Today Is Primary Day In New Jersey

New Jersey has 12 congressional districts but, unfortunately, not all of them have primary battles. Primaries are healthy and in many districts the only way to hold entrenched incumbents even vaguely accountable. The only New Jersey incumbents with ProgressivePunch "A" scores are Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12) and Donald Payne (NJ-10). Bill Pascrell, Albio Sires-- each in a super-safe district-- have "D" scores while Donald Norcross, Tom Malinowski, Andy Kim, Mikey Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer, one of the most odious Democrats in the House, all have "F" grades. These are the districts where the incumbent has no primary today:

• NJ-01- Donald Norcross, (New Dem) from the corrupt South Jersey Machine family
• NJ-03- Andy Kim (D)
• NJ-07- Tom Malinowski (New Dem)
• NJ-11- Mike Sherrill (Blue Dog)

Blue America looked at the candidates running-- seriously considered several-- and only endorsed one: Hector Oseguera who is running in the 8th. Please, if you have family or friends in Hudson, Essex and Union counties and in Hoboken, Elizabeth, Weehauken, West New York, Newark, Jersey City, Kearny, Harrison, Belleville and Bayonne call them and ask them to consider voting for Hector today. The other candidate we came closest to endorsing was Will Cunningham in South Jersey. He's in a multi-candidate primary to see which Democrat will take on a Machine/DCCC right-wing sleaze bag, Jeff Van Drew, who has jumped the fence and is now running as a Republican. The would-be Machine/DCCC replacement is another moderate, Brigid Harrison, although Amy Kennedy of the famous political dynasty is said to be ahead. In endorsing Cunningham Sunday, South Jersey's most-read newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer said they " like Cunningham’s support for bold criminal justice reform. Cunningham’s is an inspiring life story-- homeless while a Vineland High School student, he earned a Brown University scholarship. His is a generation whose time has come." He's probably the best-prepared to take on Van Drew and pointed out that "Now is not the time for family dynasties or political machines that disrupt the will of the people."

That's today's biggest media race, although if any of the conservative incumbent Dems lose, it will be a big story. At HuffPo, Daniel Marans picked 3 races to watch today. NJ-02 was first, of course, noting that "Harrison has the backing of some of the same influential Garden State players who anointed Van Drew in 2018. Norcross has not officially endorsed her, but state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a childhood friend and staunch political ally of Norcross’, has given Harrison his blessing. And a super PAC tied to Norcross has spent more than $270,000 on Harrison’s behalf. The support of machine-backed county parties helped secure Harrison preferential real estate at the top of the ballot alongside party incumbents." She's been endorsed by Machine shills Cory Booker and Bob Menendez and most of the state’s Norcross Machine-controlled labor unions.

Marans added that "for the coalition of progressives backing Harrison’s well-funded rival, Amy Kennedy-- a schoolteacher married to former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D)-- the election is primarily about crippling the South Jersey machine. The ways in which Kennedy is to Harrison’s left on policy are hard to spot, but Kennedy is more critical of the state’s corporate tax break program, which gave more than $1 billion in incentives to Norcross’ businesses, charities and allies. That point of contrast is a key reason why the progressive New Jersey Working Families Alliance, Murphy and two left-leaning labor unions-- the New Jersey Education Association and the Communication Workers of America-- have gotten behind Kennedy’s bid. Norcross’ network has bitterly fought Murphy’s effort to raise taxes on the state’s millionaires, as well as a task force Murphy convened to review the state’s corruption-ridden corporate tax incentive program."

So what about Cunningham? Marans mostly summed it up like this: "Given the criticism of both Kennedy and Harrison-- who are also both white-- there could be a natural opening for Will Cunningham, an openly gay, Black attorney, to emerge as the alternative. Cunningham, who rose from poverty to work as an aide to Booker and as a senior investigator for the late-Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), is running as an unabashed progressive in the mold of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). He supports Medicare for All, tuition-free college and divestment of police budgets in favor of greater social spending. But... he has failed to attract the attention of major progressive groups or the Congressional Black Caucus. That’s partly because of Cunningham’s weak showing in the 2018 primary election, as well as his apparent failure to adequately court progressive stakeholders. Altman of New Jersey Working Families Alliance could not recall hearing from him prior to the group’s endorsement of Kennedy. Kennedy is 'more progressive than Brigid Harrison and she can win,' Altman said."

There is also some residual feeling-- and mistrust-- in the district that Cunningham wasn't a "real" candidate in 2018 and muddied the water so badly for progressive challenger Tanzie Youngblood that she never had a real shot against Van Drew.

Josh Gottheimer and friend

Marans then skipped over to NJ-05 to write about "one of the left's favorite villains," Josh Gottheimer, a Trump-friendly Blue Dog pile of shit. Arati Kreibich is challenging him from the left. As of the June 17 FEC filing deadline he had $8,478,312 in his campaign war chest and she had just $144,562. Indivisible has spent $126,356 trying to bolster Kreibich, while a grifter/scammy conservative operation, Patriot Majority, spent $175,092 trying to help Gottheimer. Kreibich, as well as several other progressive candidates, don't seem capable of putting together winning coalitions or doing what it takes to win other than backing progressive platform ideas. If I lived in the district I would certainly vote for her without hesitation but I wouldn't bet a nickel on her being able to win.

If I were to bet on a long-shot candidate, it would be on Hector Oseguera-- and I did-- and Marans wrote about his race, briefly, to close out his story yesterday.

NJ-8: A New Generation Challenges The Old Guard

It is hard to get worked up one way or another about Rep. Albio Sires, who has represented racially diverse and working-class urban parts of northeast New Jersey since 2006. Sires, a mainstream Democrat, is not a member of any ideological caucus, choosing not to challenge party leadership either from the right or the left.

But Sires, an immigrant from Cuba and former mayor of West New York, is part of a local political machine that local progressives believe has stymied bolder policy changes, as well as the growth of younger leadership more in line with the district’s changing demographic makeup. New Jersey’s 8th Congressional District, which includes the historically heavily Cuban American hub of Union City, is increasingly populated by immigrants from Caribbean and Central American countries.

Hector Oseguera, an attorney and anti-money laundering specialist descended from the latter group of immigrants, is challenging Sires. Oseguera, who volunteered for Sanders in 2016 and Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, is running as a progressive populist committed to eradicating “the injustices imposed by an economy rigged against working-class people.” Unlike Sires, Oseguera would fit in more with the “Squad,” the nickname for the group of outspoken progressive freshman lawmakers that includes Ocasio-Cortez and Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

Oseguera is also part of a slate of progressive local candidates running against a particularly entrenched corner of New Jersey’s famously clannish machine politics. Through a combination of energetic organizing and a bit of luck, Oseguera’s slate will occupy the coveted Column A spot on the ballot in Hudson and Union counties, where most of the district’s residents live, The Intercept reported in May. Many voters instinctively vote Column A, since it is normally real estate reserved for machine candidates.

Oseguera’s odds of victory appear slim. The Intercept’s look at the race is one of the rare bits of national coverage of the primary in New Jersey’s 8th District. And Sires, himself not a prodigious fundraiser, has outspent the challenger by a 10-to-1 margin.

In late June, though, Oseguera picked up the influential endorsement of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance. (In addition to Kennedy, Kreibich and Oseguera, the group is backing the reelection of Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman in New Jersey’s 12th District.)

“In a deep-blue district like the 8th, you have a guy assuming that he was going to be able to sit in that seat for as long as he wants it,” Altman said. “But times are changing in the country. Times are changing in New Jersey.” 

Buzz-Kill: Special Interest-Owned Conservative Democrats, Not Plain Ole Democrats, Took Over The Virginia Legislature

Lobbyist (right) beat the progressive (left) for Virginia House speaker

Blue America didn't endorse too many candidates in the Virginia legislative election-- just 6 outstanding progressives who we were able to vet to our satisfaction. Three won-- Lee Carter (53-46%), Elizabeth Guzman (52-47%) and Danica Roem (56-44%)-- and three lost-- Herb Jones (60-40%), Qasim Rashid (58-42%) and Eric Stamps (61-39%). The Virginia Democratic establishment is as bad as you'd expect. Just think: Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both of whom have F ratings from ProgressivePunch, and Governoe Ralph Northam who's... better than a Republican and not much more than that. The establishment doesn't much like progressives.

So no one should be surprised that yesterday, a few days after flipping 6 seats in the House of Delegates, they elected a corrupt Republican-lite conservative lobbyist, Eileen Fisher-Corn as speaker. And they say everyone should be happy this crook is the speaker because they never had a woman-- or a Jew-- in the role before. Yeah. An old white conservative without a penis, beat out a younger progressive woman of color, Lashrecse Aird. Two other conservative Democrats wiped out progressives in the races for majority leader and caucus chair.

Reporting for HuffPo Daniel Marans wrote that "The result is a disappointment to progressives inside and outside of the chamber who hoped Democrats would pick the state’s first Black speaker and bristled at Filler-Corn’s full-time job as managing director of a lobbying firm with major corporate clients. Filler-Corn’s spokesperson has said she would recuse herself from votes on legislation in which her firm, Albers & Company, has a vested interest. 'The firsts are not lost on me-- the first woman and the first Jewish person elected Speaker-designee in our 400 year legislative history-- but it doesn’t define me,' Filler-Corn said in a statement. 'When I joined this body less than 10 years ago, I was the only mom serving with school-aged kids. We have come so far since then. We have the most diverse House Caucus in our history, which includes cultural, gender and geographic diversity,' she continued. 'It also means a diversity of experience and perspectives on issues that affect Virginians, in all regions.'... Her victory, along with those of Herring and Sullivan, ensures that Virginia House Democrats are marching in tandem with Gov. Ralph Northam and the Democratic-controlled state Senate, where business-friendly, four-decade veteran, Dick Saslaw, is in charge."

Aird, a 33-year-old Petersburg resident and chief of staff of William & Mary’s junior college, who was first elected in 2015, embodies the state’s shifting demographics and politics. Aird had promised to expand and open up the House’s leadership and committee system, giving greater leeway to the state House’s ascendant group of economic populists. She is backed by hedge fund manager Michael Bills, a leading critic of the state’s famously powerful electric utility monopolies-- Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power. And she claimed that she would allow votes on pro-union bills granting the public sector collective bargaining rights and repealing Virginia’s status as a “right to work” state where unions are forbidden from compelling workers they represent to pay dues.

Observers wondered whether, with her underdog speakership bid, the state’s Democratic Party might reach a point where it was willing to turn its back, at least in one chamber, on the old “Virginia Way”-- a byword for bipartisan gentility that doubles as a description of the state’s clubby, pro-corporate and ethically challenged political culture.

In the end though, Filler-Corn and her allies, many of whom reside in safe seats and can thus spread their campaign cash to embattled colleagues, fended off the insurgency.

Some members disagreed with Aird’s decision to announce her bid the day after Tuesday’s elections, claiming it was too soon. They also lamented the way that Aird had fought her race in the press, according to the person familiar with the deliberations who spoke to HuffPost on the condition of anonymity. It’s a pitfall inherent to running as a gate-crasher in a state where etiquette is something of a civic religion.

Now that they are in power, Democrats in the Virginia legislature are almost certain to move quickly to tighten gun safety regulations, strengthen protections for LGBTQ residents and even raise the state’s minimum wage, which is currently only $7.25 an hour.

But the prospects of more ambitious expansions of the social welfare state and efforts to take on the Old Dominion’s most powerful corporations, including its utility monopolies, have grown considerably dimmer. Efforts to combat climate change, in particular, are likely to be far more accommodating to Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power than antitrust advocates would like. These activists fear not only that the monopolies, which extract fossil fuels and generate electricity in addition to transmitting it, will both try to water down climate legislation and dominate any growth in the state’s renewable energy generation.

What’s more, poll watchers noted that the leadership team consists entirely of Democrats from the Washington-area suburbs of northern Virginia. It has prompted fears that they will not adequately represents Democrats from other regions, such as Hampton Roads, central Virginia and southwest Virginia.

“There are 12 House Districts out of 100 that are inside the beltway or on it,” Virginia political consultant Ben Tribbett wrote on Twitter. “The top three positions in the new House will all be filled from there. All by people who underperformed in their first elections by double digits from most recent Presidential. Not a good start.”

Eric Stamps is way too progressive and way to aggressively fighting for working class families to make the Democratic Part establishment embrace him. He knows what the enemy looks like whether they're wearing a red t-shirt or a blue one. "Virginia Democrats," he told us this morning, "have to be more than the NOVA party. I am happy that we took the majority in the House and Senate, but not much has changed in rural areas. Many rural candidates have to go it alone, even battling with members of their own local party which should never be an issue. Virginia Democrats have no excuses for the next two years. They have to bring progressive legislation to the floor for votes or they such expect to be primaried the next time their seat is up. We do not have any time to waste, it is time to get things done."

Would You Ask To Join The Squad?

Daniel Marans put a bunch of statements by AOC together and wrote a post asserting she wants a bigger Squad. Are there dues and a secret handshake like The Blue Dogs and New Dems have? Will it be a side project of the Congressional Progressive Caucus that eventually swallows up that everyone-welcome caucus? AOC: "We have to change the people who are here if we are serious about delivering for working-class people." As Marans reminded his readers, Pelosi dismissed the Squad with a sneer: "They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got." Last time I looked, though AOC had 5.6 million Twitter followers to Pelosi's 3.2 million. Ilhan Omar has $1.7 million Twitter followers to Steny Hoyer's 121,300. Ayanna Pressley had 490,100 followers compared to Jim Clyburn's 5,171 followers and Rashid Tlaib has 824,300 followers to Cheri Bustos' 33,000 followers. I don't see any of them sneering at Pelosi or her geriatric leadership team.

Marans explained that AOC is trying to change Pelosi's calculation. "On Tuesday, she became the first sitting House member to endorse Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney challenging Rep. Henry Cuellar, a conservative Texas Democrat, from the left. She’s also endorsed Marie Newman, the progressive challenging conservative Democrat Rep. Dan Lipinski in Illinois."

“If we’re not going to pass ‘Medicare for All’ unless the [House Democratic] caucus changes, then I need to be a part of changing the caucus. That’s just how it is,” Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that her ambitious goals for climate action also require a different kind of Democratic Party in Congress. “I don’t want people to die, and I want to cut our carbon emissions by 50% in 10 years.”

“If we want to pursue an ambitious agenda that delivers for working-class America, the Democratic Party has to change who they answer to. And they have to answer to working-class people.”

Without ever mentioning Pelosi, she added: “And it’s not because of something I said. It’s because of something everybody else said: ‘You don’t have the votes, people here aren’t going to support that.’ Then we have to change the people who are here if we are serious about delivering for working-class people.”

Ocasio-Cortez, of course, came in with a reputation for taking on incumbents. As a political newcomer, she launched a long-shot bid against Joe Crowley, the powerful Democratic congressman from New York’s 14th Congressional District who was considered a future leader of the party. Her win shook up national politics, setting off a firestorm in Washington as party leaders grappled with what they had missed in the mood on the ground.

But the victory didn’t do much to endear her to some of her new colleagues. Ocasio-Cortez told HuffPost this week that she isn’t afraid of making new enemies by opposing Cuellar, Lipinski and potentially others-- because the ones who will be mad at her probably weren’t her fans anyway.

For one thing, Ocasio-Cortez maintains that many House members likely to take issue with her involvement in the race wrote her off from the moment she walked in the door.

“The reception that I got here was very chilly, and that was before I did anything,” she said. “There are folks who just weren’t going to work with me, and nothing I could have done would have changed that-- unless I fundamentally changed who I am.”

Realizing there is little she can do win over some of her fellow Democrats has freed her to pursue her vision of change with less fear of political blowback on the Hill, according to Ocasio-Cortez.

“If anything, it almost created more breathing room for me, because it... was really clarifying,” she said.

From the beginning, Ocasio-Cortez has pursued an “inside-outside” organizing strategy. She joined a climate change sit-in in Pelosi’s office on her first day on Capitol Hill, but she also recognizes that she needs to have allies in the halls of Congress to move her agenda forward.

She counts it as a sign of progress, for example, that the creation of a public health insurance option is now the default position of many of her moderate colleagues. And Ocasio-Cortez is quick to downplay any past differences she had with Pelosi. Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, left shortly after his tweets about other House Democrats escalated a spat between members of the Squad and party leaders.

“The whole idea that there’s a conflict was very overblown,” she said. “It’s about what we can accomplish given the limitations of a Republican Senate and Trump as president. People are pretty pragmatic and they’re open-minded.”

...Ocasio-Cortez told HuffPost that she is limiting her involvement in primary challenges against her colleagues to heavily Democratic districts where she believes that members of Congress do not have the excuse of justifying centrist positions as politically necessary. She is fond of noting that Hillary Clinton bested Donald Trump in Cuellar’s district by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016.

“I think it’s a pretty modest proposal, a pretty modest ask that we consider a D+20 district to be grassroots-supported, divested of lobbyist money, to support ‘Medicare for All,’” she said. “This district is almost as progressive as mine. So why is there such a huge difference? Why is it so conservative?”

Cuellar is frequently ranked as one of Congress’ most conservative Democrats. As of this Congress, he had an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association for opposing tougher gun regulations (though he has since voted to tighten background checks). He received a score of 15% from NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2018, having voted for legislation that would legally treat fetuses as people. And Cuellar has received over $5.5 million in corporate PAC contributions over the course of his career.

“If this is a D+20 district, what room do we give to people in a D+1 district?” Ocasio-Cortez asked.

With that in mind, the New York representative said she is equally interested in elevating Democrats in swing seats-- those in the party’s “frontline” program for vulnerable incumbents-- who have taken progressive stances that expose them to political risk. She singled out for praise Rep. Mike Levin, a California Democrat who unseated a Republican last November. Notwithstanding his “frontline” status, he is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a co-sponsor of “Medicare for All” legislation that would create a single-payer health care system. Levin is one of three vulnerable freshman Democrats for whom Ocasio-Cortez raised $30,000 apiece in an end-of-March fundraising appeal on Twitter.

“I’m very, very committed to not just Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, but transformational majorities in the House and Senate,” she said. “That’s where I want to dedicate a lot of my time.”

While Ocasio-Cortez said she is a “team player,” one thing she has no plans to do is pay the sum of $150,000 in “dues” that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee asks of rank-and-file House members.

“When I talk to frontliners about what they need, they just prefer that I give them the money,” she said.

Without so much as lifting a phone to call donors, Ocasio-Cortez has raised nearly $3.4 million for her reelection campaign. She may have to spend some of that money dispatching with local competition: She has already drawn 11 challengers-- eight Republicans and three Democrats. However, the prospects of another Democrat, let alone a Republican, prevailing in the heavily Democratic district where she is a household name remain scant.

Ocasio-Cortez declined to go into more detail about how she would use her financial resources to support people like Cisneros and Newman. A candidate’s campaign can, for example, directly transfer up to $2,000 to another campaign each election cycle.

“A lot of those decisions are based on evolving dynamics,” she said. “How much help would a given candidate need? Where can we expand the movement?”

Rather than setting her sights on 2020 or 2021, Ocasio-Cortez said she is trying to figure out how to shape what the country will look like in 2050.

“One of the benefits of being a younger member is that I have the luxury of looking at things in terms of decades. How do we turn Tennessee blue again? How do we turn West Virginia blue?” she concluded. “These are questions that seem impossible to some people because perhaps they are impossible in a cycle or two. But I think about the changes that I want to see in my life.”

Jamaal Bowman is a middle school principal in the Bronx, currently in a tough congressional race against an entrenched establishment incumbent. he told us he feels "that I am already part of the Squad. Being part of the Squad is not only about being elected to Congress, it’s about all of us, fighting for everyday Americans who struggle within the confines of immoral policy. It’s about finding like minded people and working together to change the oppressive status quo. We all can and must fight for Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, and getting big money out of politics. If you stand for justice and equality for all, you are already a member of the Squad.”

 

Eva Putzova's tweet alerted me to Marans' post. The Arizona progressive congressional candidate added that "We need to replace every single representative in Congress bought by corporate interests. AOC is fighting not only for the soul of the Democratic Party but also for the soul of this country and I will be honored to join her. Regardless of endorsements, I will continue doing what I’ve always done: putting people first."

Washington Democratic Socialist Rebecca Parson should be one of the first people anyone thinks of when it comes to expanding the Squad. "The Squad is an inspiration across the country," she told me last night. "They're fighting for truly progressive policies like the Green New Deal, and they're showing working-class people that we can participate in the political process, too. Democrats and Republicans who take millions of dollars from the Wall Street, insurance, Big Pharma, and real estate companies that are destroying lives don’t fight for us. They fight for their donors. All it takes is a review of their voting records to see that. When I'm elected to Congress, my focus will be on helping the people of Washington's 6th Congressional District and the country, so I would be proud to join the Squad." Snd one of the last people who would ever ask to join the Squad? Rebecca's reactionary opponent Derek Kilmer, New Dem.

Like Rebecca and Eva, Chicago grassroots activist Kina Collins, is as Squad-like as you're going to find. "Becoming part of the Squad," she told us this morning, "does not mean that any challenger candidate is running just to be an AOC clone. Each of us is running to be the best representative of our districts, and in IL-07 with a D+38 rating, our district should serve as a national model on moving the progressive agenda forward. Congressman Danny K. Davis has sat on the sidelines for too long, and he continues to take corporate PAC money from private insurance and pharmaceutical companies when we have the largest healthcare disparities in the country. If we want equity and justice for working-class people, we need someone from that community who will actually fight for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and to end gun violence."

Rachel Ventura's district is west of Kina's. THey're on the same page when it comes to building a new progressive agenda for Chicagoland. "Yes," Rachel told us without hesitation, "I would become a member of 'the Squad' and support growing progressive leadership in all committees, and within the party caucus. I see the squad as a team that each has their own unique skill set and area of expertise. I would bring my own skills as a mathematician and naturalist to the team. We are going to need to make arguments about re-prioritizing the budget from military spending to funding green investments in our communities. Additionally, we are going to have to make an argument that there are natural ways to sequester carbon without 'technological fixes' that perpetuate fossil fuels. Our race has the potential to show that AOC is not the exception to the rule, but a pattern that demonstrates where the Democratic Party is going."

Dr. Michael Owens was once a Democratic Party official working to turn red suburban counties southwest of Atlanta blue. Now they are-- and he's running for a seat currently held by a semi-Republican Blue Dog, David Scott. I asked him if he would join the Squad. "Absolutely, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad are what the next generation of progressive leaders look like. They are leading the way and fighting the fights I want to be in the middle of. America needs a squad as big as the challenges we are facing. As many policies that have been seen as too-far-left become mainstream the group will continue become larger and more influencial. Fighting for the dignity and well-being of our citizens and being committed to serve all people should not be the limited to a certain group.  It should be the goal of the entire Congress."

Earlier today, Kim Williams explains how she evolved from an Elizabeth Warren supporter to a full-fledged Berniecrat. It all about a commitment to solving real problems for real people. "As progressive presidential candidates surge in the polls, we need to ensure there are progressives in Congress who will advance Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and debt free college if we are ever going to realize the profound change we so desperately need," she said today. "We simply can not do that with the members of Congress we have now. My safe blue district is represented a conservative Democrat who spent last Congress voting with Trump 47% of the time, and during his eight terms, the median income in my county, when adjusted for inflation, fell. It is lower now than when he took office in 2005. Millionaires like him will never deliver change for working class families. It can only come from individuals who refuse to compromise their values for campaign contributions, who will unapologetically stand behind policies that can bring about real change, and who will proudly become a member of the Squad."

Why The DCCC Always Fails-- And How They Can Turn The Beat Around

If Pelosi, Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Dan Cena and Jason Bresler read one piece of journalism this month, it should be this piece by Daniel Marans at HuffPo: Paul Ryan’s Exit Is A Reminder That Democrats Always Need Good Candidates. Marans introduced the good news by pointing out that "they" already have one. "They" do, but who is "they?" It sure ain't the DCCC. It's the people of southeast Wisconsin's first district. It's the people of Wisconsin. It's the labor movement. It's America's veterans. It's every single working family in this country. [You can contribute to Randy "IronStache" Bryce here.]

The DCCC had as much to do with recruiting (or nurturing) Randy Bryce as they did with creating (or nurturing) the Blue Wave. And that would be zero. No... less than zero-- less than zero for Bryce and less than zero for the Blue Wave. Instead the DCCC recruits and nurtures bags of shit they insist are the only candidates who can win-- the only ones.

The DCCC's candidates couldn't win-- and haven't for over a decade-- without the wave that Trump is creating. It's as if they are out scouring the land from coast to coast looking for the worst possible candidates they can find-- Jeff Van Drew in New Jersey, Jason Crow in Colorado, Gil Cisneros in Orange County, Susie Lee in Nevada, Ann Kirkpatrick in Arizona, Brad Ashford in Nebraska, and Anthony Brindisi and Juanita Perez Williams in New York... to name a few that just pop into one's mind with no effort at all.

Reminder-- Democrats in most of these districts voted for Bernie, not Hillary in the 2016 primaries... so the DCCC is taking it into their own hands to force status quo, establishment garbage candidates on the districts. Last time the Democratic establishment made something like that happen... we wound up with Trump.

In his piece Marans quotes DCCC alum and campaign consultant, Mike Mikus: "Run strong candidates everywhere, because you never know what’s gonna happen. If you do that, you can take advantage of situations like [Ryan dropping out]." What Mikus and the DCCC don't understand is that Bryce isn't just there to take advantage of Ryan suddenly deciding he needs to leave Congress so he can teach little Charlie and Sammy to use bow and arrows. Bryce drove Ryan out of Congress. Now that's what I call a good candidate/ Another DCCC (and Hillary) alum, Jesse Ferguson noted that there is nothing to lose and everything to gain from running candidates in tough seats. "You don’t win a fight if you don’t show up for it. By having candidates in these districts, we might have a shot to win in a place we didn’t think we would-- or we might have a shot to make our case and convince some voters even if we come up short." Jesse's a smarter guy that most of his political colleagues.

Marans reminds his readers that "a state supreme court’s redrawing of the Pennsylvania congressional district boundaries in February suddenly made the Keystone State ripe for a raft of Democratic pickups. But as recently as 2016, the national Democratic Party did not even try to compete in many districts, including some that were genuinely competitive." Yep... that's the DCCC-- one of their fields of expertise... surrendering before the first shots can be fired at them. You think they would ever in a million years have recruited someone to run against Paul Ryan? They never had and until he was already winning they just smiled benignly at Randy Bryce, laughing up their sleeves. Marans:

No official Democratic Party organ tried to recruit Bryce, according to Lauren Hitt, his campaign’s communications director. Instead, it was the Working Families Party, an electoral organization that functions as a progressive faction of the Democratic Party, that approached him about running.

Bryce, who was active in his local union’s political work, was initially skeptical of the opportunity, recalled Rebecca Lynch, political director of the Wisconsin Working Families Party. At that point, Bryce had already run for state and local offices three times and lost.

But Bryce, who eventually relented to the Working Families Party’s entreaties, immediately drew a positive response. He became famous overnight in June after announcing his candidacy in a viral introductory video that depicted his struggle to care for his chronically ill mother.

The image of a burly hard hat-clad ironworker taking on a polished Ryan, the GOP’s chief apostle of trickle-down economics, proved to be an irresistible formula for the Democratic Party’s energized grassroots.

Bryce has since raked in $4.75 million in donations-- 75 percent of it in increments of $200 or less, according to his campaign. (The latest official financial disclosures, which date to the end of 2017, show him with a $2.7 million haul.)

And in an era of ideological division, Bryce’s bid has earned the backing of both establishment-aligned groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and End Citizens United, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more left-leaning outfits like Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America.

But it wasn't hard for Marans to find a moron to quote-- although almost anyone at the DCCC would have done as well: Zac McCrary, a partner at ALG Research, a top Democratic polling firm said "Was Bryce and his energy and resources the main reason Ryan is calling it quits? Probably not." What a fucking idiot. This is the DCCC and the Democratic establishment and why it has been losing and losing and losing for over a decade. How many millions of dollars has the DCCC and their rotgut candidates paid McCrary's firm. You don't want to know.

For Lynch, Bryce’s ability to defy the standard candidate formula not only gives a boost to Democrats, but also the party’s progressive wing, which has sometimes fought for the party to get behind candidates without deep pockets and a more traditional pedigree.

“There is a need to make space at the table in the Democratic Party for candidates that represent working people who would normally not be recruited to run for a seat like this by XYZ establishment organization,” Lynch said.

...Now the party has the benefit of both an energized voter base and at least one candidate in the district with a sophisticated organization and substantial name recognition, according to McCrary.

...Republicans are eager to paint Bryce as too liberal for the district. Bryce’s support for “Medicare for all” and recent announcement that he backed the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency put him firmly on the party’s left wing.

“With positions like those, it sounds like he’d be a better fit for San Francisco than Janesville,” deadpanned Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Ahrens.

Ferguson argued that Bryce’s progressive views at the very least are not a liability.

“The right question in most districts is not whether a candidate is too far to the left or too far to the center, but rather whether the candidate comes across as genuine, honest, authentic, and comfortable in his or her own skin,” Ferguson concluded. “One of the powers of Randy Bryce’s candidacy is that voters know why he’s in it, they know what he’s about and they don’t have any doubt that he believes what he’s saying.”

What Ferguson is talking about is AUTHENTICITY and SOLIDARITY, the 2 words that have fueled Bryce's campaign from the day he started running-- two words that frighten Pelosi, Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Dan Cena and Jason Bresler... two words that Pelosi, Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Dan Cena and Jason Bresler try to root out of the equation when they're looking for candidates to run... and since taking over the DCCC they've been largely successful at just that. Is it too soon to suggest that Speaker Lieu-- as far as I know, the first member of Congress to contribute to Bryce's campaign-- back Bryce for the 2020 DCCC chairmanship? And that ActBlue congressional thermometer on the right has another to do with the DCCC, nor with Pelosi, Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Dan Cena or Jason Bresler. They may have glommed onto Bryce's came, but there are also candidates the DCCC hasn't recognized at all there-- from Kaniela Ing (HI), Jenny Marshall (NC), Dan Canon (IN) and Tom Guild (OK) to Lillian Salerno (TX), Levi Tillemann (CO), Sam Jammal (CA) and Katie Porter (CA)-- there as well. And more; give it a tap. Please.