Election Reflections-- Blue Dogs, Schumer, Texas, Florida... You Want To Know What Went Wrong?

Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Joe Cunningham (SC) were elected to the House in the 2018 anti-red wave-- just when Blue Dog chairwoman Kyrsten Sinema graduated to the Senate. Sinema was the worst Democrat in Congress-- by far. She voted against anything and everything that smacked of progressivism. She voted with the GOP on progressive roll calls around 75% of the time. Now she's the worst Democrat in the Senate, although we'll soon see if Frackenlooper gives her a run for her money.

Back in the House, Brindisi and Cunningham spent the last two years see-sawing back and forth for the #1 and #2 worst Dems. Both are virulent Blue Dogs with ghastly voting records that could only be analyzed in one way: Republican. At the moment, Cunningham's record is slightly worse-- 76.54% against progressive initiatives, while Brindisi "only" voted against progressivism 75.31%. None the less, Pelosi and Bustos decided to waste $4 million trying to save Cunningham and $5.5 million trying to save Brindisi. Two of the GOP's best friends inside the Democratic caucus-- but especially Brindisi-- spent their time whining about how if anything progressive was brought to the floor for a vote it would doom their reelections.

Cunningham was defeated by Republican Nancy Mace (having out-spent her by $2 million) 216,042 (50.6%) to 210,627 (49.4%). It looked like Brindisi would be joining him in the losers' column-- and he still may-- but... yesterday Syracuse.com reported that Brindisi has surged back into contention, winning the absentee count 73-27% (25,998-7,787)... Brindisi has now cut Tenney’s lead to 10,294 votes, down from 28,422 votes on Election Day. There are at least 20,000 ballots remaining to be counted across the district. Brindisi will have to win at least 77% of those ballots to overtake Tenney." That's a steep hill to climb but it isn't impossible that Congress will be stuck with Brindisi and his whining for two more years.

Let's flip back to the Senate for a minute-- although the DCCC operates exactly like to DSCC-- and take a look at a post from July by Andrew Perez, with the benefit of hindsight-- Senate Democrats’ Machine Spent $15 Million To Destroy Progressive Primary Candidates. Short version: "The Democratic establishment has successfully blocked progressive Senate candidates in primaries, with the help of labor unions, Wall Street tycoons and corporate interests."

Now that the Schumer and the DSCC have managed to confound every pollster and lose the Senate again, it's worth looking at how they undermined every single progressive who tried to run-- spending $15 million in the process during the primaries. They hate progressives and fear them more than Republicans, who they have much more in common with.

While Schumer's DSCC hand-puppet, Catherine Cortez Masto (NV) promised last year that the DSCC would support progressive incumbent Ed Markey if he faced a primary challenger, they reneged entirely when he was challenged by a far less progressive Rep. Joe Kennedy III. Although a SuperPAC set up by Kennedy, the New Leadership PAC, spent $4,126,114 bolstering him, neither the DSCC nor Schumer's slimy Senate Majority PAC, spent a nickel helping Markey. Instead, they spent millions helping very right-wing Democrats like Frackenlooper to defeat progressive former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff. "In the final weeks of the race," wrote Perez, "SMP spent $1 million to boost Hickenlooper, after he spent his failed presidential campaign attacking key tenets of progressives’ legislative agenda, including Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. At the time of the cash infusion, Hickenlooper was losing ground in the polls and engulfed in scandals: He had just been fined by Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission for violating state ethics law as governor, the local CBS station uncovered evidence of his gubernatorial office raking in cash from oil companies, and a video circulated showed Hickenlooper comparing his job as a politician to a slave on a slave ship, being whipped by a scheduler."

The Schumer-controled SMP spent $228,490,266, "pooling cash from both organized labor and business titans to promote corporate-aligned candidates over more progressive primary challengers. Working for Working Americans, a super PAC funded by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, has donated $5 million. The Laborers' International Union of North America’s super PAC has given $1.5 million. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’s political action committee has chipped in $1.3 million. SMP has received also big donations from groups affiliated with labor unions like the Service Employees International Union ($1 million), the National Association of Letter Carriers ($750,000), and Communications Workers of America ($500,000). Overall, the top donor to SMP so far this cycle has been Democracy PAC-- a super PAC that’s bankrolled by billionaire George Soros and the Fund for Policy Reform, a nonprofit funded by Soros. Democracy PAC has contributed $8.5 million to SMP. Other donors from the financial industry include: Renaissance Technologies founder and billionaire Jim Simons and his wife Deborah ($5.5 million) and billionaire D. E. Shaw & Co. founder David Shaw ($1 million)."

Some major donors have financial stakes in current and future legislation.

For instance: SMP received a $1 million donation from billionaire Jonathan Gray, an executive at Blackstone, which owns the hospital staffing chain, TeamHealth. SMP also received $2 million from the Greater New York Hospital Association.

In late 2019, Schumer helped stall Senate legislation that would have kept patients from receiving “surprise medical bills,” the hefty charges that occur when they visit hospitals that are in their insurance network but are unknowingly treated by providers who are considered out-of-network.

SMP is affiliated with Majority Forward, a dark money group focused on attacking Republican Senate candidates. Majority Forward received $450,000 in 2018 from pharmacy giant CVS Health-- which also owns health insurer Aetna. The group also received $300,000 from the American Health Care Association (AHCA), a trade association that represents the nursing home industry.

The Democratic primary candidates backed by the DSCC have expressed reservations about Medicare for All, arguing they believe people should be allowed to keep their private health insurance if they want it. Many of the DSCC’s favored candidates do support creating a public health insurance option.

Meanwhile, the Real Estate Roundtable, a trade group for real estate investors, donated $50,000 to Majority Forward. Schumer and Senate Democrats recently helped Republicans unanimously pass pandemic relief legislation that included a special, little-noticed provision that amounted to $170 billion worth of new tax breaks for wealthy real estate investors.

In addition to the Colorado race, SMP has waded into at least three other Senate primaries this year.

In North Carolina, SMP funded Carolina Blue, a super PAC that spent $4.5 million to help veteran and former state senator Cal Cunningham win the primary in March. Cunningham handily defeated his chief opponent, state senator Erica Smith, who was running to his left...

In Iowa, SMP spent nearly $7 million to promote real estate developer Theresa Greenfield. She easily bested her two primary opponents, including progressive Kimberly Graham, who campaigned in support of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

SMP has already spent more than $2 million in Maine, including nearly $500,000 to promote House Speaker Sara Gideon in the Democratic primary. Some of the group’s advertising against Republican Senator Susan Collins was also designed to boost Gideon.

The final polls and final predictions showed Sara Gideon, Theresa Greenfield and Cal Cunningham beating, respectively, Collins, Ernst and Tillis. Instead the 3 Republicans are returning to the Senate. Gideon's share of the vote was a pathetic 42.7%, Greenfield's was 45.2% and Tillis' was 47.0%. The DSCC and Schumer's PAC spent ungodly amounts, as did the Democratic candidates.

In North Carolina, Cunningham raised $46,795,495 to Tillis' $21,474,728. The DSCC spent $24,542,003 and Schumer's PAC spent $35,838,924.

In Maine, Gideon raised $68,577,474 to Collins' $26,511,555. The DSCC spent $4,667,250 and Schumer's PAC spent $27,909,459.

In Iowa, Greenfield raised $47,004,937 to Ernst's $23,536,707. The DSCC spent $27,899,050 and Schumer's PAC spent $41,225,046.

Both the DSCC and the DCCC have decided to blame progressives for their cataclysmic losses, even though every single incumbent who lost was a conservative and every single progressive-- including progressives in tough districts like Matt Cartwright, Dan Kildee, Andy Levin, Peter DeFazio and Jahana Hayes-- won.

Last week Ryan Grimm asked progressive challenger Mike Siegel this question: "Do you have to run as a kind of centrist or moderate in some of these districts, or can a progressive message win in a swing district in Texas?" Mike began by comparing his race to that of another re-match Texan, Sri Kulkarni (who had an open seat this time). Kulkarni is an avowed conservative, a corporate Democrat and careerist endorsed by both the Blue Dogs and New Dems. He raised $4,863,231 compared to Troy Nehls' (R) $1,532,299 and the DCCC and Pelosi's PAC spent $7.3 million bolstering him. He lost 209,735 (51.6%) to 181,318 (44.6%). Mike Siegel is a Squad-grade progressive who raised $2,332,415 compared to Michael McCaul's $3,515,771 (as of Oct. 14). The DCCC, which preferred a conservative Democrat run, spent $270 on Mike's race and Pelosi's PAC spent zero. Yes, you read that right-- $270. McCaul was reelected 215,896 (52.5%) to 186,350 (46.3%). Had the DCCC spent part of the $7.3 million they wasted on Sri, would Mike have won? We'll never know, will we?

In answer to Grim's question, Mike pointed out that being conservative didn't help Kulkarni and even though he campaigned loudly on Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and racial justice, Mike outperformed him by every possible metric.

[W]hat I would have liked to have tested is if we had an entire progressive ticket. You know, it could be that the most consequential decisions about my campaign were made March 3, Super Tuesday, when we decided that Bernie Sanders wasn’t gonna be the presidential nominee and, in Texas, we decided that Christina Tzintzún Ramirez wasn’t going to be our Senate nominee.

So with my analysis that I’m doing now with our team and many others in Texas is what would it take to really get out more poor voters? I mean, I’m talking about poor people. Like, when you canvass in rural Texas, in a town like Eagle Lake, or Brenham, in the summer, you meet people who are in these rundown, double-wide kind of houses, basically falling apart at the seams-- people who have to survive three months of 100-degree weather with no air conditioning at all, people who have very marginal employment. What’s it going to take to get those folks to care about an election? You know, whether you’re talking about black folks and Latinx voters in a city, or poor rural voters-- black, Latino, and white-- what’s it gonna take for them to really care about an election?

And to me, Bernie Sanders would have helped us make that populous case. You know, Texas has this tradition of populism; it goes back 100 years or more. But like, if we were really talking about farm policy, if we were really talking about water policy, if we were talking about rural jobs programs, things that really affect their lives. I mean, as a congressional candidate, I was talking about these things, but it’s hard to really break through.

Same thing with Christina. You know, statewide in Texas, we’re not going to flip Texas if we don’t win the RGV, the Rio Grande Valley. And, you know, if you haven’t been to Texas, you might not realize there are communities along the border called colonias, where they don’t even have running water and municipal sewage in some of these developments. I mean, these are like, you know, sometimes undocumented residents, sometimes U.S. citizens who are living in abject poverty. What’s it gonna take to get those folks to care? And it’s not some slick TV ads, it’s not a poll-tested message. Even for me, I got some DCCC support, and some of my messaging was about prescription drug prices and protecting pre-existing conditions. But I feel like that’s too nuanced for these folks. I mean, it has to be more direct.

You know, this, this might be a little off-topic, but one of the things I’m thinking about is, think about the movements in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez or Bolivia under Evo Morales. Evo Morales is supported by the poorest indigenous farmers from the high plains of Bolivia. Those people are engaged in the electoral process. In this country, poor people are not engaged in the electoral process.

And so, for me, on a gerrymandered map, I don’t know if I could have gotten more than 210,000 votes, like McCaul got, unless we were really doing organizing with poor people. And I think that’s a longer-term investment. That’s where it’s this question, these people who gave me $2800, when I called them and spoke to them for a minute, would they give me $1,000 if I was gonna say: We’re going to invest in a five-year project to do deep organizing these communities? Is the donor class willing to invest in changing the fundamental conditions in areas like mine that would really enable progressive change in the long term?

...[O]ne of the things I’ve been preaching on the campaign trail, you know, and I got to do some events with Bernie and he absolutely loved it-- you know, this is our New Deal moment, American history: crumbling U.S. infrastructure, massive wealth inequality, unemployment-- major crises we need to confront. In the 30s it was fascism rising in Western Europe; now, it’s climate change.

And how did we enact a New Deal in this country? You know, a 15-year program, the Works Progress Administration, massively investing in infrastructure, putting people to work in all sorts of jobs. It was FDR, when he ran for president the first time, talking about the New Deal every chance he gets: We’re gonna give you a New Deal. Whatever the question was-- economic policy, jobs, health care, you name it, we’re gonna give you a New Deal.

Imagine we had a candidate for president who for 10-12 months is talking nonstop about fundamental economic change. That’s what it takes. And that’s where the Democratic establishment, which to some extent supported me, although not as strongly as they could have, they’re not talking about that, because we’re too invested in conservative donors who don’t want us to say that.

And so we’re caught in between. You know, half the Democratic Party is still taking the corporate PAC money, moderating the message, saying: OK, we’re only going to talk about this extremely narrow issue, you know, protecting pre-existing conditions or negotiating prescription drug prices downwards, whereas like people don’t have AC and it’s 100 degrees every day, they don’t have gas in the car, they’re making $10 an hour and getting 20 hours a week. I mean, they are struggling to survive. They’re completely cynical about democracy as something that’s even real in the world. And we’re not speaking clearly to them about why it matters to vote.

Today, the Washington Post reported that "The parts of America that have seen strong job, population and economic growth in the past four years voted for Joe Biden, economic researchers found. In contrast, President Trump garnered his highest vote shares in counties that had some of the most sluggish job, population and economic growth during his term. Trump fared well among voters who said the economy was their top concern, and he even won votes in places that didn’t fare particularly well under his presidency. This is perhaps a continuation of the 2016 election, when Trump won a huge share of places that had struggled under President Barack Obama. Democrats tended to view the 2020 election more as a referendum on Trump, especially his response to the pandemic." It's worth hitting that Intercept link above and reading Ryan's whole interview with Siegel. But now I want to leave you with a quirky but apocryphal story by Richard Cooke in yesterday's Daily Beast: I Covered Congressional Races in Florida in 2018, and Boy Do I Know Why Trump Won the State in 2020. "One party’s aides were courteous and organized," he wrote. "The other’s could barely tell me when the candidate was speaking next. Wanna take a guess?" He covered FL-26 and FL-27 in 2018, when Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala both flipped those very blue (but Republican-held) districts blue. This year, both flipped back to red.

Situated in and near Miami, these districts make up some of the most volatile and interesting political territory in the United States. FL-27 had voted heavily for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but the House seat had been held by a socially liberal Republican, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for 30 years. Ros-Lehtinen was retiring, and on paper the district seemed a natural Dem pick-up. The districts also overlapped with Miami-Dade, the most populous county in Florida, whose turnout would be critical in deciding a narrow gubernatorial race.

Instead of requesting interviews, I decided to see the candidates like an undecided voter would, joining the audience for stump speeches and campaign events. This seemed standard, almost old-fashioned reporting. It never occurred to me that it would be hard, let alone so hard that I’d need to extend my stay in Miami. By leaving time, I felt not like an undecided voter, but like a private detective. Finding a schedule of Republican campaign events took 15 minutes. With Democrats, this process took five days.

...Perhaps this information was at one of the other offices. Volunteers tried to be helpful. One suggested a website might have the information, and when pressed, offered unsarcastically that I “try Google.” Another showed me an event dated two weeks prior. Finally, with fanfare, someone produced a number for another campaign office. They could put me in touch with the right person. I stepped outside and dialed. I had called the switchboard for the City of Miami Gardens, Florida.

Irritation was turning into intrigue, and while the next few days were mileage and frustration-heavy, they were in some ways a reporter’s dream. The factional fighting between Miami-Dade Democrats, Florida Democrats, Senate campaign offices and the national party was flagrant. One of the few times I saw the operation energized was when I mentioned the Miami-Dade Democrats to a staffer for and she rolled her eyes. I heard more than one volunteer try to remember the names on the ballot and fail. I was left unsupervised in campaign offices, in prime eavesdropping real estate, though this was just a bonus: campaigners were ready to vent their frustrations, and I opened my confessional.

By comparison, the Republicans I encountered were courteous, organized, and dedicated. I heard a speech by the GOP challenger for FL-27, Maria Salazar, and afterwards her apparatchiks handed me business cards. At voting locations drowned in GOP paraphernalia, campaign staff showed me detailed spreadsheets, tallying how early turn-out numbers tracked with their booth-by-booth strategy. They asked if I needed anything. The competition dynamic was starting to remind me of 1980s comedy movie: a ruthless, well-heeled team up against a band of plucky misfits.

My grail quest became no easier. At one field location, I arrived just before the advertised opening time and waited by myself for hours before leaving empty-handed. Finding the number for one press secretary took phone calls to 22 different people, most of whom didn’t know who he was. Several times I was told that a particular volunteer was important and “knew everything.” Tracked down at a polling booth, he turned out to be a young backpacker, freshly arrived from Spain, who knew as little as anyone else. Later, I realized the source of this special status: he was one of the few people on the ground who could speak Spanish. Donna Shalala herself (i.e. the candidate) could not.

Following a hot tip about a possible press contact, I turned up at another campaign office with a different strategy: I would refuse to leave. After the traditional greeting-- bewilderment, being offered a chair within earshot of indiscrete conversations-- there was a short conclave. I could speak with Ben. Ben and I sat facing each other, in the middle of an open-plan office. By this time I had become a kind of connoisseur of incompetence, and I sensed that Ben was good at something, but he had not dealt with a reporter before. “Can I ask what your role with the campaign is?” Ben was a policy adviser. He had no idea if his candidate had any events that day, and no idea why he was speaking with me.

When the comms person did come in (this was treated as a special occasion), our conversation had an informality that was almost charming. I explained my difficulty with the Democratic campaigns, and the contrast with Republicans. “They’re a lot more organized than us!” she said, and I had to laugh. They sure were! Here at last was some kind of schedule, but as we stepped through it, something was missing. Through exhaustive internet searches, I had found a digital ticketing website offering a Q&A event featuring Donna Shalala. Why wasn’t it on the schedule? “Ohhh, that’s cancelled.” Perhaps, she said, they could line up an interview instead? I explained that I had been trying to see the election from the perspective of a voter, not a reporter, and how information was freely available from Republicans and almost non-existent from Democrats. Catching my drift, she started to flush.

The call came through later, when I was in a Haitian-owned coin laundry. A DNC flack in Washington, D.C. had heard I was making trouble, planning some kind of “Dems in disarray” story, and as I scribbled notes on top of an industrial dryer, I picked up the story that had been relayed to him, as much from his tone as his words. A foreign correspondent had arrived in Miami expecting VIP treatment, then got miffed when the red carpet wasn’t rolled out. Smearing the ground game would be revenge for a bruised ego. “Money at a national level has gone into these seats,” he assured me.

Walking him through what I’d seen-- and hadn’t seen-- only made him angry. “We’re going to win both of those seats,” he said, berating my ignorance. It was a strange reaction. By then I probably had as clear a snapshot of the election in Miami as anyone. Wasn’t that information useful? Potentially important, even? Instead, someone hundreds of miles away was blithely junking this eye-witness evidence in favor of obnoxious confidence. “You’ll see,” he insisted, “when we win FL-26 and FL-27 on election night, I’ll message you.” And they did, and he did.

In my reply, I pointed out that Andrew Gillum, the Democratic favorite to become Florida’s governor, had lost by a narrow margin, and that poor turnout in Miami-Dade was the culprit. And perhaps you can imagine my lack of surprise two years later, when FL-26 and FL-27 both fell to GOP challengers, one of them Maria Salazar. On the presidential ballot, Clinton’s 30-point lead in Miami-Dade shrunk to a 7-point margin for Biden.

In a piece titled What the Hell Happened to Democrats in Miami-Dade?, Rolling Stone observed ruefully that “Miami-Dade is considered safe—until election night, when suddenly it’s not,” and quoted Maria Elena Lopez, first vice-chair of the Miami-Dade Democrats.

Lopez lamented how the Democratic National Convention did not talk to, fund, or advise the local parties. “We don’t get any feedback from the DNC,” she said. “They don’t come to us and say, ‘Hey, what is the messaging that would work in your community? Where are we weak?’ [The party] doesn’t do that, at all. We are on our own.”

“Unfortunately, this is not the first time that we’ve seen this,” she said. It was not the first time I had seen it either.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powll raised $6,178,239 compared to Carlos Gimenez's $1,946,504. The DCCC and Pelosi's PAC spent about $6 million trying to save her. She lost the blue D+6 seat 177,223 (51.7%) to 165,407. Donna Shalala (the one who speaks no Spanish in a 71.7% Latino district) raised around the same $3,000,000 that her opponent, Maria Salazar (from 2018) spent. Shalala was so out of touch with her own constituents that she didn't even request help from the DCCC. In fact, she gave them money! She lost 176,114 (51.3%) to 166,705 (48.6%).

Anti-Red Wave Likely To Sweep Carlos Curbelo Away, Despite Lots Of Advantages, Including A Weak Opponent

Total lesser-of-two evils race (FL-26)

In August GBA Strategies, working for the DCCC, polled FL-26 voters and found incumbent Carlos Curbelo 7 points ahead of Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Yesterday the same firm found leading Mucarsel-Powell leading Curbelo 50-48%.

The district includes all of the southern tip of Florida from the southern part of Miami-Dade, west of Kendall and Monroe County, through Homestead, all of the Everglades National Park and all of the Keys from Biscayne National Park to Key West. It has grown increasingly blue in recent years, having given Obama a 51.5-47.9% win over McCain, a 55.4-43.9% win over Romney and then Hillary an even more significant 56.8-40.5% win over Trump. Conservative Democrats have disappointed the district but the DCCC insists on them-- and loses. The PVI is now D+6 and only the DCCC could lose that kind of a district. Only a wave could save them from themselves.

Mucarsel-Powell is exactly what the DCCC wants, a New Dem from the Republican wing of the party. But if the wave sweeps her in this cycle, she'll lose in 2022.

Curbelo is no slouch and he's putting up a good fight against a mediocre candidate but a wave is a wave and even his fundraising advantage-- $3,708,783 to $1,871,929-- won't save him. The DCCC, which isn't spending money on progressives, has spent $2,526,606 to bolster Mucarsel-Powell so far while the NRCC has kicked in $1,954,114 for Curbelo. Ryan's SuperPAC hasn't jumped into this one yet.

The Miami Herald reported last week that she's outspending Curbelo on TV. Big waste of money, but she's likely to win anyway because of the wave, the wave, the wave.

Mucarsel-Powell and her Democratic allies are spending around $1 million on bilingual television and radio advertising this week, a spending pace that’s been in place since mid-September, according to a source familiar with media buying in the district. Though Mucarsel-Powell hasn’t been able to raise more money than Curbelo, one of the GOP’s best fundraisers, she’s outspending him.

The aggressive pace is shifting momentum in one of the nation’s most watched congressional races, in which Curbelo has seen his chances of reelection improve in the eyes of most prognosticators in recent weeks despite a national environment that favors Democrats. Mucarsel-Powell has peppered the airwaves with a biographical ad and an ad that touts Democrats’ efforts on healthcare in a district where more than 90,000 people are enrolled in the Affordable Care Act.


...Curbelo’s unfavorable ratings have jumped according to the poll, while his favorable ratings have remained the same since July. The poll gives Curbelo a 47 percent favorable rating and a 40 percent unfavorable rating, while Mucarsel-Powell has a 32 percent favorable rating and an 18 percent unfavorable rating, up from 14 percent favorable and 8 percent unfavorable in July. Donald Trump’s approval is also under water in the district, though Curbelo won reelection by 12 percentage points in 2016 while Trump lost the district by more than 14 percentage points.

“Voters like Mucarsel-Powell as they get to know her, and support for her grows,” the polling memo said.

Two other recent polls show the race as a tie.

A poll commissioned last week by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling showed Mucarsel-Powell with a one-point lead, and a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted at the same time Mucarsel-Powell increased her ad spending showed Curbelo with a slight three-point lead, though both polls were within the margin of error.

But Republicans are trying to portray the still relatively unknown Mucarsel-Powell in a negative light, and they’re also throwing lots of money on TV advertising in one of the country’s most expensive media markets in an environment where other incumbent Republicans are being cut off because their races are seen as unwinnable.



The National Republican Congressional Committee is putting just over $1 million over the next two weeks into a negative ad about Mucarsel-Powell titled “Shady Characters.” The ad seeks to tie her to: a Ukrainian oligarch, who is accused of ordering contract killings, because he partially owned a company that Mucarsel-Powell’s husband, Robert Powell, worked for; the Iranian government, due to Mucarsel-Powell’s support of the Iran nuclear deal; and a Democratic lawmaker accused of sexual assault who chairs a political action committee that contributed to Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign.




Even In The Localest Of Races, It's All About Trumpanzee

There are 3 South Florida districts held by Republicans that are heavily Latino:

• FL-25- Mario Diaz-Balart (70.4% Latino)
• FL-26- Carlos Curbelo (69.5% Latino)
• FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtien 72.7% Latino)

Trump fared poorly in all three- losing with 38.9% in FL-27 and with 40.5% in FL-26 while narrowly winning in FL-25 with 49.7%. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has prevented Democrats from contesting the seats held by her old pals Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart. Ros-Lehtinen (whose district now has a PVI of D+5 and is the second bluest district in the country held by a Republican) is retiring. FL-26 is the absolute bluest district-- PVI is D+6-- held by a Republican and Curbelo is running scared and can sometimes be a former vote for progressive legislation in Congress than Blue Dogs like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Henry Cuellar (TX), Collin Peterson (MN) and fellow Floridian Stephanie Murphy.

People say it would be hard even for the least competent, most badly run DCCC in recent history to lose these 3 seats this cycle. But that's exactly the kind of challenge the DCCC is best at-- losing sure things. They are entirely ignoring Mary Barzee Flores' race against Diaz-Balart. A former judge, she's too progressive for the DCCC. With no help from the DCCC, she's already raised $728,231 up against Diaz-Balart's $1,118,990. She makes sense as a candidate, being a Latina in a heavily Hispanic district. The DCCC doesn't seem to get that when they don't want to. The DCCC candidate in FL-26 is Debbie Mucarel-Powell, an Ecuadorian immigrant running against Curbelo and the 3 top Democratic candidates running in the open FL-27 seat are non-Hisapnic. The GOP will run either Bruno Barreiro or Maria Elvira Salazar. The DCCC hasn't weighed in but the likeliest Democratic candidates are David Richardson, Donna Shalala and Matt Haggman. No Hispanic-- although number 4, is Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who had a Latino husband and is using his name for politics. Shalala seems to be way ahead of the pack for the August 28 primary. Her ethnic heritage is Lebanese. Can she win in a heavily Latino district? I didn't think so, but I may be wrong there.

The Miami Herald reported that on Tuesday Eileen Higgins-- not a Latina-- won a seat on the Miami-Dade County Commission, "defeating the better-funded campaign of the former commissioner's wife to scramble the conventional wisdom of who can get elected in a heavily Hispanic district in Miami."

Higgins, a Spanish-speaking Ohio native who adopted the campaign moniker "La Gringa," won by six points over Zoraida Barreiro, the Cuban-born wife of Bruno Barreiro, who resigned to run in a Republican congressional primary [FL-27]. With all 60 precincts reporting, Higgins had 53 percent of the vote, and Barreiro 47 percent.

...With the Democratic Party deploying money, office holders, candidates and volunteers to boost Higgins early on in the special election, an officially nonpartisan contest became a proxy battle with Republicans.


 The GOP used U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Miami, in robo-calls and mailers. Her husband's Republican congressional campaign also became her top donor, with at least $95,000 in contributions.

District 5 straddles parts of Miami and Miami Beach, with a heavy concentration of active voters in Little Havana and other enclaves where older Cuban-American voters are considered vital to win in low-turnout elections.


Turnout was nearly 15 percent, meaning voter interest increased after the four-person primary on May 22, when about 13 percent of the district's voters participated. For the runoff between Barreiro and Higgins, 14,023 ballots were cast, according to results posted after 9 p.m. Higgins took 7,449 and Barreiro 6,494. 
...Democrats outnumber Republicans in the district, and Hillary Clinton carried District 5 by double digits in 2016. But Republicans tend to turn out in low-profile, local elections.

Bruno Barreiro, the only Miami-Dade commissioner to openly support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, held the seat for 20 years. He vacated it in March to run in the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, in Florida's District 27.


...Though running for what would be her first political office, Barreiro enjoyed financial support from Miami-Dade's circuit of lobbyists, developers and vendors who dominate fundraising for incumbents. Tuesday represented the second loss for Barreiro in as many years, after she failed to win a Miami commission seat in 2017.

Higgins drew the underdog title throughout the 10-week sprint to replace Bruno Barreiro. In the May 22 primary, she faced two well-known names in the district: Zoraida Barreiro, along with Alex Diaz de la Portilla, a former state senator who used to represent the area in Tallahassee. Higgins pulled off her first upset when she took a narrow first in that contest with 35 percent of the vote to Barreiro's 33 percent. As the top two finishers, they advanced to the June 19 runoff.

Conventional wisdom had Barreiro the favorite, since she was expected to pick up most of Diaz de la Portilla's voters, a fellow Republican Cuban American. But Diaz de la Portilla didn't endorse in the race, and the Higgins ground game appeared to narrow the traditional advantage Republicans enjoy in mail-in balloting, which accounted for six out of every 10 votes cast in the District 5 runoff. While Republicans led Democrats by three points in mail-in ballots and early voting last week, the margin shrank to just a single point by Sunday.

"This is a transformational election," said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster who supported Higgins. "This is an election where you had an unknown defeat two of the titular Cuban dynasties in local politics. and it wasn't even close."


...She also sided with the liberal wing of the commission on a string of issues, including mandatory workforce housing requirements for new developments, ending the acceptance of detention requests from federal immigration authorities, and opposing the extension of the 836 expressway southwest into Kendall.

The District 5 results are a blow for Bruno Barreiro, who transferred $95,000 from his congressional campaign to his wife's election effort. That made him his wife's top donor.

By her own admission, Barrerio is not a strong public speaker. She turned in a halting performance during the single televised debate with Higgins. Her online campaigning was minimal. While Higgins posted multiple daily updates from the campaign trail on her Twitter account, @eyesonmyworld, the @ZBarreiroFL feed hasn't been updated since last August.

In remarks at her Election Night event, Barreiro linked the loss in part to her husband's congressional campaign, saying Democrats targeted her to derail him.

And by the way, there may have been some voters who were offended by the Barreiros playing fast and loose with Florida election law. You cannot move more than $1,000 freely from a federal campaign-- his-- to a state campaign-- hers-- even if both campaigns are for the same candidate, let alone for another candidate, even if it is a spouse. That may come back to but Mr. Barreiro in the ass in November.

 




FL-26-- Steve Machat Withdraws From The Race To Topple Carlos Curbelo

The DCCC & EMILY's List has their candidate and there is also a progressive running

Steve Machat is a guy I knew from the music business who, in one way or another-- attorney, publisher, manager, etc-- worked with Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Leonard Cohen, Phil Spector, ELO, Snoop Dogg, New Edition, Bobby Brown, etc. He also wrote Gods, Gangsters and Honour, a book that is basically an insider's guide to the music industry. Until a couple of weeks ago he was seeking the Democratic Party nomination too run for the very blue seat occupied by Republican Carlos Curbelo. The DCCC endorsed conservative New Dem Debbie Mucarel-Powell. He wrote to his supporters to explain why he was withdrawing from the race.

Earlier this month I was a guest speaker in Israel, addressing equality, creation and how to perpetuate culture. From there, I went on to Jordan, meeting with King Abdullah’s Ministers.

Both these experiences allowed a lot of soul searching on my part.

I feel that the electoral system in the US is possibly irretrievably broken, with Blue Dog Democrats voting with Trump and Corporate Democrats voting with the special interests that fund them.

Our two party system is owned and controlled by a network of corporate interest, which funds and selects politicians on our behalf, places them in government, and then the government runs us. This is totally contrary to what our Founding Fathers intended. They intended a government of the people, by the people, for the people. They did not intend a government of corporations, by corporate-funded politicians, for the benefit of corporations.

It’s not enough just to elect Democrats, we have to elect truly progressive Democrats.

In the uneven minefield that is American politics today, there is no room for two independent-minded Democrats to oppose each other in District 26. The good news is that my platform and that of Commander Demetries Grimes are very similar. We both believe in campaign finance reform, universal healthcare, banning assault weapons, meaningful gun reform, tuition-free college, and the decriminalization of marijuana-- to name but a few policy areas. We both have the same objective-- to elect an independent public servant as our next Congressperson in District 26. It is for this reason that I have decided to withdraw from the race today to give Commander Grimes a clear run to beat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the Primary, and Carlos Curbelo in the General Election. My team and I will give Demetries and his team as much support as he wishes to win the battles ahead.

I thank those who have supported me. I also thank everyone who had the courage to engage in making dialogue with me against my views. Debate is heathy. It makes us great. The subjugation of critical thinking is one of the tools used by the corporations and the super-wealthy to take over our political system. We need to revitalize critical thinking and help give back to our youth the belief that they can fulfill their dreams.

In order to do that, I am going to concentrate on my entertainment career. I am now part of the team creating a new independent major network called Gran, dedicated to new creations of music, TV, films and webisodes. In addition, I continue to work with our friend in Cuba on a festival celebrating, arts, music and culture.

I realize that I can help shape our young people’s minds to believe in dreams again; to learn that for a dream to come true you must build; and to build successfully you need to work as a team.

I pledge to do whatever I can to continue to help America build the team for a 21st century life. A life where everyone is equal. A life where it is the duty of the government to provide healthcare for all, education for all, safety for our communities, a guaranteed income with jobs for all, a community that protects Mother Earth and an energy solution based on renewable resources. A life that works to ensure that our future is better than our present. A life that provides a future for our children and a security for our seniors.

Please make sure you are registered to vote here. Information on Commander Demetries Grimes can be found here. Please join us.

Chuck Hagel: "I'm Surprised That Our Midwestern Republican Leaders Have Not Been More Vocal"

Hagel won 2 Purple Hearts as an infantryman while Señor T was pretending he had a boo-boo

Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo is representing a very blue Miami area district. Obama beat McCain 50-49% and then beat Romney 53-46% there  In 2016 Hillary absolutely pulverized Trump 56.8% to 40.5%, driving the district's PVI from R+1 to its current D+6. Even the virulent incompetence from the DCCC that Republicans in blue districts have learned to count on won't save Curbelo in a cycle with the kind of anti-Trump/anti-GOP tsunami that's forming now. (And, yes, the DCCC has managed to find one of their typical lesser-of-two evils candidates to back). Curbelo recognizes he's got to go further left than the Democrats to have any chance at reelection this year. So, while Pelosi's utterly dysfunctional caucus dickers and bickers about how to deal with Trump's rotten DACA sabotage, Curbelo says he will not vote to keep the government open unless Trump agrees to the bipartisan DACA fix most members of Congress-- and most Americans-- want.

Meanwhile, this weekend everyone has been chitter-chattering about Arizona lame duck Jeff Flake making a Senate floor speech comparing Señor Trumpanzee to Stalin. I'd rather Flake use his vote to stop just one-- any one-- of Trump's legislative priorities... but we all know that's never going to happen.

Chuck Hagel isn't in Congress any more. He was a mainstream conservative from Nebraska, a senator from 1997 til 2009 and then Obama's Secretary of Defense (a nomination filibustered by his old colleagues from the GOP, the first time a Secretary of Defense nominee was ever fillibustered). Interesting sidenote that seems to have been lost to history: Hagel was CEO of American Information Systems, later known as Election Systems & Software, a computerized voting machine manufacturer, which seems to have played a pivotal role in an election that made Hagel the first Republican in twenty-four years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska. In 2008, both Obama and McCain talked about putting Hagel on their tickets.

Over the weekend, Hagel was back in the headlines, talking about the pickle Señor Trumpanzee has placed the GOP in. He wrote that Señor T "is doing great damage to our country internationally. He's an embarrassment... intentionally dividing the country and the world."

Hagel, who served two terms in the Senate, said his fellow Republicans may face a moment of truth later this year with the investigation of Russian influence and interference in the 2016 presidential election already probing inside the doors of the Republican White House.

"We take an oath of office not to a president, not to a party, not to a philosophy, but to the Constitution of the United States," he said.

"I was philosophically a Republican with a conservative voting record," Hagel said, "but that did not mean I would always go along with the party.

"In the end, you need to make a decision based on the right thing for the country," he said.

Hagel, who was wounded twice in combat in Vietnam, parted company with Republican President George W. Bush on the Iraq war and was widely criticized within the GOP for his action with Vice President Dick Cheney often acting as one of Hagel's sharpest critics.

As secretary of defense, Hagel said, he saw Russian cyber activity in all areas of the U.S. economy, with attempts to penetrate commercial and financial networks as well as the Department of Defense.

"The Russians were up to a lot of mischief," he said. "They were probing and they do have the capability of getting better and stronger. We can't discount that."

Hagel left the Pentagon in 2015, a year before the presidential election.

Now, Hagel said, the country has "a president who minimizes his own intelligence community and that is quite astounding."

Red To Poo

After the odious Debbie Wasserman Schultz chaired the DCCC's Red-to-Blue program in 2008-- while endorsing 3 Republicans in seats neighboring on her own-- the program lost all credibility and the name faded. It's back to its former glory, acting as an arm of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party as it pushes Blue Dogs, New Dems, "ex"-Republicans, EMILY's Listers and assorted other garbage candidates. The DCCC likes to loudly proclaim that it doesn't interfere in primaries, but the Red to Blue program does nothing but interfere in primaries. On Wednesday it announced it was endorsing 7 more shitty candidates, most of them in competitive primaries. There are 18 now. Not one is an anti-Establishment reformer or a progressive. Basically, all 18 are corporate shills from the Republican wing the party, embodiments of why the best anyone can say about the House Democrats is that they're the lesser of two evils. The 7 new ones:

• FL-26- Debbie Mucarsel-Powell
• MN-03- Dean Phillips
• NE-02- Brad Ashford
• NC-13- Kathy Manning
• NJ-11- Mikie Sherrill
• NY-11- Max Rose
• UT-04- Ben McAdams

Worst on the list, as we've discussed before, is "ex"-Republican, ex-Congressman, Blue Dog Brad Ashford who managed to accrue the most Republican voting record of any Democrat in Congress before his constituents kicked him out. After being fired from his next job he decided to try for Congress again-- what's to lose, since the DCCC will finance the whole thing for him. NE-02 is Douglas County (Omaha and its suburbs) plus rural Sarpy County to the west. In 2016 Bernie won both. The DCCC response to that is to back the most reactionary, anti-progressive guy they could find-- and against a grassroots progressive, Kara Eastman. That's why the DCCC has become a serial losing machine. When I called Kara yesterday and asked her about Red-to-Blue endorsing Ashford, she didn't seem overly-concerned. She told me its just "another example of the outside establishment getting involved in Nebraska politics. I am not in this to win over the party, but to win for Nebraskans. Our grassroots campaign is strong, and our positive message is resonating with voters in the second CD. We have knocked over 14,000 doors and have more than 1,000 individual donors. This shows the strength and vitality of our campaign, which is different from previous congressional runs in Nebraska. I’m proud to say that real working- and middle-class Nebraskans are supporting Eastman for Congress and not our conservative opponent who lost the 2016 election."

Each Red-to-Blue endorsement is different but they all have establishment conservatism in common. All their candidates suck and any one of them who is swept into power in the wave cycle, will help make the House Democraps a worse organization. They're all a bunch of hackish Hillary-backers even in districts that were won by Bernie. For example, virtually all the voters in UT-04 live in Salt Lake (southern Salt Lake City and its suburbs) and Utah counties (Provo's suburbs). Bernie won Salt Lake County with 78.8% and Bernie won Utah County with 85.3%. Does that tell you something about how the Democratic base feels about status quo establishment candidates? It doesn't tell the DCCC a damned thing; they picked the most status quo, establishment candidate they could find, Ben McAdams, who had loudly endorsed Hillary in 2016, completely out of touch with Utahns. He's just another DCCC corporate confection with no issues page on his website. Utah Republicans are already referring to him as "Utah’s version of Hillary Clinton." 4 other Democrats are campaigning in the race for the nomination to oppose GOP incumbent Mia Love but the DCCC couldn't lay off and let Utahns decide; they had to big-foot in on behalf of Utah’s version of Hillary Clinton.

Down in South Florida progressive Democrat Steve Machat is running for the nomination to take on Carlos Curbelo. But so is the Debbie Wasserman Schultz candidate, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who lost a state Senate race in 2016. She's also been endorsed by EMILY's List, always a bad sign if you're looking for a progressive. She has a cookie cutter website that promises to protect Obamacare but doesn't mention Medicare-for-all or single payer. Steve Machat is one of the 4 Democrats running for the nomination in FL-26. He told me yesterday that the DCCC has "picked a candidate that will obey the order that runs the Democrat Party. An order that has lost the soul of the people,  this is not FDR’ s party nor Kennedy's either. These DCCC run by Pelosi believe they know the answers. To cure a disease of disservice they became the disease. I am running to represent the people. I will protect and defend the people from the few who have served in office way to long. So long they forgot they got into politics to serve. Not be served. I will win the primary. I will beat Curbelo."

The Hill reported that "the Red to Blue program, from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's (DCCC), program will provide the candidates with fundraising and organizational support. The total number of Democrats backed by the program comes to 18. Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to take back control of the House." That's not interfering?

Carlos Curbelo Gets A Challenger: Meet Steven Machat

Like me, Steven Machat comes out of the music business. His time at Warner Bros Records, though, predated my own and it was years later that I learned who he is-- a lawyer, an accountant and a visionary who became famous working with artists at every level of their careers. He’s a a team builder-- called the “dreamers dreamer” by those who know him best. He’s always been someone who makes things happen in the entertainment business. And now-- still involved in the music business, bringing Cuban music to America-- he’s also involved with politics, though that’s hardly a new endeavor for him either.

He graduated from Law School at Vanderbilt in 1977 (a classmate of Al Gore’s), where he had spent two years working as a Nashville public defender in court rooms protecting the rights of minorities and the poor who could not afford a lawyer. He grew to like defending the underdog. During his time in Nashville, Steven met his father’s client Phil Walden, the man who created Capricorn Records. Walden got Steven heavily involved in the election of Jimmy Carter and Steven grew to love politics-- putting together teams so dreams could come true.

Steven has played almost every role imaginable in the entertainment business. Mostly on making artist dreams come true. Be it Jet Records with ELO or Ozzie Osborne or Genesis' Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins; Leonard Cohen, Phil Spector New Edition, Bobby Brown, Suge Knight, Soft Cell… many, many others. Steven helped make their dreams a reality.



Steven helped create the Music Festival WOMAD, a festival dedicated to sharing cultures from all over the world. Steven has traveled the world as a business man and has a very unique perspective in what binds people to work together and create. He has lived all over the world representing artists. Be it Manu Dibango from Cameroon. Rita Lee and Gilberto Gil from Brazil. Cerrone and Space from France. Angélique Kidjo from Benin or Franco Battiata from Italy, Steven knows and understands people.

Steven has produced movies and theatre and written four books in which he has endeavor to share his truths and visions. He believes in a dream. He believes we can create the America we all dream about. The one our Declaration of Independence speaks about-- a land where we all work together as a team to build a land, based on the American dream.

Steven ran for the Senate in 2016 as an independent in Florida. He lost to Marco Rubio. Today he’s running for Congress in Florida's 26th district as a Democrat, a blue-trending swing district, occupied by Republican Carlos Curbelo. Hillary beat Trump in FL-26 handily-- 56.7% to 40.6%. Unless the DCCC interferes to put a conservative establishment shill in as a candidate, the district will be blue in 2018. I’m pleased to introduce Steven to DWT readers. He’s truly a Renaissance man. As he says, people first… and let's make our dreams reality


Guest Post
-by Steven Machat

Thank you, Howie. And I am so pleased to announce with you my decision to run for Congress in the 26th Florida district as a Democrat.

I run to serve the people. I look forward to helping do what I can to rebuild the Democratic Party on the inside. As well as help create the awareness and attract the public to vote in Democrats in as we recreate the people's party. The party that gave America the New Deal.

My goal is to get into Congress here in Florida. Florida's 26th District to be exact. My dream is to help finish what one of my personal heroes, FDR, started. We need a second bill of rights-- an Economic Bill of Rights. We have the first bill of rights but it is political, created when most of our nation were farmers. There was no big cities. Everyone could grow their own food. Today that is not true. We need a safety net for all and even the wealthy will be happier.

During FDR's time our nation industrialized. We started trading our wares and ideas with the world on a really big scale. Instead of sharing cultures we tried to control trade, from manufacture to distribution, to whole sale and retail. We have since built an economy on war and industry. We created capitalism with banks in control of our economy and our government. The Fed comes first. And we the people allow this to continue. Our nation was built on visionaries and team work. Building communities and making life better for the living as well as their future. The only asset mankind has in truth is Our children.

We have lost our way as a community of equals. People live to pay interest. We do not own our central bank, AKA the Federal Reserve, as a nation. We let independent bankers get paid before our government gets its taxes. Between Bush the second and Obama we have socialized the losses of these bankers but privatized their wins. We today are a nation of interest slaves.

We say we understand climate change and will fix it. But the Paris accord was a basement not a ceiling. We still take fossils the earth has buried and burn the fuels to run the industries which need to be retired. Our future is renewable energy which will create jobs that can't be exported. Florida is the sunshine state, it should lead our nation in renewable energy.

We need to put people first. Not paper profits. We need to educate our people of all ages so they can help our nation grow. We do not need to create a scam where we loan people money to go to school, in reality to create profits for the banks on debts our young can not escape like the bankers did.

We need to take care of our old. The senior citizens of our land. They have so much to give to us all. We need to insure they live out their lives with dignity, health and welfare.

We need to give everyone health care in a single payeer system. This is the coach ticket to health. You want business or first class pay for it. I have lived in London. Their system works.

The second bill of rights by FDR, as I hereby modify for our time, proposed just before he died must be the following:

1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in private business or working with the local, state, regional or national community.
2. The right to a living wage not a minimum. Where everyone has a roof over their head, food to eat. Plus clothes to wear and money to discover and share culture.
3. The right of every businessman, large or small, as FDR said, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.
4. The right to adequate medical care. The ability to achieve and enjoy good health.
5. The right to publicly financed education. This includes early education, technical training, and college.

In addition to people economics I run to protect the Environment. We must put earth first. I will protect the Everglades. I will stop Big Sugar from polluting our water. I will do what I can to stop fracking. I believe we need to create a Gross National Quality of life index so we can judge how we are living. Not just a Gross National Product that measures only what we make. We need to effectively measure what the real costs are, of what we do.

On international affairs I will help create an understanding that the whole world does not need to be just like us. We must respect diversity and different cultures. We must stop getting involved in civil wars and nation building. We must be strong and ready to defend-- but not invade so the military industrial complex can profit. We must create a world to share and build cultures.

We need term limits on all branches of our government. That is how you achieve progress and limit the establishment's corruption. Remember when our nation was created people lived to maybe forty as an average.

We must control election spending and election debates. I sued to get on the air to debate Rubio. I qualified to run but did not qualify for the debate because I did not have money for big TV adds. It is nothing but a game of political payola. We need people to run who wish to serve man. Not who wish to serve corporate powers.

I will be the people's candidate and Congressman. People are my constituency and it is to people I will communicate. I also pledge to hold town hall meetings and never run from debates where you the people can become wise about who and what is what.

Please help me to help you. Go to my website Machat4Congress.com and learn more about what I’m trying to accomplish and how you can join in what I’m doing and help the cause.

Two Charts That Help Explain Why Pelosi's Hopelessly Inept DCCC Isn't Capable Of Winning Back Congress

Just above we have the election results for two blue Miami-Dade congressional districts, FL-26 and FL-27. The Republican House incumbents, respectively Carlos Curbelo, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, won both.

In 2012, Obama won Miami-Dade 540,776 (62%) to 332,602 (38%). This year, Hillary did even better than Obama did-- 623,006 (63.7%) to 333,666 (34.1%). Even the hapless Patrick Murphy-- the worst possible Senate candidate the DSCC could find-- won in Miami-Dade (Rubio's home base) 528,555 (54.6%) to 419,623 (43.3%).

Obama beat Romney in FL-26 53-46% and beat him in FL-27 53-47%. I don't have the final numbers for the presidential campaign by congressional district but Hillary did better than Obama did in winning both FL-26 and FL-27. Although the Democrats had a fatally-flawed candidate-- corruption mired conservative Joe Garcia-- they fought hard and the DCCC and House Majority PAC wasted $6,101,294 in the district, one of their top spends of 2016. They spent nothing at all in FL-27. That may seem odd, considering it's right next door and just as blue as FL-26, perhaps bluer now.

But that's easily explained. FL-27's Republican incumbent, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is under the protection of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She makes sure no viable opponent is ever nominated against Ros-Lehtinen and that no money is ever spent against her. Washerman Schultz has gotten away with this for a full decade, even though she was caught doing it and publicly chastised (or gentled wrist slapped anyway). This time the opponent was Scott Fuhrman, a worthless millionaire who self-funded $694,718 into the race but brought in only $7,488 in small contributions, and had nothing whatsoever to offer working families. But he still managed to do substantially better than the Blue Dog/New Dem-endorsed Garcia who the DCCC spent all those millions of dollars on. Fuhrman got 129,548 votes (45.1%) and Garcia got 115,348 votes (41.2%). That can of thing only makes sense in DCCC-world. The DCCC will do the same thing next cycle as well, throwing away two prime pick-ups because no one wants to get in a mud-wrestling match with a disgusting, vicious animal like Wasserman Schultz.

And here's another chart, this one showing the two sprawling congressional districts in northern Wisconsin, WI-07 and WI-08. Trump surrogate and former reality TV actor Sean Duffy represents WI-07 to the west and Reid Ribble retired, leaving an open seat in WI-08 to the east. Obama won both districts against McCain (with 53% in WI-07 and with 54% in WI-08) and then lost both districts against Romney, 51% to 48%. The DCCC decided to go for what looked like the easier district, WI-08, which had no incumbent. So they threw $551,076 for garden variety moderate Democrat Tom Nelson. They gave exactly zero to progressive Berniecrat Mary Hoeft, by every standard (except the DCCC's), the far better candidate. A half million dollars for Nelson bought him 135,648 votes (37.3%). Mary would probably have won with any reasonable amount of support. She managed to raise $105,417 from the grassroots-- to Duffy's $2,155,137. (She received a modest boost from the Working Families Party, which spent $128,528 against Duffy independently.) She got more raw votes than Nelson and a greater percentage of the vote to boot-- with zero investment from the DCCC or House Majority PAC. Her total was 137,910 (38.2%).

Clearly, something is wrong with the way the dummy-conservaDems who run the DCCC-- Ben Ray Lujan, Steve Israel, Cheri Bustos and Kelli Ward-- are recruiting candidates and funding campaigns. And that didn't start in 2015. It goes back to the way Rahm Emanuel shaped the DCCC to be a vehicle for the Republican-wing of the Democratic Party. And the Democrats have lost not dozens of seats, but scores of seats, under the Pelosi chairmen and their miserable and corrupt, failed, unaccountable staff.

Instead of trying to figure out what went wrong, they just deny anything went wrong, pat each other on the back, find someone or something else to blame and declare it could have been worse if not for their own brilliance. If they don't even recognize that going from 257 seats in 2008 to 193 seats in 2010 and to 188 in 2014 (a loss of 69 seats) is a disaster, how will they ever deal with the core philosophy, strategy and tactics that have the House Dems sink lower and lower?

2018 could be a banner year for House Democrats-- but not with this turgid DCCC that is incapable of winning. Remember, in 2010, 65,237,840 Americans voted for Democratic House candidates (and 52,249,491 voted for Republicans). This year just 35,624,357 Americans bought the DCCC's non-message, while 40,081,282 Americans voted for Republican candidates. The Democrats had a net gain of six seats this year where they needed 30 and the bar for success was a minimum of 15-20. But even where the Democrats had 4 of their most important successes in building a worthwhile team for the future-- WA-07 (Pramila Jayapal), CA-44 (Nanette Barragan), MD-08 (Jamie Raskin) and NH01 (Carol Shea-Porter), the DCCC had no involvement whatsoever and spent zero dollars. If you would like to help Blue America congressional recruiting efforts for 2018, this is the place.

The Case Against Corrupt Conservative Joe Garcia... In Miami-Dade

CROOK

I first met Miami Democrats Annette Taddeo and Joe Garcia at around the same time-- 2008. They were two of the three Democrats running for blue-trending congressional seats in Miami-Dade who were sabotaged by then DCCC Red-to-Blue chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She moved swiftly and effectively to cut off their legs and back her GOP cronies, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers. The DCCC's Red-to-Blue committee only has one job: defeating Republican incumbents and replacing them with Democrats. As chair, Wasserman Schultz made it clear she was on the other side. Eventually Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen felt enough pressure for enraged Democratic donors to fire Wasserman Schultz, although it didn't stop Obama from eventually replacing Tim Kaine with Wasserman Schultz as the head of the DNC, a grievous error which has helped make the Democratic Party into the failed and corrupt pig-sty it is today.

But back to Garcia and Taddeo. They both campaigned as progressives but were both--largely because of Wasserman Schultz's efforts against them-- defeated. Annette went back to the private sector and was elected chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee in 2012 and then ran for Lt. Governor on Charlie Crist's ticket in 2014. Garcia got a minor position in the Obama Administration's Energy Department and then ran against the scandal-enmeshed Republican David Rivera in 2010 (losing) and again in 2012 (winning). Garcia, unfortunately turned out to be as corrupt as Rivera and was defeated in 2014. Now he and Taddeo are running in a very tight primary against each other to see who the Democratic nominee to face Carlos Curbelo, the lobbyist who beat Garcia in 2014, will be.

Although Garcia campaigned as a progressive, his one term in Congress showed him to be a putrid conservative, first joining the New Dems and then establishing a very consistent Republican-lite record, one of the worst in Congress. When I called him in 2013 and asked him why he was voting against the issues he had campaigned on, he said he had to because of the district and that if he was reelected he would be a better progressive and even join the Progressive Caucus. Blue America refused to endorse him in 2014 and this year you can contribute to Annette Taddeo's campaign here.

Patrick Murphy and his network of banksters, corrupt relatives and Saudi corruptionists are, of course, backing Garcia.

Murphy and Garcia were consistently holding hands and skipping across the aisle together to vote with their Republican pals against Wall Street reform. But voting for the GOP's war against the modest reforms in Dodd-Frank were far from the only instances where crooks like Garcia and Murphy saw opportunities to please rich campaign contributors by voting against Democratic priorities and Democratic values. Like Murphy, once Garcia got into Congress, he abandoned any pretense of progressive politics, joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems and started voting consistently with the worst, most right-wing elements of the Democratic Party. And like Patrick Murphy, he voted again and again and again for the Keystone XL Pipeline and worked with conservaDems (again, like Murphy) and the GOP to delay and sabotage the Affordable Care Act. He was quickly a total disappointment to his supporters and soon got involved with a series of his own ugly scandals and in 2014, the FL-26 voters dumped him unceremoniously for Curbelo. Garcia and Murphy support warrantless spying on American citizens and opposed the Amash amendment to prevent that. Garcia's horrible voting record and scandals depressed Democratic turnout and although he outspent Curbelo gigantically-- $3,787,930 to $2,347,633-- of his 135,694 voters from 2012, only 78,306 bothered to come vote for him in 2014, allowing Curbelo to beat him 51 to 49% in an even bluer district than it had been 2 years earlier.

He was a thorn in President Obama's side, whining about the thaw in Cuban-American relations and working with Republicans to undercut his agenda. When we named him one of the 10 worst freshmen in 2013-- along with Murphy-- we noted their votes with the GOP to freeze the pay for federal employees, a vote to soften the blow of the sequester for the Pentagon while leaving all the other victims in the lurch, a GOP initiative to prevent the federal government from giving states greater flexibility when complying with a welfare program’s work requirements, a vote against the Senate budget bill, a vote for CISPA, a domestic spying bill, a vote to cut food stamps drastically, and a vote for HR 1613, a bill written by Oil lobbyists that amounted to big giveaways for offshore drilling businesses.

In the last week or so, Taddeo's campaign has been pointing out that Garcia consistently voted with the Republicans against Obama's reforms and initiatives when he was in Congress. She showed him no mercy after Obama's speech at the convention, telling voters in the district "Whether continually voting to weaken the Affordable Care Act, weaken environmental protections, support Big Oil, exempt the financial industry from regulations, or oppose Democratic budgets, Joe Garcia’s record makes clear that he meant it when he proudly declared last week that “I don't go to Washington to represent the president.” Taddeo's campaign made it clear that she "is running for Congress to build on President Obama’s legacy and protect the gains we have made. Joe Garcia has made clear through his actions and words that he can’t be trusted to stand for core Democratic values." That's my own experience as well.

Garcia repeatedly voted for bills that would weaken the Affordable Care Act and were opposed by the Obama Administration, which said Garcia’s votes “would roll back the progress made” on healthcare and “would raise health insurance premiums and increase the number of uninsured Americans.”

In fact, Garcia was even proud of these votes in his 2014 campaign, as the effort to win him re-election ran ads “highlighting [his] efforts in bucking the administration on some aspects of Obamacare.

Garcia voted twice with Republicans to weaken Obamacare and delay the individual mandate. The Obama Administration promised to veto these two bills, and said that Garcia’s votes would “result in higher premiums for those who remain insured, fewer premium tax credits for middle-income families, and increased cost-shifting of uncompensated care to health care providers, workers, and businesses” and “would undermine key elements of the health law, facilitating further efforts to repeal a law that is already helping millions of Americans stay on their parents' plans until age 26, millions more who are getting free preventive care that catches illness early on, and thousands of children with pre-existing conditions who are now covered.”

Garcia also voted twice with Republicans to undermine Obamacare by allowing health care plans to remain on the market even if they did not satisfy standards set forth by the Affordable Care Act. President Obama pledged to veto these bills as well, with the Administration saying that Garcia’s votes “would allow insurers to deploy practices such as charging businesses more when a worker has a pre-existing condition or when it has more workers who are women than men. The bill would allow insurers to go back to capping the amount of care that enrollees receive or to excluding coverage of proven preventive care.”

Garcia even voted with Republicans for a bill that would have required unprecedented reporting requirements of Healthcare.gov and cost taxpayers millions and that the Administration strongly opposed.

Garcia voted on an additional three other occasions with Republicans to oppose the Affordable Care Act.

Garcia voted multiple times with Republicans to prohibit the EPA and the state of Florida from requiring businesses to obtain permits when using pesticides near our water sources.

Garcia also supported the Keystone Pipeline which President Obama rejected, and voted with Republicans to help protect oil pipeline operators from lawsuits and put them above the influence of local governments and public opinion.

Garcia voted with Republicans to support tax loopholes for corporations, which the Obama Administration strongly opposed and threatened to veto.

Garcia also voted to exempt Wall Street financial advisors from transparency regulations, which the Obama Administration wrote would “undermine advances in investor protection and regulatory oversight implemented” in the Dodd-Frank reforms and called “a step backwards from the progress made to date.”

This week, with a record like that, Garcia had the temerity to issue a statement warning that “Florida is in a water crisis, yet Republicans are taking us backwards.” Garcia should know since his voting record shows that he was often right there voting along with them. Same with Big Oil. Garcia is counting on voters to not know that the very things he's blasting Curbelo for-- basically, being an ally of big oil-- are things Curbelo can show apply equally to Garcia himself. Electing corrupt conservative Democrats-- like Joe Garcia and his ally Patrick Murphy are tantamount to sliding the whole system to the right, as the Republicans become, effectively, an outright fascist party and the Democrats become the old Republican Party. You can contribute to Annette's campaign to beat both Garcia and Curbelo here: