Can As Dysfunctional A Government As Ours Actually Impeach A Character Like Trump?

Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig's Politico "Big Idea" essay yesterday tackled something that's been worrying many of us-- how severely divided we are as a people inside fundamentally dysfunctional political system. The essay is based on his book about creating a moral, unified America, They Don't Represent Us. He identifies 5 fundamental non-partisan problems of our democracy that are "all dimensions of a democracy which means that we are not, as citizens, equal with anybody else," and that must be tackled before we can move forward:

• gerrymandering
• the electoral college
• the way we fund campaigns
• voter suppression
• the U.S. Senate

In the essay, Lessig talks about how profoundly disruptive impeachment is likely to this time, much more so than any other time. "The nation has never entered impeachment proceedings in a media environment-- and hence a political environment-- like the current one. That difference will matter profoundly to our democracy. And as the process unfolds, it’s not just elected leaders but our media institutions that need to consider how to limit the potential damage."

As the Watergate hearings progressed, Americans weren’t just focused on the story: They were focused on the same story. The networks were different in how they broadcast news, but not much different. And thus, as widespread polling would reveal-- to the public and the administration-- views about the President were highly correlated across a wide range of America. When support for Nixon fell among Democrats, it also fell among Republicans and independents at the same time. America had heard a common story, and what it heard had a common effect.

The impeachment of Donald Trump will happen in a radically different media environment-- again. (In Clinton’s impeachment, standing between Trump’s and Nixon’s, the effects were consistent but muted relative to today.) Polling persists, indeed it has expanded, and so politicians will know almost exactly how the proceedings are playing among their own voters. But as information channels have multiplied, real “broadcast democracy”-- the shared and broad engagement with a common set of facts-- has disappeared. An abundance of choice means fewer focus on the news, and those who do are more engaged politically, and more partisan. No doubt, there is more published today about impeachment across a wide range of media than before, but it lives within different and smaller niches.

That division will have a profound effect on how this impeachment will matter to Americans. In short, it will matter differently depending on how those Americans come to understand reality. In a study published last month, the research institute PRRI found that 55% of “Republicans for whom Fox News is their primary news source say there is nothing Trump could do to lose their approval, compared to only 29% of Republicans who do not cite Fox News as their primary news source.” That 26-point difference is driven not just by politics, but in part by the media source.

This means that as the story of impeachment develops, it will be understood differently across the network-based tribes of America. The correlation among conservatives and liberals alike that drove Nixon from the White House won’t be visible in 2020—because it won’t be there. Regardless of what happens, on one side, it will be justice delivered. On the other, justice denied.

That difference, in turn, will radically constrain the politicians who Americans have entrusted to render judgment on the president. The reality of Fox News Republicans will be persistently visible to red-state representatives. More idealistic, less inherently partisan senators like Ben Sasse might have a view of the “right” thing in their heart of hearts, but they will be forced to choose between what they know and what they know their very distinctive voting public believes. So far, few have faced that choice with courage.

Though the president was wrong to invoke it in this context, the Civil War may well have been the last time we suffered a media environment like this. Then, it was censorship laws that kept the truths of the North separated from the truths of the South. And though there was no polling, the ultimate support for the war, at least as manifested initially, demonstrated to each of those separated publics a depth of tribal commitment that was as profound, and tragic, as any in our history. That commitment, driven by those different realities, led America into the bloodiest war in its history.

We’re not going to war today. We are not separated by geography, and we’re not going to take machetes to our neighbors. But the environment of our culture today leaves us less able to work through fundamental differences than at any time in our past. Indeed, as difference drives hate, hate pays-- at least the media companies, and too many politicians.

In a nation dedicated to freedom of the press, it’s not possible—not to mention, desirable-- to legislate limits on political speech. That cannot be the role of government, if democracy is to remain free of state control.

But the nation could use some temporary, if voluntary restraint. The business model of hate may well pay, both politicians and the media. But the cost to the Republic of this profit will be profound. This is a moment to knit common understandings, not a time to craft even more perfectly separated realities.

That knitting could begin with both networks and digital platforms asking not what is best for them, individually, but what would be best for us all, together. Which network or platform strategies will enable a more common understanding among all of us? And which strategies will simply drive even more committed tribe-based ignorance? The norms should be different in the context of impeachment, even if that means networks and platforms would be less profitable. Not because this President, in particular, must be respected, but because any President charged with impeachment deserves a nation that at least understands the charge. If we as a people are to be persistently read because persistently legible, then at least we should know enough in common to make judgments in common.

That would mean that television networks take impeachment as seriously as a civic matter as they now treat it as an entertainment matter. Fox, MSNBC and the others should push opinion-based reporting to the side, and place journalism-based news in prime time. They all must take responsibility for their audience understanding the facts, more than simply rallying its side to its own partisan understanding. Partisan networks may not be a bad thing in general. They are certainly a bad thing in moments like this.

Social media platforms have responsibilities here as well. We don’t yet know the consequences of those platforms forgoing political ads in the context of an entire election season-- even as, and importantly, some are experimenting with this right now. But impeachment could be an important moment to experiment even more fully. This is precisely the kind of question for which we do not need interested ad-driven spin. It is precisely the moment when Facebook and Twitter together could take the lead in turning away ads aimed at rallying a base or trashing the opposition. Whether or not political ads make sense on social media platforms during an election-- at least for races not likely to be targeted by foreign influence-- there is no reason for them here. America’s understanding of this critical event could come through the organic spread of the views of Americans-- and it is just possible that the organic spread alone is not as poisonous as the spread spiked by advertising.

More fundamentally, platforms could block falsity better. Intellectual property on the Internet has long been protected by a notice and takedown regime. If a platform gives copyright owners an easy way to tell it about copyright violations, and if it removes those violations quickly, then the platform is not liable for the infringement. It is time we extend a similar mechanism to defamatory speech. If a platform has been shown the falsity in what it continues to publish, its continued publication should be considered “actual malice,” and thus no longer immune from liability. It’s not clear that the Supreme Court would accept a legislature redefining the scope of this constitutional privilege alone-- it should, but the Court has been jealous about guarding its jurisdiction before. But at least the Court could acknowledge the difference between an initial publication and a continued publication, and focus immunity on the former. Let the platforms establish the mechanisms against malicious claims of falsity. The law might even allow the platform to demand a bond which the person complaining would lose if an independent process determines the complaint was baseless. But platforms without editors cannot be immune from responsibility-- especially when the incentives of clickbait become so central to the business model of online publishing.

None of this, of course, is likely to happen anytime soon, even with an impeachment crisis standing right in front of us. But we should not underestimate the potential for leadership here. There is an equivalent to peaceful nonviolent protest—to an act that so surprises the other side that it forces a recognition that otherwise would be missed. Any prominent actor in the midst of this mess who stepped above the common play might surprise enough to trigger a change. Or even prominent actors not in the midst of this mess—here at least is a role for former presidents. Why don’t we see George Bush and Barack Obama standing together on this, not by directing a result but by counseling the process

No doubt, all this is a big ask-- lucrative networks and social-media platforms unilaterally disarming, or agreeing to a new set of rules. But there’s another way to look at it. Businesses succeed by managing risk, and the risk of a truly destabilizing event here-- a fractured America because of siloed information-- is much greater than the risk of losing some ratings for a few weeks, or months.

Because impeachment is different, and we cannot take for granted that the nation will get through it unharmed, regardless of what anyone does. There is no mechanism that guarantees a democracy’s safety. There is only, and always, the courage of individuals to be better than anyone expects. We saw that with the first witnesses that were called to testify publicly. We need to see it with politicians, ordinary citizens, and corporations as well.

Paul Kane's column in yesterday's Washington Post, Democrats Face A Consequential Choice-- Limited Or Broad Impeachment Articles Against Trump, gets down into the fully partisan weeds inside a Democratic Party grappling with how exactly to proceed with this. On Friday, we saw how craven are conservative Democrats in purple districts who see themselves as jeopardized:

One of the most conservative and cowardly of all the worthless Blue Dogs, Ben McAdams (D-UT): "Activities from the 2016 election, I think, should be left to voters in the 2020 election. My focus is on those things that are forward looking." Basically just as bad as McAdams, a former Republican state legislator pretending to be a Democrat now, slow-witted Blue Dog co-chair Tom O'Halleran, agrees: "I would prefer that we stick to what we have." Elissa Slotkin is an utterly worthless and spineless New Dem from Michigan who the party should be eager to lose. An especially vile creature, she votes like a Republican and sits around whining about losing her reelection bid. "I know that there's some people who are interested in kind of a kitchen sink approach-- let's throw all kinds of things in there because we can and talk about all the things we're concerned about regarding the president. We have been taking the country down this road on this very targeted issue of Ukraine and the issues around the president using his office for personal and political gain. And that's what I think we should focus on." If you survey Democratic staffers and ask them to name the 5 most brain-dead Democrats in Congress, every single list will include Slotkin. Sick of values-free cowards in Congress? That's why we've included... this suggestion from Omaha progressive Kara Eastman on how to respond to impeachment in a purple district:

"Some Democrats," wrote Kane, "particularly the more liberal members of the House Judiciary Committee now writing potential articles, want to wrap in charges against the president linked to Russian interference in the 2016 election to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. Ever since his report was released in the spring, these Democrats believe that Robert S. Mueller III, who served as special counsel, painted a portrait of criminal behavior by Trump that at the least demonstrated an attempt to obstruct justice. 'The real question is whether we want to focus on a singular, discrete episode or focus on patterns of misconduct. And I do think we need to focus on patterns of misconduct, I think that the Constitution directs us to examine that,' said Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-MD), a member of the Judiciary Committee. To ignore the Mueller findings, Raskin and other liberals believe, is to let Trump escape condemnation for a pattern of behavior. 'The misconduct that we saw with respect to the Ukraine shakedown was not some kind of aberration,' he said."

Democrats will have an easier time writing charges against Trump for trying to pressure Ukraine’s leaders into investigations that would have helped the president politically, an inquiry that all but two Democrats supported last month.

The evidence, produced in hearings before the House Intelligence Committee, has only gotten stronger since that vote, so Democrats are optimistic they have more than enough votes already to impeach Trump based on the Ukraine matter.

But any articles reaching beyond Ukraine would renew an old clash between liberals and dozens of Democrats from swing districts where their constituents struggled to understand the complex Mueller findings. This corner of the caucus might well vote against anything not related to Ukraine, risking a potentially embarrassing episode of losing a floor vote on some recommended articles.

...Officially, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters Thursday that she is leaving it up to Judiciary Democrats to make the decisions, but everyone in the caucus knows that she will play an outsized role in settling the dispute.

Rhapsody in Blonde by Nancy Ohanian

Pelosi’s call will go a long way to answering a hypothetical question that historians will ponder decades from now: Would Trump have been impeached based on the Mueller report or did he bungle his way into impeachment over the Ukraine issue?

...Pelosi has offered strong hints that she is leaning toward the more limited articles framed around Trump’s actions withholding $391 million in military aid to Ukraine and a meeting with its new president. On Thursday, she thanked a reporter for noting her past reluctance to base impeachment on the Mueller report, highlighting how it took almost two years to produce.

...Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), a member of the Intelligence Committee, said Democrats should stick with the “fail safe” articles related to Ukraine, rather than risking failed votes on the House floor.

...“There’s a sense that we will move forward on articles of impeachment on which there’s broad consensus and have the support of the caucus,” said Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-RI), a member of the Judiciary Committee. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), a former State Department official, was one of the rare swing-district freshmen to announce support for starting an impeachment inquiry over the Russia probe. But he now wants to focus entirely on Ukraine. “If we went about impeaching President Trump for every possible impeachable act that he’s committed, we’d probably be here until beyond his first term. So my advice has been keep it focused, keep it simple,” Malinowski said Friday. A member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Malinowski sat in on some of the depositions with career diplomats who accused Trump and some associates of an extortion attempt to get investigations that would benefit his 2020 campaign. He suggested that the wording of the impeachment articles might find a way to nod toward the 2016 campaign and other issues, but should focus squarely on Ukraine.

“What he did in putting his personal political interest ahead of the interest of the American people, I think symbolizes all of his abuses of power to this point,” Malinowski said.

Zephyr Teachout In The U.S. House Of Representatives?

You probably remember Zephyr Teachout's spectacular run against Andrew Cuomo in 2014. He beat her in the big city machine counties but she won Albany, where they know him best and she won up and down the Hudson Valley as well. In fact, of the 11 counties that make up NY-19, the seat Chris Gibson is giving up at the end of the year, Zephyr won 10. The biggest county in the district is Ulster, where she beat Cuomo 69.95% to 27.41%. Dutchess is the second biggest county and she beat him there 57.51%- 40.36%. The comes Rensselaer where it was Zephyr 63.42%, Cuomo 33.02%. In Columbia County it was Zephyr 77.91% to 20.43 for Cuomo. And so it went. Only a tiny sliver of Broome County is in the district, the one place show lost, and only 3,449 people voted, of which Cuomo took 49.46% and Zephyr took 44.77%. She won 71.06% in Schoharie County and 72.75% in Otsego County. On average she took 62% of the votes district-wide. Point being... shamed an impression on the folks in NY-19.

It's a blue district with a retiring Republican. The DCCC hasn't been able to find a candidate, although there are five Republicans already running and a couple of Democrats sniffing around. Obama won the district against McCain 53-45% and beat Romney 4 years later 52-46%. NY-19 is not a Trumpf or Cruz kind of district and if either of them is the nominee, it's safe to predict a Democratic tsunami up and down the ticket. She works at Fordham University and has aan partment in Brooklyn and a home in Dover Plains, a hamlet in Dutchess County. Right now she's consulting with Democratic leaders in the district and hopes to make an announcement, one way or the other, in about a week.

The Oneonta Daily Star suggests that both Republican and Democratic Party county leaders are anxious to avoid a costly, divisive primary. That's generally an anti-democratic notion and the Democratic county leaders need to rethink that.

In Cooperstown, Otsego County Democratic Chairman Richard Abbate said he is convinced Democrats have a strong shot at capturing the House seat this year, particularly if Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham Law School professor who challenged incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2014, is selected as his party's nominee.

He said Teachout is set to be interviewed by county Democratic committee members Wednesday. Other possible candidates will also be interviewed. The Daily Star quoted Democratic insiders earlier this week saying Julian Schreibman, who unsuccessfully challenged Gibson in 2012, is interested in making another attempt for the seat this year.

Abbate also said another Democrat, Columbia County farmer Will Yandic, is also interested in running. Yandic received 476 votes last November in getting re-elected to the Livingston Town Board.

"My hope is that the candidates will respect the decision of the party chairmen if we are united" behind one candidate, Abbate said. But if there is division among the chairpersons, he added, "I think it is inevitable that we will have a primary."

Abbate said he is very impressed with Teachout based on her ability to rally the enthusiastic supporters she gained in the 2014 gubernatorial primary against Cuomo.

"Zephyr is someone who has proven she has the ability to get the base motivated," Abbate said. He noted he is hoping the county Democratic leaders throughout the 19th District can unite behind done of the candidates in February.

Congressional primaries in New York will be held June 28, giving voters time to focus on them following the state's April 19 presidential primary elections. As a closed primary state, voters can only vote in the primary for the party in which they are enrolled.

Last week the Kingston Times reported that a local social media movement has sprung up to draft a high-profile progressive into the mix. On Facebook, the page 'Run Zephyr Run-- Drafting Zephyr Teachout to Run for Congress in NY-19' urges the academic and former gubernatorial candidate to jump into the race for the Democratic nomination.

There's no doubt Zephyr would not be just another run-of-the-mill careerist congressmember. She's exactly the kind of unbossed, unbought independent thinker Congress needs more of, regardless of party. When Blue America endorsed her for governor in 2014 she wrote a guest post. Much of it was specific to her contest with Cuomo but there was a broader and more universal theme as well:

Today, Democratic leaders, even some of the good ones, believe that Wall Street creates wealth, and that the role of the government is to protect those monopolies and then kick some of the resulting wealth to the middle class or poor. Their debate is whether to kick back a little, or a little more. Ultimately they think the role of government is to serve charity, not justice.


I believe the basis of wealth creation comes from ordinary citizens who have access to opportunity, and infrastructure. It's the immigrant restaurant, the neighborhood lawyer or baker or farmer, these are the people that build the society we love. Democrats need to represent them, Democrats should make sure that they have power, and that justice doesn't mean charity. It means balanced markets, competition, and flourishing small businesses.

...It's time for a new generation of Democrats, not in age but in spirit, to repudiate the corporate financiers. Liberty is our right as Americans, both negative liberty in that government should not punish the innocent, but also positive liberty in our right to have housing, medicine, education, and economic opportunity. That's why I'm running. That's what the Democratic Party used to stand for, and that's what we're going to make it stand for again.

Democrats Ready to Dump Debbie Dictator

-by Dorothy Reik

Debbie Wasserman Schultz has gotten away with so much that she thought she was invincible. As a Florida state senator she drew herself a congressional seat in southeastern Broward County and the northern Biscayne Bay shoreland of Miami Dade. This is how the D+18 FL-20 was described by non-partisan Almanac of American Politics: "Precinct by precinct, it's computer generated borders are drawn to include heavily Democratic and Jewish areas; while its large gay and lesbian community, Wilton Manors, trails only Provincetown, Massachusetts and Guerneville, California in its proportion of same-sex households." She drew herself a district she could never lose in. And from the gerrymandered South Florida district, she handed down endorsements, supported Republicans and ran roughshod over the grassroots of the Democratic Party, all the while protected by Rahm Emanuel who began his tenure as Obama’s Chief of Staff by firing Howard Dean, the architect of the 50 state solution and installing Wasserman-Shultz who promptly dismantled it.

The plan was straight out of the DLC-- back only Democrats who would go along with Wall Street’s demands and forget Main Street-- raise that big money; never mind the 99%. But they forgot one little detail-- they also needed votes. The hemorrhaging started in 2010 and has continued throughout Obama’s presidency making it almost impossible to get the bills paid let alone do anything to help the hapless citizens. But no matter-- Wasserman Schultz had her fiefdom and who would dare to challenge her? The plan kept Democratic voters away in droves during the critical redistricting election of 2010 allowing the Republicans to gerrymander their way into control of the House while losing the total vote by over a million votes-- but never mind, Debbie’s seat was safe!

So who would dare challenge her majesty? A little known back bencher from Hawaii of all places-- Tulsi Gabbard-- who happened to be one of the vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee! She had been "disinvited" to the first of only six presidential debates scheduled by Debbie Dictator for daring to go on TV and complain about how few debates had been scheduled and that four of the measly six debates were to take place on weekends when no one would be watching. Was Wasserman Schultz trying to help her friend Hillary? So it would seem. Wall Street Hillary vs Main Street Bernie-- which candidate would Debbie Dictator support? Not the people choice! Debbie goes with the punditocracy and their media puppet masters who are scared to death of a Bernie presidency.

So let the pile on begin. R.K. Ryback, next out of the gate, appeared on Meet the Press’ weekday edition yesterday to back up his fellow vice-chair after telling Bloomberg News that he questioned whether Wasserman Schultz has "the leadership skills to get us through the election." Asked if he was calling on her to resign he answered that he was "coming really close." Seems Little Debbie lied when she said she had consulted her vice chairs about her debate plans. She had not. And that may finally be her undoing. Although she is adamant that she will never retire voluntarily.



A major West Coast Bernie supporter, author and progressive former congressional candidate Marianne Williamson, has also been raising the tricky issue of why Lawrence Lessig has been banned from the Democratic debates. Earlier today, she told us that "Debbie Wasserman Schulz not allowing Lawrence Lessig into the Democratic debates-- while she does allow Chafee and Webb, who've raised virtually no dollars compared to Lessig's million-plus-- is outrageous. Lawrence is out there campaigning and talking about his ideas. Is Jim Webb? We should all be crying 'Foul!' at the top of our lungs."

As the controversies heat up and Democrats start paying attention, they will find out that in Florida the DNC under Wasserman Schultz has been pushing Republican-lite Democrat Patrick Murphy over the voters’ favorite, progressive icon Alan Grayson. In Illinois, the Wasseman Schultz DNC has endorsed moderate Tammy Duckworth over progressive Andrea Zopp; in Ohio Ted Strickland, the NRA’s favorite son, is endorsed over P.G. Sittenfeld, another progressive. Keep that Wall Street money rolling in. Even in California Debbie Dictator teamed up with Emily’s list to endorse an opponent to Lou Vince, yet another progressive favorite. That is not going well at all.

Howard Dean's brother, Jim Dean, chairman of Democracy For America, is urging his members to petition Wasserman Schultz to clean up her act. After the debate, he wrote to this this week that "no one was more excited about the Democratic candidates' performances than the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In a statement released after the debate, she bragged:

"In just two and a half hours of debate, our Democratic candidates covered more serious topics and bold ideas than the GOP candidates could muster in nearly 10 hours of debate. By a long shot. The contrast between each party's candidates, values and policies was demonstrated in stark terms..."

His strategy is to get her to reform her ways, not necessarily retire. Who knows-- it may work.

Wasserman Schultz is exactly right-- Tuesday's debate showed America that our top tier Democratic candidates are intelligent, ready to lead and full of great ideas that would make this country a better place for working families. So you would think that Democratic leadership would want people to pay more attention to our strong field of candidates and their great ideas, not less.

Yet despite significant pushback from Democratic voters, the major campaigns and even some of her own vice chairs, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is still refusing to lift the "exclusivity rule" that forbids the Democratic candidates from participating in additional debates. That's unacceptable.

We're proud of our candidates and their progressive values. It's time to stop hiding them: Tell Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC to drop the "exclusivity rule" and allow more Democratic presidential debates!

For weeks, voters have been bombarded week in and week out with the mud-slinging and racist, sexist antics of the GOP field-- with no clear Democratic alternative in sight. The result has been a laser focus by the press on issues that matter to the far-right, like restricting abortion and punishing immigrants. We need that to change.

By refusing to let our candidates participate in press-worthy debates, the DNC is making it harder for the electorate to learn about Democratic priorities-- and that could come back to bite us up and down the ticket next November.

Tuesday night's debate drew more than 15.3 million viewers-- it was the most watched Democratic primary debate in history. That number alone should prove that there is a clear hunger in this country for something different and more substantiative than the circus act the Republicans have been offering.

As Wasserman Schultz herself acknowledged, our candidates are ready, willing and able to give voters the type of serious policy discussion they're looking for-- and to draw the sharpest contrast possible with the out-of-control GOP. The only thing standing in their way right now is the DNC itself.

Or, better yet... perhaps we are about to witness the dethroning of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and not a moment too soon. There are progressives to elect, legislation to pass, wars to end, wages to raise and roads and bridges to build. We need real Democrats in office. A new New Deal. A cleaning up and reining in of a Wall Street given a pass by the Obama administration. The time has come to say good-bye to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

Dorothy Reik has been an occasional DWT commenter. She is president of Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains and an at-large board member of the California Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus-- as well as a 1964 Phi Beta Kappa CCNY Magna Cum Laude graduate.

Bill Moyers: Zephyr Teachout And Larry Lessig Have Only Begun To Fight

This week's guest on Bill Moyers shows were two academics-- Zephyr Teachout And Larry Lessig-- who "decided to practice what they preached. They left the classroom, confronted the reality of down-and-dirty politics, and tried to replace moneyed interests with the public interest." Teachout stunned Andrew Cuomo and his backers by winning over a third of the vote and 30 of New York's 62 counties. She won Ulster County with 70%, Schoharie County with 71.7%, Columbia County with 77.9% and Albany County, where they know Cuomo best, with 61.9%. Cuomo spent $60.62 per vote. Teachout ran a more frugal and cost-effective campaign; she only spent $1.57 per vote. (Cuomo's hand-picked conservative ex-lobbyist Lt Gov. pick, Kathy Hochul, fared even worse against Tim Wu, another academic, beating him, but only 60-40%.) As for Lessig, only two of his Mayday PAC's candidates won-- progressive Democrat Ruben Gallego (AZ) and moderate Republican Walter Jones (NC). Their high profile losses were Greg Orman (I-KS), Paul Clements (D-MI), Rick Weiland (D-SD), Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) and Staci Appel (D-IA), all loud opponents of big money in politics. Moyers asked Lessig why that message, his organization's organizing principle failed.

Lessig explained that although his candidates didn't win, his message didn't lose. "[T]he critics have been gloating of course. They call me an egghead, they say it's a complete failure. Look, they're right about me being an egghead. There's no doubt about that. But it wasn't a failure in the sense that the data we have shows that people care about this issue. Zephyr's campaign I think showed that. But in the races that we were in, we moved people to care about this issue and to vote on the basis of this issue. Now of course, not enough to overcome the tsunami of Republican victories. Obviously, we were not able to overcome that. But that's not what we were pushing against. We were pushing against a view expressed in Politico. The view was: This is a quote, 'zero issue.' It doesn't move voters at all. And that's just not true. We think it moves voters more than issues that I think of as fundamental, like, climate change or unions. This is an issue that really rallies people because they are so tired of the corruption of the system.

LESSIG: [A]s the percentage of economic elite who support an idea goes up, the probability of it passing goes up. As the organized interests care about something more and more, the probability of it passing goes up. But as the average voter cares about something, it has no effect at all, statistically no effect at all on the probability of it passing. If we can go from zero percent of the average voters caring about something to 100 percent and it doesn't change the probability of it actually being enacted. And when you look at those numbers, that graph, this flat line, that flat line is a metaphor for our democracy. Our democracy is flat lined. Because when you can show clearly there's no relationship between what the average voter cares about, only if it happens to coincide with what the economic elite care about, you've shown that we don't have a democracy anymore.

TEACHOUT: And we don't. But we have still these forms that allow for access to power. I mean, I look and I’m really inspired by what's happening in Hong Kong. Those young students would do so much to have the access to the levers of power that we have now. So I think of it more like where we were in 1901 or 1902, where we had formal access to power, but, you know, if you and I were talking then, we'd be just as dispirited. You know, the big trusts really ran politics. I bet if there was a Princeton study of 1901... You'd find a flat-line relationship between what people wanted and what was happening. And yet, what you saw is this, you know, decades-long populist effort, finally finding fruit in the Tillman Act, the 1907 law, which banned direct corporate contributions to campaigns. And so I find hope actually from history, because we've had this disconnect between democracy and our formal rules before.

MOYERS: Why is it we are failing? You as scholars and activists, we as journalists, in helping people understand that much of what happens to them is the consequence of how our elections are funded. Because many of the people that you care about voted against you a week ago.

LESSIG: Well, I don't think the people are confused about whether democracy is working for them. I think they understand the problem. What we've got to do is to give them a sense that there's a solution. We've gotta prove that there's a way to fix this problem. And that's what, you know, lots of different efforts are trying to do. Trying to give people a practical sense that there's something they can do...

You know, when we marched in-- across New Hampshire, and we would meet people on the street. There was such deep passion for finding a way to finally get back control of our government. There was no argument that we had to have with them to prove, "Look, here's a Princeton study that shows that--" they got the Princeton study... And so it's just giving them hope. Give them a sense that there is something to do. And when we give people a map, a way to understand how it's possible. You know, we could fix 80 percent of this problem tomorrow with one statute that would establish a different way to fund campaigns. We don't have to change the constitution to do that... small-dollar, public-funding of elections, even with this Supreme Court tomorrow.

...MOYERS: And realistically though, if you have a statute or law, piece of legislation that could solve some of the problem, not all of it, you have no hope of getting it through in a Congress that's run by Senator Mitch McConnell, who more than any other man in Congress today has enshrined the notion of monopoly as the game of politic.

LESSIG: No, that's right. But if we can imagine in 2016 changing control of Congress. And critically recruiting a number of principled Republicans to the idea that this corrupt system is corrupt, then I think it's completely possible. And more and more, grassroots Republicans are recognizing that they're not going to get what they want either under this system, where they have to sell out to the big interest. Look at David Brat's victory over Eric Cantor... And what his argument was, is that Eric Cantor had become a crony capitalist because he spent all of his time sucking up to the Wall Street bankers rather than advancing conservative causes. Now, the conservatives are increasingly getting this, just as the liberals have understood this. And if we can begin to get people to recognize that, "Look, we can differ on fundamental issues, but this really fundamental issue, we don't differ about." We have to find a way to make a democracy responsive to the voters.

TEACHOUT: But I want to also talk about the Democratic Party here though. Because there's a real split within the Democratic Party between the Wall Street wing and progressive, populist wing. And I'm a Democrat. And, you may not know this, but in 1924, I believe, a part of the Democratic party platform was public financing of elections... [w]hen we look at Democratic losses, it's in part because enough, some, Democrats aren't telling the truth about what's happening in the economy. And people are going to respond. If they hear a candidate who's lying to them about everything being okay, instead of some real truth telling, and some real truth telling about what's wrong with politics and what's wrong with power, and if Democrats can truly embrace public financing as a root issue, not as a sort of fussy, side reform, but as the root issue which enables Democrats to actually care about, you know, what's happening in working-class people's lives, I think you're going to see a lot more excitement.

It's the sense that Democrats aren't really telling you the truth. Or they're really working for Wall Street and they say they're not, that I think turns people off. And I think there's an extraordinary opportunity. Look, I know the odds are low. Václav Havel has this wonderful-- I'm not going to get it exactly right... He says this thing about hope, which I find very powerful, that hope is not the same thing as optimism. Optimism is the belief something is likely to happen. Hope is the belief that it is possible and it is worth doing.

I see the power structures in this country. And if I'm going to be telling the truth to people, I'll tell them honestly, we're in tough shape. You know, the house is on fire in terms of our democracy. We are flat-lining in terms of responsiveness. But we still have opportunities if we take the moment, take this moment of extraordinary frustration and engage people directly on the root issue honestly and provide a path through. And I think we have to go that way instead of these half measures that aren't really engaging the root issue.

MOYERS: So Shane Goldmacher at the National Journal wrote, money didn't buy the midterm elections. Quote, "few observers would place the blame on a lack of money. Instead, most would point to a tough political environment, a hostile Senate map, and-- more than anything else-- an unpopular president, as the factors that dragged down Democrats nationwide." To what extent do you think money mattered last week?

TEACHOUT: It mattered enormously. It mattered in the selection of candidates. You know, long before we even heard their names, the candidates were selected if they were basically comfortable working for big-money donors. And that in itself gets you out of the realm of inspirational leadership. And then, of course, it mattered in the drowning of ads and the sense that people outside of any accountable power, super PACs outside of any accountable power, were really sort of running the system. So, I think made a huge difference. And I think if you instead imagine the counterfactual, imagine this last election where in every competitive district, you'd seen competitive primaries with people with publicly financed campaigns who stepped forward because they had something to say, not 'cause they were next in line and not because they could raise money. We would have seen an extraordinary democratic, proud, fearless, populist fighting force. And I think they would've done very well.

LESSIG: So, you've got to think about the psychology that Zephyr describes, of spending 50 percent to 70 percent of your time raising money. Those people were constantly aware about how what they say would affect the money in their race. And they said things that they knew would not risk too much, relative to the money.

So, even if the money doesn't win, you know, when they said in 2012, Karl Rove lost, that was completely naïve. Karl Rove won, even if he didn't win any race. Because what he did was to define the lines that you couldn't cross. And what that has produced is exactly the kind of Democratic Party that Zephyr is attacking, one that is more interested in making sure they can continue to get the Wall Street money by not being too anti-Wall Street, instead of worrying about how we can get an economy again that is actually responding to what voters care about.

TEACHOUT: Let me give you an example from my campaign. So, I did this fundraising. And I repeatedly heard from my bigger-end donors that they were not particularly excited about teachers' unions. I'm a big supporter of teachers' unions. So, I was very aware. And it was a choice I made. But I was very aware that every time that I went on television or Twitter or anywhere else talking about teachers' unions, that would have an effect on my funding base. The easier thing to do is to just ignore the issue, to say, "Well, I secretly agree with it. But I'm not going to say anything. 'Cause that's gonna affect my funding base." And then, you end up with these milquetoast candidates who aren't saying anything because they know where the public is and they know where their donors are and there's very little where there's an overlap.

LESSIG: There was a wonderful leak in the course of this last campaign, a memo that Michelle Nunn's campaign had developed... And a headline for the story was that the memo said she needed to spend 80 percent of her time raising money. But the really incredible part of the memo was where it went through every single issue that she was going to have to address and described which position she would have to take to raise the most money. Now, you know, she's a Democrat. I think she's an exciting candidate. And I'm sorry she lost. But you can't believe that when she was running in Georgia, she was not thinking about exactly how that money would matter in just the way that Zephyr is describing.

You can order Zephyr Teachout's new book, Corruption In America at the DWT Books and Music Store. Here's the book's introduction:

The Citizens United decision was not merely bad law; it was bad for politics, and displayed an even worse understanding of history. Americans from James Madison onward have argued that it is possible for politicians and citizens alike to try to achieve a kind of public good in the public sphere. The traditional view is not naive-- it does not assume that people are generally public regarding. It assumes that the job of government is to create structures to curb temptations that lead to exaggerated self-interest. It certainly recognizes the power of self-interest; but instead of endorsing it, the traditional American approach makes it government’s job to temper egocentrism in the public sphere. The traditional conception implicates difficult questions: What is self-orientation and public orientation, and what is the public good? But it does not discard these distinctions because they are difficult ones to parse. A classical American approach engages the complexity. Like liberty, speech or equality, corruption is an important concept with unclear boundaries. It refers to excessive private interests in the public sphere; an act is corrupt when private interests trump public ones in the exercise of public power and a person is corrupt when they use public power for their own ends, disregarding others.

Corruption in America is my effort to fill in the history that Citizens United ignored. It provides a previously neglected story of the use of the concept in American law and a much-needed account of the different kinds of meanings attached to it throughout the political life of the country. I show that for most of American history, courts remained committed to a broad view of corruption. The book draws primarily upon the texts used by lawyers: the Constitutional Convention, cases and statutes. It shows how, starting in the late 1970s, everything began to change around this issue.

The Supreme Court, along with a growing subset of scholars, began to confuse the concept of corruption and throw out many of the prophylactic rules that were used to protect against it. This rejection has led to an overflow of private industry involvement in political elections and a rapid decline in the civic ethic in Congress and the state houses. The old ideas about virtue were tossed out as sentimental, but the old problems of corruption and government have persisted. Interest-group pluralists who reject these ideas do not, I believe, have an answer to the problem of corruption and in fact have been part of the problem.

The contemporary era is full of proverbial diamond-encrusted gifts, although they are less likely to come from the king of France. Instead, they come from the lords of highly concentrated, monopolistic industries who, like the king of France in 1785, have an intense and personal interest in the political choices of the legislative branches and a casual disregard for the civic process.

Candidates are dependent upon the gifts of wealthy individuals in the form of campaign contributions and businesses in the form of independent political expenditures. The impulse to resist these presents is a deeply American one, going all the way back introduction to the founding. But in order to protect this resistance, we will need tools and approaches that are alien to the modern law and economic transactional understandings of corruption.

The book argues that prophylactic rules designed to limit temptations are not a backwater but a cornerstone of what is best in our country. In our modern prosecutorial culture, one might be tempted to think that white-collar bribery laws, which I categorized as “corrupt intent” laws, would be the appropriate tool for fighting corruption. But they are problematic. If a bribery statute is narrowly drawn (or interpreted), it covers only brazen, unsophisticated exchanges and does not actually solve problems of money being used to influence policy and undermine representative government. A narrow law will punish only clumsy politicians like William Jefferson, who hid his rolls of cash in a freezer.

More broadly interpreted corrupt intent laws are troubling for the opposite reason: since they proscribe giving a “thing of value” with “intent to influence” governmental action, they can be used to punish political enemies. By their terms, they can even cover a politician’s promise to help a teachers’ group in exchange for an endorsement. A criminal law “War on Corruption” is arguably like the wars on drugs or terror-- nearly impossible to win in arraignments.

Corruption is far better fought through changing basic incentive structures. This might seem intuitive to anyone involved in politics, but the majority of the current Supreme Court openly prefer bribery laws to prophylactic campaign spending limits: one of their justifications for striking down campaign finance rules is that corrupt intent laws provide better protection.

I seek to enrich the way American judges, scholars and citizens imagine the concept of corruption and its relationship to our legal system. The book challenges four commonly held misconceptions: that corruption law began in the post-Watergate era, that criminal bribery law is the dominant sphere in which corruption law plays out, that bribery law is coherent and consistent and that quid pro quo is the heart of corruption law. A deeper understanding of the tradition of corruption can enrich our civic culture and our laws.

If the Supreme Court can better remember our past, it might overturn dozens of cases that have limited the capacity of elected legislatures to make their own experiments in democracy. And if we, as citizens, can remember our past, it could augment the way we think about our founding principles. What if we could add “anti-corruption” to citizens’ sense of national identity?

Blue America's Final Stretch-- South Dakota, Maine, MI-06, CA-33

For our final push, Blue America ran independent expenditures in 4 races, two for Senate seats and two in House races. When Adelson and his slimy allies jumped into the CA-33 race with a million dollars worth of racist smear against Ted Lieu, we decided to reach likely voters with a full page ad in the L.A. Times, which we think has worked very well. Early vote returns from Democrats started spiking very sharply as soon as the ad ran. Ted Lieu is now significantly ahead of the Adelson puppet in the race. The two Senate races are both long-shots, one in South Dakota against Mike Rounds and one in Maine against Susan Collins. Both are songs running for voting age adults in those two states only. If you click on the links, you'll hear the two songs. As of yesterday, 39,886 South Dakotans have opted to listen to at least 30 seconds of the song. In Maine-- maybe because of a lingering fondness for The Beatles, 74,987 voting age adults have decided to listen to at least 30 seconds of the song. The experts are betting against both of our candidates, Rick Weiland and Shenna Bellows, each of whom has been running a valiant grassroots effort against Big Money interests.

The national parties in DC have largely ignored both races, although in South Dakota perhaps "ignoring" would have been better than the undermining that actually took place. Rick Weiland, the progressive there, has urged his fellow Democratic Senate candidates across the country to vote out Reid as leader and replace him with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders or Dick Durbin. This is a letter he sent out to the other candidates running for the Senate:

Today I am contacting you to report that, while my reasons for opposing Senator Reid, and the issues in my state, may both be different than those in yours, I thought you would be interested in what has happened in my campaign since I pledged to work for new leadership in the Senate.

There are obviously a host of factors at work in any political campaign at the end. Nevertheless, it is a fact that our tracking polls have tightened dramatically since that time, and that the effort to replace Senator Reid is being seen as an important indicator of a commitment to change and of the courage to challenge the powers that be on behalf of that change rather than as a procedural move with regard to a Senator they barely know.

I wish you the very best of luck in your campaign, and I look forward, should we each be fortunate enough to succeed in our campaigns, to working with you to bring new leadership to our party, the Senate, and the country at large.

Sincerely,

Rick Weiland
Democratic candidate for United States Senate
Sioux Falls, SD

Reid, who has worked consistently to sabotage Weiland since he decided to run had his spokesperson, Adam Jentleson, shoot back immediately, "Desperation is an ugly thing, and it’s sad to see Rick Weiland ending his ill-advised campaign and brief political career by attacking fellow Democrats."

Beltway trade papers were happier to cover the spat than they were to cover Weiland's actual campaign. "Reid himself," one wrote, "always preferred Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, and he successfully pushed for retiring Sen. Tim Johnson’s son Brendan, who is a U.S. attorney, not to run last year. But Weiland got in at the encouragement of former Sen. Tom Daschle, his onetime boss. That caused Herseth Sandlin not to run. National Democrats then sat on the sidelines for more than a year, until some internal polling showed that a four-way race-- and a visa-for-cash scandal made former Republican Gov. Mike Rounds look vulnerable. But now Weiland is making Democrats regret the play. He’s attacking Reid as a tool of big money interests. 'We need to stick a thumb in the eye of the corrupt old politics that has sold out to the highest bidder,' Weiland said in a press release today," a reference to Reid. With Weiland's super-corrupt GOP opponent, Mike Rounds, joined at the hip to Mitch McConnell, South Dakota voters are seeing what real independence from the Beltway power structure looks like.

The second House race Blue America is spending money in is one of this year's real cliff-hangers. Our ad running in southwest Michigan for the MI-06 seat Fred Upton has been occupying since 1987. As of yesterday, 41,535 voting age Michiganders living in the district had chosen to watch at least 30 seconds of it. Again, the DC power-mongers-- this time DCCC chairman Steve Israel in the lead-- have actively opposed the progressive Democrat, Paul Clements. Progressive champion Alan Grayson, though, made a compelling case for Clements. Lawrence Lessig, the reformer who's MayDay PAC has put over $2 million into exposing Upton is the hero of this campaign, stepping in to do the job the DCCC should be doing. Lessig:

A month ago, Rep. Fred Upton might have thought he was cruising to another landslide re-election, and then everything changed.

On Wednesday morning, a new internal poll from challenger Paul Clements shows Upton’s lead has been narrowed to just 4 points. And Wednesday afternoon, the Cook Political Report, one of the most respected political handicappers in the nation, downgraded Upton’s chances from “solid” to “likely.”

To be sure, Upton has reason to be concerned. On October 9th, MAYDAY.US, a Super PAC fighting to fundamentally reform the way campaigns are funded, announced it would spend $1.5 million to defeat Upton and elect reformer Paul Clements. MAYDAY has since announced its commitment to spend $2.15 million in this race.

Paul Clements is running the most competitive race against Upton in a decade in a district President Obama won by 8 points in 2008 and narrowly lost in 2012, when Upton won reelection by the smallest margin of his career.

When it comes to Fred Upton, the link between the people who fund his campaigns and the way he votes in Congress is crystal clear.

Upton has taken $10 million in special interest PAC money over his career. He took $2.1 million from Big Oil and energy interests, and he voted to give away billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies. He took $1.4 million from drug and insurance companies, and voted to make seniors pay more for the prescriptions they need.

Once MAYDAY started its campaign to inform voters in Southwest Michigan, Fred Upton’s campaign went into panic mode. Upton:

• Lobbed inaccurate attacks against MAYDAY
• Hastily threw together a response ad
• Abruptly cancelled his only scheduled debate with Clements
• Dramatically escalated his campaign spending
• Possibly violated House ethics rules by reaching out to MAYDAY donors

In the last week of the campaign, Upton has bought approximately 4,000 gross ratings points in the Grand Rapids market alone-- and half of those ads are in direct response to MAYDAY’s campaign.

In the midst of the Upton campaign’s scramble, a series of unforced errors by the congressman and his staff have started a simmering scandal that threatens to boil over in the closing days of this campaign. On October 17th, Upton told the Kalamazoo Gazette he had talked to several of MAYDAY’s major donors about our campaign against him. Three days later, the Huffington Post reported Gary Andres, Upton’s top committee aide, had reached out to “spook” MAYDAY donors whose businesses are regulated by the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee that Upton chairs.

Since then, the Upton camp’s story has, shall we say, evolved. After admitting that he spoke with several donors, Upton’s campaign first called the allegations “ hogwash,” then said Upton spoke to only one MAYDAY donor, who happened to call Upton. Following the Huffington Post report, Andres first denied “making angry calls,” but later told the Herald-Palladium he sent messages to a MAYDAY donor through the donor’s lobbyist in Washington.

This Upton saga is straight out of the pages of Peter Schweizer’s book Extortion, and serves as a perfect example of how politicians legally extort money from big corporations for personal and political benefit. It may also contribute to Upton’s undoing. I’ve recently written to the House Office of Congressional Ethics requesting an investigation into the reports that Upton and his staff tried to intimidate MAYDAY’s donors and the American Democracy Legal Fund has filed a similar request.

MAYDAY decided to work to defeat Fred Upton because he is the epitome of the modern corrupt politician and because we believed voters in the 6th Congressional District of Michigan care enough about taking big money out of politics to support a reformer like Paul Clements. Our own polling has shown significant movement in Upton’s job performance and favorability ratings since our campaign began.

As we enter the final days of this campaign, it looks like MAYDAY’s work and Upton’s unforced errors may results in a surprising result on Election Day.

Fred Upton Cancels The One Debate He Had Agreed To With Paul Clements-- And It Wasn't Even About A Fan

Fred Upton only agreed, reluctantly, to one debate— and only after Paul Clements started gaining tremendous traction in the southwest Michigan 6th congressional district. Upton, an heir to the Whirlpool fortune that once— but no longer— was the biggest employer in the area, doesn’t like being questioned or reminded of his record. Shipping all those Whirlpool jobs— i.e., Republican-backed “outsourcing”— doesn’t go over well with his constituents.

Western Michigan along the 94 in towns from Three Oaks, New Buffalo, Sawyer up through Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, and over to the 196 through Lake Michigan Beach, South Haven and Saugatuck is one of the most environmentally sophisticated areas of the country and they are not supporters of Upton’s GOP agenda of despoiling the natural beauty of one of America’s most beautiful areas for the benefit of a few wealthy corporate exploiters.

Yesterday, though, Upton suddenly canceled the one debate. He claims it interfered with the Ebola hearings in his committee, which ended at 3pm and had been scheduled almost 2 weeks ago. Yes, the hearings ended in plenty of time for Upton to hustle his ass back to Lake Michigan College— if he wanted to— for the 8:15 PM debate. Mark Miller, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party's 6th District Committee: “Last month, he ducked a debate request in Kalamazoo, and now he's cancelled the debate he agreed to over a month ago in Berrien County. The hearing he cites as a conflict started at noon, and he's known about it for two weeks. The debate was scheduled to being at 8:15 PM. I'm not a travel agent, but a quick search online shows multiple flights available that could have allowed Congressman Upton to keep his commitments to the people of southwest Michigan. I am sure that Congressman Upton has more than enough money for a flight after taking millions from the special interests, including over one million dollars from the health insurance industry. Members of Congress should be able to do more than one thing at once.”

Upton is starting to unravel in the face of the first campaign to ever give him a real challenge. He had been counting on his fellow Establishment shill, DCCC chairman Steve Israel, to protect him again— and Israel has put tremendous effort into preventing Democratic donors and PACs from helping Paul Clements. But the slimy Israel was unable to stop Lawrence Lessig’s non-partisan, good government, crowd-sourced operation, the MayDay PAC, from jumping into the race to finally let MI-06 voters know the truth about what Upton has been doing in DC and how he’s changed since they first elected him in 1986.

Upton has now focused his campaign on inchherent attacks against Lessig, calling him— falsely— “a Harvard billionaire,” whatever that’s supposed to convey. This race is turning into the single most important House race in the country— one that pits The People against the Beltway Establishment (Upton’s GOP crooks and Israel’s Democratic crooks).

Republican heavyweight Mark McKinnon, the former George W. Bush adviser, who co-founded MayDay PAC with Lessig: “Fred Upton obviously couldn't sit still while we told the truth about his record of putting the big-money special interests ahead of the people so he put up this misleading ad. At least he's wasting a bunch of that special interest money he has raised over the years. Chairman Upton is welcome to air all the ads he wants, and we intend to keep telling the voters of Southwest Michigan that we can't afford Fred Upton anymore." 

Yesterday, Fred Upton’s campaign released a new ad making provably false claims that Fred Upton has protected seniors’ access to Medicare and worked to secure coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

The truth is that Fred Upton is not on the side of regular people:

•        Upton has taken nearly $10 million in special interest money from PAC’s.
•        Upton voted against legislation that would have allowed lower drug prices and later voted in favor of the Ryan Budget, which was described by ABC News as the ‘end of Medicare as we know it’.
•       Upton has also been steadfast in support for changing federal health insurance law to eliminate insurance coverage for some of the most vulnerable patients.

…MYTH: “Fred Upton has always been on our side.”

FACT: Upton has received nearly $10 Million from special interests.

According to records maintained by CQ Political MoneyLine, Upton had received $9,996,939 from PACs during his career.

MYTH: Upton is “Working to protect seniors’ access to life-saving medications.”

FACT: In 2007 Upton Voted against Medicare Prescription Drug Negotiation Act. According to Govtrack.us, the bill “require[s] the Secretary of HHS to negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers the prices that may be charged to prescription drug plan sponsors and Medicare Advantage organizations [Roll Number 23, 1/12/07; Govtrack.us]

FACT: According to the New York Times, this proposal “would allow medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for millions of older Americans.” [New York Times, 4/18/07]

MYTH: Upton is “Fighting for and winning a Medicare prescription drug plan that saved seniors money on prescription drugs.”

FACT: In 2011, Upton Voted for the Ryan Budget, which would have turned Medicare into a voucher Program. [House Vote 277, 4/15/11]

FACT: According to ABC News, “Critics Have Called Ryan’s 2011 Proposal, the ‘End of Medicare as We Know It,’ and That’s True...Individuals Would Have to Pay More under His Plan.” [ABC News, 8/11/12]

FACT: In 2011, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that the typical 65-year-old’s out-of Pocket Expenses would more than double— from $6,150 to $12,500—in first year vouchers would apply. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4/7/11]

MYTH: Upton is “fighting to ensure those with pre-existing conditions can stay covered. That’s the real Fred Upton, fighting for us.”

FACT: According to Upton’s Website, he “Supports Full Repeal of Obamacare…” [Upton.House.gov, 5/16/13]

FACT: According to the Kaiser Family Foundation “Obamacare Bars Insurers from Denying Coverage to People with Pre-Existing Conditions…Or Conditions that Began before Coverage Began.” [Kaiser Family Foundation, 10/1/13]

Right now Clements looks like he’s going to win handily in the Kalamazoo area. His campaign needs help with field operations in the western part of the district, where the Michigan Democratic Party isn’t doing anything. If you can volunteer, here the place. If you can contribute, this is the page.

MI-06-- Lawrence Lessig Steps Into The Breach Left By An Incompetent DCCC

The most likely House seat in Michigan to go from Red to Blue is the 6th district in the southwest corner of the state, Fred Upton’s district. The PVI is R+1. Obama won the district against McCain 184,186 (53%) to 156,835 (45%) in 2008. Senator Debbie Stabenow won the district. Senator Carl Levin won the district. Today polling shows that Democratic senatorial candidate Gary Peters is beating GOP nut job Terri Lynn Land in MI-06 by double digits. Another poll— this one commissioned by MoveOn from PPP— showed voters in the district eager to get rid of Upton… and by a very wide margin.

But instead of investing in a winnable seat held by the arch-villain chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Steve Israel decided to throw away millions of dollars pursing unwinnable seats:

• MI-01- PVI- R+5
• MI-07- PVI- R+3
• MI-11- PVI- R+4

In recent weeks, Israel screwed over his recruits, Jerry Cannon, Pam Byrnes and Bobby McKenzie, leaving their campaigns high and dry (more hapless victims of The Steve Israel Effect). But the money he withdrew from their media buys is being lavished on Israel’s corrupt crony in California, Pete Aguilar and on a very right-wing Blue Dog in Nebraska, Brad Ashford. People begged him to spend the money on the vibrant, grassroots campaign Paul Clements is running in MI-06. Israel scowled.

But Lawrence Lessig’s non-partisan, good-government, crowd-sourced MayDay PAC stepped in. Last week we saw their first ad for Clements’ campaign, the first ad ever to hold Fred Upton accountable in his own district. This morning, they released a second one (up top), based on messaging that is resonating from voters sick and tired of how Upton has changed to accommodate himself to the GOP’s dominant extremist Tea Party wing.

MayDay PAC is putting over a million dollars into TV ads in MI-06. Clements is covered. Now he’s concentrating all his efforts on building the best field operation of any congressional campaign in the state— and the best Get Out the Vote effort. If you can spare some cash, there is no contribution too small. You can contribute here at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Enough already!