Ortiz Jones- $3,464,091
Dan Feehan- $3,437,352
Jill Schupp- $3,434,612
Rep Joe Cunningham- $3,354695
Hiral Tipirneni- $3,383,888
Eugene DePasquale- $3,188,406
wealthy socialite Rep Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)- $3,056,114
Rep Abby Finkenauer- $3,003,170
Rep Abigail Spanberger- $2,876,863
Kristina Hale- $2,839,768
Wendy Davis- $2,818,222
Kathleen Williams- $2,729,430
Rep Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)- $2,310,273
Rep Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)- $2,227,113
rich lottery winner Rep Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- $2,192,622
Hillary Scholten- $1,985,694
Rep Cindy Axne- $1,911,390
Christina Finello (PA-01)- $1,686,457
Nancy Goroff- $1,641,713
Rep Tom Malinowski (New Dem-NJ)- $1,563,736
Diane Mitsch Bush- $1,525,481
Rep Elaine Luria- $1,336,672
Rep Pete DeFazio (OR)- $1,287,300
Joyce Elliott (AR-02)- $1,173,133
Cameron Webb- $1,073,021
Rep Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI)- $1,054,635
So many millions of dollars wasted on worthless incumbents who no one likes! And spending on progressives who really need the money-- next to nothing other than for Kara Eastman, Joyce Elliott and Dana Balter. What about Jon Hoadley, Mike Siegel, Julie Oliver, Audrey Denney, Nate McMurray, Adam Christensen, Liam O'Mara to name a few. "Too progressive for the district" is what the DCCC always says (off the record).

Goal ThermometerI spoke to Liam O'Mara, a professor of the history of ideas, who is also a candidate running in Riverside County's CA-42-- with no recognition from the DCCC whatsoever. "The idea that I am 'too progressive for the district' is rubbish," he told me yesterday. "The most progressive prior candidate out here also happens to have done the best against Calvert. We currently have the best early return rate of any Democrat in recent memory, and that follows a primary cycle that saw more votes to the Dems than any previous primary in ages. Right now FiveThirtyEight gives my campaign a better chance of flipping the district than they've seen yet, and a higher chance of flipping the seat than quite a few candidates in the long lists above. Progressive-populist leaders used to dominate in the most socially conservative corners of the country, because more people vote their wallets and their hopes than anything else. To say that we are out of touch with the needs and wishes of the electorate is to surrender preëmptively to Republican control and Republican arguments... when what we ought to be doing is standing out there and winning over hearts and minds. The Democratic party needs to stop focussing on safely blue seats and start trying to win people over... and we can't do that with tepid, half-baked conservatism."

Let me make a suggestion: click on the 2020 ActBlue congressional thermometer above and show Liam O'Mara some love. Unlike most of the DCCC candidates, he would actually make Congress a better and more productive place.


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6 Comments:

At 6:21 AM, Anonymous ap215 said...

I’ll support the AOC Progressive Blue’s side over Bill Clinton’s corrupt Neoliberalism Blue for me those clowns can go to hell.

 
At 6:31 AM, Blogger PDiddie said...

Maybe it was an oversight, or maybe there's something about her you find redeemable, but my Congresscritter, Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07) needs to be on one of these lists.

I find her to be an oil-drenched POS. YMMV. She's also a healthcare "access" kinda person.

I didn't vote for her in 2018 and I'm not voting for her in 2020.

 
At 7:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

the article asked and answered its own question: "They just have strange idea about what a Democrat is."

The simple answer is: look at what they do.

Then, the answer is that the democrap party is what the DCCC does (or the DSCC or the DNC or pelo$i's PACs... or biden. pick one if you don't have the energy to do them all. They're all the same party). The democrap party *is* who they buy.

You can cherry-pick if you want to delude yourself. At least you are applying principles in a single instance. But even doing that is perpetuating the party that perpetuates all the worthless individuals.

if you vote for a single democrap, that is the party you are voting for.

 
At 8:17 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The top graphic is ALL WRONG.

There is no saving the Party from itself. There is no time for that before climate change begins doing its impression of COVID and killing mass quantities of humanity.

What is needed is to REPLACE the Democraptic Party. I point to no single alternative. It can be the Greens, or Peace & Freedom, The People's Party - I'd even accept the Libertarians IF -IF- they grew up and accepted reality (which neither the Democrapts nor the Whigs ever did), if they left Greed in the refuse heap where it belongs, and if they recognized that one MUST include social issues on their platform when it's necessary for the greater good.

So far, no alternate party is ready to take on this task. But when the GOP first showed up in late 1853 and early 1854, were they ready?

The real criterion is CAN they get ready? The GOP by 1860 had to address the massive problem of a fractured and hostile nation (sound familiar?) while keeping the vultures of foreign powers from seeking opportunities. In a broad sense (particulars certainly differ), the replacement party must be seen as being able to take on this role.

I don't think there is room inside the Democraptic Party for a TEA Party-style conglomeration. But if one shows up, and it generates beneficial effects, I MIGHT reassess my position.

Based on the history of the Democraptic Party across my lifetime, I expect to be able to step across from Earth to the docked Moon before that happens.

 
At 2:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

nodding in agreement with the above.

you know when a disaster (natural or man-made) is always capitalized on by the capital to make the rich richer (See: Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine")?

same way that a political cluster fuck is capitalized on by the democraps getting MORE corrupt, neoliberal and fascist. There is another illustrative article now above this one.

and name one election cycle since 1980 that was NOT a political cluster fuck in this shithole.

 
At 8:09 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

ironic since we are only days away from DWT's "choke it down and vote (blue)" exhortation.

we all know it.

 

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