Florida Democratic Party-- Exposed!

State Senate candidate-- and passionate environmental leader-- Katherine Norman will change Tallahassee in ways that will be a transformational joy for the entire state of Florida

 

Congratulations are due Joan Walsh for her powerful and cogent exposé of the crooked, worthless Florida Democratic Party in the new issue of The Nation: Do Florida Democrats Want to Win the State Senate This Year? "Party leaders’ reluctance to support promising challengers, and a penchant for punishing those who complain about that lack of support," she wrote, "provokes the question." Too bad she missed the one about Gary Farmer trying to bully Rachel Brown, a Democrat out of an open seat race because he was screwing the Republican (who lost her primary anyway). Now Farmer refuses to back Brown in the race.

"Florida Democrats," wrote Walsh, "are locked out of state-level power by a GOP trifecta that runs the governor’s office, the House, and the Senate. But they only need to pick up three Senate seats to achieve at least a tie in that chamber, and thus reach a power-sharing arrangement with the GOP, which is especially important as the state takes up redistricting next year. Party leaders and local observers seem to agree that two Democratic candidates have a decent chance to flip GOP-held open seats, in the Miami-Dade and Orlando areas. But a 21-19 balance gets the party very little in terms of legislative clout, particularly when it comes to redistricting. That’s why observers and activists are increasingly perplexed that Florida Democratic leaders and donors haven’t coalesced around at least one or two more Democrats whom concentrated support might push across the finish line, especially if November turns into a blue wave election. Which it could. The once-popular Governor Ron De Santis now has the second-worst Covid-approval rating of the nation’s governors, right behind Iowa Republican Kim Reynolds. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is running ahead of Donald Trump in a state Hillary Clinton lost by only one point, largely on his strength with seniors. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg just announced plans to pump $100 million into Florida to elect Democrats."

As you may be aware by now, Blue America is supporting some of the most promising challengers in Florida, including three amazing women running for the state Senate, the aforementioned Rachel Brown, the amazing Katherine Norman, who is taking on Joe Gruters, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party and a top Trump lackey, and the candidate Walsh concentrated on in her piece, Kathy Lewis. Clicking on the ActBlue thermometer on the right will show you all of our Florida candidates and allow you to contribute to all or any of their campaigns. Building the Florida progressive bench is incredibly important.

Most of the confusion about why the state Democratic Senate leadership isn’t championing more challengers converges on Kathy Lewis, a writer and disability-rights activist who ran in a red district in 2018 and came closer to winning than anyone expected, taking 46.5 percent of the vote in this traditionally Republican, rural, urban, and suburban district, even though she was outspent more than 10-1 by a longtime GOP incumbent. Now he’s stepping down, prompting a special election for an open seat in this Tampa–St. Petersburg area district anchored by Hillsborough County. With more money and experience behind her, Lewis and her supporters believe she has a solid chance of victory this time, but party leaders don’t seem to see it that way.

And pointing out her lack of party support is, confoundingly, making it harder for her to raise money, Lewis told me. At least two major donors told the Senate District 20 candidate directly that party leaders warned them away from her campaign, because she has talked to local and national news outlets, including The Nation, about her struggles to get state Democrats to take her campaign seriously. More than one Florida Democrat has suggested she stop talking to the press about her travails, if she wants to gain support.

“Nobody’s gonna tell me what to say,” Lewis told me. “I can’t be bought.”

Lewis is not the only Florida Democratic candidate to feel abandoned by party leaders. After the State Democratic Environmental Caucus and the voter-access group 90 for 90 collaborated on recruiting 36 challengers for state House and Senate races-- one for all but one seat-- Senate Democratic minority leader Gary Farmer, who drives official caucus spending on 2020 races, belittled their efforts.

“I’m guided by science & reality,” Farmer tweeted. “Contesting every race is great if you have $ to do so. We simply don’t & won’t until we achieve majority. When you spend on races that are long shots you take $ from races that can be won.” Beth Matuga, a consultant for Senate Victory, a group representing Florida Senate Democrats, also replied defensively on Twitter, arguing that “the caucus has grown in 10yrs from 12 to 17, with very real opportunity to get to 19 this cycle…I’m tired of people pretending like contesting downballot seats is a new idea when they’ve been ignoring it for 10yrs.” It’s true that the caucus has clawed back seats, but if it only gets to 19 this cycle, critics note, it cedes redistricting entirely to the GOP, which will then draw new maps unlikely to give the Democrats a chance to win the Senate anytime soon. (I got pushback on that notion from one Florida source, who says that with a slim two-vote majority, Republicans won’t be able to sacrifice any incumbents to change district lines, which they did in 2011, after the GOP landslide of 2010, because they had a larger edge.)

Down With Tyranny blogger Howie Klein, long a pull-no-punches advocate for the party’s progressive insurgency, retorted in a post, “If There Was No Florida Democratic Party, It Would Be Easier For Democrats To Win.” Klein specifically cited Lewis’s lack of support, among others, as an example.

There is clearly major friction, in Florida and elsewhere, between a new wave of outside groups plus longtime activists who believe Democrats should be contesting many more, if not every, state legislative seat, and party leadership, which tends to fight to protect incumbents. “This is a real tension,” a leader of an outside group working in Florida told me. “Running in every district, if it doesn’t come with the necessary support, isn’t strategic.” On the other hand, party leaders tend to be over-concerned with protecting incumbents, along with their own leadership positions, and thus often define “winnable” races too narrowly, this person said, adding, “Kathy Lewis is exactly the kind of candidate we should support.”

I watched this play out in Virginia in 2017, where by most accounts Democratic House Caucus leaders, and even some progressive activists, thought they could pick up roughly eight GOP seats in the House of Delegates, though they were down by 16. Yet many more Virginia challengers argued, loudly, that they deserved support. Ultimately, Democrats won 15 seats, almost taking over leadership, thanks to brave insurgents, the intervention of new outside groups, and the emerging blue wave that in 2019 gave Virginia a Democratic trifecta, with control of the State House, Senate, and governor’s office.

Florida Democrats indeed look to be outmatched in terms of fundraising this year. The Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (FDLCC), the arm that supports Senate candidates, had raised just under $2 million by the end of August, compared to $7.1 million hauled in by the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to the Tampa Bay Times. In 2018, the Democrats were outspent $46 million to $18 million.

So the party is investing in flipping two Senate seats, also, like Lewis’s, left open by the departure of GOP incumbents. Leaders backed Representative Javier Fernández to pursue an open seat in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, and put money behind him. In the Orlando area, officials recruited and invested heavily in labor attorney Patricia Sigman. In that Orlando race, the two parties have already spent more than $1 million, combined. Senate Democrats are also defending incumbent Jose Javier Rodríguez of northeastern Miami-Dade, who won narrowly in 2016 and faces a well-funded GOP challenger, as well as an open seat in greater Tallahassee, recruiting Representative Loranne Ausley.

In Lewis’s District 20, party leaders tried to recruit Alex Sink, the state’s former chief financial officer and 2014 candidate for governor. Sink declined, and has endorsed Lewis. Lewis is beginning to rack up other meaningful endorsements, including four Senate incumbents-- but Florida’s Senate has a 17-seat Democratic delegation, which means that with only seven weeks before the election, 13 of them are still AWOL. And she has received nothing from the official Senate Victory funding arm, the FDLCC.

Meanwhile, Lewis’s GOP opponent, former state representative Danny Burgess, has raised more than $270,000 so far to Lewis’s $44,000, and just went on television with his first ad.

Weirdly, even some of Lewis’s supporters are reluctant to talk about her struggle for funding. Several Lewis backers ignored my outreach. One incumbent senator referred me to Senate minority leader Gary Farmer, instead of returning my call. Farmer, who controls Democratic Senate spending and has not endorsed Lewis, did not return two messages. A representative from Senate Victory stressed that decisions about individual races are based on data, adding, “While Kathy Lewis is a great candidate, the numbers show better opportunities for pickups in other areas of the state.”

Most disturbing, Lewis, who is African American, says she’s been criticized for making race an issue, when she herself has, as far as I know or can determine via Google searches, done no such thing. The issue of race did move front and center in July, when a local white Democratic leader said on a Zoom call with Black Democrats that Lewis’s race was “not high on our list because of where the polling was. What we do is, we prioritize based on our overall goals. White, Black, brown—it doesn’t matter who that candidate is, it’s where they fall on our election priority list.” A local Black Democratic activist protested: “I just think any Black woman in the race right now stands a chance and should be given a little more money than you might think they need. I just feel that you should give them more money!”

It must be said: After this conversation drew national attention, Lewis’s endorsements by local Democratic leaders began to surge. Money, not so much.

Lewis supporter Dr, Fergie Reid Jr., of the group 90 for 90, has no qualms about discussing the role of race in the lack of support for Lewis. During his many phone calls advocating for recruited candidates, he intermittently heard the phrase “minority-access district,’’ which he took to mean majority-black (which Lewis’s district is not, though the number of nonwhite voters is continually climbing). And he said so, explaining that he understood that to be a Jim Crow euphemism for a “Black District”-- or, alternatively, an “acceptable district for a Black person to pursue.” He received no pushback, he says, “only embarrassing affirmation.”

Whatever the role of race, many smart Democrats are increasingly questioning the Senate caucus’s neglect of Lewis’s campaign.

One Democratic operative who has worked in Florida said, “If you don’t compete, you can’t win. Senate District 20 should be a top target. It’s in the heart of the I-4 corridor that has seen strengthening support for Democrats this year, it saw strong Dem performance in 2018, and it could be the key to winning the Senate, when few competitive seats are up.”

This morning Rachel Brown reminded me that "Kathy Lewis won over 87,000 votes last time, more than 46%, without any help from the state party... That's what showed me that grassroots candidates like myself can give the Republicans a run for their money without state party help... We have to fight because our entire nation depends on the way Florida votes this year. Yes, I have a personal fear of Ray Rodriguez winning and destroying Florida but the heart of the matter is what the public knows. If the public knows that an awful man is in control, and they don't like him and they revolt, great. If The public thinks everything is fine when in reality it is not, well that's even more dangerous. Also, when you don't support a candidate financially you are sending them into battle with nothing. Yes I can get creative, but I'm going to need at least 20,000 to reach all the voters I need to reach and that's still incredibly low for a senate race." I'll just leave off here with another reminder that readers can support Rachel Brown, Kathy Lewis and Katherine Norman in their state Senate races by clicking on the thermometer above or right here. Every voter they contact and persuade in their own races, is another voter-- whether they win or lose this year-- against Trump in November. If Rachel, Kathy and Katherine win their races, the GOP no longer controls the state of Florida. That simple.

Is The Anti-Trump/Anti-Red Wave Going To Help Democrats At The State Legislative Level?

My guess is yes-- this November we're going to see a lot of the seats that were lost while Debbie Wasserman Schultz incompetently ran the DNC picked back up by Democrats again. And, as Joan Walsh explained this week for The Nation that process is already underway. During the Wasserman Schultz years Democrats lost 942 legislative seats. "In 2009," wrote Walsh, "Democrats controlled 27 state legislative assemblies and Republicans 14, with eight divided. (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is nonpartisan.) By 2017, Republicans controlled 32 and Democrats 14, with three divided. In 2010 Republicans were able to use this dominance to gerrymander electoral maps across the country, locking themselves into power in state after state, including in an inordinate number of congressional districts in states like Michigan, Ohio, Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Walsh explained that by 2017 Trump's toxicity started impacting election results "as Democrats won back 14 state seats in special elections, plus an astonishing 15 in Virginia that November." And in 2018 Democrats "turned 380 seats from red to blue... flipping chambers in six states. In Colorado, New York, and Maine, Democrats took over Senate chambers. In Minnesota they grabbed the House, and in New Hampshire they turned both. They made huge strides elsewhere in eroding GOP power, switching 16 seats in North Carolina’s House and Senate, ending GOP supermajorities (which gave the legislature power to override the Democratic governor’s vetoes); 14 in Texas; and 19 in Pennsylvania. In 2019, Virginia Democrats finished their job, taking the House and the Senate. With a Democratic governor, the state returned to full Democratic control for the first time in over two decades. Counting those Virginia victories, Democrats have won back over 450 seats and 10 state chambers in the Trump era."

Anselm Weber, a progressive state House candidate for an open seat in southwest Florida told us that his race is important for a multitude of reasons. "In terms of my District," he said, "we have intense clean water issues as we are at the frontline of massive blue algae blooms caused by nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from commercial farms. My opponent Adam Botana is heavily funded by big Agricultural companies that directly contribute to our blue algae blooms. Moreover for the state of Florida we have massive poverty and healthcare uninsured rates along with immense housing insecurities. These issues have only gotten worse with COVID as thousands of Floridians have lost their job based health insurance and a whopping 51% of Florida renters are at risk for eviction. This means we need state legislators who will fight tooth and nail for a Green Jobs Program to combat climate change while providing well paying jobs across the state. along with fighting for living wages for all, universal healthcare, and an expansion of affordable and public housing."

Heidi Campbell, one of the Nashville area mayors, is running for the last state legislative seat in greater Nashville still held by a Republican. And she's going to win it. "Every now and then," she told me this morning, "I'll talk to a Democratic voter who asks me why I'm bothering to run for state Senate. Progressives have mostly given up on Republican super-majority states like Tennessee because flipping seats is a daunting prospect. There's also a tendency to focus on the shiny televised, twitter-fied federal races, and of course we've had four solid years of a President who takes up all the oxygen in the room. As a Mayor of a small city though, I can tell you that all politics really and truly IS local. Republicans are counting on states like Tennessee to seed battles to overturn Roe v. Wade and roll back environmental regulations. We need progressive candidates in these states who can win seats and fight to flip other seats. And we also need to elect people like me to run interference on the antediluvian legislation that the conservatives write, like bills to jail librarians, honor Rush Limbaugh, and the dangerous push for permitless carry. Geographically and legislatively our states ARE united, and we have to pay attention to state races before it's too late."

Drew Phelps is the progressive Democrat working towards replacing right-wing extremist Devon Mathis in a Central Valley Assembly seat. Today he told me that "The race in AD 26 is vital because the people in this district have been ignored by Sacramento for too long. One more Democrat in the California Assembly may not seem like a big deal, but for the approximately 465,000 people in AD 26 so much more is possible with a Democratic member who represents their interests. This election is a choice between a public servant who would put the needs of the district above partisan politics and special interests on one side, and someone like Devon Mathis who accomplishes nothing, harasses his own staff, and continually puts the interests of his large donors above the average working person in the district. Assembly District 26 has been ignored and left behind for too long and Sacramento needs to prioritize the needs of the people in the district so that they no longer lag behind the rest of California. Electing Drew Phelps would give the people of the district a champion who would put their needs above all else and allow them to finally get their fair share from Sacramento."

Joshua Hicks is running for a state House seat that takes in all of Nassau County and part of Duval County. "Here in Northeast Florida," he told us this morning, "we are running a campaign in District 11 to place the people back in charge in Tallahassee. This race is vitally important because it allows us the real opportunity to hold my Republican opponent accountable for his dismal failures, while also preventing him from spending his resources on his friends both locally and across the state. It's important because as Democrats, we need to ensure we have a candidate in every race because we can't win if we don't run. It's also important because we can move real numbers in my district and in districts across the country, that will help Democrats win up and down the ballot and ride the anti-Trump wave to victory. Here in District 11, we haven't had a Democratic state House campaign like mine in the past 10 years. We are putting in the resources to turn this district blue, and we are reaching out to NPAs and Republicans to convince them to reject the hate coming from Donald Trump and embrace focusing on the kitchen table issues impacting all our families. Issues like higher wages, better healthcare, acting on climate and a renewed focus on lifting up our local economy. These are the issues that matter and we are seeing real movement away from the politics of hate in Northeast Florida."

Please consider contributing to the progressive legislative candidates endorsed by Blue America-- in Florida, Tennessee, California and across the country-- by clicking on the ActBlue thermometer above.

Now those groups and some new ones are trying to change more chambers to blue, especially in states where the legislature controls redistricting. But they need to learn the lessons of why state Democrats slumped after 2008, failing to rise to the GOP challenge, and surged after 2016.

Chief among them: You can’t win if you don’t play.

Democrats in many states had long failed even to field challengers to many Republican incumbents. That’s changed hugely since 2016. In this cycle, the DLCC has spent $6.2 million to recruit candidates. Democrats also need a diverse slate of challengers, especially to turn out the people least likely to vote but most likely to be Democrats: so-called low-propensity voters, mainly people of color and younger people (who obviously overlap). Then Democrats need to target those voters, as well as run on issues and urgency that match the moment.

...[T]he four states that are seeing the most investment are North Carolina, where there’s a chance to shift the House and Senate; Arizona, where both chambers are likewise in play; and Texas and Michigan, whose Houses may be up for grabs. Fights are also underway to turn the Minnesota Senate, the Iowa and Ohio Houses, and both Pennsylvania chambers. Wisconsin and Georgia are getting attention, too.

And with a late, unexpected surge of first-time candidates, Florida has emerged as a fascinating laboratory for building Democratic infrastructure on the ground. Republicans hold a trifecta in state power-- hapless Governor Ron DeSantis as well as both legislative houses-- and they have botched the pandemic response beyond belief. Groups like Sister District, Forward Majority, and the DLCC are starting to spend money there to at least build a working Democratic Party in red areas, if not flip a chamber. “Running up the margins” in blue districts and preventing Republicans from doing so in red districts “can help Joe Biden win the state,” says Fergie Reid Jr. of 90 for 90, a group formed to honor his father, Fergie Reid Sr., who was elected in 1967 as Virginia’s first Black state legislator since Reconstruction, on his 90th birthday. (He’s now 95 and going strong.) It is one of the groups behind Virginia’s turnaround, by registering voters and recruiting Democratic challengers. Now it has helped inspire the late surge of Florida Democratic candidates.

...[I]n Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott is increasingly reviled for his pandemic management-- which is partly why Democrats are increasingly optimistic about their chances to win the nine seats they need to turn the state House. There are nine House districts held by Republicans that were won in 2018 by Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, whose run is widely credited with reviving the state’s withered Democratic infrastructure. He lost to Senator Ted Cruz narrowly, but Democrats picked up an astonishing 12 seats in the House that year.

Run by a bumbling GOP trifecta in the age of coronavirus, ruby-red Texas is unpredictable this year. Biden even leads Trump in a few polls there. “Governor Abbott has taken all the ownership of Covid and has refused to believe science,” says second-time Texas House candidate Joanna Cattanach. “We have refrigerator trucks outside hospitals in Dallas County now.”

The net approval rating for Abbott’s response to Covid has slipped 21 points since June, when 56 percent of Texans approved and only 36 percent disapproved; he is now underwater, with 47 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval. “He’s really made himself the face of the pandemic,” Cattanach says, sounding bewildered. Not only did Abbott open businesses too soon, the 
public health data shows, but he also discouraged face masks and social distancing and even blocked localities from imposing stricter requirements.

...This year, some hope that a presidential election, which always gets more voters to the polls, could help boost Texas turnout-- but maybe not at the state legislative level. “We have to avoid down-ballot drop-off,” Cattanach says. That’s always a challenge in state legislative races, even in the hyperenergized Trump era. ”In 2018 our candidates underperformed Democrats in the same congressional district by about 4 points,” Forward Majority cofounder Vicky Hausman warns. “It’s a real problem.”

...Kathy Lewis, who’s running a second time for Florida’s Senate District 20, encompassing the Tampa–St. Petersburg area anchored by Hillsborough County, didn’t hear she was too liberal for the district in 2018. Mostly she didn’t hear anything, especially from Democratic Party leaders.

...“Everyone,” including many state Democratic leaders, “said we were crazy,” she recalls. “No one would vote for us. But the party had somehow miscalculated how much this district was changing.” She garnered an unexpected 46.5 percent of the vote, winning 52 percent in populous Hillsborough County. In 2020, Lee resigned, and suddenly the party had an open seat to contest. According to several reports, Democratic leaders approached at least two others to run, even though Lewis filed almost immediately after Lee’s announcement. “They said later they didn’t know I was on the ballot,” she says, sounding unconvinced.

If Democrats recruited two alternative potential candidates for Lee’s seat, they neglected a whole lot of other districts. That’s where 90 for 90 came in. After the group’s Virginia successes, it moved on to other states, helping recruit candidates where party leaders seemed unable or uninterested. In Florida the Reids reached out to Janelle Christensen, the energetic head of the state Democrats’ environmental caucus. “They explained the advantages of running in every district, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m convinced,’” she says. “It’s not necessarily that they’re going to win, although they could, but they can cut the margins in red districts for Biden and educate people on our issues.” She says she could fill maybe 10 challengers’ seats with folks close to her caucus. “But when I got started talking to them, they talked to their friends, and we recruited 36.” 90 for 90 also worked to help with the unlikely candidates’ state election filing fees, which are $1,800 each.

Other national groups, including the DLCC, have since jumped into Florida. “The conventional wisdom is there’s no path to winning the Florida House. We have a contrarian view,” says Hausman. As in Texas, there are districts that appear flippable, especially the 13 GOP-held seats that were won by either Clinton in 2016 or by gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum in 2018.

Still, many people feel the state party is undersupportive of its new insurgents. Inexplicably, challengers have had trouble getting access to VAN, a privately owned list of local voters, with names, addresses, and phone numbers, who have voted or might vote Democratic. “It felt like the party was constantly trying to reinterpret the rules for who qualifies [to get VAN],” Christensen says. “But even once you get it, most of the numbers are bad. Nobody’s even been trying in these districts, in some cases for decades. They’re useless for anyone coming in trying to organize. If all we did in these races is build a list of interested Democrats in VAN, that’s something.”

Sister District cofounder Gaby Goldstein, whose group is also working in Florida, says that’s a common problem in red states, many of which it has targeted since its founding in 2016. “In some places, we have to lay the basic groundwork because VAN is garbage. Many Democratic voter lists are garbage,” she says. I have heard this a lot in red states and districts over the last four years. There have always been stalwart Democratic activists in the reddest places, but a lot of state parties have let the infrastructure “wither away,” Goldstein says.

Lewis eventually got access to VAN. There are gaps in its data, but this time around, she’s more confident anyway. “You know what? With the coronavirus, we have local people who don’t have health care. They can’t access unemployment insurance. They know Florida is a mess,” she says. She adds that after hearing her story in 2018 about fighting with the state to get services for her daughter and hearing it again in 2020, people tell her, “Kathy, I didn’t understand last time, but now I see exactly what you were saying.”

Unfortunately, local party leaders still don’t seem to understand. Lewis benefited from a widely seen Zoom call in July led by Hillsborough County Democratic leader Ione Townsend with local Black leaders. When one asked about the party’s lack of support for Lewis her second time around, Townsend replied, “It’s not high on our list because of where the polling was. What we do is, we prioritize based on our overall goals. White, Black, brown-- it doesn’t matter who that candidate is, it’s where they fall on our election priority list.”

Angela Birdsong, a Hillsborough Democratic activist who ran for county commissioner in 2018, responded, “I just think any Black woman in the race right now stands a chance and should be given a little more money than you might think they need. I just feel that you should give them more money!”

Lewis, like other women of color running for office this year, believes the widespread American revulsion over George Floyd’s murder and the movement to end police violence buoy her campaign. For one thing, it has gotten people focused on the role of state and local leaders in reforming police departments. Here’s where electing Democrats can matter-- if not always enough. Colorado, which elected a Democratic trifecta over the past few cycles, did away with qualified immunity for police officers in June; New York, which completed a trifecta in 2018, enacted other criminal justice reforms. “We now have a Black Senate leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and a Black Assembly speaker, Carl Heastie,” the DLCC’s Post says of New York. “That’s truly made a difference.”

...Even in Virginia in 2019, Bachman observes, “Democrats keep underperforming,” at least partly because outreach to voters scored as less likely to vote was sometimes undervalued when it came to door knocking, media buys, and direct mail. Virginia Democrats took control of both chambers but won only two state Senate seats, fewer than expected. “Given the nature of the 2016 election, the voters who stayed home skewed to Democrats,” she adds. “It couldn’t be more clear that the path to winning more seats is getting lower-propensity voters, particularly lower-propensity voters of color, engaged with our message and turning them out.”

That’s especially true, Abrams says, since 2020 is another census year, with participation threatened by the pandemic and Trump administration malfeasance. “If we do not have adequate participation by voters of color in November,” she warns, “gerrymandering will be worse than we’ve ever seen.”

Jacob Malinowski, a candidate for the Wisconsin Assembly for the red-leaning southwest corner of Milwaukee County told me today that "In Wisconsin, there are a lot of obstacles for Democratic State Assembly candidates: the map is the worst gerrymander in the country, and many national resources are focused on a select few races. Furthermore, if Republicans make just a few gains, they'll have a veto-proof supermajority with no check on their power. But in the southwest suburbs of Milwaukee, I'm running to win. My district is a 50-50 flip that nobody is paying attention to, and we're using this to our advantage to flip the seat right under the noses of the GOP. With hard work and real conversations, I'm running a new, post-partisan campaign to build lasting progressive power in my home state. If we can win here, then the path to a people-first Wisconsin is clear: run hard-working candidates everywhere who offer real ideas and speak to the lived experience in their districts, not just the same talking points."

Christine Pellegrino is running for the New York state Senate (SD-4) in Suffolk County (Babylon and Islip), a swing district currently represented by Trumpist Phil Boyle. "For candidates like me," Pellegrino told us, "2020 will allow suburban progressives to win seats at the table of power. For too long, State House Democratic majorities have used the objections of their moderate suburban colleagues as the reason to hold up the progressive legislation we need. If more suburban progressives get elected, these excuses will no longer hold water, which means that the path to enacting progressive legislation runs through the suburbs. And I've won this kind of race before, by a landslide. I was the 2nd national red to blue flip in my 2017 special election for New York State Assembly, a harbinger for the 2018 Blue Wave midterms. And once I'm in the New York State Senate, we will be able to help reverse the damage of 2010 by fully funding our schools and libraries, improving our infrastructure, and fighting for the healthcare we all deserve. Suburban down-ballot progressives are the crucible-- the testing ground-- for enacting an agenda that helps poor and working people and families first. If Albany can pass progressive legislation, other states and the federal government will be able to accrue the support to pass similar reforms. Down ballot races like mine are the cornerstone of lasting political revolution."

Missouri state Rep Deb Lavender first ran for the legislature in 2008 and told us that she "was finally successful in 2014 running four cycles in a row. I watched firsthand in 2010 how the Tea Party swept across Missouri, and the nation, and watched as good Democrats lost their seats. Republicans picked up seats in Missouri for the next two elections. Until 2014 Missouri lost so many state legislative seats we dipped into a super minority in both chambers. In 2016 we elected a Republican Governor and since then have lost all legislative issues that are important to Democrats. In 2018, I watched my own state Senator, Andrew Koenig, file and pass one of the nation's most restrictive pieces of abortion legislation, leaving no exceptions for rape or incest.  Democratic senators negotiated as best as possible and yet in the end, we still passed one of the most egregious bills in the nation, because senators are also in the super-minority in Missouri. Being an elected official is about more than having power, it's about having a seat at the table to effect positive change and pass laws that improve peoples' lives. Unfortunately today in Missouri, Democrats are not welcome at the table, not in the House or in the Senate."

Deb won her race for state Representative in 2014, flipping a long held Republican seat. Over the last 6 years Democrats have picked up 4 additional seats in the state House and one in the state Senate, a good start, though not near what they need win to get out of the super-minority.

She told me that "a year ago I decided to run for this Senate seat knowing we had a chance to flip the Senate seat as I had my House seat. I have worked hard for the people in my district and have used my platform on the Budget Committee, where even a Democrat can make some change. I had the opportunity to meet Jessica Post in 2015 (she started her career here in Missouri), and she looks forward to the day when Missouri is ready to flip a chamber to Democrat again. Until then, I am proud of the results she has made across the nation in picking up so many seats these last years. A significant turning point for Missouri was when we finally became the 38th state to pass Medicaid Expansion in August of this year. My experience in budget will allow me the opportunity in the Senate, to implement Medicaid expansion. The stars are aligning and there are good signs that I will win this seat. Every week, the five women running for the State House in my senate district and I get together to discuss strategy and learn from each other what we are doing to win our races. I look forward to us all flipping Republican-held seats for Democrats this year."

 

Who Wants A Damn Compulsive Liar As President? Or A Presidential Campaign On Who's The Bigger Liar?

Trump is the biggest liar to ever occupy the White House-- by far. But if Biden ever gets there-- God forbid-- he'd be the second biggest liar to ever occupy the White House. The graphic above represents Trump's public, checked lies. I count True and Mostly True as True and everything else as lies. Half True means half false. And the one below represents Biden's record. Yes, Trump lies more than Biden... but that bar is way too low and Biden lies way too much. How many times will he say "I didn't mean to mislead" ... before going on to mislead some more?

Remember, (a little more than) half the country (at least right now) thinks Trump is worse and half the country thinks Biden is worse. But sane people know both are really vile, horrible men, the very worst of America of what America has to offer.

Two more graphics from PolitiFact. The first one represents Trump's lies in the last week. But there were so many that these few were all I could fit on this page:

The second is Biden's lies... except that PolitiFac-- while not having gotten to the dozen lies Trump told in the last two days-- also hasn't gotten to Biden's biggest-- and most pertinent-- lie of the week: his lie about the Iraq war. He claimed "details are irrelevant in terms of decision-making.

With that long record, Biden has faced criticism over the years for his judgment on key foreign policy decisions, such as voting to authorize the Iraq War, trying to partition the country along ethnic and sectarian lines, opposing a troop surge, and overseeing the withdrawal in 2011 that some say created a power vacuum that allowed ISIS to flourish in Iraq.

"He's been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades," former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in his 2014 memoir.

"I think my record has been good," Biden told NPR. He explained that his rationale in authorizing the use of military force in Iraq in 2002 was based on a commitment he had received from then-President George W. Bush that he would not go to war in Iraq.

"[Bush] looked me in the eye in the Oval Office. He said he needed the vote to be able to get inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was engaged in dealing with a nuclear program," said Biden. "He got them in and before you know it, we had 'shock and awe.'"

Bush's office denied Biden's version of events. "I'm sure it's just an innocent mistake of memory, but this recollection is flat wrong," said spokesman Freddy Ford in an email to NPR.

The Biden campaign pointed to numerous remarks from Bush at the time where he said he hoped to go through the U.N. Security Council to avoid a military conflict with Iraq.

"Immediately, that moment it started, I came out against the war at that moment," Biden told NPR.

But in multiple public remarks made after the invasion began in 2003, Biden openly supported the effort. Biden publicly said his vote was a mistake as early as 2005, but not immediately when the war began in 2003.

"Nine months ago, I voted with my colleagues to give the president of the United States of America the authority to use force, and I would vote that way again today," Biden said in a speech at the Brookings Institution on July 31, 2003. "It was a right vote then, and it'll be a correct vote today."

Biden, like Trump, is an uncontrollable, congenital liar. When those two think they can get away with it, they just lie, assuming no one will ever check. They are both absolutely hideous and shouldn't be allowed a role in government. Tuesday, writing forThe Nation, Joan Walsh, also pointed out Biden's inability to tell the truth. "The Washington Post's running tally of Donald Trump’s lies since Inauguration Day 2017 has passed 12,000," she wrote. "Biden seems to think, given that backdrop, his mistakes won’t hurt him-- or at least shouldn’t. Part of me admires the former vice president’s pluck... Maybe Biden thinks toughing this one out will keep the press focused on the bigger issue: Trump’s manifest incompetence and corruption. But I doubt it. For one thing, Biden’s Afghanistan story-telling didn’t occur in a vacuum but during a campaign in which he’s made numerous mistakes and misstatements. In just one day last month, he confused recently ousted British Prime Minister Theresa May with her long-ago predecessor Margaret Thatcher, said 'poor kids are just as talented and as bright as white kids' (inadvertently conflating 'white' with 'bright' and seeming to depict poor kids as nonwhite), and insisted Democrats should 'choose truth over facts.' Democratic primary voters rightly want to know if the 76-year-old vice president is up to the rigors of the presidency-- regardless of the fact that Trump is not. In a primary where at least 10 viable candidates are competing (if we just stick with those who made the cut for the next debate), the party’s voters don’t have to settle for someone whose own troubles with truth and facts threaten to take Trump’s off the table, as a campaign issue, come the fall of 2020."

You can't believe ANYTHING that either Biden or Trump ever says

Biden went down in flames yesterday. The smartest guy I know told me he is pretty sure Biden is already self-destructing and that he won't be able to go the distance. Shame on the self-interested staffers that are propping this poor old coot up.

One more disgusting thing about the disgusting Biden this morning. After his dishonest, lackluster appearance on CNN's Climate Forum yesterday, he prepared to head over to 2 big dollar fundraisers today, including one hosted by David Solomon of Hildred Capital Partners, whose chief investment officer, Andrew Goldman, was a finance director for Biden's 2008 campaign, was a Biden Senate advisor and a co-founder of Western LNG, a natural gas production company. Biden tried getting away-- before the howling got too loud-- with a "middle way" on the Climate Crisis, where his heart is and will always be. His current chief climate policy adviser, Heather Zichal, made a fortune from a fracking firm after leaving the Obama administration. Remind yourself what a scumbag Biden is and has always been by watch this half minute video:

Don't Count On Any Republicans To Help Save The Country From Trump Until After There's Rioting In The Streets

Maverick-- or craven partisan hack?

Whichever NY Times editor who gave Jennifer Steinhauser's Sunday piece the headline, GOP Senators, Pulling Away From Trump, Have 'A Lot Less Fear Of Him', may have been having a bout of wishful thinking. Or maybe those commas were an excuse to confuse readers. Nah, The Times would never do that. Point is though, Republican senators don't go rogue when it comes to voting and this year, pretty much the whole batch has been sticking to the party line. Almost all of them have been with Trump 100% of the time. The only ones who have drifted from Trump's positions more than a measly 3% of the time are Susan Collins (R-ME), Rand Paul (R-KY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and, just barely, John McCain (R-AZ). Anyone counting on Lindsey Graham or Jeff Flake or Rob Portman or Dean Heller or Ben Sasse or Lamar Alexander-- let alone some congenital coward like Marco Rubio-- is going to be very, very disappointed very, very fast. Anyone criticize him last night for leaking super-secret intelligence to two Kremlin spies? They may run their mouths or get a little wild with the late night tweets but their voting records are pure Trumpy-the-Clown shillery. Sure, as Steinhauser asserts, some Senate Republicans may be aware enough to be "increasingly unnerved by President Trump’s volatility and unpopularity," but are they really "starting to show signs of breaking away from him as they try to forge a more traditional Republican agenda and protect their political fortunes?" Don't bet the house on it-- let alone the House.

Steinhauser points out, correctly, that "[s]everal Republicans have openly questioned" Señor Trumpanzee’s decision Comey, but when she writes that "even lawmakers who supported the move have complained privately that it was poorly timed and disruptive to their work" she's closer to an apt description than anything that would imply an open revolt (when it come stop votes). Schumer has announced he (and presumably most of his caucus) are going to vote against Trump's FBI nominee until some kind of an independent investigator or independent prosecutor is appointed. They'll need 3 Republicans for that to work. And they won't have them-- not even 3. So, sure, "many were dismayed when Mr. Trump seemed to then threaten Mr. Comey not to leak negative information about him," but so what?

None of this bullshit is going to amount to anything at all but some bad vibes in the media:

As they pursue their own agenda, Republican senators are drafting a health care bill with little White House input, seeking to avoid the public relations pitfalls that befell the House as it passed its own deeply unpopular version. Republicans are also pushing back on the president’s impending budget request-- including, notably, a provision that would nearly eliminate funding for the national drug control office amid an opioid epidemic. And many high-ranking Republicans have said they will not support any move by Mr. Trump to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

So far, Republicans have refrained from bucking the president en masse, in part to avoid undermining their intense push to put health care and tax bills on his desk this year. And the Republican leadership, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, remains behind Mr. Trump.

But with the White House lurching from crisis to crisis, the president is hampering Republicans’ efforts to fulfill his promises... When Congress and the White House are controlled by the same party, lawmakers usually try to use the full weight of the presidency to achieve legislative priorities, through a clear and coordinated vision, patience with intransigent lawmakers and message repetition. Mr. Trump’s transient use of his bully pulpit for policy messaging has upended that playbook.

...Two Republican senators who face potentially tough re-election fights next year-- Dean Heller of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona-- have been unabashed in their criticism of Mr. Trump and his administration, which they have clearly begun to view as a drag on their political prospects.

Is that so? Heller has a ProgressivePunch score for the current session of 0.00, which can be interpreted as him having voted with Trump on every single issue-- 100% of the time. And Flake, who Trump has abused by name several times, has a score of 1.64, which means he may have differed with Trump on something once, maybe twice.

There's one way to slow Trump down and that's defeating every possible Republican that can be defeated in the special elections of 2017 and in the midterms next year. That simple. Short of judicial action-- there's supposedly a sealed indictment in Virginia that says "Señor Trumpanzee" on it-- the only way to stop him is at the ballot box. That said, one of our favorite incumbents, Pramila Jayapal, just sent around an article Joan Walsh wrote about her for The Nation, Pramila Jayapal Wants Democrats To Know That Resistance Is Not Enough. Pramila has been one of the strongest and most effective voices of the resistance to Trump and to Ryan's legislative overreach in the House. And she has emphasized that that isn't enough. "Trump has been a very unifying figure to organize against.

But we’re not only an opposition party; we’re a proposition party. We’re proposing our vision of the future, and as people are rejecting what they see in front of them, they can turn to us... Progressives have been working for this; for moderates and conservatives, there’s a little bit of fear that the left is gaining power, that people’s involvement means they can’t take certain votes in silence. And when there are splits in the caucus, people recognize they will be held accountable. It’s generally very positive for Democrats, but I know there are conservative Democrats who worry about what will happen if they skew toward the base."

Jenny Marshall is the progressive Democrat-- like Pramila, a Berniecrat-- who's taking on Virginia Foxx in central North Carolina. She also told us that Democrats need a positive message, not just an anti-Trump message, to reach people. "When you slash social safety nets you hurt the most vulnerable in our communities, the children and elderly. Rather than taking care of the least of these, the GOP has cast them aside for tax cuts for the rich, to fund an already bloated military budget and a dubious border wall. As Rep. Ryan has previously stated, 'We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.' In reality the majority of Americans, some 70%, have benefitted from a social safety net program at some time in their lives. Public investments in such programs, especially in the lives of children, have been shown to generate high returns on investments. You do not have to look any further than HUD Secretary Ben Carson and Speaker Paul Ryan for examples of these programs in action. It seems like it was good for them, but not for anyone else."

Trump Supporters Want A Daddy Even More Than A President

Truman Capote, from his unfinished book Answered Prayers: "In fact, I was a kind of Hershey Bar whore-- there wasn't much I wouldn't do for a nickel's worth of chocolate."

Yesterday, the NYTimes fleshed out the conventional wisdom about Trump being a racist and a latter-day Know-Nothing. They pointed out, as an example, that when he wanted to prevent a rival casino from getting into business 15 years ago, he ran ugly ads that said, "The St. Regis Mohawk Indian record of criminal activity is well documented... Are these the new neighbors we want?" This morning on ABC's This Week said if the GOP Establishment doesn't treat him fairly and he felt burned, he might run as a third-party candidate-- a potent threat since it would virtually guarantee that Bernie or Hillary win the White House.

Long before Mr. Trump announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, roiling the 2016 election with his pugnacious style and speeches in which he has branded many undocumented immigrants as rapists and murderers, he had proved himself in New York as an expert political provocateur with an instinct for racially charged rhetoric.

...Mr. Trump acknowledged that his style can be offensive to some, but he defended it as essential for communicating his message.

“It would be nice to be somewhat gentler,” he said in an interview this week, “but at the same time, I don’t think I would be able to make the point nearly as well, whether it’s the death penalty or other things, totally unrelated.”

Mr. Trump said it was “not my intention” to speak in racially provocative terms, but expressed little interest in softening his language. “It’s very time-consuming to be politically correct,” he said, “and I don’t like wasting a lot of time.”

...Rowena General, who was chief of staff for the St. Regis Mohawks in 2000, said Mr. Trump’s ad campaign was a cynical attempt to use fear about race and crime to protect his business investments. The tenor of his presidential campaign, she said, was “not surprising at all, considering our experience with him.”

Eleven years earlier, Mr. Trump had financed what was perhaps an even more charged advertisement days after the brutal assault on the jogger in Central Park. The ad, in the form of an open letter from Mr. Trump, was topped with two sentences that blared: “Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!”

The message, which appeared in four publications, including the New York Times, channeled widespread anger and fear about violent crime. Invoking the image of “roving bands of wild criminals” wreaking havoc on the streets, Mr. Trump’s letter rebuked Mayor Edward I. Koch, a Democrat who supported the death penalty, for urging New Yorkers not to turn to hate in the aftermath of the Central Park assault.

“I want to hate these muggers and murderers,” Mr. Trump wrote in the ad. “They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.”

The rape and near-murder in Central Park rocked New York in the midst of the 1989 mayoral race, becoming a chilling symbol of a city seemingly out of control. Over time, it also came to represent the flaws in the criminal justice system. Five young, black men who were arrested and imprisoned for carrying out the attack, known as the Central Park Five, had their convictions vacated years later after another man, Matias Reyes, confessed to the crime.

State Senator Bill Perkins, a Democrat who at the time was president of the tenants’ association at Schomburg Plaza, the Manhattan apartment complex where several of the defendants lived, said he was horrified to see Mr. Trump emerge as a contender for the presidency. A framed copy of Mr. Trump’s 1989 newspaper ad hangs in Mr. Perkins’s Harlem office as a reminder, he said, of an ugly moment in the city’s recent past.

“This was taking a moment, a very unfortunate and one might say racially tense moment in our city, and fueling a lynch mob,” Mr. Perkins, who is black, said of the ad. “This is the Donald Trump that we have to remember as we pay attention to his ranting, his continuous ranting and carrying on.”

...Two years after running the ads about the Central Park case, Mr. Trump drew accusations of racism during a lobbying effort in Palm Beach, where he was seeking to subdivide the palatial estate known as Mar-a-Lago. As he faced considerable opposition from the town, articles appeared almost simultaneously in both The New York Post and The Palm Beach Daily News reporting, based on anonymous sources, that he might sell the property to the Unification Church.

The church, which was founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and viewed by many at the time as a cult, roundly denied any interest in the property and accused Mr. Trump of using the faith as a racial and religious cudgel against officials in the Florida town. Dr. James A. Baughman, who led the church’s branch in the United States at the time, said then that the church had no interest in the property. Mr. Trump, he said, was using “the Unification Church as a scare tactic in an attempt to compel Palm Beach officials to submit to the will of Mr. Trump.”

...In the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has discussed crime and immigration in explicitly alarmist terms. He has highlighted murders committed by undocumented immigrants, and has repeatedly referred to an undocumented Mexican immigrant who has been charged with killing a young woman in San Francisco as “this animal.”

The furor over his comments led NBC to sever its ties with him: He will no longer be associated with the “Apprentice” franchise, and NBC’s parent, NBCUniversal, said the network would no longer carry the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, part of a joint venture with Mr. Trump.

He said that there might be some value in speaking with greater restraint, but that that would exact its own price: “I might not get my point across nearly as well.”

“The interesting thing is,” he said, “I am probably the least racist person that you will ever speak to.”

Probably not. But one thing is for sure, Trump is the least self-aware person running for president, perhaps ever. Not that that keeps the dregs of the uneducated Republican base from flocking to his Know-Nothing banner. 

A new Gravis poll in Iowa shows he's even upending the strategy for victory the Koch brothers have laid out for their puppet candidate, Scott Walker, the conveniently located governor of neighboring Wisconsin. Walker was supposed to gain big momentum by winning in Iowa. He's now in second place, with 15.4% to Trump's 30.9%. Wisconsin broadcast media makes Walker a familiar figure to many Iowans, especially in Dubuque, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Iowa City, and the Decorah area. His support among Iowa Republicans is more than double the support of religious-right contenders like Huckabee (6.0%) and Bobby Jindal (7.2%), and he absolutely trounces nationally known figures like Senator Ted Cruz (5.5%), Governor John Kasich (5.0), Senator Marco Rubio (2.8%) and Governor Chris Christie (0.8%). 

But his lead over these candidates proved inconsequential when Trump denounced him last week in no uncertain terms. "Wisconsin’s doing terribly. It’s in turmoil," he told Iowa voters, who already know this from Wisconsin media reports. "The roads are a disaster because they don’t have any money to rebuild them. They’re borrowing money like crazy. They projected a $1 billion surplus, and it turns out to be a deficit of $2.2 billion. The schools are a disaster. The hospitals and education was a disaster. And he was totally in favor of Common Core!" And Walker began crashing.

What was that about Trump manufacturing his signature overpriced ties in China? Did you think it was hypocrisy? Reuters reports that Trump owns companies that have sought to import at least 1,100 foreign workers on temporary visas since 2000.

Nine companies majority-owned by Trump have sought to bring in foreign waitresses, cooks, vineyard workers and other laborers on temporary work-visa programs administered by the Labor Department.

The candidate's foreign talent hunt included applications for an assistant golf-course superintendent, an assistant hotel manager and a banquet manager.

Two of his companies, Trump Model Management and Trump Management Group LLC, have sought visas for nearly 250 foreign fashion models, the records show... Trump has positioned himself as a champion of American workers whose livelihoods are threatened by illegal foreign laborers and the offshoring of U.S. jobs.

“I will be the greatest jobs president that God every created," he said in announcing his candidacy on June 16. "I will bring back our jobs from China, Mexico and other places. I will bring back jobs and our money."

Trump's cheap jingoism was made for these backward Iowa Republicans. As Joan Walsh pointed out at Salon yesterday, Trump's supporters "are not thinking. They want to be entertained." She was talking about a Republican focus group in New Hampshire. One in Iowa, for all the differences between the two states, is likely to be identical. Because those differences don't affect the low end of the GOP base.

But actually listening to those voters, it’s hard to take much they said seriously. Their Trump praise frequently reflects their Obama disdain-- calling a potential Trump White House “classy” is an implicit assertion that the current occupants of the White House aren’t “classy”-- and their support of Trump’s “solutions” makes no sense.

Bloomberg quotes “Roger, who works with the elderly,” saying: “Specifically, he said he’ll put a wall on the southern border. When you talk about common sense, that’s a common-sense thing to do.”

If Roger thinks erecting a wall on our 2,000-mile southern border with Mexico is “a common-sense thing to do,” I worry a little bit about the elderly he works with.

There’s a childlike wishful thinking in these voters’ belief that Trump can solve all the country’s problems by being “tough.” And that’s what I meant with my reference to the “lowest common denominator”-- I actually wasn’t referring to the voters themselves (in fact, that makes no sense); I was talking about the solutions they seem to embrace for the country’s woes. Pining for a “tough” guy who’s done well in “business” but is “one of us” is simplistic and a little scary. Most of that New Hampshire focus group seemed to want a daddy, not a president.

The new Trump and the old Trump are the same Trump-- predictably attractive to sad GOP rubes. "He talks a good game but he lacks character" comes out of this documentary about the ridiculous huckster:

A Case For Natural Disaster Vengeance?

Republican Congressman Peter King was correct when he said New York and New Jersey donors would be crazy to contribute campaign money to Republican candidates. "Anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee should have their head examined," he raved to CNN. "It was absolutely disgraceful. People in my party, they wonder why they're becoming a minority party... They're going to have a hard time getting my vote, I can tell you that. Turning your back on people who are starving and freezing is not a Republican value."

In the video above, MSNBC populist host Ed Schultz suggests that northerners may make it tough on states like Missouri, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama when, inevitably, their states next come to the federal government to help them with disaster relief. Wrong states. Yes, hypocrites Roy Blunt (R-MO), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Bob Corker (R-TN), and Jeff Sessions (KKK-AL) voted against aid for Sandy survivors. But Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) wisely voted for aid.

Were there any states with both senators who voted against aid? Of course there were... and their constituents are going to-- at the very least-- be forced to wait a little longer for disaster relief reimbursement. Or maybe Democrats will ask that aid be offset with an increase in taxes on millionaires or be offset by closing loopholes on Big Oil. Which states better hope they don't need federal help soon?

• Wyoming- John Barraso (R)- NO and Mike Enzi (R)- NO... and Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R), Wyoming's only Congressmember- NO
• Texas- John Cornyn (R)- NO and Ted Cruz (R)- NO... as did 23 of Texas' 24 Republican congressmembers
• Georgia- Saxby Chambliss (R)- NO and Johnny Isakson (R)- NO... as did all the Republican House Members
• Oklahoma- Tom Coburn (R)- NO and Jim Inhofe (R)- NO
• Idaho- Mike Crapo (R)- NO and Jim Risch (R)- NO... as did the state's 2 Congressmen, Raul Labrador and Mike Simpson
• Nebraska- Deb Fischer (R)- NO and Mike Johanns (R)- NO... as did the state's 3 congressmen
• Arizona- John McCain (R) and Jeff Flake (R)- NO... as did all 4 GOP congressmen
• South Carolina- Lindsey Graham (R)- NO and Tim Scott (R)- NO... as did all 6 of the state's 6 GOP congressmen
• Utah- Orrin Hatch (R)- NO and Mike Lee (R)- NO... as did all 3 of the state's GOP congressmen
• Kentucky- Miss McConnell (R)- NO and Rand Paul (R)- NO
• Kansas- Jerry Moran (R)- NO and Pat Roberts (R)- NO... as did all 4 of Kansas' congressmen

So... best-- purest-- targets are Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas... 100% states against aid. And then there's Georgia... Adairsville, Georgia, birthplace of Pretty Boy Floyd, sits exactly on the boundary between the 14th and 11th congressional districts in northwest Georgia. The 11th, which holds most of the town of 4,648, is represented by GOP Rape Caucus loon Phil Gingrey. The 14th is represented by equally crazy and extremist Tom Graves. Today God raised His hand against the poor folks in Adairsville and smote it-- probably to send a clear message to Gingrey, Graves and the two right-wing Georgia senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, all 4 of whom voted against aid to Sandy victims. The storm also hit Nashville, Tennessee, where Jim Cooper distinguished his Blue Dog self as the only Democrat to vote against aid for the natural disaster in New York and New Jersey.

At least two people are dead after a series of powerful storms and tornadoes pummeled much of the South Wednesday.

Whole swaths of Georgia and Tennessee spent the day under siege, already battered by high winds as the storm front began its deadly march last night.

Outside of Nashville residents heard a deafening roar and had only seconds to react.

Storms rip through south