Presidential Primaries... 2024

Friday, Washington Post reporter Bob Costa noted that Bernie, now ascendant, is turning his focus on Status Quo Joe, who still leads him nationally, though not in the early state polls. “Sanders,” he wrote, “said that Biden brings ‘a lot of baggage’ with his record and ties to the political establishment. And he argued that Biden is ill-suited to defeat President Trump. A possible long and bruising race against Biden has become central to Sanders’s planning, in part because his advisers see a fight for many of the same working-class voters.”

The 4th quarter numbers are mostly in now. Bernie led the pack— with over $34.5 million ($96 million for the year from more than 5 million contributions, an average was $18. Per donation. It was the strongest quarter of any Democrat running for the 2020 nomination. Despite all those billionaires funding them Mayo Pete brought in $24.7 for the final quarter and Status Quo Joe brought in $22.7 million. Elizabeth brought in $21.2, not terrible, but a dip from the third quarter. And Amy Klobuchar managed to find people foolish enough to waste $11.4 on her moribund campaign.

In a statement, Faiz Shakir, Bernie’s campaign manager, said “He is proving each and every day that working-class Americans are ready and willing to fully fund a campaign that stands up for them and takes on the biggest corporations and the wealthy. You build a grassroots movement to beat Donald Trump and create a political revolution one $18 donation at a time, and that’s exactly why Bernie is going to win.”

Meanwhile, the two billionaires were self-funding massive campaigns. Bloomberg has given himself something in the neighborhood of $250,000, but hasn’t reported the exact numbers yet. Steyer’s 4th quarter numbers aren’t in yet either but he had written his campaign $47,597,697 worth of checks as of September 30 and collected another $2,047,432 from contributors.

Politico published a piece by Bill Scher on Friday about the 2024 race, which would only be relevant for Democrats if Trump wins in 2020. “Will the 2020 Democratic primary establish a new consensus inside the party,” he asked, “or leave it trapped in its old arguments? Will the post-Trump Republican Party be desperate for a housecleaning, or will it crave another Trumpist candidate? We do know that prospective candidates are already thinking that far ahead, trying to carve out distinct profiles for themselves. They haven’t decided when they’re going to run, but they’re wondering if 2024 will be the right year.”

Most of Scher’s lineup is really hideous and it’s lucky they’re not based on anything but his own farts caught in a plastic bag and inhaled. Some are obvious and some are absurd but it’s beyond belief that Politico paid him to write the essay and then put it on the cover of their magazine. First the Republicans:

• Pence: “willing to sacrifice principle for ambition… [with] talent for bootlicking.”
• Nikki Haley: starting rumors about Trump replacing Pence with herself got her a ton of press and the dull-witted media loves her for her carefully calibrated political profile as “a Republican who is loyal to Trump without always agreeing with Trump… Perhaps at some point, her attempts to please Republicans from all camps won’t withstand tough questioning. But for now, she ends 2019 indisputably on the 2024 short list.
• Josh Hawley: “may be the Republican Barack Obama.” More likely: not. His sole achievement is that he’s the youngest senator, although he’s “wowed conservative commentators with a series of speeches and bills that seek to evolve Trump’s crude conservative populism into a governing vision with a sustainable intellectual foundation.” Or how about closet case and warmonger Tom Cotton instead?
• Ron DeSantis: we’ve just wandered off into the realm of idiotic. Supposedly his best trait is that he isn’t as bad as other Republican governors.
• Don Jr: I’m not making this up. “While his sister Ivanka has earned a reputation as an ineffectual inside player who is ideologically out of step with her father and the Republican Party, Junior has been a caustic, partisan warrior on social media, and a rock star on the campaign trail for his father and congressional candidates.”
• Don Sr: “If the incumbent loses this year, he would remain constitutionally eligible to run in 2024. And the elder Trump is not one to slink quietly away after a defeat.”

The Democratic line-up in Scher’s brain is also the result of his plastic bag full of farts. Or maybe he was on psychotropic drugs.

• AOC: “Whether the big-d Democratic Party will want to embrace small-d democratic socialism depends on developments that cannot be foreseen, especially this one: Which ideological faction will the 2020 Democratic nominee represent, and how will that person fare in the general election against Trump? But no matter what happens in 2020, Ocasio-Cortez has made it clear that the democratic socialists are not going anywhere, and that she is prepared to lead them. If she is ready to run in 2024, there will be a movement behind her.”
• Cuomo and Newsom: two hated neocons or, as Scher admiringly put it, “Despite their achievements, neither is receiving universal love from progressive activists… [a]ngering the activist left isn’t necessarily disqualifying to many Democratic voters.”
• Andy Beshear: very conservative though not as conservative as John Bel Edwards.
• Stacey Abrams: isn’t she supposed to be governor of Georgia by then?

How about Bernie is president ’til 2028 and then Vice President Warren takes over for 8 more years? That 16 year progressive stink is what the country needs now… not a Trump dynasty or a parade of neocons. Then it will be Senator AOC's turn. And one question: Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar, Beto, Mayo Pete, Tulsi... none of them are going to run again?

The Establishment LOVES It When Progressives Lose A Race

Media conservatives could not wait to attack Alexandria (and Bernie) for the races "they" lost Tuesday. This was an especially venal headline from venal right-wing propagandist and fake news manufacturer Kyle Olson, Socialist star Ocasio-Cortez strikes out: All endorsed candidates lose Tuesday primaries. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s record on Tuesday night for her chosen primary candidates," he giggled, "was as bare as a Venezuelan supermarket shelf." And dull status quo shill Bill Scher quickly penned Down Goes Socialism for Politico. I'm sure Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Chuck Schumer are all patting themselves on the back today. "If you thought," he channeled, "that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset primary win over Rep. Joe Crowley meant the Democratic Party was poised to go socialist, think again. Last night’s largely Midwest primaries produced a near-shutout for the anti-establishment left. Ocasio-Cortez partnered with Bernie Sanders to make a series of splashy endorsements that, in the end, failed to clinch victories. And two leftist upstarts hoping to emulate Ocasio-Cortez, and defeat longtime Democratic incumbents, fell far short."

The most glaring defeat came in Michigan’s gubernatorial primary. This is the state where Sanders defied the polls and edged out Hillary Clinton, raising hopes that he had a magic touch in the Rust Belt. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez tried to catapult the young and brash newcomer Abdul El-Sayed, who trailed in polls, endorsements and money to former state Senate Democratic leader Gretchen Whitmer. They could only nudge him up to second place, with 30 percent of the vote.

In fact, Hillary Clinton’s endorsement appeared to carry the most weight in Michigan. Her late robocall in support of Haley Stevens helped take Stevens from second-place in polls to an Election Night victory in the suburban 11th district, a top Democratic target, while Fayrouz Saad, backed by Ocasio-Cortez, placed fourth. In two other House primaries in Michigan, candidates backed by the party’s official campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, coasted against supporters of Sanders’ signature Medicare for All proposal.

El-Sayed’s defeat may have been the most noticeable loss for Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, but the defeat of Brent Welder in Kansas is far more politically significant. Welder, a former Sanders 2016 campaign staffer, hoped to carry the Democratic banner in Kansas’ 3rd congressional district. The largely urban district is a top party priority, one of a handful of Republican-held seats that Clinton won in 2016.

The Berniecrat left desperately wants to convince naysaying political veterans (and annoying political pundits) that a democratic socialist platform holds the ticket to victory in heartland districts like this one—so much so that Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez gave a full-throated endorsement to Welder over another compelling and fairly liberal candidate in Sharice Davids.

She’s a lesbian Native American, professional mixed martial arts fighter and former Obama White House Fellow. But Davids exhibited a bit too much of an incrementalist streak for some progressives, arguing that single-payer health insurance is not realistic in the short term and supporting free community college instead of promising to make all college debt-free. Negating the stereotype that the far left puts “identity politics” above all, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez backed the white guy.

Welder led in the early vote, raising hopes among progressive populists that they would get one major victory out of last night’s primaries, only to see Davids come out on top Wednesday morning by about 2,000 votes. That leaves Nebraska’s Kara Eastman as the only single-payer supporter nominated for a competitive House race in America’s “breadbasket.” (In Kansas’ 4th congressional district, James Thompson, who supports single-payer and was endorsed by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, won his primary, setting up a rematch with incumbent Rep. Ron Estes. But most professional handicappers don’t consider the seat to be attainable for Democrats.)

Targeted Democratic incumbents easily survived challengers who hoped to be the next Ocasio-Cortez and who were endorsed by the anti-establishment Justice Dems. In Washington State’s “top-two” primary, Susan Smith received less than half the votes of Rep. Adam Smith and failed to make the cut. And in Missouri’s first congressional district, Rep. William Lacy Clay defeated Cori Bush by 20 points. While the remaining Democratic incumbents still facing primaries this year shouldn’t get caught napping like Rep. Joe Crowley, nor do they have to fear that the Democratic Party is gripped with a fever to throw all the bums out.

The one endorsement that paid off for Ocasio-Cortez was of Rashida Tlaib, who won a close race to succeed John Conyers in Michigan’s 13th district and, having no Republican opponent, is poised to be the first Muslim woman elected to Congress. But that victory illuminates the limits of Ocasio-Cortez’s influence. Michigan’s 13th is like New York’s 14th: deep, deep blue. Ocasio-Cortez’s district is the 30th-most Democratic in the country. Tlaib’s is the 21st. When Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth snarked that Ocasio-Cortez represented the future of the Democratic Party “in the Bronx,” she was mistaken. It’s the future of the Bronx-- and Detroit.

OK, that’s a cheap shot. Cori Bush performed better against Clay than did Russ Carnahan, a sitting congressman (who was redistricted out of his seat), in 2012. As FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich wrote on Twitter , “This tells you all you need to know about how the Democratic Party has moved.” Bush, El-Sayed, Smith and Welder all scored about one-third of the Democratic vote in their contests, which is not nothing.

The Democratic Party is more liberal than it was 15 years ago, and there’s no question that shift is partly due to an increasingly vocal, confident, confrontational democratic socialist faction. But it is still only a faction. Most Democratic nominees in competitive House races-- not to mention incumbent Senate Democrats fighting for their political lives in red states—are not embracing single-payer or calling for the abolishment of ICE. They are mostly calling for improvements of the Affordable Care Act and a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented.

“There is no district too red for us to flip,” Ocasio-Cortez declared in a recent speech. Given how close Danny O’Connor came to winning the special election in Ohio’s 12th district, she’s probably right. But her platform doesn’t seem like the path to Democratic victories in red districts, based on Tuesday’s results. In the places where democratic socialists are making their biggest inroads, the hue is blue.

So what does this committed defender of the status quo have wrong? First off, because of her experience as a state legislator coupled with her policy agenda, Rashida Tlaib, was probably the most important race of the evening. And she fought off and beat-- much to the chagrin of the status quo Democrats-- a gaggle of establishment Dems, including the nephew, Ian Conyers, of the outgoing congressman, the son, Coleman Young II, of Detroit's first African-American mayor, the current president of the Detroit City Council, Brenda Jones and the current mayor of suburban Westland (the white candidate in the race).

I seem to recall that the big rally that Bernie and Alexandria did together was in Wichita... where James Thompson won went on to win a 65.3-34.7% landslide. Last time the establishment was busy blowing $6 million on some dull, meaningless centrist in Georgia, this was the result:

The establishment spent virtually nothing to help James Thompson at around the same time and look how his race ended up:

Imagine of one of those millions they wasted on Ossoff had been spent on Thompson's race. So that parenthetical dismissal from Bill Scher is just more elitist crap. KS-04 is very much in play, particularly after Estes just spent the last year being a lapdog and enabler for Trump.

Right now progressive activists who backed Brent Welder in KS-03 and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan are rallying for Sharice David and Gretchen Whitmer... which is more than the DCCC is doing for progressive primary winners like Thompson (KS), Matt Longjohn MI), Mike Siegel (TX), Dayna Steele (TX), Kendra Fershee (WV), Jess King(PA), J.D. Scholten (IA) or Carolyn Long (WA).

Even Fox News' Todd Starnes decided to attack Alexandria, claiming she was a distraction from Danny O'Connor's campaign in Ohio! John Amato at Crooks and Liars had the story. "Religious right loon Todd Starnes... [said] 'another issue here is the Democrats, they've got real trouble on their hands. I imagine Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is going to be crying into her pillow tonight because the Democrat, here O'Connor-- look how he ran, he ran not as a progressive, one of those Socialists, you ran as a centrist. That's a big problem for the Democrats.'"

Who's The Best Candidate To Clean Out Trump's Filthy Pigsty-- Be It A Man Or A Woman?

Who's going to clean up the disgusting crap Trump and the Republican Party took on America? Electing a Democratic Congress next year will be a start but it won't be enough. America is going to need a smart, strong, capable and determined president in 2020. When Eurystheus ordered Hercules to clean up King Augeas' stables, he only had one day to do it and he altered the course of two rivers-- Alpheus and Peneus-- to get it done. Cleaning up after Trump will be an even tougher task. Yesterday two of the Beltway trade papers, The Hill and Politico were speculating about who the Democrats would nominate for the job. "Democrats," according to Amie Parnes, "predict that as many as 30 candidates will compete in their party’s presidential primary in 2020." Sounds silly? Well, speaking of silly, there's already a declared candidate: right-wing New Dem multimillionaire congressman, John Delaney, a real pile of crap himself. But he's not on anyone's short list of likely nominees. (Vanity candidates Jeff Boss, Rocky De La Fuente, Geoffrey Fieger and Robby Wells have also declared.)

But to get to 30, you have to also include Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris (an unaccomplished former California Attorney General who somehow wound up in the U.S. Senate, where she hasn't accomplished anything either), Terry McAuliffe, Joe Kennedy III, Julian Castro, Tom Steyer, Stephen Colbert, John Hickenlooper, Amy Klobuchar, Mitch Landrieu, Eric Holder, Dwayne Johnson, Seth Moulton, Martin O'Malley, Tulsi Gabbard, Deval Patrick, Mark Zuckerberg, Jason Kander, Steve Bullock, John Kerry, Michelle Obama, Mark Warner, John Bel Edwards, Sherrod Brown, Andrew Cuomo, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bill de Blasio, Tim Kaine, and anyone else whose name has been in the newspapers more than twice this year.

"A year after a devastating 2016 defeat, Democrats are craving new faces with fresh ideas," wrote Parnes. "Yet many of their leading contenders for the White House in 2020 are politicians who have been around for decades. There’s also no clear standout in the potential field," apparently forgetting that every poll shows Bernie is the most beloved and popular political leader in America and that he would crush Trump by double-digit margins. But that isn't part of the establishment media narrative so... "'You have a bunch of Celine Dions but there’s no Beatles,' said Phil Singer, a Democratic strategist who served as press secretary on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run... The Hill interviewed nearly a dozen prominent Democrats to find out who has captured the party’s attention in recent months and who has fallen out of favor.  Here’s how they see the field stacking up right now."

• Bernie
• Biden (the top choice of the desperate corrupt Beltway establishment that fears change)
• Elizabeth Warren
• Kamala Harris (who not even voters in California have ever heard of or give a shit about)
• Sherrod Brown
• Deval Patrick, some inoffensive guy from Massachusetts

Well, at least they didn't include Kirsten Gillibrand on the list. Politico did though. Bill Scher's pathetic list is like an ad for EMILY's List: "Why 2020 Will Be The Year Of The Woman." It's all about Harvey Weinstein (and sex perv Trump) and the other pigs and it's a girl's turn (like last year). His post is full of crap like "Democrats, who have been unsparing to their own in this post-Weinstein moment, may be hungering for a Year of the Women 2.0-- one that tells male Democrats to take a backseat for once and catapults a woman into the Oval Office. As the New Republic’s Jeet Heer proclaimed, 'Trump’s election ripped wide a wound in America, and only a woman president can heal it.' If so, she’s likely to have an early advantage: The 2020 Democratic primary landscape looks to be tilted to another woman presidential nominee. In 2016, women composed nearly 60 percent of the Democratic presidential primary electorate, many of whom are understandably pining for the karmic justice of defeating Trump with shards from a glass ceiling that Hillary Clinton could not break."

There are two equally great candidates in the mix: Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. Bernie isn't on that short list because he's a man and it takes away from Elizabeth Warren to lump her in with garbage like Gillibrand and Harris as "a girl." She's tied for the best candidate for because of her ideas and her abilities. No doubt one of the reasons she's as magnificent as she is has to do with her gender, which helped form her. But that isn't why she should be the nominee. I love the idea of a woman president-- but only if the woman is the one who would make the best president. Elizabeth Warren could clean out those Augean stables. Kamala Harris? There's no reason to believe she has the ability to do much more than wake up in the morning and get showered and dressed. Kirsten Gillibrand? A pig in a poke who is the classic example of a political opportunist. Ever watch Veep? Most of these candidates are as qualified to be president as Selina Meyer, the Julia Louis-Dreyfus character. Watch White House chief of staff Amy Brookheimer tell President Meyer what an utter, unmitigated disaster she is: "You have achieved nothing, apart from one thing. The fact that you are a woman means that we will have no more women presidents because we tried one and she fucking sucked!"



Scher's an idiot and he names Kristin Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren as possible candidates and wrote that "if a woman is going to lead the party, she will have to overcome some major obstacles, probably including one or two old white dudes and a few other women with the same bright idea," perfect framing for Politico. And he gets worse: "Outrage alone is not going to produce another Year of the Woman. One woman will need to have ample reservoirs of charisma and guile in order to crush her opposition." And when he stumbles on something intelligent-- "Faced with a president Democrats consider the greatest disgrace in American history since slavery, an obsession with the demographics of their next presidential nominee may seen gratuitous, even counterproductive. Shouldn’t Democratic energy be laser-focused on winning back wayward working-class Trump voters? The ones who decided Democrats care more about political correctness than bringing jobs back?"-- he makes sure his readers remember what a fool he is: "That attitude fails to appreciate what has defined modern liberalism over the past century."

Biden will have no problem speaking knowledgeably and passionately about sexual assault. But he may have a harder time when it comes to speaking about sexual harassment.

Over his 40-plus years in office, Biden lived through a changing national understanding of the issue. And because he was in office at a time when sexual harassment wasn’t taken as seriously, he has a glaring weak spot: He was the chair of the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings, and Anita Hill blames him for how she was effectively put on trial, and for failing to allow corroborating witnesses to testify.

Earlier this month, while speaking at Glamour’s Women of the Year event, Biden offered an apology, along with a defense of his own actions: “I believed Anita Hill. I voted against Clarence Thomas … I am so sorry that she had to go through what she went through.” But in a new interview with the Washington Post, Hill remains critical: “I still don’t think [Biden’s statement] takes ownership of his role in what happened. And he also doesn’t understand that it wasn’t just that I felt it was not fair. It was that women were looking to the Senate Judiciary Committee and his leadership to … show leadership on this issue on behalf of women’s equality. And they did just the opposite.”

For his own part, Sanders has shown an ability to win votes from women who see feminism and socialism as intertwined. “Feminism is a worldview that understands and critiques power,” wrote Slate’s Shiva Bayat during last year’s primary, and Sanders reflects that worldview because he “dares to challenge the economic system.”

But Sanders has always seemed more conversant on economic class issues than those that touch on feminism and identity. And he has yet to find a way to address those topics that suggests he understands why they’re important separate from class struggle. “It is not good enough for somebody to say, ‘I’m a woman, vote for me,’” Sanders said in a Boston speech two weeks after Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. “What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industries.”

Beloved as he is to so many on the left, Sanders’ prominent speaking slot for last month’s Women’s Convention caused so much division among the progressive attendees that he belatedly declined the invitation. In April, the Vermont senator was scorched after he unapologetically endorsed an Omaha mayoral candidate deemed “anti-choice”; NARAL President Ilyse Hogue said that the decision to “support a candidate for office who will strip women-- one of the most critical constituencies for the party—of our basic rights and freedom is not only disappointing, it is politically stupid.” (The fact that Sanders doesn’t seem to connect reproductive rights with women’s economic autonomy continues to frustrate many pro-choice activists.) And it’s hard to imagine Sanders’ strange 1972 essay about rape and gender roles being brushed off as dismissively now as it was just two years ago.

With the two male Democratic front-runners hobbled post-Weinstein, the opportunity is wide open for a strong woman-- or four--to run.

Such a fucking jackass. "Hobbled." How the establishment assholes hope and pray every day! He does know enough, though, to have written that of the 4 women he thinks should be candidates, "Warren is the only one with a national following. In early primary polling, no other woman reaches double digits." His case for Kamala Harris is so silly as to be insulting to women. "Harris-- the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India-- is the only woman of color seriously mentioned as a 2020 candidate, having instantly attracted presidential buzz upon her election to the Senate last year." Unfortunately she doesn't stand for anything in anyone's mind except for being anti-Trump, something only Beltway imbeciles think is enough.

And does he ever tip-toe around Klobuchar's dull, anti-inspirational, energy-free centrism: "Of the lot, Klobuchar is the least left wing. In Iowa earlier this year, the Minnesotan expressed allegiance with those 'in the middle of the country,' geographically and politically. She is only one of the Big Four who has not backed Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation, and she has said that while she is pro-choice herself, being against abortion should not disqualify one from being a Democrat. If she runs in 2020, her challenge is to convince progressive primary voters that to get Middle America to accept a woman president, you need someone from Middle America more than you need ideological purity tests."

Scher ends on an intelligent note, even if he has trouble applying it: "[F]or a woman to win in 2020, she can’t be a pedestrian politician. She must be a superstar. And she won’t become a superstar by anointment, as Obama was in 2004. She will have to make it happen by breaking out of the Senate procedural muck, delivering soaring speeches, crafting signature policy ideas, picking high-profile fights, outwitting conservatives and proving she knows how to triumph over the inevitable misogynistic attacks."

Why Ted Lieu Just Endorsed Randy Bryce

You want this guy fighting on your side?

One of my favorite establishment journalists called today to ask me about Randy Bryce and see if he could find out how he created his brand. (Maybe he wants to sell the "secret" to the DCCC.) We wound up getting into an argument when he asked me about the "white working class" and I refused to engage on that establishment construct and insisted on talking about "the working class." He was unconvinced and I'll let you know when his @IronStache story comes out. Meanwhile, though, Bill Scher had something to say about how the Democrats are going about trying to win back the House with their "white working-class framing." In Politico this week, he wrote that "Democrats anxious about the white working-class vote found fresh hope last week in the gangbusters campaign launch of an otherwise unknown former fighter pilot named Amy McGrath. Her video "quickly became a sensation, already scoring 1 million YouTube views-- three times the number of people who voted in the last election in Kentucky’s 6th District, where she plans to run. In 36 hours of the video release, McGrath raised nearly $200,000 in online donations" even though no one knows where she stands on key issues that face the country-- like Medicare-For-All or free college or a $15 minimum wage.

It’s not hard to understand why Democrats are sending the video around, and sending checks in her direction: 45 years after George McGovern’s bust of an anti-war campaign, 37 years after President Jimmy Carter's ill-fated hostage rescue mission and almost three decades since Michael Dukakis thought it was a good idea to take a tank ride, Democrats still believe they have to prove they’re not a bunch of national security softies. Republicans have colonized the “guns and guts” vote so thoroughly that they’ve started to see every tough-talking Democrat who comes along as the next savior of the party. Before McGrath, the working-class hero du jour was Randy Bryce, or “Ironstache,” the Wisconsin Army vet and House candidate whose introductory video melted Democratic hearts as he skewered Speaker Paul Ryan’s attempt to repeal Obamacare. He raised serious coin, too: $430,000 from 16,000 donors in about two weeks. And some Democrats already are fanning a crush on Iraq War vet Seth Moulton to top the presidential ticket in 2020, even though he’s not yet 40 years old and has only won two elections on the Massachusetts North Shore.

So no one knows what McGrath stands for. Bryce is an outspoken progressive and Moulton... well ProgressivePunch rates him an "F" and his voting record this session, the most conservative of any member from Massachusetts, is 61.11, even worse than notorious conservative Stephen Lynch who's being primaried from a progressive. A colleague of Moulton's just reminded me that he "has been one of the most self-serving members undermining progressives. He has refused to back Medicare-for-All. He attacked Pramila Jayapal, the vice ranking member [of his committee], as not fiscally responsible. He has consistently attacked Nancy Pelosi from the right and is leading the charge for the caucus to go in a more 'moderate' direction. His senior advisor is David Gergen who has advised him that triangulation and attacking progressives is his path to power. He and Jason Kander both are talking this approach to run for the White House. They are louder in their attacks on progressives than many Republicans."

They're all military people-- and they're all different. Blue America has a special ActBlue page for veterans running on overtly progressive platforms. We'd love to put McGrath on that page... but we have to find out if she's more like Randy Bryce or more like Seth Moulton. Scher wrote that the DCCC's military fetish makes sense, at least "on paper. There’s just one problem. Ever since the Iraq War, Democrats have always recruited a robust slate of military vets. And they usually lose. It might be emotionally satisfying for Democrats to see a bad-ass veteran talk about landing fighter jets on aircraft carriers while proudly wearing the Democratic badge. But the warm feeling obscures the fact that viral videos, no matter how patriotic, don’t turn deep red districts blue. Every dollar that goes to flashy pipe dreams like McGrath or Bryce-- [yes, yes, Scher can an out-of-touch, Beltway moron with his head up the DCCC's ass, but I want to make a point and he gets plenty right, even if he's behind the curve on what's happening outside of the Beltway]-- is a dollar that doesn’t go to the dozens of dull candidates with a plausible shot at flipping a seat. (And, yes, most people who win House races are dull. Turn on C-SPAN for five minutes if you don’t believe me.)"

It’s not just McGrath or Bryce. Democrats are betting heavily on military veterans to break through what political polarization and gerrymandered districts have done to their seat share in Congress, and particularly the House of Representatives, where they are down to 201 seats, versus 234 Republican ones. The New York Times reported last month that “Democratic Party leaders are aggressively seeking former members of the military” to flip Trump districts, both because they represent a challenge to career politicians, and because they take the security-toughness card away from Republicans. About 20 Democratic veterans have announced challenges in Republican House districts, with more expected before summer is out.

There’s no inherent problem with Democratic candidates who are veterans. But it’s a lazy assumption that red turf can be easily poached by a candidate who can stir some feel-good patriotism and bring a healthy dose of swagger from the “real America.” If you’re a Democrat, sharing a video of a McGrath or a Bryce affirms to your social media networks that your party isn’t made up of precious snowflakes. Donating might seem like a chance to support that vision of the party—full-throated, muscular, ready to fire the jets for 2018. (“This is the Kind of Ad that Keeps Paul Ryan Up at Night,” crowed Mother Jones, about McGrath’s video.) But the question that matters is how to identify and prioritize winnable seats. The quest for vets threatens to turn the party into a bunch of deluded Don Quixotes, chasing after districts far out of Democratic reach.

Democratic fascination with veterans as a congressional strategy began in 2006, when public frustration with the Iraq War was peaking. Forty-nine general election House candidates were branded as “Fighting Dems.” Only five won, four of whom took Republican-held seats. But putting veterans up front gave Democrats extra credibility when criticizing the war.

Since then, Democratic House strategists, and willing Democratic primary voters, have continued to lean on veterans, even though their batting average has only gotten worse. According to data provided by the Veterans Campaign and Military Times congressional reporter Leo Shane III, Democrats nominated 42 veterans for House races in 2016 and 54 in 2014. Each time, only three veterans won, and all succeeded fellow Democrats. No Democratic military veteran has defeated an incumbent House Republican since 2012, when Tammy Duckworth of Illinois took out the vitriolic Joe Walsh, who publicly complained that Duckworth talked about her service too much. (She also defeated an incumbent Senate Republican last November.)

Before Duckworth, four Democratic vets took Republican-held seats in the 2008 election, but that was hardly a model class. Two of the four were defeated in their 2010 reelection bids, and a third resigned after charges of groping and sexual harassment. Today, there are only 18 veterans in the House Democratic caucus, eight of whom were first elected in 2006 or thereafter.

To be fair, a poor electoral track record is no reason for Democrats to give up on military veteran candidates. Those who served bring valuable experience and perspective to a governmental body that funds our armed services and plays a major role in national security policy. And swiping a district across gerrymandered lines is an exceedingly difficult task, regardless of a candidate’s biography. Just because many veterans fall short doesn’t mean lawyers, business owners or local legislators would offer better odds.

But candidates with compelling bios and polished videos do create a “shiny object” problem at the national level, distracting Democratic attention from bigger problems with the party’s messaging and connection to working-class voters, and from the races that provide the most plausible path to the speakership.

Democrats need to flip 24 seats to take control of the House. According to the Cook Political Report as of late July, there are 52 Republican-held seats that are competitive, and that’s under a generous definition of “competitive,” including 23 seats deemed “likely” to remain in Republican hands. Kentucky's 6th District, where McGrath is running, doesn’t make the cut—the incumbent, Rep. Andy Barr, has won the seat by about 20 points in the past two elections, and both Donald Trump and Mitt Romney won the district by double digits. The only way McGrath wins in a district like that is if the bottom completely falls out from under the GOP. A fighter jet video is not going to tip the district over.

Nor, by the way, does Wisconsin’s first congressional district, where Bryce is challenging Speaker Ryan, make the competitive list. The district’s pinkish hue-- Obama snatched it in 2008, though Trump notched a double-digit win here in 2016-- has always given Democrats false hope that Ryan was vulnerable. But he’s never had a close race, and he’s run 10 times.

Beltway pundits like Scher who write about elections are usually worth reading the day after the election when they have a better chance to get things right. The DCCC has never contested Ryan's district because Pelosi has a policy of not challenging GOP leaders, so I'm not sure what "false hope" he's talking about. The seat is winnable because people hate Ryan in the district-- his reelect numbers predict he will lose-- and because Randy is a unique candidate with a powerful brand, of which his military service is just one part. McGrath is also in a district that can flip-- if she can connect with KY-06 voters the way Bryce is connecting with WI-01 voters. It can't just be all biography; voters want to know what candidates plan to do for them. Bryce is telling them loudly and clearly. I hope McGrath's very establishment Blue Dog campaign manager-- he ran Ben Chandler's campaigns-- and the expensive Beltway consultants she'll waste money from the inspirational video brings in on don't make her into another Ossoff, which is always what people like that try to do. Always.

Scher ends by pointing out that "There’s little about being a veteran that makes it easier to speak on the bread and butter issues that matter in elections, a lesson Democrats learned the hard way in 2004-- when former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark flamed out as a primary candidate, and then another military veteran, Sen. John Kerry, lost in the general election to a guy who’d avoided the Vietnam War, but was far more plainspoken. Weakness with the white working class certainly hampers the Democrats’ ability to take advantage of Trump’s abysmal job approval and Congress’ meager legislative output. But to solve that problem, Democrats can’t simply call in the cavalry, no matter how many times they try." He's right about that. Among Congress' very best members are veterans-- like Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)-- and some of its less than stellar members are as well. In fact Both Lieu and Gallego have endorsed Bryce-- Lieu just an hour ago:

"Randy Bryce is an extraordinary candidate and we're lucky to have him running for Congress. It would be a very healthy development for the House to have more members who are as committed to the interests of working families and to veterans as he is. I've spoken with Randy and, like several of my colleagues, I've gotten to know him. I can tell you that I look forward to working with him on the issues of social justice, jobs and economic equality. Climate change and national security motivated me to run for Congress, and I know Randy will champion those issues as well. Washington Democrats have a lot to learn from Randy Bryce; he has a big future in our party and for our country. I am endorsing Randy because he will do a far better job for Wisconsin and our nation than Paul Ryan."