Help Shock The DCCC-- Help Replace Crooked Ken Calvert With Liam O'Mara In Riverside County

 

In 2016, Trump won 7 of California's 53 congressional districts and all have relatively strong red PVIs. Only one of those districts is in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, CA-42 in western Riverside County. The district goes from Eastvale and Norco just west of Riverside down through Corona, the Temescal Valley and Lake Elsinore to Menifee and Murrieta. The PVI is R+9 and Trump took the district 53.4% to 41.4%. Whites are a plurality there-- 42.9%-- with a large Latino population (38.5%) and electorally significant Asian (9%) and black communities (5.2%). It was the only congressional district in southern California to vote against Gavin Newsom for governor in 2018 but the district has been slowly, slowly, slowly turning from red to purple.

The current congressman is an amoral, corrupt, out-of-touch hack, Ken Calvert. When Fox News was looking for an example of congressional corruption for a TV special, they came up with three of the worst in DC, one being Calvert. Watch while Chris Wallace explains why:





Calvert has served the corrupt corporate agenda of big-moneyed donors and lobbyists. Since 1993, he has used his power and influence against Inland Empire working class and marginalized communities. His largest donors are part of the military-industrial complex, and he has pushed ever greater corporate welfare for bomb-makers, while voting for every use of force and sending American youth to die for oil and foreign infrastructure contracts. Along the way he has championed the expanding police state, and resisted every opportunity to make life better for the residents of his district.

This cycle, the California Democratic Party endorsed history of ideas professor Liam O'Mara, an outspoken, working class progressive. But the DCCC showed no interest in the district or in O'Mara, who they would consider "too progressive" and far too independent-minded. He is campaigning on issues the DCCC and Democratic Party establishment oppose: Medicare-for-All, a Green New Deal, UBI (universal basic income), and systemic government reform. When I first met him last year he told me that the very same ideas that have helped members of Squad beat entrenched establishment Democrats in blue strongholds can work to defeat entrenched establishment Republicans in red strongholds. His point was that by sticking to progressive policies which address the economic interests of American workers-- and framing those policies in ways that make sense to them-- progressives can go back to winning elections all across the heartland, and finally have the numbers in Congress to address the major challenges our time is crying out for. He told me that the American Dream is "being murdered by conservative and neoliberal economic policies which strip wealth from ordinary Americans and siphon it into the accounts of an oligarchic elite. As a historian, I pay close attention to the lessons of the past and the way they help to explain the present. Nothing about the Trumpist phenomenon has been a surprise; indeed, I have long argued that this turn towards neofascist populism was inevitable in the Republican party post-Reagan.

We live today in a world created by Reaganite policies-- a world very like that of the Robber Baron era, when most of the country’s wealth was held in a tiny number of hands, and people today are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Nearly a trillion dollars was lost by the bottom 50% of the country in the last few decades. Meanwhile, the top few per cent have seen record-breaking levels of profit.

The media is lying when it talks about economic growth, because-- let’s face it-- the stock market and job-creation numbers do not paint a full-enough picture of what is happening. Despite higher levels of workforce participation and more education, Millennials earn less than Boomers did at the same age, and have a far higher cost of living. The reasons for this are not complex-- wages have remained flat for nearly fifty years. As productivity levels have soared, poor tax policy has allowed those gains to translate into wealth for a few, and rising debt for the many.

It is this disparity in wealth which has made the Trump era possible. When the liberal orthodoxies only increase inequality and fears for the future, and no left-populist or socialist alternative is available, workers will drift into the arms of demagogues who offer simple solutions to their ills. It’s the immigrants! It’s China! It’s the fake news media! When people are hurting, and someone offers them an enemy, it is all-too-tempting to listen.

Trump’s rise was made possible, not by latent racism or by conservatism, but by the failure to articulate a rational alternative. An alliance with financial elites may have translated into some short-term successes in the 1990s, but even these were illusory-- Bill Clinton won the presidency both times with less than half of the vote because an independent populist sapped votes from the two major parties. There was a lesson to be learned from Ross Perot’s “great sucking sound,” and unfortunately it was some in the Republican party who listened.

Income inequality lies at the core of the collapsing American Dream. What we need to be talking about is equality of opportunity-- giving people the resources they need to pick themselves up and make whatever they want of their lives. This is what made America great! There is a real irony in watching a reactionary Republican party herald a past “golden age” of prosperity which was created by the very policies they most despise! Post-war America built a strong welfare state on the back of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Republican and Democratic presidents alike, from Truman and Eisenhower, through Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, all accepted its basic outlines. Massive federal spending was supported by progressive taxation and steady growth. That growth itself was a result of tax policy, as it incentivized investment in the real economy and good pay for workers. Fordist logic-- the principle whereby workers are paid enough to be able to afford your products-- was the order of the day, and factory workers could afford a suburban dream-home just as easily as dentists and lawyers.

If we are going to fight back against the destructive influence of the Chicago School’s neoliberal economic ideals, we have to get back to talking about those bold liberal visions that created the middle class in America. And that means taking a class-conscious approach, reaching out to working class voters regardless of education levels, and telling them our ideas will make them richer-- because they will!

Failure to heed this strategy has been disastrous for Democrats and for the country. Letting our emphasis on the workers slip has allowed a Republican party whose ideas are harming workers to claim their loyalty. We must get back to fighting for those same hearts and minds, and we can do that by talking about basic economics again, and showing the voters that we have a path forward that will help all Americans.

This morning, with the election just days away, he is busy putting his get out the vote program into action with no help at all from the DCCC. He told me that "When this race began I knew that the 42nd and Calvert got ignored across the country, and that we're usually written off as safely red. So, my team and I came at this with a different strategy that better suited the demography and the unique issues in the area, and the proof of that is in the pudding. We have had countless Republicans and conservative independents reach out to say they are voting for me, despite knowing I am a solid progressive, because I frame issues in ways that make more sense. That effort is starting to get noticed, too. Even the conservative predictive models used by FiveThirtyEight show a solid chance of flipping this seat, potentially one of the very best chances for any progressive in a red/purple district, and about seven times the chance of any Democrat here in the last dozen years. And turn-out is already historically high. Every single day of early returns there have been more Democratic ballots than Republican, and if this continues we are on track for a historic upset."

Currently, Liam's campaign has three different ads in Spanish running on Univision stations, and an English radio ad on major Inland Empire radio station KOLA. They're being heard four and five times a day and the campaign needs to keep them on the air through Tuesday. Despite the cluelessness of Cheri Bustos and the DCCC, CA-42 is a flippable district, but Liam needs to keep those phone banks running and those ads on the radio! Blue America is making one last appeal for you to flip one of the last Republican districts in California. Please click on the thermometer on the right, which takes you to a unique ActBlue page for progressives running in districts that Trump won in 2016. These are the seats we are concentrating on for our final 2020 push. The DCCC is ignoring them but they are among the most important gains progressives can make this cycle. Please consider giving what you can to help Liam flip this seat.

The White Working Class Is Not Sold On Biden, But Will It Abandon Trump In The COVID-Election?

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg recently watched a series of focus groups of white working class voters in rural Wisconsin, the Mahoning Valley region in Ohio, northern Maine and suburban Macomb County, Michigan, all swing areas where Trump did well. Vote-rich Macomb County, for example, gave Trump a 53.6-42.1% victory over Hillary in 2016, after going for Obama both times he ran. Trump won the northern Maine congressional district, which also voted for Obama twice, by an astounding 10 points-- 51.4% to 41.1%. In 2018 though, the district ousted its Republican congressman and elected, Jared Golden, a Democratic state legislator in his place.

Greenberg wrote that what he watched told him that "the heartbreaking health care crisis that is ravaging working-class and rural communities threatens to cut short Donald Trump’s political career, and demands a forceful response from opposition Democrats. It will teach big lessons about how to reach working people who are struggling, regardless of color." He shared his findings with the American Prospect, noting that "In 2016, a white working-class revolt enabled Trump to win [working class] men by an unimaginable 48 points and women by 27. But disillusionment was real in the midterms: The Republican House margin dropped 13 points across the white working class. In the new poll, Trump lost a further 6 points with white working-class women, where Biden only trailed Trump by 8 points (52 to 44 percent). While Trump has been throwing a lot of red meat to his base, white working-class men have not been dislodged from their trajectory, as Trump’s margin eroded another 4 points."

These are mostly low-wage families, many with children raised by a single parent. They are consumed with rising opioid deaths and disabilities and a deadly expensive health care system. That was a big part of why they voted for Donald Trump in 2016: so he could end Obamacare and its costly mandate, and deliver affordable health insurance for all. When he failed to do so, many voted against the Republicans in the midterms.

But the pandemic was the perfect storm. I have never seen such a poignant discussion of the health and disability problems facing families and their children, the risks they faced at work, and the prospect of even higher health care and prescription drug costs. The final straw was a president who battled not for the “forgotten Americans,” but for himself, the top one percent, and the biggest, greediest companies.

That is why most in the Zoom focus groups pulled back from President Trump. Three-quarters of these voters supported Trump in 2016, but less than half planned to vote for him now. Even those who still supported him did not push back when other participants expressed anger with his doing nothing about health care, fostering hatred and racism, dividing the country, siding with the upper classes, and having no plan for COVID-19. This is a life-and-death issue for them, as much as nearly any other group in American society.

The same voters were still very cautious about Joe Biden, who seemed old and not very strong, but most importantly offered the prospect of only minor changes to the health care system and seemed unlikely to challenge the power of the top one percent. Like lots of other working people, they are looking for a leader who will make big changes in health care, fight for working people over big business, and unite the country to defeat the current economic and public-health crisis.

Working-class anger with the establishment after the financial crisis of 2008 ran deep into the Democratic base of Blacks, Hispanics, unmarried women, and millennials, too. Many were not initially enthusiastic about the Affordable Care Act, and in election after election failed to rally fully for Democratic candidates until the 2018 midterms, when Democrats ran on “health care, health care, health care!” The pandemic may allow progressives to battle for working people, regardless of color.

In today's working-class and rural communities, health care is everything. In introductory remarks, participants in the focus groups went right to the personal health care crises they were facing every day.

“My wife is disabled,” said one man from Wisconsin. “My daughter has 30 percent immune system left so she’s bouncing around from doctor to doctor and the wife says don’t bring [the pandemic] home.” Another Wisconsin man spoke of his terminally ill seven-year-old son. A woman in Maine explained how she nearly bled to death and had a $24,000 medical bill “on my credit report for who knows how long.” One woman from Ohio had two kids with autism, and another had a grandson with allergies, requiring access to a lifesaving EpiPen. “I haven’t been able to get him one for the last three years, I can’t afford it... my insurance won’t cover it,” the woman said. Prices have skyrocketed for EpiPens and remain stubbornly high.

As I was observing the Zoom group, I initially wondered whether the focus group recruiter had used some specialized list to find the participants. But then I checked the census data on disabilities.

Across the country, 12.6 percent of the population has disabilities, rising to 15.1 percent in rural areas. Black and Native American populations are more likely to have disabilities than their white counterparts. The rate is over a quarter for those 65 to 74 years old and half of those over 75 years-- all groups that are overrepresented in these rural areas. And structural racism has played a powerful role here: 20 percent of Blacks with disabilities were employed at the beginning of this year, compared to 30 percent of whites and Hispanics with disabilities.

Then I looked at census data for the congressional districts where these sessions were being held. It was a new window into America in the pandemic. In suburban Macomb County, the disability rate looks like the rural areas, with 14 percent of both whites and Blacks disabled. In northern Maine, the numbers show one in five with disabilities, slightly more for whites. In Ohio’s Sixth Congressional District, both one in five whites and Blacks are disabled. And seniors in these areas are even more disabled than other rural Americans.



TRUMP KNEW IN FEBRUARY-- AND LIED TO THE PUBLIC


So COVID violently brought together the personal health crises of these people and the failed and corrupted government response, breaking their emotional bond with Trump.

Just throw out the words “health care,” and people relayed a train of horrors: a “$16,000 deductible,” employers throwing them off health insurance, “ridiculous” premiums, a $400 bill for their asthma medicine paid for out of pocket. They spoke of the frustrations of making too much money to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to stay in the solid middle class. They explained how people avoid treatment because they can’t pay the associated costs. “The way we deliver health care is just unbelievable,” said one woman from Michigan, “the amount of waste and how much it costs to let people go bankrupt to pay for medical bills.”

Most of the respondents live on the edge in a virtual “minimum wage” economy, where companies don’t care about their employees and look just to enrich themselves. “You’re just a number now,” said one Ohio woman. They fight for every dime, as they are being overwhelmed by a health care crisis that they recognize Donald Trump has failed to fix. And importantly, for working families outside poverty, the health care reforms passed by the Democrats-- the Affordable Care Act and insurance on the health care exchanges-- just were not much help.

Discussion of the Affordable Care Act did not sound ideological, as they talked about their direct experience with insurance on the exchanges, which in the words of one woman “costs a lot of money and doesn’t pay for much of anything.” The health care system is failing them, and they want someone to fix it. And Joe Biden’s rhetoric has not been very reassuring that he would make big changes. “He’s been vague on health care,” one woman from Wisconsin said. “I want to know the specifics of what he’ll do to make it better.”

These working-class and rural swing voters voted overwhelmingly for Trump, but their response to him is now profoundly shaped by what has happened in the COVID-19 crisis. They think he failed to take the virus seriously and has just made a mess of it. They think he is failing at the most important issue for them.

What was striking is how the usual Trump deflect-and-blame strategy no longer works with these swing voters. “It seems like a lot of the stuff he’s saying could be proven wrong,” said one man from Wisconsin. “He just won’t admit where things are, he’s out of touch with reality,” said another woman. “It’s just embarrassing to have a country with the highest COVID cases, highest COVID deaths,” said a man in Michigan. “We’re supposed to be the leader in the world and we completely fumbled the ball on this.”

Respondents despaired about the lack of a national plan of action, with everyone “just left on their own.” Meanwhile, there was dismay that the president gave more care to his family’s businesses than the rest of the nation. One woman theorized that he didn’t shut down domestic travel “because he owns hotels.” These participants are paying a lot of attention to the position of Trump’s family in the administration and how the bailouts and loans are benefiting his family business, his cronies, and the top one percent.

At the same time, they are on a financial knife’s edge, worried about being one bad break away from being homeless. The focus groups happened after the $600 federal unemployment benefit ended, and those in the groups who were out of work despaired of getting by without that. Nearly all of them supported Trump in 2016 because he was a businessman who would grow the economy. But now they’re scared about the economic damage. Trump reminding these voters of his great economic successes before the pandemic fell flat. His economic bravado was not reassuring at a terrifying moment. “I remember my father watching the news and crying, and I find myself crying sometimes when I watch the news,” related a woman from Wisconsin. “And I think, oh god, I’m turning into my parents. You have no choice. The things you see are gut-wrenching.”

In emails we asked the participants to send to President Trump, you can feel that the spirit that led them to join the working-class revolt is just broken. While some hope he will get back in the right direction, most used their email to express their deep disillusionment. You can feel that they wanted a president who didn’t divide the country and make it a “laughingstock” (two writers used that exact word) internationally. They wanted a president who put the interests of the people, not just big business, first.

“I supported you in the beginning over Hillary but in the end unfortunately, you show me you’re just not for the people,” wrote one man from Wisconsin. “You lied to the American people about COVID,” wrote another. “You are everything that is wrong with America, you have effectively ruined this country,” added a woman from Ohio. “Congrats, you suck.”

It is critical to listen for what they did not say: “What an ass I was to vote for that guy in the last election.” They did not regret or say they made a mistake. All working Americans have been in financial trouble since the 2008 crash, and rising health care problems and disabilities, health care costs and deductibles, and empowered insurance and pharmaceutical companies were an explosive brew. It is why many working people voted for Trump in 2016. It is why many working-class Democrats of color and millennials failed to turn out and defend Obamacare in midterm elections and in 2016. All these voters had reasons for those choices.

COVID has shattered so many lives, but also seemingly insurmountable political barriers. The great majority of working people, regardless of color, are desperate for a government that stops taking direction from the pharmaceutical companies, and brings the boldest feasible changes to our health care system.

Western Riverside County (CA-42) is one of the fastest growing areas in southern California-- and one of the last southern California districts with a Republican member of Congress, in this case "Crooked" Ken Calvert. In 2016, Trump won the district, although by smaller margins than McCain or Romney. Still, his 53.4% to 41.4% win over Hillary was substantial. In 2018, the anti-red wave wasn't big enough to dislodge Calvert. This year, though, the Democrats nominated a better candidate, independent minded progressive Liam O'Mara. His district shares a lot of traits with the districts Greenberg was looking at. There is a white plurality and nearly 40% of the adults did not go beyond high school. About 21% are blue collar workers and 44% are sales and service workers. Liam had quite a lot to say about it, as you might expect. Please read it-- and then consider contributing to his campaign by clicking on the Bluer California thermometer below.

There is a lot of anger in the Inland Empire. The biggest challenges Democrats have faced out here have to do with the targets of that anger. Lacking the populist energy nationally to focus it on the élites who have kept wages low and costs high, too much of the population has been susceptible to fearmongering about immigration and crime. In election after election, Calvert has been all-too-happy to shift the blame for his policies onto working class brown and black people, maintaining a firm lock on the working class white vote in the district.

A couple of key factors now threaten that strategy, both in 2020 and long term. The first is demography. While white voters remain solidly in the majority for the district, they are not as monolithic in their views, with many more recent migrants from other parts of southern California attracted by lower housing costs. And the district is a lot more diverse than it once was, with large immigrant communities from Asia, and with Hispanic people making up more than a third of the total.

The other important change is to the national conversation on economics. It is true that Biden is exactly the kind of milquetoast neoliberal who has said he cares about the people but delivers mainly for the super rich, and he will not excite people at the polls. That he isn't Trump just won't be enough in this area, even with the pandemic raging. Bernie won the district by a very solid margin in the primary, and were he our standard-bearer, retiring Crooked Ken Calvert would be much easier. But the shift in policy emphasis matters still for our own race, and it is why we have drawn in so many new voters and historic independents this year.

Given the very real impact on ordinary people of rising costs and stagnant wages, this country needs to turn around. It elected Barack Obama because he spun a tale about hope and change that resonated with a country in the grip of recession. There was a historic opportunity in those first two years to realign the economy to favour growth for all, not just the one per cent. Alas, Obama failed completely to rise to the challenge of the day, preferring to bail out the people who caused the problem, not those who suffered its effects. At the end of the day, exactly the same people and ideas were left in charge. This is how we got Trump. And people really thought Biden was their best shot against him? For some reason, "It's the economy, stupid!" remains one of the hardest lessons for this party to learn.

If Democrats really want to win nationally, not just against Trump but consistently, and regain ground in the swing states, we must get back to our New Deal roots and tear up the nonsensical DLC crap that's driven the party since the 1970s. And a new batch of policy-driven challengers across the state and country give me hope that we're gaining ground at the grassroots at least. The Squad is already set to double this year, and there are a lot of great challengers running in red districts as well as the safely blue seats.

The purplish districts are where the real action is, in my view. If folks like Kara Eastman, Blair Walsingham, and I can flip red seats, or at the least improve upon past Democratic performance in these areas, we can show that populist issues resonate with a wider share of the population. That is the path back to the unchallenged dominance which the Democratic party enjoyed in the House thanks to the FDR to LBJ economic consensus. Since those days, we have lamentably allowed the fault lines to shift to racial issues and law-and-order dogwhistles, thanks to Republican strategy.

But we didn't need to fall for it! It's the same shit they pulled in the late 19th century against the populist movement of those days, disrupting solidarity with racism. And as I like to remind people, those who reject the lessons of history are condemned to repeat its mistakes. We need to get past the narrow focus on identity politics and work for all Americans again. Yes, the country is more diverse, and we should continue to embrace that diversity... but not at the expense of talking about the cost of living and the declining American Dream.

We need to be laser-focussed on the things that will get the attention of working people overall: The high cost of health care and housing, the unjust tax burden, the lack of affordable child care and elder care, the limited opportunities for education and business-creation, and the high crime rates caused by stubbornly-high poverty. We need to stop ceding the economy to the Republicans and the corrupt neoliberals, and start telling people that they can dream again.

I am running to lower the cost of living for working families, period. I don't talk about Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi because they have nothing to do with my race. I tell people that they'll have a fighter in me-- someone who will go to bat for them against anyone, of either party, who says they need to tolerate the poor conditions they face now. We deserve an economy that works for all of us, and that starts with replacing tools of the ruling class like Crooked Ken Calvert.

Trump Says DC Will Never Be A State-- A Majority Of Congress Disagrees With Him

Moscow Mitch and Putin's Bitch say "Nyet" to DC statehood

As of last July, the population of Washington DC was 705,749, about the same as Alaska, North Dakota and Vermont. The population of Wyoming was 578,759. Each of those states has 2 senators-- just like California (pop- 39,512,223), Texas (pop- 28,995,881), Florida (pop- 21,477,737) and New York (pop- 19,453,561). Each of those states also has a member of the House (as do Montana, Delaware and South Dakota). The citizens of Washington, DC have no senators and no member of the House representing their interests in Congress. Next Friday, June 26, the House will vote to grant DC statehood. I do I know? A majority of the House is co-sponsoring it.

It will be the first time that either House has voted to grant Washington, which is still a majority black city, statehood. But no one expects Mitch McConnell-- a notorious racist with a well-known and rarely disguised animus towards black people-- to even allow a vote on the Senate floor. McConnell would never allow any such thing and, according to the Washington Post "the legislation would not get a vote in the Senate as long as he’s in charge." McConnell, always the deceitful cynic who nicknamed himself "the Grim Reaper," called statehood for DC "full-bore socialism."

Not a single Republican has co-sponsored the bill. In fact, ultra-conservative New Jersey Blue Dog Jeff Van Drew signed on as a cosponsor on June 24, the last member to do so, when he was still pretending to be a Democrat. He formally withdrew his sponsorship on February 10 once he was officially a Trumpist Republican. Señor Trumpanzee backs up McConnell and the congressional Republicans in this latest demonstration of their institutionalized racism, saying Republicans would be "very, very stupid" to grant D.C. statehood because the voters there are overwhelmingly Democrats. "District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic-- Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That’ll never happen." He's right about how there will never be 5 more congressmen. DC is entitled to one congressman, just like Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming.

Riverside County's Ken Calvert is one of the lockstep Trump enablers refusing to back statehood for DC. I asked his Democratic opponent, history professor Liam O'Mara, why Calvert is opposing a solution that embraces such a fundamental idea like "no taxation without representation." He told me that "The reason is simple: GOP 'conservatives' do not care about democracy or such founding principles as the one you cite. What they care about is power and serving our neofeudal overlords.Calvert has no problem with systematic disenfranchisement of Americans-- I reckon he would strip the vote from a lot of us if he could. Stopping more people from exercising basic constitutional rights has been a part of GOP orthodoxy for decades. I can think of no better way to respond to BS like this than to challenge Calvert's patriotism, and remind people that he serves the wealthy, not us. 98% of his campaign funds come from corporations and PACs tied to the oligarchy, and they are his only constituents. As far as the taxpayers of DC are concerned-- and those of Puerto Rico, the Marianas, and American Samoa-- Calvert just doesn't give a fuck. He only cares if you can pay him to care. And for myself? I signed the DC statehood pledge last month, and have supported extending it to all territories for decades. Why? Principle matters... at least, it does for those of us who can't be bought."

Like Calvert, Fred Upton now always puts his party before any kind of moral compass he may have once had. So, of course, he is refusing to back fair representation for the hundreds of thousands of Americans living in Washington, DC. The progressive Democrat running for his southwest Michigan seat this cycle, state Rep Jon Hoadley, has a different way of looking at it. This morning, Hoadley told me that "The residents of the District of Columbia are American taxpayers, and deserve to have equal representation on our national stage like the rest of our states. The only reason to vote against statehood for D.C. is if you're more interested in pushing a partisan agenda than fair representation. The population of D.C. is 700,000-- larger than states that already have Congressional representation. It’s past time to end this disenfranchisement and make D.C. our 51st state."

Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK), a super-conservative Democrat from Oklahoma City with no guts at all, is one of the only Dems refusing to co-sponsor the bill. Her progressive opponent, Tom Guild, backs statehood for DC. I asked him what's up with Kendra.

"Washingtonians are people, too," he said. "They pay taxes. They are U.S. citizens. They are disenfranchised by not having voting members to represent them in the U.S. House and Senate. It is past time to stop treating the long suffering Americans who live in the District of Columbia like second class citizens. I favor statehood for Washington, DC which automatically would qualify them for at least one voting member in the house and two senators. As Thomas Jefferson said, 'All men are created equal.' Were Jefferson still alive he would certainly add women to his powerful and moving statement. I would vote for statehood and it would be a simple stroke of the pen to add my name as a co-sponsor for a statehood bill. We do not always do the right thing, but this is a chance to correct centuries of discrimination against our brothers and sisters who live in the district. Since they live so close to so many politicians, you might even be able to make a plausible case for Washingtonians being deserving of extra members in Congress representing DC. Jefferson eloquently stated that Americans are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is past time to deliver happiness to more than 700,000 Washingtonians. Come on Kendra! Your brothers and sisters in the nation’s capital are people and American citizens, too. My fellow Okie, do not forget that it is far better to give to others than to receive!"

I like the way Eva Putzova, the reform candidate in Arizona, summed this up today-- since her opponent Blue Dog Tom O'Halleran is one of the few Democrats who has refused to co-sponsor the bill. "You know what kind of Democrat would vote for voter suppression and against having more representation in Congress? Someone who is a Democrat in name only. Tom O'Halleran was a Republican all his life. When it comes down to important issues, he is still loyal to the Republican Party." BINGO! Please help Eva, Tom, Jon and Liam replace their reactionary opponents in Congress by clicking on the 2020 congressional thermometer above and contributing what you can.

Trump To Campaign For Congressional Republicans? Kara Eastman Says "Bring It On!"

Hole-in-One by Nancy Ohanian

During the 2016 election, a putative Democrat from the South Bronx, Rubén Díaz, Sr., backed Ted Cruz for president and invited him to speak in his district. It didn't do Cruz much good. In the Republican primary, Cruz came in third-- with just 1,022 votes, in New York's bluest county. Trump won the county in the primary with 2,702 votes but in the general election, Hillary eviscerated him 318,403 (88.7%) to 34,424 (9.6%). Today, still running as a Democrat (or some kind of Democrat), Díaz Sr. is trying to sneak into the NY-15 congressional district from which progressive icon Jose Serrano is retiring.

NY-15 doesn't have many white conservatives. In fact, only 2.5% of the district's population is white. And when Republicans run there, it's usually just a vanity run or a publicity stunt. NY-15 is the bluest district in America. Obama won it with 95% the first time he ran and with 97% the second time. In 2016, Trump performance in the district was just 4.9%-- his worst results in the Bronx, in New York City, in New York State and in the U.S.A. This cycle, though, conservatives might get lucky. One of their own, Díaz Sr., is running for the open congressional seat... and running as a Democrat.

A a 77-year-old, cowboy hat-wearing Pentecostal minister known for his constituent services and ugly controversial statements on social issues, Díaz Sr. has a clear path to victory-- a split among a dozen progressive and mainstream candidates that could actually leave the crackpot with a primary win. Díaz was the only Democrat in the state Senate to vote against a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in 2011. He is vehemently anti-Choice and against stem-cell research. And last year he told New Yorkers that the City Council is "controlled by the homosexual community," which led to him being stripped of his chairmanship of the For-Hire Vehicle committee. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told him to resign.

The best way of beating Díaz is for progressives and normal Democrats to get behind Tomas Ramos... but that isn't going to happen, especially not with political careerists like Ritchie Torres and Michael Blake. But there's another way to beat Díaz, Sr.-- and Ramos told us about it today. An Alayna Treene post at Axios over the weekend pointed out that "In the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections-- buoyed by Republican control of both chambers-- President Trump viewed campaigning for the House as a lower-tier priority and instead poured his energy into rallying for the Senate. But after the GOP reckoning in 2018, and experiencing firsthand how damaging a Democratic-led House has been to him, Trump is now personally invested in helping Republicans regain the majority in November. If Trump wins re-election and Republicans are able to hold the Senate and take back the House, Trump will essentially have free rein to do whatever he wants in his second term." Tomas Ramos, like many Democrats running for Congress, hopes Trump will come to his district to campaign.

It isn't likely to happen, but a Trump-Díaz rally would be an immense GOTV moment for real Democrats in the Bronx. "This," Ramos told me, "would give my campaign a huge boost. My district consists of 98% people of color from all over the world. It would expose Rubén Díaz, Sr. for what he really is, a conservative Republican who has been running as a Democrat in the most Democratic congressional district in the country. Remember, this is the same guy who brought Ted Cruz to the Bronx in 2016."

Omaha, Nebraska is very different from the Bronx and the congressional district there, NE-02, is a quintessential swing district. It went for Obama in 2008 and for Romney in 2012. Last cycle, Hillary lost NE-02 by less than 2 points. But Trump is incredibly unpopular there now. In 2018, progressive Kara Eastman won Douglas County (Omaha convincingly). Like Tomas, she would love to see Trump come to Omaha to campaign with his Nebraska-clone, Don Bacon. "If Trump wants to come to my district-- where polls show him under water by 14 points-- to campaign for Bacon," she told me, "I say bring it on!"

Liam O'Mara is less certain what a Trump visit to Riverside County to bolster endangered Republican Ken Calvert would mean. "Trump being here could energize Calvert's base and mine. Trump won the 42nd by 12 points," Liam continued, "But remember, he was running as a populist and talking about the working class. Yes, the district has a conservative history, but many of its independent voters have a populist streak. And Republicans make up only 38% of the electorate, and falling. The answer to a right-populist is a left-populist who knows how to frame the issues well." O'Mara thinks that if Calvert campaigned in the district with Trump, he could win with a campaign stop by Bernie. "Standing with him would do the most good... and his popularity in the district is growing. His appeal crosses party lines and scoops up the independent populists more easily than Trump. It is worth remembering that about 12% of Bernie's 2016 primary voters went for Trump in the general. These are swing voters that we can only win with the right kind of candidate."

Tom Winter is the progressive Democrat likely to take on Matt Rosendale for the open at-large Montana House seat. He reminded me that in 2018 Trump was in Montana four times campaigning for Rosendale when he was running against Democrat Jon Tester. "One of these campaign rallies was in a state legislative district Trump had won by 11 points the previous election and the one I was running in to replace an incumbent Republican that was seated right behind him as he spoke. While that local GOP lawmaker was enjoying his VIP tickets to that rally, I knocked dozens and dozens of doors that day right across the street. I talked with my neighbors about how politics was failing the working families of Montana. I laid out my progressive policy agenda that I felt would make it more affordable for all of us to live in the place we love. With loud cheers in the background as the president complimented our incumbent Congressman, Greg Gianforte, for body slamming a reporter that had asked him a tough question, I spoke with my neighbors about the need to restore civility in our politics. Gianforte, Rosendale, and that local legislator all laughed as the president praised the assault on journalists, 'Any guy who can do a body slam is my kind of guy.' They laughed and Jon Tester and I won. We won because we had not lost faith in Montanans and laid out our cases for how we would fight for them, each in our own way. Our good Senator won that year by his largest margin ever in his three statewide election victories. So, as I run to replace that body slamming Congressman I welcome the president to stop by our great state for as many times as he'd like. He can find me speaking with my future constituents."





Other districts where Trump visits would likely kill GOP chances include seats currently held by John Katko, Peter King, and Lee Zeldin in New York; Fred Upton in Michigan; And Barr in Kentucky; Jaime Herrera Beutler and Cathy McMorris Rodgers in Washington; Chris Smith in New Jersey; Ann Wagner in Missouri; Brian Fitzpatrick and Scott Perry in Pennsylvania; Denver Riggleman and Rob Wittman in Virginia; Rodney Davis and Mike Bost in Illinois; Bryan Steil in Wisconsin; Pete Stauber and Jim Hagedorn in Minnesota; Devin Nunes and Tom McClintock in California; Mario Diaz-Balart, Ross Spano, Brian Mast and Vern Buchanan in Florida; Dan Crenshaw, Michael McCaul, John Carter, Chip Roy and Roger Williams in Texas; and Steve Chabot, David Joyce and Mike Turner in Ohio.

A Guest Post By Liam O'Mara-- A Moral Force Or A Rogue State? Our Choice in 2020

The U.S. has made another blunder in the Middle East which will impact us for years to come. Will it lead to a much wider war? That’s hard to say, though speaking as a historian of the Middle East and an analyst of its politics, I would say it is not especially likely. But it will have severe consequences, and it will cost us in blood and treasure. I think we have a right to ask why it happened, and to consider our standing in the world.

Was it legal to kill Qassim Soleimani? That depends on who you ask. Assassinations are against both U.S. and international law, though his designation in 2011 as a terrorist means there is a paper-thin justification under post-9/11 laws-- the same laws which have allowed us to engage in military activity in ten countries or more. So yes, we murdered someone, but we called him a terrorist so that might make it okay under the extremely-broad authorizations Congress has given to our presidents.

Consider what happened, though: We killed a senior officlal of a foreign government with which we are not at war, in a third country in which we did not have authorization to act, and in the process killed citizens of that country. We violated Iraqi sovereignty, and under international law we committed an act of war against Iran. Whether they retaliate for it is almost beside the point-- we have already made war against Iran, and we will have to deal with some inevitable fall-out from that.

But whether or not it was legal, was it right to kill Qassim Soleimani? If you ask Representative Ken Calvert, it definitely was. He has been crowing about what a bad guy Soleimani is, and how killing him was our duty or something. Was Soleimani a bad guy? Sure, he was. His organization has been involved in some terrible affairs in Iraq and Syria. But is this a reason to kill, and if so, where does it end? Who do we kill next?

I have some questions for Representative Calvert and the voters of the 42nd. First, are we a country that respects due process and the rule of law, and do we mean anything when we sign treaties or swear to uphold the Constitution? Or are we, instead, a rogue state that feels above the law, beholden to nothing, able to kill or make war whenever and wherever it pleases? I know which of the two I prefer, and which Ken Calvert prefers.

Our Constitution intended a limited government focused on maintaining peace at home. Is it right that our tax dollars, and our young men and women, be used in a series of endless wars overseas? Many of these actions do not make us safer-- they breed resentment and create enemies, which are then used as pretext for more killing, in an endless cycle of violence and corporate greed. We have continued to fight in eight countries and increased the number of troops several times. What do we get for that?

I would like to see an America which serves as a moral example to the world, concerned with the betterment of its citizens. We need to stop feeding the war machine, and start building houses and hospitals, roads and bridges, factories and farms. Our living standards are literally falling, and instead of improving the lives of people here, Representative Calvert would rather start more wars. I think that we deserve better.

Liam is a professor of history specializing in the history of the Middle Eastern. His opponent, Ken Calvert, is a crooked real estate developer who has been caught several times using government power to enrich himself. If you like what Liam had to say and you think he would make a good replacement for Calvert, please consider contributing what you can to his campaign at the special California Is Not Blue Enough thermometer on the right.

Blue America's Last Endorsement Of 2019-- Meet Liam O'Mara, Of Riverside County, California

We hope everyone's going to have a great holiday season and a wonderful kickoff to 2020. This is going to be our last candidate endorsement of the year, although we are in the middle of the vetting process for nearly a dozen more candidates for 2020. We also want to announce the winner of our Nirvana/Pramila contest, which ended last night: Venetia R. of Seattle. In all, over 400 of you contributed around $8,000. Thanks very much. Pramila deserves that kind of continuing support; she's never let us down and she always goes the extra mile for working families.

I hope you can dig deep and find it in your heart to contribute to one last campaign one last time for 2019-- this time to progressive Riverside County, CA history professor Liam O'Mara. Liam, who has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party, is running for one of the last Southern California GOP held congressional seats, this one by Ken Calvert, a corrupt and extreme ideologue who was even denounced by Fox News for his crooked ways! He likes to say "I am running as a progressive populist in a red district in California... Much attention has gone to insurgent runs against Democrats by 'The Squad,' but the same ideas can work in Republican strongholds if the messaging is clear. By sticking to progressive policies which address the economic interests of American workers-- and framing those policies in ways that make sense to them-- we can go back to winning elections all across the heartland, and finally have the numbers in Congress to address the major challenges of our time."

Blue America endorsed Liam-- heartily-- primarily because of his spirit and his platform. He's a brilliant guy who would make an incredible member of Congress These are his half dozen top priorities. what he calls "the major challenges of our time."

• Income and wealth inequality-- which he hopes to address by taking action against stagnant wages and for progressive tax policy
• Campaign finance reform, public financing of elections. He has been speaking out about banning dark money in politics for years.
• Green New Deal with a regional emphasis on infrastructure investment.
• Single-payer Medicare-for-All health care
• Tuition-free trade schools and state colleges along with student loan debt forgiveness
• Strengthening unions and addressing the rising tide of automation and job loss

Sound familiar? It should. Liam has officially endorsed Bernie for president. When I asked him why, he said that Bernie "best expresses two things I look for in a candidate-- principle and policy. The Senator's judgement has been proven right time and again, and he has stuck to his positions in spite of their unpopularity, in so doing helping to make them popular. And his platform has the widest range of initiatives for tackling the systemic factors which made Trump viable. His proposals deal with our historically absurd levels of wealth and income inequality, address climate change, offer Medicare for all, root out corruption in Washington by addressing the dirty campaign finance system, deal with the long-festering immigration and criminal justice messes, and strengthen the unions and their bargaining position. If we want to defeat not only Trump but the kind of politics he has brought to America, we need to address the underlying socioeconomic causes. As a historian, I can tell you that Bernie Sanders is trying to do just that."

Please consider contributing to what you can to Liam's campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 congressional thermometer above. And take a look as the video he made to launch his campaign:

December's First Blue America Endorsement: Liam O'Mara

A couple of weeks ago, we met Liam O'Mara, through my own lens. Now lets revisit him through his own. "I am running as a progressive populist in a red district in California," he began. "I can hear the scepticism, the groans of exasperation-- 'What are you thinking, running as a progressive in a district that Trump took by twelve points?' I'm glad you asked, because I think it is a model we should follow all across the country." This is Liam's guest post. Please consider contributing to his campaign if you like what he had to say. You can use the Blue America thermometer just below.

The Case For Political Courageousness
by Liam O'Mara

Much attention has gone to insurgent runs against Democrats by "The Squad," but the same ideas can work in Republican strongholds if the messaging is clear. By sticking to progressive policies which address the economic interests of American workers-- but framing those policies in ways that make sense to them-- we can go back to winning elections all across the heartland, and finally have the numbers in Congress to address the major challenges of our time.

First, by way of introduction, I should note a few things about myself. I am a professor of history by trade, but I did not have a privileged upbringing-- my father worked on the waterfront in the Port of Los Angeles / Long Beach, and my mother ran a daycare in her house. I was the first in my family to get a college degree, and my working class roots are an important part of my identity.

There is something to that kind of up-from-nothing success story which can appeal to us as Americans-- but it is a myth. All nations have their own myths & dreams, and the Horatio Alger / rags-to-riches story is a part of our cultural mythos. Yet it has been such a rare occurrence that its pervasiveness owes more to the propaganda function of media than to reality. The path to riches is not laid out by hard work alone-- or are we to believe that only 0.000002% of Americans work hard?

We all know that isn't true, and Americans of all ages work hard to pay the bills and provide for their families. That's what we're really aiming for-- to improve our own lot in life and make a better future for those who come after is. That's the American Dream, and it is real. It has given generations of Americans, immigrant and native-born alike, an aspiration-- to be better off than their parents, to have a home and a job and a retirement fund, to afford a family and maybe the occasional bit of time off!

That dream is dying. Or rather, it is being murdered by conservative and neoliberal economic policies which strip wealth from ordinary Americans and siphon it into the accounts of an oligarchic elite. As a historian, I pay close attention to the lessons of the past and the way they help to explain the present. Nothing about the Trumpist phenomenon has been a surprise; indeed, I have long argued that this turn towards neofascist populism was inevitable in the Republican party post-Reagan.

We live today in a world created by Reaganite policies-- a world very like that of the Robber Baron era, when most of the country’s wealth was held in a tiny number of hands, and people today are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Nearly a trillion dollars was lost by the bottom 50% of the country in the last few decades. Meanwhile, the top few per cent have seen record-breaking levels of profit.

The media is lying when it talks about economic growth, because-- let’s face it-- the stock market and job-creation numbers do not paint a full-enough picture of what is happening. Despite higher levels of workforce participation and more education, Millennials earn less than Boomers did at the same age, and have a far higher cost of living. The reasons for this are not complex-- wages have remained flat for nearly fifty years. As productivity levels have soared, poor tax policy has allowed those gains to translate into wealth for a few, and rising debt for the many.

It is this disparity in wealth which has made the Trump era possible. When the liberal orthodoxies only increase inequality and fears for the future, and no left-populist or socialist alternative is available, workers will drift into the arms of demagogues who offer simple solutions to their ills. It’s the immigrants! It’s China! It’s the fake news media! When people are hurting, and someone offers them an enemy, it is all-too-tempting to listen.

Trump’s rise was made possible, not by latent racism or by conservatism, but by the failure to articulate a rational alternative. An alliance with financial elites may have translated into some short-term successes in the 1990s, but even these were illusory-- Bill Clinton won the presidency both times with less than half of the vote because an independent populist sapped votes from the two major parties. There was a lesson to be learned from Ross Perot’s “great sucking sound,” and unfortunately it was some in the Republican party who listened.

Income inequality lies at the core of the collapsing American Dream. What we need to be talking about is equality of opportunity-- giving people the resources they need to pick themselves up and make whatever they want of their lives. This is what made America great! There is a real irony in watching a reactionary Republican party herald a past “golden age” of prosperity which was created by the very policies they most despise! Post-war America built a strong welfare state on the back of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Republican and Democratic presidents alike, from Truman and Eisenhower, through Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, all accepted its basic outlines. Massive federal spending was supported by progressive taxation and steady growth. That growth itself was a result of tax policy, as it incentivized investment in the real economy and good pay for workers. Fordist logic-- the principle whereby workers are paid enough to be able to afford your products-- was the order of the day, and factory workers could afford a suburban dream-home just as easily as dentists and lawyers.

If we are going to fight back against the destructive influence of the Chicago School’s neoliberal economic ideals, we have to get back to talking about those bold liberal visions that created the middle class in America. And that means taking a class-conscious approach, reaching out to working class voters regardless of education levels, and telling them our ideas will make them richer-- because they will!

Failure to heed this strategy has been disastrous for Democrats and for the country. Letting our emphasis on the workers slip has allowed a Republican party whose ideas are harming workers to claim their loyalty. We must get back to fighting for those same hearts and minds, and we can do that by talking about basic economics again, and showing the voters that we have a path forward that will help all Americans.

The United States was once a beacon of opportunity to the entire world-- a place where anyone could make something of her or himself with a bit of hard work. Today the European Union has far higher rates of social mobility, and we are literally slipping backward-- lower lifespans, less wealth, more debt. This is unacceptable. We are the richest country in the history of the world, and our quality of life is worsening year by year.

Trump is not the problem. Trump’s politics are not the problem. Both are symptoms of a deeper disease-- the collapse of the American left. Trump’s brand of right-populism is a predictable outcome, and on our current course, it will only grow stronger. Climate change will cause refugee crises that future demagogues can exploit, for example. We stand to lose, not only our way of life and our living standards-- now 16th in the world and falling steadily-- but our very freedom.

We must fight back, and the way to do that lies in appeals to the working class. Literal socialists once did well in states like Oklahoma and Wisconsin, so why can’t social democrats mine that same territory? By linking together the concerns of urban liberals and rural workers, we can build a winning coalition that will tackle the systemic forces that are killing hope for the future.

It will take a positive message to push back against the nihilism of the anti-establishment Trump vote. We must not shame those voters-- dismissing his electoral coalition as a "basket of deplorables", sexists and racists, misses the point. Some are, sure. Others simply heard the man aim his message at the kind of voters who traditionally backed social democrats. We can win them to our side by reaching out and offering them hope.

Ah, hope, that elusive wisp of wonder that can motivate us as well as can fear! A focus on hope drove Obama to his first electoral success, while his reëlection was hampered by disillusionment over the continued decline in American fortunes. Wall Street recovered from the 2008 financial crash, but Main Street never did. We must learn the dual lesson there-- hope works, but it must be paired with real policies to tackle the issues.

Since 1992, Democrats have surrendered most statehouses to Republicans, and have been often in the minority in Washington. If Democrats wish to retake the heartland, they must speak to the economic insecurities of the American people, and offer a path towards reclaiming the promise of the American Dream. The New Deal offers a template still, pointing us towards what this country could be under sane economic stewardship.

Working people know that they are being left behind, but it's not the fault of immigrants, or machines, or college graduates, or any other convenient scapegoat. It is caused by incorrect tax policy and corporate regulation. We have the evidence for this-- all that remains is to make our case to the people. A fifty-state strategy is in reach. We need only to extend our arm and seize it.

I have built my own candidacy on three core values: Integrity, Accountability, and Vision. To the first, I can assure voters that I am my own man, and cannot be bought. I am not a tool of focus groups and consultants-- I am who I am. To the second, I pledge to speak for the people and to the people-- to hold regular town halls and to answer all questions put to me in person and electronically. Public servants are meant to serve, not to enrich themselves at our expense, and corruption is a bipartisan issue that gives clean-money candidates a way to reach conservatives.

As to the third, I will build on my academic background to present a path forward built on the bold visions that created the middle class, and show how social democratic policies can make us all richer, healthier, and freer. We have the knowledge needed to make a case. There are hundreds of good candidates, untainted by the spiderwebs of corruption and ready to run. All they need -- all we need-- is your support.

The DCCC Isn't Interested But The California Democratic Party Just Endorsed Berniecrat Liam O'Mara To Take On GOP Crook Ken Calvert

CA-42 is one of the last remaining red districts in California. The district voted against Obama both times he ran and last year gave Trump a 53.4-41.4% win over Hillary. The district, entirely in western Riverside County has an R+9 PVI. The main population centers are Corona, Norco, Eastvale, Menifee and Murrieta. A weird crooked Republican, Ken Calvert, has been in office there since 1992. The demographics of the district have been shifting away from the GOP and whites are no longer a majority:

• White- 42.9%
• Latino- 38.5%
• Asian- 9.0%
• Black- 5.2%

The Republican registration edge is beginning to erode and Republicans are no longer a majority:

• Republicans- 143,195 (38.30%)
• Democrats- 110,516 (29.56%)
• No Party Preference- 99,502 (26.62%)

Over the weekend, the California Democratic Party convention endorsed Liam O'Mara to take on Calvert. Liam is a history professor at Chapman University and comes from all-union family. His campaign website begins with his extensive issues pages-- Medicare-for-All, Green New Deal, fair taxation, affordable housing, tuition-free state colleges, gun regulation, comprehensive immigration reform, campaign finance reform... all the things you would expect from a Berniecrat. But I want to start with a section called Frequently Asked Questions, because it's funny and I've never seen anything like it on any candidate's website. I republished 3. Please read them and if you like them, please consider contributing to his campaign by tapping on the Bluer California thermometer on the right.

• But but but... that beard! And that hair!

Yes, I have a long beard and long hair. I’m glad you noticed. I realize that this is highly unusual in American politics today, and yes I could have trimmed it shorter for the campaign-- here is why I did not.

My campaign is built around a central theme: integrity. To cut it off just for an election would be inauthentic. It would be pursuing body-modification for the sole purpose of chasing votes, and that to me rings false. It seems dishonest. As I will be telling people again and again in this campaign, we may not agree on every issue, but one thing you’ll always get with me is honesty. I will sit down with you, listen to your concerns, and answer your questions as directly and honestly as I can. I want government to serve the people, and that means listening to them, taking their thoughts seriously, and finding solutions that address their concerns. With me you’ll always get that. And the easiest way to see that is, well… that in spite of all the political advice to conform to expectations, I decided to come to you as I am, and make my appeal to you based upon my character, my experience, and what I can do for you-- not what I look like.

• How is a historian helpful to me in Congress?

I have always read widely-- indeed, my house is literally a private library, with bookcases covering every possible space. For me, history is the center of a vast spider web that connects every branch of human knowledge, its sole defining feature being the recognition of change over time. As a historian of ideas, that is what I study. And in that capacity, I have learned a lot about who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we might still go. I have studied economic history, so I know what made American rich and how to ensure that promise reaches us all. I have studied cultural history, so I know something about our differences and how to bridge divides, find common ground, and treat others with respect. I have studied diplomatic history, so I know a fair bit about foreign policy and geopolitics-- I still read a dozen newspapers a week from half a dozen countries. I have studied the history of science, so I have a keen sense of what we can do when we put our minds to it.

With me in Congress, you get someone not only dedicated to public service, but who has knowledge directly revelant to many areas of public policy, from foreign relations to macroeconomics to the environment. I can draw on my background in research, my contacts in academia, and my willingness to reach outside my comfort zone and confront difficult truths. Politics requires not only a willingness to compromise and work toward common goals-- it also requires solid data and the tools to identify it. My training makes it harder for bad information to slip past unnoticed, and means I am a lot more critical of what I get from the news. With me on a committee, I can promise attention to detail and a willingness to put in long hours to review how a proposal actually works… or whether it works! Electing me gets you not just another partisan hack-- it gets you someone able to work through complex bills and make an informed decision about whether they serve your interests.

• With the demographics of CA-42, how will you appeal to independents and moderate Republicans?

An explicitly “centrist” message, designed to lure Republicans, does not work, and Democrats steadily chasing Republicans to the right has been shown a massive failure all across the country. What can work, however, is a campaign centered on economic populism, since this has proven cross-over appeal-- in fact, such messages are behind the previous success of Democrats in much of the country prior to the rightward realignment of our political landscape. My principles will be clear and my positions progressive, but they will be cast in economic terms so that they can best be understood and appreciated by voters who are not interested in the moral priorities Democrats consider vital. Focussing my messaging to suit the characteristics of the district-- by hammering home kitchen-table economic issues-- allows us to expand our coalition and gain enough votes to win.

One way to see the value of this is to consider that, for all their massive differences in social policy and personal integrity, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both hit populist notes in their campaign rhetoric which had substantial bipartisan appeal. A massive post-election survey of 50,000 voters suggests that up to 12% of Bernie’s primary voters went for Trump in the general election. Finding a way to reach that fraction of the electorate can give us much of the difference between Republican and Democratic votes in the 42nd. That ultimately Trump’s rhetoric is dishonest, and his policies mostly their opposite, is beside the point-- what mattered was his effort to channel the frustrations of the working class. If Democrats stand firmly for the working class above all-- a proposition that works well with our priorities in general-- then I believe a portion of Trump’s coalition can be attracted to our ticket.

Another way in which I can reach out to independents and NPPs is my own non-partisan mentality and outsider mentality. Yes, my views are consistently progressive, but I am not a tribal person by nature, and will review all policies, issues, and bills on their own merits, on their own details, and determine what is in the best interests of the 42nd. My background is in policy analysis, not as a creature of machine politics, and I will let my principles guide my legislative identity, not partisan calculations.

Now, a few words about the whacko congressman who Liam is running to replace, Ken Calvert. Let's start with a report about Calvert on, of all places, Fox News. Here's Chris Wallace reporting about what a totally crooked slime ball Calvert is:





Calvert first came to wide attention when he was arrested-- a pretty typical Republican "Family Values" hypocrite-- with a young woman he didn't know in a parked car, his pants down around his knees. (She turned out to be Lore Lorena Lindberg, a heroin addict with several prostitution convictions.) Although he tried to flee the scene of the crime, the policeman caught him and arrested him. Here's an interesting report on Calvert from the arresting officer:

You can click on the document to make it easier to read

Let's end on a better note than that wretched Calvert and his hypocrisy and lack of ethics. He's just another Trumpist. Instead, let's go back and take a look at Liam's introductory video. It's a good one: