Corrupt Corporatists Steve Israel And Debbie Wasserman Schultz Declare Fratricidal War Against Progressives

Steve Israel, de facto head of the DCCC (and the most outspoken member of their recruitment committee) and with a new title Pelosi invented for him, Chair, Policy and Communications, is making noise again. His war against progressives is multi-faceted and never-ending. Although Pelosi, when giving him his new job, said that he "has consistently proved the depth of his wisdom and the strength of his strategic vision in making our case to the American people," she overlooked the fact that under his catastrophic chairmanship, the DCCC-- largely because of him and only him-- managed to lose a net of 8 seats in a year when Obama won the country and a much smarter DSCC chairman just about swept the field and won tough races in Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Israel's incompetence and/or lame strategy cost the Democrats CA-10 (Denham), CA-21 (Valadao), CA-25 (McKeon), CO-06 (Coffman), FL-10 (Webster), IL-13 (Davis), MI-01 (Benishek), MI-06 (Upton), MI-11 (Bentivolio), MN-02 (Kline), MN-06 (Bachmann), NV-03 (Heck), NJ02 (LoBiondo), NJ-03 (Runyan), NJ-05 (Garrett), NY-11 (Grimm), NY-19 (Gibson), NY-22 (Hanna), NY-23 (Reed), NY-27 (Collins), NC-08 (Hudson), NC-11 (Meadows), NC-13 (Holding), OH-06 (Johnson), OH-16 (Renacci), PA-06 (Gerlach), PA-07 (Meehan), PA-08 (Fitzpatrick), PA-12 (Rothfus), PA-15 (Dent), TN-04 (DesJarlais), VA-02 (Rigell), WI-07 (Duffy) and WI-08 (Ribble). [bolded districts were won by Obama as Israel's depth of wisdom and strength of his strategic vision were leading the Democrats to another defeat.]

In 2014 Israel led the DCCC to an even more disastrous year by following his same lame playbook. He lost a net of 13 seats, primarily conservaDems who he had counseled to vote with the GOP at every opportunity, like Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ), Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL), Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY), Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX), Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV). 3 other right-wing Democrats-- Bill Owens (New Dem-NY), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC) and Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)-- knew they would be defeated and retired, their seats all going to Republicans. Israel's only victories were for right-wing Democrats Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL), Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE) and Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Aguilar the only one likely to retain his seat in 2016.

So yesterday Chairman Strategic Vision lashed out at progressives again in an interview with Alex Brown for the NationalJournal, denouncing them for fratricide for daring to side with working people against the corporate TPP. Neglecting to mention that on June 12 a preliminary TPP vote narrowly passed the House (219-211, only 28 wretched excuses for Democrats voting in favor, Israel railed against Democratic allies, saying "We have to stop the frat­ri­cide. It’s hard enough to go up against Shel­don Ad­el­son and the Koch broth­ers. Our mem­bers shouldn’t have to go up against Shel­don Ad­el­son, the Koch broth­ers-- and [mem­bers’] friends."

The “friends” Is­rael re­ferred to are the labor and pro­gress­ive groups that have gone after the 28 Demo­crats in the House and 13 in the Sen­ate who voted to pass Trade Pro­mo­tion Authority in June. That meas­ure lim­its Con­gress to an up-or-down vote on the Trans-Pa­cific Part­ner­ship, a 12-na­tion trade deal that will land on Cap­it­ol Hill early next year. TPP has been a key pri­or­ity of the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion, but is op­posed by most Demo­crats.

The AFL-CIO has been among the most vo­cal op­pon­ents of the deal, run­ning ads against Demo­crat­ic sup­port­ers like Rep. Ami Be­ra and hold­ing protests in the dis­tricts of oth­ers. The group also cut off cam­paign fund­ing for Demo­crats during the TPA fight, a move os­tens­ibly aimed at fo­cus­ing re­sources on the trade battle but one that was per­ceived as an im­pli­cit threat to would-be sup­port­ers.

Mean­while, pro­gress­ive groups like Demo­cracy for Amer­ica have tried to line up primary chal­lengers to pro-trade Democrats. “We will not lift a fin­ger or raise a penny to protect you when you’re at­tacked in 2016, we will en­cour­age our pro­gress­ive al­lies to join us in leav­ing you to rot, and we will act­ively search for op­por­tun­it­ies to primary you with a real Demo­crat,” the group’s chair, Jim Dean, said in a statement fol­low­ing the vote.

...“It’s ab­so­lutely ab­surd to ask any­one who cares about in­come in­equal­ity... to ig­nore a very clear be­tray­al like this vote for fast-track au­thor­ity,” said Demo­cracy for Amer­ica’s Neil Sroka. “They’re liv­ing in a fanta­sy­land if they think organ­iz­a­tions like ours are just go­ing to ig­nore these votes.”

Sroka ad­ded that elect­or­al vic­tor­ies are hol­low if they only em­power Demo­crats who vote with the oth­er party. “Democrats would be best served by vot­ing like Demo­crats and ac­tu­ally stand­ing up and fight­ing for work­ing fam­il­ies,” he said. His group will be ur­ging al­lies not to give to the DCCC or any oth­er or­gan­iz­a­tions that may end up fund­ing trade sup­port­ers.

DCCC Chair­man Ben Ray Lu­jan was care­ful not to call out any Demo­crat­ic al­lies, and he said out­side groups are free to use their re­sources as they please. But he did re­mind labor that Demo­crats have been their strongest al­lies on a num­ber of polit­ic­al is­sues. “I’d en­cour­age our friends in labor that, as we look for part­ner­ships down the road and we ad­voc­ate to make sure that people get a fair wage for a hard day’s work... those are is­sues that as Demo­crats we share with labor,” he said.

That sen­ti­ment isn’t new. In June, Minor­ity Whip Steny Hoy­er said he had “urged our friends in labor to have re­spect for the de­cisions of mem­bers.” He lis­ted off is­sues like collect­ive bar­gain­ing and the min­im­um wage where Democrats have worked to boost labor’s goals.

...Ad­ded Sroka: “If Demo­crats fail to re­take the House, they need to ser­i­ously look at [trade] as one of the reas­ons they failed to do it... If Ami Be­ra is de­feated, it’s not be­cause progress­ives didn’t stand up and de­fend Ami Be­ra. It’s because Ami Be­ra took a vote that makes it im­possible for anyone who cares for work­ing fam­il­ies in this coun­try to support him.”

Not­ably, Rep. Debbie Wasser­man Schultz, who heads the Demo­crat­ic Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee and voted for TPA, said she has heard noth­ing about such a back­lash-- an is­sue on which every oth­er mem­ber of the House seems to have an opin­ion. She said she met re­cently with labor lead­ers, in­clud­ing the AFL-CIO, without it com­ing up. “I’ve hon­estly not heard any threat what­so­ever to any Demo­crat re­lated to the trade deal,” she said. “I have a hard time com­ment­ing on something that I haven’t heard.”

Still, many of the oth­er mem­bers in her caucus say the fo­cus should be on win­ning the House-- not a single trade vote. “I have com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure we win back the ma­jor­ity, and that starts with re­turn­ing in­cum­bent Demo­crats in swing dis­tricts—in­clud­ing those that I some­times dis­agree with,” Kildee said. “Ob­vi­ously, I think this is im­port­ant to labor, and I think they should take a strong po­s­i­tion. … But I think we should fo­cus on the long-term battle as well as the short-term battle.”

Wasserman Schultz, a congenital liar, is very much aware that labor is helping recruit a strong Democratic candidate to run against her in a primary next year, presumably Tim Canova, a professor of law and public finance at Nova Southeastern University.

A Sanders supporter, Canova has been critical of Wasserman Schultz's performance as chair of the DNC, including her role in limiting the presidential debates. "It’s bad for Democrats and bad for the country, but she’s apparently decided that it’s good for her own career to hitch her wagon to Hillary Clinton-- but it’s a wagon filled with a lot baggage and broken promises to American workers.

"People are just tired of being sold out by calculating and triangulating politicians. Wasserman Schultz has become the ultimate machine politician. While she stakes out liberal positions on culture war issues, when it comes to economic and social issues, she’s too often with the corporate elites. On too many crucial issues-- from fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the war on drugs and medical marijuana and mass incarceration, to her support for budget sequestrations and austerity-- Wasserman Schultz votes down the line with big corporate interests and cartels: Wall Street banks and hedge funds, Big Pharma, the private health insurers, private prisons, Monsanto, it goes on and on. It’s easy to say you’re for doing something about climate change and the environment, for pay equity, raising the minimum wage, or getting money out of politics, but it’s mostly just talk when you’re taking so much corporate money at the same time. That’s why the TPP is so insidious. It will shift the costs of environmental protection, health and safety and labor standards from corporate wrongdoers and wealthy investors to the taxpayers who have been taking it on the chin for so long. In many ways, Wasserman Schultz no longer has a choice. She’s become an establishment machine politician who has to turn her back on taxpayers, working folks, students and the elderly poor, unfortunately it’s all to line the pockets of the same corporate interests that are funding her campaigns. In today’s politics, the worst have no convictions, which may explain all their flip-flops on big issues, from Hillary Clinton on Keystone Pipeline to Wasserman Schultz’s indecision on the agreement with Iran. After playing Hamlet for weeks and blocking a DNC resolution, she finally came around to support the Iran agreement, but only when it became pretty clear she would have lost her post as DNC chair, a message apparently delivered in person by vice president Biden. It must be exhausting to have to constantly answer to wealthy campaign donors and corporate lobbyists when making these decisions."

As of now, there is still no primary challenger for Steve Israel... but we haven't given up looking. As soon as one does decide to run, he or she will be on this page, along with the other progressive House candidates that Blue America is supporting.

UPDATE: Democratic Leaders-- The Worst Leaders Ever

As Marty Yglesias explained to Vox readers Monday morning, the Democratic Party is losing on every level except the White House level-- and isn't even talking about what to do about it-- or even recognizing there's a problem. "Leaders like Wasserman Schultz and Israel are so concerned about their own narrow careerist agendas that the party is like a useless, unattractive (anti-attractive) pile of stinking garbage. As he wrote, "70 percent of state legislatures, more than 60 percent of governors, 55 percent of attorneys general and secretaries of state are in Republicans hands. And, of course, Republicans control both chambers of Congress."

Not only have Republicans won most elections, but they have a perfectly reasonable plan for trying to recapture the White House. But Democrats have nothing at all in the works to redress their crippling weakness down the ballot. Democrats aren't even talking about how to improve on their weak points, because by and large they don't even admit that they exist... The GOP might be in chaos, but Democrats are in a torpor.

The Democrats will never win back Congress with anti-leaders like Wasserman Schultz and Israel in placed. Pelosi has become less than useless and the Senate Democrats are about to elect Wall Street's #1 shill in politics-- Chuck Schumer-- as leader... without so much as a challenge.

Another Formerly Red District, CA-25, Flips To A Democratic Registration Advantage. DCCC Blows It Again

The 1st idiot to run the DCCC, James Rood Doolittle, and the current incompetent, Steve Israel

Patty Murray did a legendary job running the DSCC in the 2012 election cycle. She steered the Democrats to victory in races Beltway pundits rated as impossible: North Dakota, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Virginia, New Mexico and Montana, while helping Elizabeth Warren defeat popular incumbent Scott Brown and making sure Republicans made no gains in tough reelection campaigns for Democrats in Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan and Florida. She was a superstar. The Obama campaign also ran a spectacular effort. The President carried a majority of states, 332 electoral votes (to Romney's 206) and over five million more votes than Romney. Obama won tough battleground states like Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, Florida, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado. The only battleground state they lost was… North Carolina which went to Romney 2,270,395 (50.39) to 2,178,391 (48.35%). Romney was unable to expand out of the deep red, shrinking Republican universe.

With all that good news nationally and statewide, the Democrats had the perfect opportunity to win back the House. But because Nancy Pelosi has appointed an incompetent and shockingly corrupt conservative to head the DCCC, Blue Dog Steve Israel, the DCCC was a tragic bust, from recruitment to execution. More GOP incumbents-- Ben Quayle (AZ), Cliff Stearns (FL), Sandy Adams (FL), Don Manzullo (IL), Mean Jean Schmidt (OH) and John Sullivan (OK)-- lost because of Tea Party primaries than because of anything Israel managed to do. And in none of those cases was the DCCC prepared to take advantage of GOP disunity. 4 of Israel's Blue Dog allies-- Ben Chandler (KY), Larry Kissell (NC), Mark Crtiz (PA) and Kathy Hochul (NY) on whose behalf Israel wasted millions of dollars-- were defeated. And the handful of wretched Blue Dogs and New Dems who Israel did manage to get into office have been a horrible disappointment, many-- like Patrick Murphy (FL), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY), Pete Gallego (TX), Brad Schneider (IL), Scott Peters (CA), Ann Kuster (NH), Cheri Bustos (IL), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Joe Garcia (FL)-- consistently voting with the GOP on core, crucial issues.

But for all Israel's missteps and fumbling, just his loss of a newly created D+5 district in California's Inland Empire (CA-31)-- the bluest district now held by any Republican anywhere-- should have sent a signal to Nancy Pelosi she made made a distress error in appointing Israel, an error that needed to be corrected instead of compounded by a reappointment.

In 2012, Israel backed an unsavory and corrupt bank lobbyist and local Republican Party/Chamber of Commerce shill, Pete Aguilar. He was so disliked by Democrats that he didn't even make it out of California's jungle primary. This year, the incumbent wing nut, Gary Miller, is retiring and Aguilar will probably win, although he is still unpopular and the DCCC has had to spend money on bolstering him, $602,100 between them and their ironically-named House Majority PAC, $111,192 going into a desperate ad this week-- in a district that should be a total gimme.

So Pelosi didn't dump Israel and he'll soon probably be trumpeting Aguilar, who has already joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems from Republican wing of the Democratic Party, as a big victory. And just north of the Inland Empire, Israel screwed up again in a similar district, CA-25. This was the Lee Rogers race that Israel refused to get involved with. And the result was just as bad as the 2012 result in CA-31-- two Republicans in the general. Rogers begged the DCCC for GOTV help for the primary. They refused-- 100% refused. So Rogers came in third (on a hinky ballot where his name was on a different page than the other candidates) and CA-25, where Buck McKeon was too scared to face Rogers again and announced his retirement, will be succeeded either by right-wing freak Tony Strickland or by even righter-wing freak Steve Knight. What makes this all the more tragic is that this is a newly-blue district. Yep, Democrats now outnumber Republicans-- for the first time-- in voter registration.

Regardless of which Republican wins the seat in November, he’ll have a tough reelection to look forward to in 2016.

The Secretary of State’s 60-Day Voter Registration report, which was released on Tuesday, shows Democrats have flipped the district’s voter registration. Democrats now hold a slight edge in voter registration of roughly half a percent, or 1,975 raw voters.

That’s a substantial shift from last December, when Republicans held a 3.6 percent advantage in voter registration.

In 2012 Israel sabotaged Rogers' election and, like so many good Democrats who have run into Israel, he won't be running for Congress again. This isn't how you build a party or a majority. Nancy Pelosi's worst political mistake ever was appointing Steve Israel to chair the DCCC. No… that was her second worst mistake. Her worst mistake was reappointing him after his catastrophic first cycle. He's the worst DCCC chair since James Rood Doolittle in 1868, who switched back and forth between the Democrats and Republicans and is best remembered for opposing the 15th Amendment, which granted citizenship to the freed ex-slaves after the Civil War. There was no one as bad as him running the DCCC until Pelosi dug up Israel.

Is South Carolina Ready To Elect A Woman To Congress… A Woman Named Tinubu-- Don't Answer Yet

Remember South Carolina crackpot Joe Wilson, the right-wing freak who screamed out "You lie!" at President Obama when he gave the State of the Union address in 2009 and was then formally admonished by the House? So far, according to ProgressivePunch, he has the most extreme right wing voting record of anyone from South Carolina for the 2013-'14 session. His crucial vote score is a shocking 2.80 (out of 100). The next worst belongs to freshman congressman for the new 7th CD, Tom Rice, 4.29.

Rice's voting record is an extremist's dream-- a 0.0 on every single crucial vote-- without one exception. Rice accomplished his mission-- to avoid the kind of costly, divisive primary he faced in 2012, when he was forced into a runoff against the state's closet case Lt. Gov., Andre Bauer, having lost the original crowded primary to Bauer 32-27%. This year Rice has no primary challenger. In November, though, he will face the same Democrat he faced in 2012, Gloria Bromell Tinubu. SC-07 has a PVI of R+7, the least red of any of the state's GOP-held House seats. In fact, last time, Dr. Tinubu won the same number of counties that Rice did. Overall, he beat her 147,750 (55%) to 121,418 (45%) but she won in Darlington, Dillon, Florence and Marlboro counties.

2012 wasn't just a tough primary year for Rice. Bromell Tinubu was a target of conservative Democrats and their allies at the DCCC. Her forthright progressive and pro-union platform frightened them. She is way too independent-minded for "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel, who wasted thousands of dollars on a preppy kid named Preston Brittain, when his original recruit, anti-Choice/pro-gun State Rep. Ted Vick, a repulsive Blue Dog and ALEC legislator, was forced to drop out after being arrested for drunk driving. Vick-- the ideal Steve Israel candidate-- was carrying a handgun without a permit and had a 21 year old girl in his car when he was arrested.

Bromell Tinubu went on to beat Brittain in the primary but the South Carolina Democratic Party, pressured the South Carolina Election Commission, which had already declared her the winner, to change their ruling and force a runoff based on Ted Vick votes, which dropped her win to under 50%. When the runoff came two weeks later, in a real slap in the face to the Establsihment, Bromell Tinubu kicked preppy boy's ass 73-27%. This year Israel and Clyburn aren't putting anyone up against her and November will see a rematch between Rice and Gloria Bromell Tinubu, this time with a united Democratic Party. Last time, Rice raised $1,428,114 and Gloria raised $625,273.

She has a remarkable life story. As her website boasts, "Gloria doesn't just talk about the American Dream-- she's lived it every day of her life." A graduate of Howard University, she was the first African American to receive a PhD in Applied Economics from Clemson University. Later, while working as a professor at a college in Georgia, she was elected to the Atlanta City Coucil and served as a member of the Georgia Board of Education.

We've mentioned before that Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders has endorsed several progressives running for the House-- like Kelly Westlund (WI), Lee Rogers (CA) and Daylin Leach (PA). Senator Sanders has also endorsed-- and contributed to-- Gloria's campaign. A promise for DWT readers: we'll be hearing more about her and the SC-07 contest in the weeks to come.

Is Enough Ever Enough For The Deluded American Voter?

You may have noticed that the latest polls show have completely turned around from October when voters were furious at Republicans for shutting down the government and were reporting 50-42% that they planned to back Democrats in 2014. Republicans have now opened a 49-44% lead over Democrats in this generic polling. (Due to gerrymandering, for Democrats to actually win back the House, they would have to be leading the GOP by a minimum of 10 points in the national poll. Being down by 5% is potentially catastrophic.) As expected, Democrats are far less enthusiastic about voting next year-- which is precisely what led to the midterm electoral disaster in 2010.

If you follow this blog at all, you know I will be the last person to defend the revolting DC Democratic Establishment who can only ever be considered even relatively acceptable as a product of how terrible the GOP is. Outside of their progressive caucus, the DC Democrats are only marginally better than the Republicans, at best a C-minus compared to an F. Corrupt slime like Steve Israel, Steny Hoyer, Joe Crowley, Debbie Wasserman Schultz deserve the worst. But do the rest of us?

There are barely words to describe the sheer putridness of the Republican Party. They exist, like most conservative parties, to counter democracy and impose the will of an overwhelmingly criminal, self-entitled plutocracy on society. They'd all deserve to be guillotined... if we still sought to solve problems that violently.

The other day a Twitter wag asked who would be heading up the investigation of the serial lies crooked Orange County/San Diego multimillionaire Darrell Issa fed the media and the American public about Benghazi in the pursuit of partisan gain and American disunity. (The answer is no one... there will be no investigation-- other than the exhaustive one David Kirkpatrick wrote up for the NY Times Saturday.) It's long and you can click that link and read the whole thing. A few excerpts, that should be entered as evidence in the rial of Darrell Issa and the whole Republican DC Establishment:

Months of investigation by the New York Times, centered on extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault. The attack was led, instead, by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s extensive air power and logistics support during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi. And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.

A fuller accounting of the attacks suggests lessons for the United States that go well beyond Libya. It shows the risks of expecting American aid in a time of desperation to buy durable loyalty, and the difficulty of discerning friends from allies of convenience in a culture shaped by decades of anti-Western sentiment. Both are challenges now hanging over the American involvement in Syria’s civil conflict.

The attack also suggests that, as the threats from local militants around the region have multiplied, an intensive focus on combating Al Qaeda may distract from safeguarding American interests.

...Members of the local militia groups that the Americans called on for help proved unreliable, even hostile. The fixation on Al Qaeda might have distracted experts from more imminent threats. Those now look like intelligence failures.

More broadly, Mr. Stevens, like his bosses in Washington, believed that the United States could turn a critical mass of the fighters it helped oust Colonel Qaddafi into reliable friends. He died trying.

Of course, some people always think they know better than people who do careful investigations because they feel it in their gut or because it fits their worldview-- be it Republican or Zionist. On Meet the Press today, David Kirkpatrick stated flatly, "There's just no chance that this was an al Qaeda attack. It was an armed terrorist attack motivated in large part by the video." No one should have been surprised that Darrell Issa, who has lied about everything in his life since he was a youngster and was arrested several times for car theft, arson-for-hire, fraud and various other felonies before being drafted by the Republican Party to run for for Congress, disputed Kirkpatrick's thorough investigation. And it was certainly no surprise when the warmonger head of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers (R-MI), disputed the investigation on Fox News Sunday. What may have astounded some viewers-- viewers who haven't followed the bug-eyed little worm's career-- is that Adam Schiff (D-West Hollywood, Burbank, Silverlake, Los Feliz, Hollywood, Glendale), one of Congress' most pathetic agents of the Israeli government, also disputed the Times investigation. Worm: "I don't think it's complete... I don't think either paradigm is really accurate here. Intelligence indicates al Qaeda was involved."

When will the United States ever learn that you can't buy "friends" with bribes? I doubt Allen Dulles, Eisenhower's CIA chief, later fired by JFK when it was no longer possible to persuade anyone he was anything but severely senile, was the first policy maker to employ bribery of foreign leaders and groups as a key component of American "diplomacy." Throughout Stephen Kinzer's book on the Dulles brothers, The Brothers, there are reports of Allen Dulles wasting tens of millions of dollars without compunction trying to bribe everyone from members of the French Cabinet, to the Italian Mafia, gangs in Tehran and Saigon, Christian leaders willing to help him with his extremist plots, members of every fascist junta that managed to overthrown a democracy during the '50s to the king of Saudi Arabia, the mother of the king of Jordan, the members of an international tribune in Geneva and the Pakistani military. He was so breathtakingly incompetent that nothing ever worked for him except bribery-- and the bribery, of course, only worked in the short term. One of Kinzer's many descriptions of him that peppers the book:

Allen was a poor administrator. Many around him also noted a lack of intellectual engagement. He often turned aside probing discussion by telling a story, or musing about his favorite baseball team, the Washington Senators. His mind was undisciplined. By one accounted he "seemed almost scatterbrained. A senior British agent who worked with him for years recalled being "seldom able to penetrate beyond his laugh, or to conduct any serious professional conversation with him for more than a few sentences."

Bribery was all Dulles, an inbred, self-entitled Republican, ever knew how to do. And it's a policy the U.S. still practices to this day, rarely with any kind of lasting impact for the good of anyone concerned. And, of course, there was this:



It's not unrelated to point out Joseph Stiglitz's OpEd in today's NY Times, bemoaning a society where elites behave as though everyone else is a commodity to buy and sell. He could be well describing a domestic version of he Allen Dulles mentality-- and his strategy that everything boils down to the brutal power of cash without honor or dignity.

Economic inequality, political inequality, and an inequality-promoting legal system all mutually reinforce one another. We get a legal system that provides privileges to the rich and powerful. Occasionally, individual egregious behavior is punished (Bernard L. Madoff comes to mind); but none of those who headed our mighty banks are held accountable.

As always, it is the poor and the unconnected who suffer most from this, and who are the most repeatedly deceived. Nowhere was this more evident than in the foreclosure crisis. The subprime mortgage hawkers, putting themselves forward as experts in finance, assured unqualified borrowers that repayment would be no problem. Later millions would lose their homes. The banks figured out how to get court affidavits signed by the thousands (in what came to be called robo-signing), certifying that they had examined their records and that these particular individuals owed money-- and so should be booted out of their homes. The banks were lying on a grand scale, but they knew that if they didn’t get caught, they would walk off with huge profits, their officials’ pockets stuffed with bonuses. And if they did get caught, their shareholders would be left paying the tab. The ordinary homeowner simply didn’t have the resources to fight them. It was just one example among many in the wake of the crisis where banks were seemingly immune to the rule of law.

I’ve written about many dimensions of inequality in our society-- inequality of wealth, of income, of access to education and health, of opportunity. But perhaps even more than opportunity, Americans cherish equality before the law. Here, inequality has infected the heart of our ideals.

I suspect there is only one way to really get trust back. We need to pass strong regulations, embodying norms of good behavior, and appoint bold regulators to enforce them. We did just that after the roaring ’20s crashed; our efforts since 2007 have been sputtering and incomplete. Firms also need to do better than skirt the edges of regulations. We need higher norms for what constitutes acceptable behavior, like those embodied in the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. But we also need regulations to enforce these norms-- a new version of trust but verify. No rules will be strong enough to prevent every abuse, yet good, strong regulations can stop the worst of it.

Strong values enable us to live in harmony with one another. Without trust, there can be no harmony, nor can there be a strong economy. Inequality in America is degrading our trust. For our own sake, and for the sake of future generations, it’s time to start rebuilding it. That this even requires pointing out shows how far we have to go.

In 2012 Only Conservative Incumbents Lost Their House Seats

Leaving out redistricting's incumbent vs incumbent primaries, in 2012 only 22 incumbents lost their House seats. Not one of them was a progressive. Every single one of them was a conservative. Only two Democrats were challenged by non-incumbents in primaries, Blue Dog Tim Holden (PA) and ConservaDem Silvestre Reyes (TX). Both were defeated by significantly more progressive Democrats, respectively Matt Cartwright and Beto O'Rourke, each of whom went on to win landslide victories in the general election. In Republicanville, three conservatives lost reelection to non-incumbents in primaries, Cliff Stearns (FL), Mean Jean Schmidt (OH) and John Sullivan (OK); all three winners, respectively Ted Yoho, Brad Wenstrup and Jim Bridenstine are crackpot teabaggers who have tended to stand up against the GOP conservative Establishment whenever it was challenged by populist right reactionaries and extremists.

In the general elections, half a dozen Democrats lost their seats to Republicans. Although one, Betty Sutton (OH) was a moderate, the other 5 were out-and-out conservatives who voted with the GOP too frequently to keep base support in their districts. The conservative Democrats who lost their seats to Republicans:

• Leonard Bosell (Blue Dog-IA)
• Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
• Kathy Hochul (New Dem-NY)
• Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC)
• Mark Critz (PA)

Three other extreme right-wing Democrats-- Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Heath Shuler Blue Dog-NC) and Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)-- could all read the handwriting on the wall and each chose to retire from the House rather than be humiliated by certain defeat. In the general election, their handpicked Blue Dog would-be successors were defeated-- crushed is a more appropriate term-- by Republicans.

The 16 Republicans who lost their seats to Democrats were all conservatives or reactionaries. In every case, the winning Democrat campaigned on a far more progressive platform than the Republican's voting record. Although a few of the Republicans were mainstream conservatives-- like Mary Bono Mack, Robert Dold, Judy Biggert, Roscoe Bartlett and Nan Hayworth, many were among the most radical right extremists in Congress, such as Allen West, Joe Walsh, Ann Marie Buerkle and Frank Guinta. These were the 16 Republicans who were beaten by Democrats last year:

Dan Lungren (CA)
Mary Bono Mack (CA)
Brian Bilbray (CA)
Allen West (FL)
David Rivera (FL)
Joe Walsh (IL)
Robert Dold (IL)
Judy Biggert (IL)
Bobby Schilling (IL)
Roscoe Bartlett (MD)
Chip Cravaack (MN)
Frank Guinta (NH)
Charlie Bass (NH)
Nan Hayworth (NY)
Ann Marie Buerkle (NY)
Quico Canseco (TX)

What about 2014? Almost all the endangered incumbents are conservatives. Of the 20 most endangered Democratic incumbents, 18 are conservatives, the exceptions being John Tierney (MA) and Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). These are the Democratic incumbents most likely to lose their seats next year. I've included their 2013 ProgressivePunch crucial vote score. Each of these Members votes more frequently with the GOP than their constituents would like to see. If their Democratic base voters stay away from the polls next year, all will lose to Republicans. Each has taken the horrendous advise from the DCCC that they will win by amassing a Republican-lite record. None of them has earned reelection:

• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)- 45.74
• Ron Barber (AZ)- 26.80
• Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)- 40.62
• Raul Ruiz (CA)- 42.31
• Scott Peters (CA)- 54.81
• Patrick Murphy (FL)- 52.94
• Joe Garcia (FL)- 47.42
• John Barrow (GA)- 21.15
• Brad Schneider (IL)- 61.54
• Bill Enyart (IL)- 55.77
• Cheri Bustos (IL)- 47.00
• Ann Kuster (NH)- 69.90
• Sean Patrick Maloney (NY)- 32.69
• Bill Owens (NY)- 27.88
• Mike McIntyre (NC)- 31.37
• Pete Gallego (TX)- 34.95
• Jim Matheson (UT)- 25.96
• Nick Rahall (WV)- 43.27

And the Republican incumbents most at risk-- obviously all conservatives-- are Gary Miller (CA), Jeff Denham (CA), David Valadao (CA), Buck McKeon (CA), Mike Coffman (CO), Steve Southerland (FL), Rodney Davis (IL), Fred Upton (MI), Kerry Bentivolio (MI), Tim Walberg (MI), John Kline (MN), Joe Heck (NV), "Mikey Suits" Grimm (NY), Chris Gibson (NY), Tom Reed (NY), David Joyce (OH), and Mike Fitzpatrick (PA). There would be many more if Steve Israel, another ConservaDem, were kicked out of the DCCC chairmanship.

Can A Movie-- With Popcorn Perhaps-- Help Progressives Win In 2014?

Robert Reich's movie, Inequality For All, hits the theaters on September 27. Above is a first-look at the trailer. The imagine of the suspension bridge makes the case for a comparison between Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush. And it implies the tragic consequences of the comparison between a powerful and determined leader, Franklin Roosevelt, and a weak, vacillating one, Barack Obama.

I'll be looking forward to seeing it, of course, while working to elect progressive problem solvers against corporate hacks in New Jersey and Hawaii Senate primaries-- where Rush Holt and Brian Schatz are running against Wall Street and Big PhRMA-- and in the special election primary in Massachusetts-- where progressive champion Carl Sciortino is battling an array of garden variety Democratic careerists.

Sciortino's, Holt's and Schatz's opponents may be servants of the corporate elite inside the Democratic Party, but it is the other party, the Republicans, that is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by Big Business and works full time at implementing the corporate/plutocratic agenda. Is the country's most dependable voting block-- the elderly-- starting to wise up? Democratic strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg claim seniors are turning against the GOP.

We first noticed a shift among seniors early in the summer of 2011, as Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare became widely known (and despised) among those at or nearing retirement. Since then, the Republican Party has come to be defined by much more than its desire to dismantle Medicare. To voters from the center right to the far left, the GOP is now defined by resistance, intolerance, intransigence, and economics that would make even the Robber Barons blush. We have seen other voters pull back from the GOP, but among no group has this shift been as sharp as it is among senior citizens:

• In 2010, seniors voted for Republicans by a 21 point margin (38 percent to 59 percent). Among seniors likely to vote in 2014, the Republican candidate leads by just 5 points (41 percent to 46 percent.)

• When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives at the beginning of 2011, 43 percent of seniors gave the Republican Party a favorable rating.  Last month, just 28 percent of seniors rated the GOP favorably. This is not an equal-opportunity rejection of parties or government-- over the same period, the Democratic Party’s favorable rating among seniors has increased 3 points, from 37 percent favorable to 40 percent favorable.

• When the Republican congress took office in early 2011, 45 percent of seniors approved of their job performance. That number has dropped to just 22 percent-- with 71 percent disapproving.

• Seniors are now much less likely to identify with the Republican Party. On Election Day in 2010, the Republican Party enjoyed a net 10 point party identification advantage among seniors (29 percent identified as Democrats, 39 percent as Republicans). As of last month, Democrats now had a net 6 point advantage in party identification among seniors (39 percent to 33 percent).

• More than half (55 percent) of seniors say the Republican Party is too extreme, half (52 percent) say it is out of touch, and half (52 percent) say the GOP is dividing the country. Just 10 percent of seniors believe that the Republican Party does not put special interests ahead of ordinary voters.

• On almost every issue we tested-- including gay rights, aid to the poor, immigration, and gun control-- more than half of seniors believe that the Republican Party is too extreme.

What do seniors care about now?  Our Democracy Corps July National Survey found that:

• 89 percent of seniors want to protect Medicare benefits and premiums.

• 87 percent of seniors want to raise pay for working women.

• 79 percent of seniors think we need to expand scholarships for working adults.

• 77 percent of seniors want to expand access to high-quality and affordable childcare for working parents.

• 74 percent of seniors want to cut subsidies to big oil companies, agribusinesses, and multinational corporations in order to invest in education, infrastructure, and technology.

• 66 percent of seniors want to expand state health insurance exchanges under Obamacare.

Instead of wasting million of ineffective TV and radio ads for Blue Dogs in red districts, the DCCC and DSCC would be better off giving senior citizens tickets to see the Robert Reich film in September.

A Note From DCCC Chairman Steve Israel: "Top Race In The Country"

I shuddered to think which corrupt conservative shill he had decided was the "top race in the country." Since Israel was a member of the reactionary Blue Dog caucus himself before making a play for House leadership, I figured it would be one of the broken down, struggling, remaining Blue Dogs who are facing defeat next year: Barrow (GA), McIntyre (NC) or Matheson (UT). Those 3 vote far more frequently in concert with Boehner and Cantor than they do with Democrats. But when I opened the e-mail, I realized that Israel too had moved on from the wretched Blue Dogs in favor of the revitalized-- albeit basically the same ideologically-- New Dems. His pick, the worst New Dem of all: Patrick Murphy of Florida, a lifelong conservative Republican and opportunist who switched parties so he could run against Allen West. His rich daddy did the rest. Apparently daddy doesn't want to pay for junior's career anymore and Murphy sends out more campaign spam than any other member of Congress. And now he has Israel signing one for him:

TOP RACE IN THE COUNTRY

Howard --

As chairman of the committee charged with electing House Democrats, I want to tell you about one of the top races to watch in the entire country: Patrick Murphy in Florida's 18th district.

Republicans and outside groups have named Patrick as a top target and circled this district as a race they must win.

And I’ve seen what Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers are capable of: spending over a million dollars on deceitful ads in a single House race.

If we want to be successful in 2014, we have to make sure Patrick hits his grassroots goal. Here’s why: as soon as the fundraising numbers are released, the pundits will scour over reports and make a determination on whether or not Patrick's campaign has what it takes to win.

Please donate to Patrick's campaign before Sunday’s midnight deadline. Remember, every last dollar counts for his grassroots campaign.

I hope you’ll do your part.

Thanks,

Steve

OK, Steve, here's my part. Aside from founding a caucus to bring a horde of far right Republican freshmen like domestic terrorist Steve Stockman (R-TX), militia nut Kerry Bentovolio (R-MI) and hate Talk Radio host Trey Radel (R-FL) together with a tiny handful of the weakest-minded, cowardly and most naive Democratic freshmen-- people like Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Eric Swalwell (CA), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), and Scott Peters (CA)-- Murphy has one of the most reactionary voting records of any Democratic freshman... or, for that matter, of any Democrat, period. His overall ProgressivePunch score is a dismal 43.64 (out of 100). Only 10 Democrats have worse scores, rotgut Blue Dogs like John Barrow, Jim Matheson, Collin Peterson, Henry Cuellar, Mike McIntyre... the real dreck of the caucus. But let's get specific.

Hoyer and Israel, sensing that Murphy is among the most corrupt freshmen, immediately put him on the House Financial Services Committee, one of Congress's top corridors of bribery from Wall Street. And on that committee, Murphy has been a reliable vote for the Republicans as they voted to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. Here's an example; "Mr. Murphy" is Patrick Murphy and this committee vote was nicely explained by Too Much Online:

This particular piece of legislation speaks to an ongoing frustration in America's body politic: the supersized paychecks that go to America’s top corporate executives. Average Americans, in overwhelming numbers, want something done to bring some common-sense back to CEO pay.

But the House Financial Services Committee, this past Wednesday, opted to do the exact reverse. By a 36-21 margin, committee members voted to repeal the only statutory provision now on the books that puts real heat on overpaid CEOs. The full House, observers expect, will shortly endorse this repeal.

The specific provision 31 Republicans and five Democrats voted to repeal-- section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act-- imposes a new disclosure mandate on America’s major corporations. Under Dodd-Frank, corporations must annually reveal the ratio between what they pay their CEO and what they pay their median-- most typical-- workers.

Corporations have had to disclose what they pay their CEOs ever since the Great Depression. But they’ve never had to disclose, until Dodd-Frank became law in 2010, their CEO pay as a multiple of what their average workers are earning.

Executive pay reformers consider this ratio information crucial to the struggle against executive excess. If Americans could see-- and compare-- the exact CEO-worker pay ratio from one corporation to another, the resulting negative publicity on those corporations with the widest pay gaps might help discourage excessive executive compensation in the future.

And if corporations should choose to ignore this negative publicity-- and charge ahead with lavish executive compensation-- the Dodd-Frank pay ratio disclosure mandate could serve as a stepping stone to tougher reform action.

Lawmakers could, for instance, set a specific CEO-worker pay multiple as the nation’s preferred corporate compensation standard and deny government contracts, tax breaks, and subsidies to any corporations that pay their execs over and above that standard.

The Dodd-Frank pay ratio disclosure mandate has the potential, in other words, to help extinguish what Forbes magazine recently dubbed “the out of control wildfire” that executive pay has become. But the mandate hasn’t extinguished anything yet because the mandate hasn’t yet gone into effect.

Corporate lobbyists have seen to that. They've been pressuring the Securities and Exchange Commission, the top federal watchdog over Corporate America, to gut the Dodd-Frank pay ratio provision.

This lobbying blitz has paid off. The SEC has to issue regulations before any newly legislated mandate over corporate behavior can be enforced. The agency has so far issued no regulations on CEO-worker pay disclosure-- and nearly three years have gone by since Dodd-Frank initially worked its way into law.

But America’s corporate leaders don’t want to have to rely solely on their ability to intimidate the SEC. They’ve also orchestrated a congressional drive to simply repeal the Dodd-Frank pay disclosure mandate outright.

How can lawmakers who carry Corporate America's water possibly defend repealing a measure as publicly popular as pay ratio disclosure? Easy. They simply paint corporations as the victims of overzealous government bureaucrats who want to drown them in burdensome-- and meaningless-- paperwork.

So... of course a crook like Steve Israel is excited about Murphy. Some of Patrick Murphy's greatest hits on the House floor, aside from voting against all the Democratic alternatives to the Ryan budget:

• Voted with the Republicans for the Keystone XL Pipeline

• Voted with Republicans for CISPA

• Voted with Republicans to penalize workers who get overtime pay

• Voted for GOP Farm bill that took billions from food stamp program

• Voted with the GOP to make sure there are no limits to the amount of subsidies wealthy farmers get

• Only Democrat voting to undermine America's Farmers Markets

Swing Districts-- The Utter Failure Of Steve Israel's Chairmanship At The DCCC

Being reptilian isn't always the answer

There are 21 congressional districts, almost all of them in the Old Confederacy, of course, where Obama failed to score even 30% last November. Seven of them-- a third-- are in Texas. When people are talking about "Texas turning blue," these aren't the parts of Texas they're talking about. Nor are these congressional districts where a Democrat is going to beat a Republican incumbent, and, yes, each one of them has a Republican incumbent. These are the 21 districts (from bad to worse in terms of PVI):

TX-13- Mac Thornberry R+32
TX-11- Mike Conaway R+31
GA-09- Doug Collins R+30
TX-08- Kevin Brady R+29
AL-06- Spencer Bachus R+28
AL-04- Robert Aderholt R+28
UT-03- Jason Chaffetz R+28
UT-01- Rob Bishop R+27
OK-03- Frank Lucas R+26
LA-01- Steve Scalise R+26
TX-19- Randy Neugebauer R+26
GA-14- Tom Graves R+26
TX-04- Ralph Hall R+25
TN-01- Dave Roe R+25
KY-05- Hal Rogers R+25
TX-26- Steve Stockman R+25
TX-01- Louie Gohmert R+24
KS-01- Tim Huelskamp R+23
NE-03- Adrian Smith R+23
WY-AL- Cynthia Lummis R+22
UT-02- Chris Stewart R+18

The 5 reddest districts that re-elected Democrats-- not really actual Democrats, hard-core, right-wing Blue Dog types who vote with the Republicans on virtually every important issue are:

UT-04- Jim Matheson R+16
WV-03- Nick Rahall R+14
NC-07- Mike McIntyre R+12
GA-12- John Barrow R+9
MN-07- Collin Peterson R+6

The best Obama did in any of these districts was 44% (in both GA-12 and MN-07). This isn't the most fertile territory to invest money in electing Democrats, especially if you want Democrats who will support a progressive agenda. Let's take a look at the districts with Republican incumbents where Obama either won or held Romney to a margin of 5 points or less. There are a lot more of them than you may think, and a lot more than the DCCC bothers to contest. These are the keys to a Democratic take over in the House next year (Bolded means the DCCC did not contest the district in 2012):

• FL-25- Mario Diaz-Balart (Romney- 51/Obama- 49)
• CA-39- Ed Royce (51/47)
• FL-07- John Mica (52/47)
• NJ-05- Scott Garrett (52/49)
• OH-14- David Joyce (51/48)
• MI-11- Kerry Ventivolio (52/47)
• VA-04- Randy Forbes (50/49)
• OH-10- Michael Turner (50/48)
• WI-01- Paul Ryan (52/47)
• CA-25- Buck McKeon (50/48)
• NY-22- Richard Hanna (49/49)
• NY-23- Tom Reed (50/48)
• MI-07- Tim Walberg (51-48)
• VA-10- Frank Wolf (50/49)
• NY-11- Michael Grimm (47/52)
• WA-03- Jaime Herrera Beutler (50/48)
• MI-08- Mike Rogers (51/48)
• PA-15- Charlie Dent (51/48)
• MN-02- John Kline (49/49)
• VA-02- Scott Rigell (49/50)
• PA-07- Pat Meehan (50/49)
• MN-03- Erik Paulsen (49/50)
• PA-06- Jim Gerlach (51/48)
• WI-07- Sean Duffy (51/48)
• WI-08- Reid Ribble (51/48)
• FL-07- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (47-53)
• FL-13- Bill Young (49/50)
• WA-08- Dave Reichert (48/50)
• CA-10- Jeff Denham (47/51)
• MI-06- Fred Upton (50/49)
• PA-08- Michael Fitzpatrick (49/49)
• NY-02- Peter King (47/52)
• NJ-03- Jon Runyan (48/52)
• NV-03- Joe Heck (49/49
• IA-03- Tom Latham (47/51)
• IL-13- Rodney Davis (49/49)
• CO-06- Mike Coffman (47/52)
• NY-19- Chris Gibson (46/52)
• NJ-02- Frank LoBiondo (46-54)
• CA-21- David Valadao (44/55)
• CA-31- Gary Miller (41/57)

Italics signifies that Obama won the district. Notice how many districts Obama won where Steve Israel didn't even bother to fight. That's why the Democrats will never take back the House as long as Israel chairs the DCCC, which he is doing again this cycle. Thursday he wrote to the Democrats in Congress boasting about their edge in recruitment and fundraising for 2014. “We are ahead-of-schedule on recruitment, ahead-of-expectations on fundraising, and ahead-of-the-curve on defining the Republican Congress."

“House Democrats have begun 2013 ahead by every measure-- money, polling, candidate recruitment-- and are poised for gains next November,” Israel concluded.

Such diction is an example of how Israel has shied away this cycle from predicting that Democrats would win control of the House.

In a section analyzing Cook Political Report data, Israel wrote, “To retake the majority, Democrats need 17 seats, which is the exact number of Republicans currently sitting in seats that President Obama won in 2012.”

There are 28 Republicans bolded in the list above, seats Israel ignored in 2012 and of them, 10 are in districts Obama won (italics). There are very few indications, based on the rate at which Israel is handing out free re-election passes to his Republican pals and the lack of serious recruiting efforts against vulnerable Republicans, that Israel learned any lessons from his catastrophic performance in 2012, from his predecessor's even more catastrophic performance in 2010-- or that he has any more chance of leading the Democrats to victory in 2014 with his failed strategy than he did last time.

Meet Andrew Hounshell-- The Democrat Running For The Ohio Seat Boehner Is Occupying

If you've been reading DWT with any regularity, you no doubt heard me warning readers that lifelong Republican spoiled rich kid Patrick Murphy, who ran against neo-fascist GOP war-criminal Allen West, would make a horrible congressman. Murphy managed-- albeit barely-- to beat West. And he has been a horrible congressman, immediately joining the New Dems, racking up a voting record that has him siding with Boehner and Cantor on most crucial roll calls and seducing a gaggle of naive freshmen Democrats to join the GOP in it's efforts to cut benefits to seniors who rely on the Social Security and Medicare payments they have earned (while Murphy was working hard to become an heir by picking wealthy parents).

I know a lot of ex-Republicans. Not all of them are like Patrick Murphy. I have tremendous respect, for example, for the work Markos Moulitsas has done organizing the Daily Kos community and as an author and activist. He's started out as a Republican, saw the light and has worked hard to do the right thing. When I first met Andrew Hounshell his reasons for leaving the GOP he was born into reminded me of Markos' story. I asked him to write it out for DWT. I hope you'll read it-- and consider contributing to his campaign to beat Boehner here at the 2014 Blue America page.

Why I'm A Democrat

by Andrew Hounshell

I was 5 years old when I heard the dreadful news that our President had been shot in a failed assassination attempt. Even at that young age, I felt the impact the event had on the grown-ups around me. On the way to the grocery store, I asked my mother if we could get a get well card and send it to President Reagan. Together, we picked out one and mailed it to the White House. A few weeks later we received an official letter on White House Stationary from the President, thanking me for the well wishes. Our local newspaper ran a story, “Middletown Boy Gets White House Response,” and I was the talk of the town. From that moment on, this 5 year old from southwest Ohio loved President Reagan and thought he could do no wrong.

Fast forward 10 or 12 years, my brother was stationed in Germany while serving in the Army and was being transferred to Ft. Lewis, Washington unable to take any leave to visit his family due to his orders. His wife had given birth to our parent’s first grandchild and they had yet been able to see him. As legend goes (time clouds the memories in my family), someone made a call to our Congressman’s office (then a fairly new John Boehner) and my brother was able to get his orders changed so he could take leave and visit with his family before reporting to Ft. Lewis. In my young impressionable eyes, John Boehner was personally responsible for me getting to see my nephew for the first time, and getting to spend some precious time with my oldest brother after not seeing him for years. Once again, a young Andrew Hounshell was quite impressed by yet another Republican politician showing how much they cared about my family. These guys were great!

What I didn’t know was what was happening to other families around me. If I had been older than 5 years old when I bought that Get Well card, I might have known that it was only five months later, when our President fired over 11,000 PATCO striking Union workers; a move which has been described as starting “America’s downward spiral;” that our nation’s wages would stagnant for the rest of my life. That decision didn’t affect me as a kid, but nearly 30 years later, it is an event that persuaded me to take a deeper look into policy decisions that our elected officials make and ask myself a deeper question. Could it be the dear Republicans I grew up admiring, were not as supportive of the very middle class that I now spend my adult life fighting for?

Yep... triplets

Memories like mine can mold and shape a person’s voting patterns for a lifetime. Luckily for me, my thirties brought on a time of clarity. There wasn’t one particular event that turned on a light bulb, but rather a combination of many: college, union work, community work, my father relying on the VA for health care, my mother relying on her Social Security to survive, in-laws going without health insurance because they can’t afford it after my father in-law was laid-off from Delphi, having 3 children at one time (the list goes on and on). I realized that through policy, our elected officials do have a huge impact on our livelihood. Through cuts in Social Security, appointments to the NLRB, cuts to the VA, immigration reform (or lack thereof), tax loopholes for corporations, subsidies to oil companies, etc., our middle class has been eroded and we are not taking care of those who can no longer take care of themselves.

The Republicans I loved as a child, and I thought loved me back, were the very ones who were supporting this erosion. How could this be?

The five year old in me feels so betrayed. It turns out, I’ve been caught up in a very real version of the fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood. At first glance, Grandma looked sweet and innocent, with her thank you card from the White House and an a few weeks of leave for a soldier to visit his family. Now that I am all grown up and have a family of my own to support, I see what big teeth you have, and how you have used them to take a huge bite out of the Middle Class. Like many voters in Ohio’s 8 th District and in this country, I see the GOP for what it really is. No disguise is good enough to hide the Big Bad Wolf these days.

Now I dedicate my time to trying to make this world a better place for my children and that includes supporting those who actually support the working class in this country. In 2012, when I looked for that person in the 8th District of Ohio, the ballot was blank. It was then that I decided in 2014 there was going to be a Democratic option for my family, neighbors, coworkers, and community; an option that leads to re-building our Middle Class and a stronger America. No More Boehner. Our Time is Now.

Independent Candidates Cost The Republicans 5 House Seats Last Month

I've always bitten the bullet in the past and voted for the lesser of two evils, even pulling the lever for the much-hated Joe Lieberman when he ran for Vice President with Al Gore. Even voting for the very compromised Gore was a stretch for me. He was never the kind of populist, like his father, I prefer. But last month-- first time ever-- I came out of the voting booth feeling somehow clean. I didn't vote for Obama, absolutely the far lesser of two evils compared to Romney. Of course, I live in California, where Obama would be getting over 60% of the vote anyway, regardless of what I did. It would be a lot tougher in Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa or Colorado where every vote counted in the struggle to keep Romney away from the White House. But in sunny California, I voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, who drew around 100,000 votes nationally.

The first time I had ever heard of Dianne Feinstein she was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (the City Council) and a close friend was also on the Board, Harvey Milk. He old me what a tool of anti-working family Big Business interests she was. She still is and I'm happy to say I've never voted for her, not when she ran for mayor of San Francisco-- I helped Jello Biafra run against her-- and not in any of her Senate campaigns-- including not last month.

I didn't vote for the Blue Dog, Adam Schiff, who was gerrymandered into my ultra-blue congressional district either. But there was no independent, just a Republican... so I left that slot blank.

President Obama was reelected with 51% of the vote and his main rival, Romney, wound up-- ironically-- with barely 47%. About 2.2 million voters (1.7%) cast their ballots for independent candidates, like I did. (343,586 of them where in California, 2.64%.) But there was no plausible scenario in which the third party candidates swung that race against Romney electoral college-wise. Obama's electoral college victory was just too massive for it to have mattered if Florida or Virginia independent votes could have switched their states' electoral votes. In Florida, for example, Obama beat Romney by only 46,061. If everyone who supported a third-party candidate had instead voted for Romney-- a big "if" when you consider that many of the independent votes were from the left, not the right-- the Republican candidate would have won the Sunshine State by 24,892 votes. That would have gained Romney 29 votes in the Electoral College for a total of 235-- still 35 short of the 270 needed to win... In Virginia, it had been feared that former Congressman Virgil Goode’s Constitutional Party candidacy would leach off enough conservative votes to give the state’s Electoral College votes to Obama. However, Obama won the state’s 13 Electoral College ballots by 54,924 votes. Only 51,802 Virginians voted for all of the third-party candidates combined-- close, but not enough to matter.

However, there actually were some congressional seats where the number of third party votes were greater than the difference between the Democrat and the Republican. Let's take a look at the districts with the biggest number of third party voters... but keep in mind, the ones with the really big numbers are cases where either the Democrat or the Republican was otherwise unchallenged, like in the case of CA-33, where Bill Bloomfield, a big-spending ($5,654,105) multimillionaire challenged longtime incumbent-- though in a significantly redrawn district-- Henry Waxman and walked off with 46.04% of the vote to Waxman's 53.96%. There was no Republican in the race because Bloomfield had come in second in California's crazy new top-two primary system.

Nationally, there were 24 Republicans who faced no Democratic opponent and 19 Democrats who faced no Republican opponent. First the Republicans:

Jo Bonner (AL-01)- 196,374 (97.86%) vs other- 4,302 (2.14%)
Steve Womack (AR-03)- 186,467 (75.9%) vs Rebekah Kennedy (Green)- 59,193 (24.1%)
Paul Cook (CA-08)- 95,962 (57.6) vs Gregg Imus (R)- 70,608 (42.4%)
Kevin McCarthy (CA-23)- 144,477 (73.9%) vs Terry Phillips (I)- 51,101 (26.1%)
Gary Miller (CA-31)- 82,212 (55.2%) vs Bob Dutton (R)- 66,603 (44.8%)
Doug Lamborn (CO-05)- 191,198 (65.3%) vs Dave Anderson (I)- 50,876 (17.4%)
Ander Crenshaw (FL-04)- 239,988 (76.7%) vs Jim Klauder (I)- 75,482 (23.93%)
Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25)- 151,466 (75.65%) vs Stanley Blumenthal (I)- 48,763 (24.4%)
Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03)- 232,380 (99.95%) vs other- 105 (0.05%)
Austin Scott (GA-08)- 197,789 (100%)
Paul Broun (GA-10)- 211,065 (99.81%) vs other- 401 (0.19%)
Tim Huelskamp (KS-01)- 211,337 (100%)
Kevin Yoder (KS-03)- 201,087 (68.45%) vs Joel Balam (Libertarian)- 92,675 (31.55%)
John Fleming (LA-04)- 187,894 (75.3%) vs Randall Lord (Libertarian)- 61,637 (24.7%)
Rodney Alexander (LA-05)- 202,536 (77.83) vs Ron Ceasar (I)- 57,680 (22.2%)
Bill Cassidy (LA-06)- 243,553 (79.41%) vs Rufus Craig (Libertarian)- 63,160 (20.6%)
Gregg Harper (MS-03)- 234,717 (80.02%) vs Luke Pannell (Reform)- 20,090 (19.98%)
John Boehner (OH-08)- 246,378 (99.22%) vs other- 1,938 (.78%)
Joe Wilson (SC-02)- 196,116 (96.27%) vs other- 7,602 (3.73%)
Diane Black (TN-06)- 184,264 (77%) vs Scott Beasley (I)- 34,746 (14%) vs Pat Riley (Green)- 21,613 (9%)
Sam Johnson (TX-03)- 187,180 (100%)
Mac Thornberry (TX-13)- 187,775 (90.98%) vs John Deek (Libertarian)- 12,671 (6.2%)
Bill Flores (TX-17)- 143,284 (79.93%) vs Ben Easton (Libertarian)- 35,978 (20.07%)
Randy Neugebauer (TX-19)- 163,239 (84.99%) vs Chip Peterson (Libertarian)- 28,824 (15.01%)

And now the Democrats with no Republican opponent:

Ed Pastor (AZ-07)- 104,489 (81.74%) vs Joe Cobb (Libertarian)- 23,338 (18.26)
Barbara Lee (CA-13)- 250,436 (86.78%) vs Marilyn Singleton (I)- 38,146 (13.22%)
Eric Swalwell (CA-15)- 115,694 (52.2%) vs Pete Stark (D)- 105,872 (47.8%)
Tony Cardenas (CA-29)- 86,848 (74.0%) vs David Hernandez (I)- 38,994 (25.95%)
Brad Sherman (CA-30)- 117,374 (60.4%) vs Howard Berman (D)- 77,003 (39.6%)
Henry Waxman (CA-33)- 171,860 (53.96%) vs Bill Bloomfield (I)- 146,660 (46.04%)
Gloria McLeod (CA-35)- 72,562 (55.9%) vs Joe Baca (Blue Dog)- 57,304 (44.1%)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-40)- 125,553 (100%)
Maxine Waters (CA-43)- 200,894 (100%)
Janice Hahn (CA-44)- 82,577 (60.1%) vs Laura Richardson (D)- 54,852 (39.9%)
Alcee Hastings (FL-20)- 214,727 (87.9%) vs Randall Terry (I)- 29,553 (12.1%)
Ted Deutsch (FL-21)- 221,263 (77.8%) vs Michael Trout (I)- 63,137 (22.2%)
Richard Neal (MA-01)- 261,936 (98.42%) vs other- 4,197 (1.58%)
Jim McGovern (MA-02)- 259,257 (98.45) vs other- 4,078 (1.55%)
Mike Capuano (MA-07)- 210,794 (83.37%) vs Karla Romero (I)- 42,042 (16.63%)
Nydia Velazquez (NY-07)- 116,873 (94.48) vs James Murray (Conservative)- 6,823 (5.5%)
Marcia Fudge (OH-11)- 258,359 (100%)
Jim Clyburn (SC-06)- 218,717 (93.62%) vs Nammu Muhammad (Green)- 14,898 (6.38%)
Gene Green (TX-29)- 86,053 (90.0%) vs Jamey Stanczak (Libertarian)- 4,988 (5.2%)

Before we even suppose that an independent bid cost a major party candidate a seat, we have to understand that a Green running against a Democrat or a Conservative running against a Republican, is unlikely to attract voters who would have otherwise all voted for the major party opponent. Example, Green Party candidate Ursula Rozum attracted 21,327 votes (7.87%) and nearly cost New Dem Daniel Maffei the election. But those were predominantly progressive voters protesting against Maffei's record as a corporate whore and they wouldn't have otherwise gone to teabagger incumbent Ann Marie Buerkle. These are the districts where tight Democratic vs Republican races included independent candidates who got more votes that the difference between the two major party contestants:

AZ-01: Ann Kirkpatrick (D)- 122,774 (48.8%) vs Jonathan Paton 113,594 (45.15%) vs Kim Allen (Libertarian)- 15,227 (6.05%)
AZ-09: Kyrsten Sinema (D)- 121,881 (48.73%) vs Vernon Parker (R)- 111,630 (44.63%) vs Powell Gammill (Libertarian)- 16,620 (6.64%)
CO-06: Mike Coffman (R)- 163,922 (47.81%) vs Joe Miklosi (D)- 156,929 (45.77%) vs Kathy Polhemus (I) and Patrick Provost (Libertarian)- 22,039 (6.43%)
IL-13: Rodney Davis (R)- 137,034 (46.55%) vs David Gill (D)- 136,032 (46.21) vs John Hartman (I)- 21,319 (7.24%)
IN-02: Jackie Walorski (R)- 134,033 (49.01%) vs Brendan Mullen (Blue Dog)- 130,113 (47.58%) vs Joe Ruiz (Libertarian)- 9,326 (3.4%)
MA-06: John Tierney (D)- 180,942 (48.28%) vs Richard Tisei (R)- 176,612 (47.12%) vs Daniel Fishman (Libertarian)- 16,739 (4.3%)
MI-01: Dan Benishek (R)-167,060 (48.14%) vs Gary McDowell (Blue Dog)- 165,179 (47.6%) vs Emily Salvette (Libertarian)- 10,630 (3.1%) vs Ellis Boal (Green)- 4,168 (1.2%)
NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter (D)- 171,650 (49.75%) vs Frank Guinta (R)- 158,659 (45.99%) vs Brandan Kelly (Libertarian)- 14,521 (4.2%)
NY-24: Daniel Maffei (D)- 130,969 (48.35%) vs Ann Marie Buerkle (R)- 118,578 (43.78%) vs Ursula Rozum (Green)- 21,327 (7.87%)
UT-04: Jim Matheson (Blue Dog)- 119,803 (48.84%) vs Mia Love (R)- 119,035 (48.53%) vs Jim Vein (Libertarian)- 6,439 (2.63%)

We're just dealing in probabilities here but if any outcomes were changed it looks pretty certain that Libertarians cost the GOP five seats: AZ-01, AZ-09, MA-06, NH-01, UT-04, all of which were seats the Republicans spent gigantically on. And a conservative Independent who favors Simpson-Bowles, John Hartman, cost David Gill the IL-13 seat, a real tragedy.