The Democratic Party Has A Long And Proud Tradition Of Standing Up For Working Families-- What Happened To It?

Friday we took a look at why voters are increasingly turning off to the two Establishment political parties. We looked particularly at why turnout among Democratic base voters is so low. For example, the Queens Democratic Party boss, Congressman Joe Crowley, the former New Dem chairman and a House leader, only managed to persuade 47,370 of his constituents to bother voting for him last month-- in one of the deepest blue districts in the entire country, which Obama won 136,783 (81%) to 30,978 (18%) in 2012. The Democratic Party of Joe Crowley isn't doing squat for people, predominantly Hispanic, black and Asian, (medium household income- $46,900) who live in Woodside, Jackson Heights, Sunnyside, Maspeth, Elmhurst, Corona, Willets Point, and College Point in Queens and Throggs Neck, Schuylerville, East Bronx, Morris Park, Middletown-Pelham Bay, Van Nest and Pelham Gardens in the Bronx. Crowley serves Wall Street; that's it. He hopes the harried people who live in his district never figure out the only thing he has in common with the Democratic Party is his ironic membership in it.

It's worth noting that where stalwart progressives who constantly carry a clear message of economic populism and social justice-- we looked at Barbara Lee (CA), Keith Ellison (MN) and Mark Pocan (WI)-- the results were the polar opposite of Crowley's. Pocan, who, like Crowley, didn't have a credible challenger, saw a huge wave of grateful Democratic voters turn out for him. He drew nearly 5 times the number of voters Crowley did, 224,548. Should that be a wakeup call to the DC Democrats? It isn't.

Last week Walter Dean Turnham and Thomas Ferguson, respectively professors from the University of Texas (Austin) and University of Massachusetts (Boston), penned a powerful 5 alarm analysis that DC Democrats miss at their own peril. Writing for Alternate, their premise is that last month's Democratic Party debacle-- which the scleratic and ostrich-like Democratic leadership refuses to see as a debacle; Israel claiming he saved the day by not losing more seats, for example-- "likely heralds a new stage in the disintegration of the American political order" and it's based on an undeniable fact, that "increasing numbers of average Americans can no longer stomach voting for parties that only pretend to represent their interests." They estimate that only 36% of eligible voters even bothered showing up last month. Among drop-offs from a presidential election to a midterm, this was the second largest of all time-- 24 percentage points!

Turnout in Ohio, for example, fell to 34 percent-- a level the state last touched in 1814, when political parties on a modern model did not exist and it had just recently entered the Union. New York trumped even this: turnout in the Empire State plunged to 30 percent, almost back to where it was in 1798, when property suffrage laws disenfranchised some 40 percent of the citizenry. New Jersey managed a little better: turnout fell to 31 percent, back to levels of the 1820s. Delaware turnout fell to 35 percent, well below some elections of the 1790s. In the west, by contrast, turnout declined to levels almost without precedent: California’s 33 percent turnout appears to be the lowest recorded since the state entered the union in 1850. Nevada also hit a record low (28 percent), as did Utah at 26 percent (for elections to the House).

...It seems plain that the American political universe is being rapidly reshaped by economic and cultural crisis into something distinctly different. The Democrats’ messaging this year was, indeed, almost eerily spectral. But its otherworldly feebleness was rooted in fundamental facts that are not going away and cannot be fixed by switching media advisers.

The first problem was the administration’s dismal economic policy record. Though some Democrats try to sugarcoat the dismal facts by focusing on changes since 2009, when the President assumed office, the truth is that the fruits of the recovery have gone lopsidedly to the very richest Americans. Wall Street and the stock market boom, but wages continue to stagnate, and unemployment remains stubbornly high, with millions of Americans withdrawn from the labor force or working only part time. As incomes recovered from 2009 to 2012, for example, 95 percent of all the gains went to the top 1 percent of income earners.  The rest of the population was left far behind. As of July 2014, real median household income was still more than 6 percent below its value in early 2008. The administration’s continuing efforts to court Wall Street, along with its reluctance to sanction even flagrant misconduct by prominent financiers just pour salt into these wounds.

The other reason for the messaging failure is graver, because responsibility for it cannot possibly be fobbed off on the Republicans. Though the full figures are still coming in, we are confident that what Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Chen demonstrated to be true in 2012 will hold for 2014, despite claims to the contrary in parts of the media: The President and the Democratic Party are almost as dependent on big money-- defined, for example, in terms of the percentage of contributions (over $500 or $1000) from the 1 percent as the Republicans. To expect top down money-driven political parties to make strong economic appeals to voters is idle. Instead the Golden Rule dominates: Money-driven parties emphasize appeals to particular interest groups instead of the broad interests of working Americans that would lead their donors to shut their wallets.

...Exit polls from the 2014 House races suggest that the old New Deal political formula has become like the grin of the Cheshire Cat. Traces of the ancient pattern are still there in the aggregate: In the lowest income bracket (under $30,000 in the 2014 exit polls) voters overwhelmingly prefer the Democrats by 59 percent to 39 percent.  As income rises, that percentage falls off steeply, with the slightest of hiccups in the very highest bracket.  Conversely, upper income voters were much more likely to vote Republican, though a modest gender gap remained in the national electorate, if not that of every state. (Nationally women voters preferred the Democrats by only 51 percent to 47 percent; the Republican advantage among men was much larger – 57 percent to 41 percent.) But after six years of profound policy disappointment, not enough lower income voters bothered to go to the polls.

Right now Hillary Clinton’s strategists appear to be pinning their hopes on firing up another ritualized big money-led coalition of minorities and particular groups instead of making broad economic appeals. That hope might perhaps prove out, if the slow and very modest economic recovery continues into 2016, or the Republicans nominate another Richie Rich caricature like Mitt Romney, who openly mocks the poorest 47% of the electorate. But exit surveys showed that in 2014 many women voters thought economic recovery and jobs were top issues, too.  And one may doubt how robust the recovery can be in the face of a steadily rising dollar, which now seems baked in the world economic cake for a considerable time to come.

But if the time has perhaps passed when a Democratic Party dominated and financed by Wall Street and Silicon Valley can mobilize anything but remnants, the Republicans can hardly count on smooth sailing for very long. In 2016, if voters are offered another choice between Republican Lite and real Republicans, the affluent Americans who will mostly turn out may well once again cast ballots for the real thing... In any case, both direct poll evidence and common sense confirm that huge numbers of Americans are now wary of both major political parties and increasingly upset about prospects in the long term.  Many are convinced that a few big interests control policy. They crave effective action to reverse long term economic decline and runaway economic inequality, but nothing on the scale required will be offered to them by either of America’s money-driven major parties. This is likely only to accelerate the disintegration of the political system evident in the 2014 congressional elections.

How can we be sure the DC Dems are ignoring the 2014 warning and hustling down the road to their own doom? The first garbage candidates the "new" DCCC chairman Ben Ray Luján has worked to recruit are New Dem Emily Cain in Maine and "ex"-Republican Monica Vernon in Iowa, neither of whom has anything to do with what makes working families chose to be Democrats rather than Republicans and neither of whom has even the slightest ability to inspire working class voters. And now we get word that the DCCC is furiously trying to re-recruit defeated retreads who already lost out to Republicans because of their inability to carry a progressive message. Blue Dog Michael McMahon, the lame-o who "Mikey Suits" Grimm beat to win his seat, is a perfect example.

How many DC Dems would feel comfortable even listening to, let alone giving, a speech like the one Franklin Roosevelt delivered to Congress in January, 1936 after his stunning landslide rout of the Republicans 27,747,636 to 16,679,543 with every state but Vermont and Maine-- an election that delivered the Democrats a 76-16 seat majority in the Senate and a 334 to 88 seat majority in the House? That's when it meant something to be a Democrat aside from catering to aggrieved bits and pieces of the electorate. You can read the whole speech here; I'm just going to present a few excerpts to mull over.

Within our borders, as in the world at large, popular opinion is at war with a power-seeking minority.

That is no new thing. It was fought out in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. From time to time since then, the battle has been continued, under Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

In these latter years we have witnessed the domination of government by financial and industrial groups, numerically small but politically dominant in the twelve years that succeeded the World War. The present group of which I speak is indeed numerically small and, while it exercises a large influence and has much to say in the world of business, it does not, I am confident, speak the true sentiments of the less articulate but more important elements that constitute real American business.

In March, 1933, I appealed to the Congress of the United States and to the people of the United States in a new effort to restore power to those to whom it rightfully belonged. The response to that appeal resulted in the writing of a new chapter in the history of popular government. You, the members of the Legislative branch, and I, the Executive, contended for and established a new relationship between Government and people.

What were the terms of that new relationship? They were an appeal from the clamor of many private and selfish interests, yes, an appeal from the clamor of partisan interest, to the ideal of the public interest. Government became the representative and the trustee of the public interest. Our aim was to build upon essentially democratic institutions, seeking all the while the adjustment of burdens, the help of the needy, the protection of the weak, the liberation of the exploited and the genuine protection of the people's property.

It goes without saying that to create such an economic constitutional order, more than a single legislative enactment was called for. We, you in the Congress and I as the Executive, had to build upon a broad base. Now, after thirty-four months of work, we contemplate a fairly rounded whole. We have returned the control of the Federal Government to the City of Washington.

To be sure, in so doing, we have invited battle. We have earned the hatred of entrenched greed. The very nature of the problem that we faced made it necessary to drive some people from power and strictly to regulate others. I made that plain when I took the oath of office in March, 1933. I spoke of the practices of the unscrupulous money-changers who stood indicted in the court of public opinion. I spoke of the rulers of the exchanges of mankind's goods, who failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence. I said that they had admitted their failure and had abdicated.

Abdicated? Yes, in 1933, but now with the passing of danger they forget their damaging admissions and withdraw their abdication.

They seek the restoration of their selfish power. They offer to lead us back round the same old corner into the same old dreary street.

Yes, there are still determined groups that are intent upon that very thing. Rigorously held up to popular examination, their true character presents itself. They steal the livery of great national constitutional ideals to serve discredited special interests. As guardians and trustees for great groups of individual stockholders they wrongfully seek to carry the property and the interests entrusted to them into the arena of partisan politics. They seek-this minority in business and industry-- to control and often do control and use for their own purposes legitimate and highly honored business associations; they engage in vast propaganda to spread fear and discord among the people-- they would "gang up" against the people's liberties.

The principle that they would instill into government if they succeed in seizing power is well shown by the principles which many of them have instilled into their own affairs: autocracy toward labor, toward stockholders, toward consumers, toward public sentiment. Autocrats in smaller things, they seek autocracy in bigger things. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

...[T]he challenge faced by this Congress is more menacing than merely a return to the past-- bad as that would be. Our resplendent economic autocracy does not want to return to that individualism of which they prate, even though the advantages under that system went to the ruthless and the strong. They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a people's Government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people. Give them their way and they will take the course of every autocracy of the past-- power for themselves, enslavement for the public.

Their weapon is the weapon of fear. I have said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That is as true today as it was in 1933. But such fear as they instill today is not a natural fear, a normal fear; it is a synthetic, manufactured, poisonous fear that is being spread subtly, expensively and cleverly by the same people who cried in those other days, "Save us, save us, lest we perish."

I am confident that the Congress of the United States well understands the facts and is ready to wage unceasing warfare against those who seek a continuation of that spirit of fear. The carrying out of the laws of the land as enacted by the Congress requires protection until final adjudication by the highest tribunal of the land. The Congress has the right and can find the means to protect its own prerogatives.

We are justified in our present confidence. Restoration of national income, which shows continuing gains for the third successive year, supports the normal and logical policies under which agriculture and industry are returning to full activity. Under these policies we approach a balance of the national budget. National income increases; tax receipts, based on that income, increase without the levying of new taxes. That is why I am able to say to this, the Second Session of the 74th Congress, that it is my belief based on existing laws that no new taxes, over and above the present taxes, are either advisable or necessary.

National income increases; employment increases. Therefore, we can look forward to a reduction in the number of those citizens who are in need. Therefore, also, we can anticipate a reduction in our appropriations for relief.

In the light of our substantial material progress, in the light of the increasing effectiveness of the restoration of popular rule, I recommend to the Congress that we advance; that we do not retreat. I have confidence that you will not fail the people of the Nation whose mandate you have already so faithfully fulfilled.

I repeat, with the same faith and the same determination, my words of March 4, 1933: "We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with a clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with a clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life. We do not distrust the future of essential democracy."

I cannot better end this message on the state of the Union than by repeating the words of a wise philosopher at whose feet I sat many, many years ago.

"What great crises teach all men whom the example and counsel of the brave inspire is the lesson: Fear not, view all the tasks of life as sacred, have faith in the triumph of the ideal, give daily all that you have to give, be loyal and rejoice whenever you find yourselves part of a great ideal enterprise. You, at this moment, have the honor to belong to a generation whose lips are touched by fire. You live in a land that now enjoys the blessings of peace. But let nothing human be wholly alien to you. The human race now passes through one of its great crises. New ideas, new issues-- a new call for men to carry on the work of righteousness, of charity, of courage, of patience, and of loyalty. . . However memory bring back this moment to your minds, let it be able to say to you: That was a great moment. It was the beginning of a new era. . . This world in its crisis called for volunteers, for men of faith in life, of patience in service, of charity and of in- sight. I responded to the call however I could. I volunteered to give myself to my Master-- the cause of humane and brave living. I studied, I loved, I labored, unsparingly and hopefully, to be worthy of my generation."

Which elected officials could you imagine giving a speech like that today? Barack Obama? Not a chance. Hillary? Don't make me laugh. Besides Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson, Elizabeth Warren, Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison, Mark Pocan, I can't think of anyone with both the will and the capacity. Can you?

Why Are Voters So Unenthusiastic About Reelecting Run Of The Mill, Garden Variety Democrats?

You mean Crowley rocking out with Huckabee doesn't get Queens & Bronx voters out to the polls?

Turnout for the midterms in California was a dismal 42% this year. Barbara Lee (CA-13- Oakland) didn't have a real race, but her constituents turned out for her in greater numbers than any other congressional candidate in the whole state, more than any other Democrat and more than any Republican. 166,182 went to the polls to voice their gratitude for a congresswoman who stands up for working families. (In 2012 she was reelected with 250,436 votes and Obama won the district with 268,093 in 2012 and 283,183 in 2008.)

The upper Midwest seems like an especially civic-minded area and Minnesota and Wisconsin always get good turnout. In Minnesota, for example, all the Democratic incumbents scored over 100,000 votes-- a very different story than in most of the country. Keith Ellison led the way with 167,076 votes,a nice healthy midterm vote-- although he had won reelection in 2012 with 262,102 votes. Similar story in Wisconsin, The Democratic incumbents all scored over 100,000, with Mark Pocan leading the way with 224,548, the biggest turnout anywhere in the whole country for any Democrat running for the House. His level of support was hardly down at all from 2012 when he won with 265,422 votes.

What do these three Democrats have in common aside from loyal constituents? Pocan has the single most progressive voting record in the entire Congress. Ellison and Lee are two courageous, stalwart progressives who never hesitate to stand up loud and clear on behalf of the ordinary people who don't hire lobbyists. These are their ProgressivePunch lifetime crucial vote scores:

• Mark Pocan 98.71
• Keith Ellison 95.49
• Barbara Lee 94.87

At least as important is their willingness to lead on tough issues that send other Members of Congress fleeing under the bed. And Democratic and independent voters appreciate it. Compare their resulting to results in two other states' Democratic delegations, Texas and New York. Voters were competency uninspired and stayed away from the election in droves, catastrophic in New York swing districts and most just embarrassing in Texas' obscenely gerrymandered Democratic ghettos districts. Keep in mind, all districts have approximately the same number of people.

• TX-09- Al Green- 77,979
• TX-15- Rubén Hinojosa- 48,561
• TX-16- Beto O'Rourke- 49,257
• TX-18- Sheila Jackson Lee- 75,963
• TX-20- Joaquin Castro- 66,538
• TX-23- Pete Gallego- 55,436 (lost the seat to a CIA agent)
• TX-28- Henry Cuellar- 62,471
• TX-29- Gene Green- 41,229
• TX-30- Eddie Bernice Johnson- 92,971
• TX-33- Mark Veasey- 43,729
• TX-34- Filemon Vela- 47,457
• TX-35- Lloyd Doggett- 60,027

Don't get me wrong; some of these Democratic incumbents won with stupendous margins-- Mark Veasey with 86.5%, Gene Green with 89.5%, Al Green with 90.8%... but that's because of gerrymandering, not because these legislators are inspiring anyone to get out and work for them and vote for them the way Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison and Mark Pocan do. And New York is in even worse shape than Texas. Texas Democrats lost one mangey, worthless Blue Dog, Pete Gallego. New York Democrats crashed and burned:

• NY-01- Tim Bishop- 73,860 (lost the seat to a teabagger)
• NY-03- Steve Israel- 85,310 (likely GOP target in 2016)
• NY-04- Kathleen Rice- 85,294
• NY-05- Gregory Meeks- 72,454
• NY-07- Nydia Velázquez- 53,283
• NY-08- Hakeem Jeffries- 71,280
• NY-09- Yvette Clarke- 78,157
• NY-10- Jerry Nadler- 82,880
• NY-12- Carolyn Maloney- 83,870
• NY-13- Charlie Rangel- 64,142
• NY-14- Joe Crowley- 47,370
• NY-15- Jose Serrano- 51,665
• NY-17- Nita Lowey- 93,001
• NY-18- Sean Patrick Maloney- 93,001
• NY-20- Paul Tonko- 118,993
• NY-24- Dan Maffei- 75,690 (lost the seat... again)
• NY-25- Louise Slaughter- 93,053
• NY-26- Brian Higgins- 79,344

Again, there were some huge wins by percentage but no voter enthusiasm whatsoever. Take Joe Crowley for example, the Queens County Democratic Party boss and a member of the House Leadership with millions of Wall Street dollars in his campaign kitty. He won with a gigantic 88.2%... but with a disgraceful 47,370 votes. He didn't even try too engage the voters, neither on policy nor even in a competent get out the vote effort.

Is there not a problem when Democratic congressmen can't inspire the people back home to get out and vote for them. Why can Mark Pocan get 224,548 voters while Joe Crowley only gets 47,370? And why is Joe Crowley on a leadership track? Isn't that exactly what is wrong with the Beltweay Democratic Party?

Denial Reigns Supreme At The DCCC

The DCCC managed to lose 13 incumbents' seats and every single seat they went after held by a Republican-- with two exceptions, both right-wing Blue Dogs who are expected to vote fairly consistently with the GOP. And all this-- along with a system riven with internal corruption-- ate up the tens of millions of dollars Steve Israel never ceased bragging about-- plus another $12 million he borrowed, putting the DCCC into serious debt. Worse is that Pelosi picked a tepid placeholder as the new DCCC chair, Ben Ray Luján, who has no vision for changing anything at the failed committee Israel spent 4 years running into the ground.

Luján's first act as chair was to announce he would be keep everything as is-- as though everyone had done a fabulous job and the committee had won back the House-- starting with re-hiring incompetent and worthless Executive Director Kelly Ward and her pathetic self-serving staffers. The Republicans must be dancing for joy. Scott Bland at the National Journal had a chat with Luján-- and it sounds like he's determined to emulate Israel's losing ways. Like Israel, he's taking false solace in the fact that the DCCC didn't lose even more seats. He has the mindset of a loser. "I think we really have to take into consideration that based on some of the modeling and the national mood last cycle… we could have lost 20 or more seats.The team we had in place… kept that to 13. As we're moving into all of this, that's something to build off of." He was enthusiastic, for example, about the DCCC's horribly failed recruiting, which yielded dozens of losers.

After another disappointing election for House Democrats, one that gave Republicans their largest majority in almost a century, the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a seemingly incongruous message: Keep calm and carry on.

DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján is adamant, despite a 13-seat loss in November, that the committee has more to build on than to fix. After all, you don't have to make mistakes to lose an election, especially in the kind of horrible environment Democrats faced this year.

The committee has numerous building blocks-- its field program, digital program, aggressive recruiting, and especially its strong fundraising-- for 2016 that helped mitigate November's losses and will position the party to take advantage when there is a better political environment in the future, Luján said. Unlike the political environment or overall party messaging, those factors are under the DCCC's complete control.

But some Democrats on and off Capitol Hill have grown concerned since the election about whether the DCCC is reacting with enough urgency to another disappointing election result. Luján's first move as chairman was to retain Executive Director Kelly Ward, who echoed the new chairman's could've-been-worse attitude in a statement when she was rehired. The Democratic National Committee has convened a "Victory Task Force" to pinpoint areas where the party "can strengthen and improve operations," but Luján didn't offer specifics on areas where the DCCC could improve.

Asked to name one thing he would change at the committee after having some time to review things, Lujan said, "We want to win more seats." And, he said, he wants to keep fellow members engaged with the committee.

That's hardly a reboot.

"After three cycles of underperforming expectations, that would seem to highlight the need for new thinking," said one Democratic consultant who asked for anonymity to speak freely. (The consultant compared the DCCC's line to Kevin Bacon's character in Animal House, who shouts, "Remain calm! All is well!" during the movie's climactic stampede.) "I would think that at some point they're going to have a problem convincing donors to give money without results."

...On the campaign side, Luján is reprising Israel's early recruiting efforts from years past. One of Democrats' losing 2014 candidates, Emily Cain of Maine, came to the DCCC Wednesday morning for meetings with Luján and other party leaders about running for the Democratic-leaning district again in 2016. Luján cited districts Democrats lost in Nevada and Iowa, plus a GOP-held open seat in the Philadelphia suburbs, as top targets on which he's already focused.

President Obama carried 26 GOP-held districts when he won reelection in 2012, including the Maine seat that Luján wants Cain to run for again.

Cain is a pathetic New Dem who was unable to inspire Democratic voters because she didn't stand for anything except being a woman and a shill for EMILY's List. She lost to a Maine laughing stock, teabagger Bruce Polliquin, who wasn't considered a serious contender, but who beat her 133,112 (47.1%) to 118,070 (41.8%) in a district that Obama beat Romney in 53-44%-- and which had reelected Democrat Mike Michaud in 2012, 58-42%. And this despite Cain having spent $1,963,989 to Poliquin's $1,679,893. This was Cain's first ad; like the rest of her insipid, platitude-ridden campaign, it didn't convince anyone to vote for her.

Even worse than Cain is lifelong Republican Monica Vernon, an opportunist who switched to the Democratic Party and ran a losing campaign this year as Lt Gov. Before that, she had entered the IA-01 open seat primary when Bruce Braley announced he was running for the Senate. She came in a distant second to Pat Murphy, who beat her 36.7-23.6%. She's politically grotesque and a friend of mine at the DCCC tells me Luján is all excited-- excited that she's a former Republican and he's trying to recruit her. It's as though Steve Israel never left! Vernon and her husband, Bill, were GOP stalwarts and contributed thousands of dollars to local and national Republicans, including, in 2012 to Braley's GOP opponent Ben Lange, as well as to clowns like Chuck Grassley, John McCain and $4,000 to the Iowa State Republican Party. If anyone doubted Luján would be a Steve Israel doppelgänger, this should set them straight.

The Republican Wing Of The Democratic Party Claims It Still Doesn't Have A Silver Stake Through It's Heart

Even House progressives tell me it's Hoyer's turn to be leader next-- doom!

Adam Green of the PCCC pointed out when Landrieu was handily defeated by some hack GOP nonentity Saturday that the last of the Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who prevented the public option in the Affordable Care Act-- the others being Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln-- had all been driven from office within 4 years; I think he left out Mark Pryor-- but he also lost his Senate seat last month. Good riddance to all of them. Take a look at the ProgressivePunch lifetime crucial vote scores of the half dozen Democratic Senators who have voted the most frequently against progressive values in the current session:

• Tom Carper (DE)- 72.30
• Claire McCaskill (MO)- 72.13
• Kay Hagan (NC)- 70.67 defeated
• Mark Pryor (AR)- 66.50 defeated
• Mary Landrieu (LA)- 65.42 defeated
• Joe Manchin (WV)- 61.75

They wreck the Democratic Party brand and discourage voters with progressive values from bothering to go to the polls. And there are even more of them in the House-- Wall Street-owned New Dems and Blue Dogs, dwindling but still with enough clout within the party-- thanks to well placed corrupt conservative leaders like Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Crowley, Steve Israel-- to confuse voters about what it even means to be a Democrat. These are the dozen Democrats in the House who voted most frequently against progressive initiatives and principles in the 2013-14 session, along with their ProgressivePunch crucial vote scores for the current session:

• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)- 26.20 forced to retire
• John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)- 26.64 defeated
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)- 27.68 forced to retire
• Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ)- 32.58 defeated
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 33.62
• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)- 34.07 defeated
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- 36.20
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)- 39.47 forced to retire
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)- 40.17
• Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV)- 40.61 defeated
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 41.67
• Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL)- 44.59 defeated

What does the Democratic Party learn from these defeats? Nothing absolutely, nothing. The corporate whores and Wall Street shills just want to double down on their failed Blue Dog/New Dem approach which is so hated by Democratic grassroots voters-- and so beloved Inside-the-Beltway. I found this clueless piece from one of the Beltway trade publications republished yesterday by the Arizona Daily Star. [Warning, they refer to reactionaries and conservatives as "moderates," a well-worn Beltway trick to mislead readers.]

The Blue Dog Coalition of moderate House Democrats is reaching a turning point in its 20-year history, after losing more than a third of its members by the end of 2014 through retirements and election defeats.

It’s now down to a dozen returning members, less than a quarter of its peak.

Veteran members including Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, the last original Blue Dog, and Jim Cooper of Tennessee hope to promote a rebound by the group.

“It’s always darkest just before the dawn,” Cooper said.

Blue Dogs have a long history of surviving adversity since they became a caucus with about 20 members in 1995, he said, and he predicted they will regain strength in a tough political environment.

Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University, said the Blue Dogs will be hard-pressed to reclaim the clout they had in 2010, when the group had more than 50 members and won enactment of a top priority: the pay-as-you-go law, which required that spending and tax bills not increase the deficit.

Southern voters have turned against Blue Dogs in part because much of the region’s electorate opposes President Obama and party leaders such as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Black said. “They are selling a product no one wants to buy.”

But despite recent losses, Cooper said Blue Dogs will have influence in the 114th Congress because of Republican divisions and the ability of Senate Democrats to block partisan bills.

“House Blue Dogs will play a quieter role. It will take a Republican split before we can be clearly decisive in a vote. But there are going to be many Republican splits... There are going to be plenty of opportunities for Blue Dogs to make a key difference on legislation,” Cooper said.

Cooper is just one of four returning Blue Dogs from the South, with Reps. Sanford D. Bishop Jr. and David Scott, both of Georgia, and Henry Cuellar of Texas.

Cuellar and other Blue Dogs predict loose coalitions with Republicans on shared priorities where Republicans hope to deter-- or override-- vetoes by Obama. For example, they envision common ground with the Republicans on tax cuts, giving trade promotion authority to the president, regulatory curbs and energy sweeteners, including approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Peterson predicted that the group will expand its ranks quickly from the freshman class. Among the new recruits are Reps.-elect Gwen Graham of Florida and Brad Ashford of Nebraska, who have already attended meetings, Peterson said.

Membership “ebbs and flows,” Peterson said. He narrowly won re-election and must decide whether to run again in 2016.

Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, a longtime ally of the Blue Dogs, said he and other party leaders will give wide leeway to the coalition’s members to vote their consciences, and will try to help them promote priorities and win re-election.

“They need to bounce back, and they will bounce back,” Hoyer said. “We are going to work at it.”

UPDATE: Let The South Go

Mike Tomasky explains why the South is a lost cause for the Democrats-- and why they should embrace that.

At the congressional level, and from there on down, the Democrats should just forget about the place. They should make no effort, except under extraordinary circumstances, to field competitive candidates. The national committees shouldn’t spend a red cent down there. This means every Senate seat will be Republican, and 80 percent of the House seats will be, too. The Democrats will retain their hold on the majority-black districts, and they’ll occasionally be competitive in a small number of other districts in cities and college towns. But they’re not going win Southern seats (I include here with some sadness my native West Virginia, which was not a Southern state when I was growing up but culturally is one now). And they shouldn’t try.

...Trying to win Southern seats is not worth the ideological cost for Democrats. As Memphis Rep. Steve Cohen recently told my colleague Ben Jacobs, the Democratic Party cannot (and I’d say should not) try to calibrate its positions to placate Southern mores: “It’s come to pass, and really a lot of white Southerners vote on gays and guns and God, and we’re not going to ever be too good on gays and guns and God.”

Cohen thinks maybe some economic populism could work, and that could be true in limited circumstances. But I think even that is out the window now. In the old days, drenched in racism as the South was, it was economically populist. Glass and Steagall, those eponymous bank regulators, were both Southern members of Congress. But today, as we learned in Sunday’s Times, state attorneys general, many in the South, are colluding with energy companies to fight federal regulation of energy plants.

It’s lost. It’s gone. A different country. And maybe someday it really should be. I’ll save that for another column. Until that day comes, the Democratic Party shouldn’t bother trying. If they get no votes from the region, they will in turn owe it nothing, and in time the South, which is the biggest welfare moocher in the world in terms of the largesse it gets from the more advanced and innovative states, will be on its own, which is what Southerners always say they want anyway.

How Will Wasserman Schultz's Post Mortem Committee Explain Mary Landrieu, Al Muratsuchi And Ileana Ros-Lehtinen?

It isn't difficult to do a post mortem on Mary Landrieu's idiotically-doomed Senate race. Saturday's runoff saw the 3-term Louisiana Senator struggle to reach beyond 40%. In 2008 she beat Republican John Kennedy 988,298 (52%) to 867,177 (46%), the same percentage she got in her 2002 reelection. Saturday's results were Cassidy 712,330 (55.94%), Landieu 561,099 (44.06%). She won 15 of the state's 64 parishes.

She never had a chance. Although she raised $18,570,680 to Bill Cassidy's $13,165,150 (as of Nov. 16), outside spending was heavily weighted against her, with conservative groups like Rove's American Crossroads, the Koch's Americans for Prosperity, the Koch's Freedom Partners Action Fund, the NRSC, the NRA, the Patriot Majority each kicking in millions to pulverize her, while liberal groups largely looked away in disgust at the Senate's second most right-wing Democrat (after Joe Manchin). Landrieu's Republican-lite shtik doesn't work anymore and her ilk of conservative careerist Bourbon-Democrats are almost entirely extinct. Like Blanche Lincoln she'll be next heard from as a slimy lobbyist, probably for Big Oil and Gas. In recent weeks she tried working with the Republicans to pass Keystone XL Pipeline and when that didn't work, she went on radio to brag that she didn't vote for Obama, which probably contributed to the depth of the loss she suffered Saturday, keeping base Democratic voters home.

As we've pointed out, Blue Dogs and New Dems-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- were the big losers in this past cycle. With just one or two exceptions (and in red-leaning districts) progressives kept their seats and won open seats. Ted Lieu (CA-33) is a good example. Henry Waxman with a well-financed conservative opponent in 2012 had a close call (54-46%). But Lieu never deviated an inch from his cutting edge progressive values-- his first ad was about his legislation reigning in unconstitutional domestic spying-- and, although Adelson and his allies dumped close to a million dollars in media smears against him, Ted beat the Adelson candidate 59.2% to 40.8% with the biggest turn-out of any of L.A.'s congressional districts.

What makes this even more interesting is that, Al Muratsuchi, the conservative Democratic Assembly incumbent in AD66, a part of the congressional district that Ted did really well in (his South Bay home turf), campaigned as a Republican-lite candidate and lost to a Republican, breaking the Democrats' 2/3s supermajority in the Assembly. Democrats have a 40.4- 32.6% registration advantage in the Assembly district, which stretches from Manhattan Beach to the Palos Verdes Peninsula and east to Carson and Gardena, and Jerry Brown was in the district campaigning for Muratsuchi. Obama won the district against Romney 54.2- 43.2%. Muratsuchi only managed 49.7%.

One more race-- a non-race, this one in FL-27, a Hispanic-majority Miami-Dade district that includes West Miami, Little Havana, Westchester, Miami Springs, Coral Gables, Key Biscayne, Naranja, Homestead and part of Hialeah. Democrats have caught up with Republicans in voter registration and Obama won this district in 2012, 130,020 (53%) to 114,096 (47%). That year, DNC Chair and Florida Party boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has been helping protect her GOP crony, incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for years-- and was once fired as DCCC Red-to-Blue chair for doing so publicly-- put in a place-holder, Manny Yevancey, to prevent a real Democrat from running. This year, they just made sure no one ran, period. I asked one of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party decision-makers why there was no candidate in one of the bluest districts held my a Republican in the whole state. He told me, in confidence, that Wasserman Schultz routinely threatens to end anyone's career who challenges her Republican partner in corruption.

And that brings us to the Democratic Party post mortem, which will be conducted by an ad hoc committee set up by Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I've been told that the main purpose is to make sure that no blame whatsoever is placed on... Debbie Wasserman Schultz or Steve Israel. She "appointed a 10-person “Democratic Victory Task Force” that will investigate and address systemic issues that led to the Republican triumph in federal and state-level elections this year. None of the participants are from outside a list of well-connected Insiders-- Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt (a big GOP donor), Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, DNC Vice Chair Donna Brazile, Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio, AFSCME president Lee Saunders and two Obamabots, Teddy Goff and Maneesh Goyal. I would bet they won't be discussing tough, thoughtful, sensible articles like this or this as part of their deliberations. One disgusted Democratic Congressmember told me that among her many other non-talents Wasserman Schultz can't even put a competent committee together. Well, if she was aiming for a meaningless whitewash... she was pretty competent in her selections.



Correction

Patriot Majority spent $3,012,977 bolstering Landrieu, not attacking her. What a waste of $3 million!