Will Schumer's Attempt To Destroy The Primary System Protect The GOP Senate Majority?

The Jack Abramoff scandal had broken wide open and one of Abramoff's biggest lackeys was Montana Senator Conrad Burns. Democrats saw a glimmer of hope of taking back the Montana seat that Burns had won from John Melcher in 1988. In 2000 Burns was barely reelected-- 50.6% to 47.2% against Brian Schweitzer. Montana had been trending red-- in 2000 Bush won the state 58-33% and in 2004 was reelected 59-39%. But Burns was unpopular and the Abramoff revelations made him a lot less popular.

It was 2006 and Chuck Schumer was chair of the DSCC. He had decided the candidate to put up against Burns was a Wall Street hack, state Auditor John Morrison, a total establishment nothing. Locally and nationally, activists realized Schumer was clueless and that the way to win against Burns was to offer a populist and progressive, which is exactly what John Tester was at the time. It was the first time the blogosphere went up against Schumer and did everything he could to manipulate the race for Morrison and against Tester. Schumer successfully insisted the media report the primary as deadlocked even though Tester was way ahead and had all the momentum. In the end Schumer and his handpicked nothing candidate were smashed to smithereens and Democratic voters picked Tester 65,757 (60.77%) to 38,394 (35.48%). In November, Tester unseated Burns, beating him 199,845 (49.16%) to 196,283 (48.29%)

A few months ago I ran into Bernie and reminded him that I had also gone to James Madison High School in Brooklyn, his alma mater, albeit after he had graduated. "Oh, yes, you were there with Chuck, weren't you?" I was and Chuck was as big a know-it-all asshole then as he's been ever since. After his whooping Montana, he continued to pick corrupt conservative candidates and the Senate slipped into Republicans hands, frustrating the progressive movement that Schumer hates more than he hates the GOP.

Yesterday, Jennifer Haberkorn, writing for the L.A. Times reported that the DSCC, still 100% controlled by Schumer, is being accused of trying to hinder progressive candidates in key Senate primaries. She doesn't have the story exactly right, but she's figuring it out. Schumer is doing his best to disadvantage progressives Andrew Romanoff (CO), Maggie Toulouse Oliver (NM), Betsy Sweet (ME) and Eddie Mauro and Michael Fracken, both in Iowa, while pushing-- furiously-- for his more conservative picks, Frackenlooper, Ban Ray Lujan, Sara Gideon and Theresa Greenfield.

Progressives have been complaining that Schumer is interfering with their primaries and telling him to stay out of their states, accusing the DSCC-- technically run by a very right-of-center puppet of Schumer's Jackie Rosen-- "of actively working against them in primaries" to help corrupt conservatives who will never exercise any idependence, and-- like Rosen (a 2018 Schumer pick for Nevada)-- will do exactly what he tells them to do. "Progressive candidates in Colorado and Maine-- two of the most competitive 2020 Senate races-- say political consultants and vendors have refused to work on their campaigns after being warned that doing so would risk a future boycott by the DSCC, which endorsed other Democrats for those primaries," wrote Haberkorn.

“They want to blackball us,” said Andrew Romanoff, a Democrat who is hoping to take on GOP Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado in next year’s election. “We heard the same from enough firms. It’s not an accident.”

The DSCC threw its support behind former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a pro-fracking moderate [Haberkorn uses the charged word "moderate"-- to describe conservatives; she isn't terribly bright, reflexively buys into Beltway spin and doesn't know any better] almost immediately after he announced his bid for the Senate seat late last month.

Romanoff, who backs “Medicare for all” and aggressively combating climate change, said at least five political vendors that had expressed interest in working with him later told his campaign that officials at the DSCC, which helps recruit and finance Democratic candidates, said the vendors would get no other business from the committee if they worked for Romanoff’s campaign.

A political consultant at one of those firms confirmed the account but refused to be named for fear of retribution, saying that the firm was told by an intermediary for Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) that “under no circumstances were we to work with Andrew Romanoff.” If it did, the firm would get no more DSCC-related business, including lucrative referrals to work on other campaigns or to put together outside political advertisements...

Schumer’s office referred questions to the DSCC.

DSCC spokeswoman Lauren Passalacqua [a well-known professional liar who no one takes seriously] said the committee has no policy that forbids vendors from working with Democratic candidates that it does not support.

But she added: “In our role as a campaign committee focused on winning Senate seats, we have ongoing conversations with strategists and advisors about battleground races.”

Maine Senate hopeful Betsy Sweet said she’s had similar trouble hiring finance staffers for her primary campaign. And Iowa Senate primary candidate Eddie Mauro said one vendor indicated that Washington Democrats “put pressure on them not to work with people like me” although he did not name the DSCC.

As in Colorado, the DSCC has endorsed more moderate [poor dumb Haberkorn means conservatives when she writes "moderates"] Democrats in Maine and Iowa who they hope will beat sitting Republican senators in November 2020.

Vendors initially “are saying they’re excited [to work with the campaign,] and then they say they can’t do it,” Sweet said. “If you’re part of the political industrial complex and you’re making a career out of it, whether it is implicit or explicit, you don’t want to go up against that machine.”

The DSCC has endorsed Sara Gideon to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine.

The intervention does not appear to be nationwide. Senate candidates in other races around the country said in interviews that they have seen no such interference in their campaign hiring.

But Sweet likened the DSCC’s meddling in her campaign to efforts made behind the scenes by the Democratic National Committee to bolster Hillary Clinton for president over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries, moves that bitterly split the party.

“We in Maine have done a lot of work to reunify [since then]. This has just made it really hard,” she said. “It adds to the cynicism of people getting involved in politics.”

The DSCC’s counterpart for the House, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, adopted a new written policy on vendors this year. The committee forbids vendors from getting DCCC business if they work on a primary challenge to a sitting Democratic House member. In that situation, the DCCC is trying to avoid Democrats trying to kick a sitting Democrat out of office.

...Many of the Democratic candidates, even those who said the DSCC is not interfering with their hiring process, said they resented the committee’s endorsement in their race instead of letting a primary play out among voters.

That anger is most acute in Colorado, where a competitive Democratic primary between a dozen candidates was well underway when Hickenlooper dropped out of the presidential primary contest and announced he would run for the Senate.

The DSCC’s quick endorsement incensed candidates who were already in the race, an anger undoubtedly fueled by Hickenlooper’s prior comments that he didn’t want the Senate seat and wouldn’t be good at the job. Several of the self-identified liberal Democrats in the race say Hickenlooper-- who opposes progressive standard-bearers such as Medicare for all and the Green New Deal-- is too centrist for Colorado. They argue that Gardner is so vulnerable that almost any Democratic candidate can beat him.

“It’s hard for me to get in their head on this because a blue rock beats Cory Gardner by 10%,” said Alice Madden, one of the Democratic hopefuls.

Madden and the five other Democratic women in the race signed a letter last week asking the DSCC to reconsider the endorsement, arguing that it implies “that we should defer to a male candidate because you seem to believe he is ‘more electable.’”

Schumer had long made no secret that he wanted Hickenlooper, who has tremendous name recognition in the state, to take on Gardner next year. Democratic strategists say polling shows that Hickenlooper’s popularity would survive intense negative messaging, making him the strongest candidate in both the primary and general election.

One top tier Senate candidate told me-- on a promise of anonymity-- that  Schumer's 'thumb-on-the-scale' tactics are going harm to Democrats' chances of winning back the Senate. "He squeezes out viable candidates, mostly by starving them of conventional sources of operating funds. The word goes out, 'Money sent to the Non-DSCC chosen candidate means money wasted.' If the process could proceed unimpeded, with market forces equaled, primary voters would be more heavily vested in a fair fight. Surely the ill feelings in the Bernie crowd kept his supporters home on election day… costing Hilary votes. People felt screwed. We have the equivalent of a circular firing squad; better hope everyone is a good shot and all bullets hit bone…which the DSCC is oh-for-three in doing, of late, in my state. The clarion call is this: 'Washington, butt out.'"

One of the top Democratic elected officials in Maine told me-- also on condition of anonymity-- that both Gideon and Sweet are "good candidates" but that Sweet is somewhat better policy-wise. "You won't heard Gideon talking about Medicare-for-All or a Green New Deal... Sweet is far bolder. Gideon’s voting record is strong but she takes a more incrementalist approach, and behind the scenes she’s willing to bargain with groups like the Chamber. I suspect her record in the Senate would track King’s." For those not watching that, Angus King has an "F" from Progressive Punch and there are only 4 Senate Dems with more conservative voting records-- Kyrsten Sinema, Doug Jones, Joe Manchin and Jacky Rosen. My source continued that "Schumer should let the primary sort itself out. A strong but not divisive primary would be better in terms of mobilizing support for the eventual nominee. He’s making it unnecessarily divisive. And he’s potentially harming our ability to defeat Collins."

VIABILITY IN OKLAHOMA

A couple weeks ago Jane and I each wrote about a dinner we went to that featured Montana Senator Jon Tester. Back in 2006 Tester was the populist underdog in the Democratic primary race to the DSCC's anointed candidate, State Auditor John Morrison, a DLC hack. Blue America endorsed him and raised money for him from 900 of our members; he beat Morrison and went on to beat the very corrupt and entrenched reactionary incumbent, Conrad Burns.

The ostensible raison de etre for the get together was so Tester could raise some money for his new leadership PAC. He wants to support Democratic candidates running for the Senate. Admirable goal. I asked him a question though. Would he be using his PAC to help real Democrats-- populists and progressives like himself-- or if he'd be using it to support any ole generic Democrat like John Morrison, the DLC hack the Establishment ran against him? I pointed out Oklahoma state Senator Andrew Rice as an example of someone who I find very much like Tester in so many ways. He didn't address the part of the question that draws a distinction between good Democrats and bad Democrats but said he was following Rice's campaign and that if it looked like he had a real shot to win, he'd be there to help!

And that brings us to today's Oklahoman, a reliably right-wing mouthpiece that did its one unbiased report we will ever see on Andrew Rice. The writer raised the same electability question Tester had. He wonders aloud whether environmental and other progressive groups, who have nothing but disdain and contempt for the extremist positions espoused by Inhofe, will see him as vulnerable-- and Rice as viable.

"State Senator Rice in Oklahoma is a good candidate,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the chairman of the senatorial campaign committee, told reporters recently. "He's going to surprise people.”

What would be a surprise in Oklahoma is a Democrat getting more than 41 percent of the vote in a U.S. Senate race.

That hasn't happened since 1990, when former Sen. David Boren won his final race. Inhofe was elected in 1994 to fill Boren's last two years; his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Rep. Dave McCurdy got 40 percent of the vote. Neither of Inhofe's last two opponents have topped that. Nor did either of the Democratic opponents of former Sen. Don Nickles, in 1992 and 1998.

In 2004, former U.S. Rep. Brad Carson, a Democrat, got 41 percent of the vote-- in the race to replace Nickles-- against Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee.

If he is ultimately the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat, Rice, like Carson, will be on the ticket in a presidential year, in a red state that hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1964.

But Rice sees an opening for a new face, at a time when, he said, voters are tired of partisan gridlock in Washington and nasty campaigns.

"They want competent and responsible government,” he said. "I think sometimes (political) races are portrayed as people are looking for the ideal candidate.

"People are pretty down-to-earth and realistic about what they expect. People want you to pay attention to what they're saying. They want immigration reform. They want affordable health care.”

I know from how Tester responded at dinner last month that he wasn't convinced about Rice's viability. Since then he's looked into it and in early December he's traveling to Oklahoma City to help Rice with a fundraiser. And not only is Tester coming himself, he's bringing Blanche Lincoln, from neighboring Arkansas, as well.

NOW IS THE TIME WE NEED EXTRAORDINARY LEADERS. MONTANA'S JON TESTER IS ONE

Last week I mentioned how important June 6 is, with primaries in 8 states, and I talked about a couple of crucial ones in California (Francine Busby's Special Election run-off against Republican lobbyist Brian Bilbray and Jerry McNerney's grassroots campaign, which first has to beat some Rahm Emanuel shill before he can go on to rid the nation of one of the most corrupt men to ever stalk the halls of the Congress, Richard Pombo). Makes sense to talk about these two high profile House seats in the biggest state in the nation, right?

Well today I want to focus on a race at least as important, for progressives, for Democrats and for America. And it's in Montana. Montana? Isn't that a red state with no people in it? No. Montana's the 4th largest state in the union and there are almost a million people living there. The Republican Party has been in a serious state of decline and the Big Sky State boasts a populist, progressive Democratic governor, Brian Schweitzer, as well as Democrats in all but one statewide office, as well as a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. The Senior U.S. Senator, Max Baucus, is also a Democrat. That, and the fact that Montana is the most pro-labor union state in the Rockies, makes it sound pretty blue to me. And it is about to get a lot bluer, courtesy of Jack Abramoff. Well, courtesy of Jack Abramoff's extremely close relationship with Montana's junior U.S. Senator, ethically-challenged Conrad Burns, the U.S. Senator who took the most money from Abramoff-- and did him the most favors in return-- of anyone in the upper chamber. He has to face the voters in November-- and is he not popular! (The newest polling shows that 56% of the citizens of Montana think he's doing an unsatisfactory job, a rating surpassed by exactly one other much-hated senator, Rick Santorum, who has managed to alienate 57% of Pennsylvania's citizens.)

It looks to me like the Democrats are going to take the House in November-- or, rather, that the Republicans' greed and over-reaching and bankrupt policies are going to lose it. The Senate is a tougher nut to crack, just because only a third of the seats are up for re-election. The Democrats need 6 seats for a bare majority. Montana is a must-win. Without Montana there is no shot whatsoever. But we're looking at Montana today for more than just little old that. I mean, Democrats need to hold on to Ben Nelson's seat in Nebraska and Bill Nelson's seat in Florida too but we're not looking at those seats (both of which are pretty much in the bag). As bad as the music the Nelsons used to make, the voting records of the Nelsons in the Senate are even worse. Democrats, yes... but... the worst. In the June 6th primary we have a chance to chose between a really stellar candidate and a mediocre one to face off against the doomed Burns.

The really stellar one is Jon Tester. (The Democratic political hack-- way better than a Republican political hack (way, way, way better), but a hack nonetheless, a DLC one at that, is Montana State Auditor John Morrison.) Tester is more than just better than the other guy. He's a transformational politician, the kind of inspiring public servant who we will be able to look to for a genuine effort to actually make our nation a better place, the way candidates like Ned Lamont in Connecticut or Rick Penberthy and Jan Schneider in Florida, or Jerry McNerney, Francine Busby and Marcy Winograd in California can be expected to do the same. Not run-of-the-mill garden variety Democrats, but men and women who have the ability, the capacity and the intention of doing far more than just going along with the political whores who rule the roost Inside the Beltway.

I want to tell you a little about Jon. But first I want to ask you to read what someone else has to say about him. John Rodwick is a guy in Montana who stumbled across Down With Tyranny a few months ago. He was cynical about the sorry state of politics-as-usual and I asked him to look into Jon's campaign and to go meet him. Last week he did and his report is here. The word that comes up in John's report-- and in any report of first-hand experience with Tester-- is "straight shooter." When I was running Reprise Records I sometimes would get so excited about an album that an artist delivered-- more often than not, something from Green Day, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Wilco, Depeche Mode, Joni Mitchell-- that I'd fantasize about going door to door with an iPod and asking people to just listen. I'm positive that if Jon Tester could just meet every one of Montana's voters...

So who is this guy? I first started writing about him last July. My excitement has grown and grown as I've seen more of him in action. A 48 year old organic wheat farmer from Big Sandy and President of the State Senate, Jon announced his populist, progressive candidacy driving his tractor-trailer rig around Montana. He’s endorsed withdrawal from Iraq, a clean renewable energy policy (he actually sponsored a renewable energy standard in Montana), and is calling for expanded health care— including government funded health care for all children. He’s also endorsed a reasonable version of single-payer health insurance. Morrison (as a DLC shill) has more incommon with Burns on these issues than he has with Jon. Jon Tester's stands on the issues are what I expect from every Democrat; unfortunately my expectations are shot down more than they are realized. That's why when a strong and outspoken leader like Jon comes to the fore, I feel grateful... and eager to help in any small way I can.

When I asked Jane to look this over for me, she asked me 2 questions: How is Tester on Choice and Gay issues (talk about separating the wheat from the chaff!) and what are Tester's real chances? I call these next two my Jane paragraphs. Like John Kerry, Tester is personally pro-Life. The good news is that he has a 100% pro-choice voting record in the State Senate. That's because to him it's a privacy issue between a woman and her physician (and anyone else she wants to talk about it with). He's a Montanan and he's not eager to see Big Government interfering in peoples' private lives. The gay issue is always the hardest for any politician not living in an urban area. But Tester hasn't ducked that one either. He's come out strongly against the hate and bigotry amendments the Republicans have tried passing and he's worked hard to make sure others in the State Senate understood the issue as well. The man has great instincts and we can expect him to come to progressive conclusions about important issues.

Now, can he win? The DLC has been running around trumpeting the inevitability of their puppet Morrison because he's been scooping up lots of cash from wealthy, often out-of-state, donors, while Tester's strategy has been to fund-raise from average voters inside the state. In the last month, Tester has overtaken Morrison in fundraising, a result of more people in the state getting to know him and also of Morrison's ethics problems. The momentum is clearly with Tester now and he very much looks like a winner. Polls show either Democrat beating Burns, who is so mired in corruption that people wonder what the chances of his indictment before November are, but at this point the latest polls show Tester surging and Morrison basically holding steady.

The irony, of course, is that the DLC and Inside-the-Beltway schnooks who have been propping Morrison up all during the campaign and insisting that the issue was electability against the hated Burns, are screwed. Now that every newspaper and media outlet in the state has been titillating its audience with stories of Morrison's infidelity and how that mixed with state business, he no longer looks all that savory OR electable against an incumbent who has turned off most Montanans not because he's a far right maniac but because he is widely perceived to be corrupt and dishonest. Morrison is now similarly tainted in the public eye and Tester's straight-arrow reputation makes him look far more electable. Add that to the fact that the Beltway Establishment's #1 stated reason to turn against grassroots and populist candidates-- that they can't raise big money-- has been utterly demolished by Tester and all that is left are a bunch of corporate Democrats sputtering and fuming and feeling very much hoist on their own petards.

Last weekend's fund-raiser for Jerry McNerney and Francine Busby brought in around $3,000. I was really happy about all the generosity from the readers and Jerry and Francine were thrilled. Every contributor got a Neil Young CD in the mail. I have a feeling you can figure out who I'm hoping to collect some much-needed last minute money for this weekend. I just opened a Jon Tester page at ACT BLUE so that whatever you feel you can chip in will go directly to Jon's campaign. Is there an incentive this weekend too? Of course. As long as my old friends from the record companies take my calls I'll have boxes of CDs to share with contributors! But to play it safe, let's say... first 50 contributors (regardless of amount) get a CD. Give to Jon Testa's campaign today because you want to make America a better place; the CD's just a bonus from Jane and Ken and Adam and me, something we're happy to share.