How Big A Let Down Have The Democrats Been?

Well... alas, pretty big. In the new issue of Rolling Stone Tim Dickinson takes on the Democratic Senate leadership. Below I want to talk anecdotally about some Democratic Party letdowns but first take a look at what ex-Democrat/current independent candidate for Congress, Steve Porter has to say and let's look at some of Dickinson's most salient points. He points out what a shill NY reptile Chuck Schumer has been for crooked billionaire Wall Street operators, "championing one of the biggest tax breaks for billionaires in the history of the republic [as] Democrats in the House fought to close a loophole that levies a tax rate of only 15 percent... on hedge-fund managers who make as much as $3.7 billion a year. But when the debate reached the Senate, Schumer broke with his fellow Democrats and sided with Wall Street-- inspiring the hedge-fund industry to hail him as its 'guardian.'"

Another New York member of Congress, seems to be criticizing Schumer and other Insider Democrats who serve the interests of a very generous plutocracy (generous to their career aspirations that is): Rep. Charles Rangel, who led the hedge-fund tax in the House: "America's middle class have been forgotten. It seems that those with the money have the power." And Harry Reid is backing Schumer and the hedge fund crooks up. Why? They are financing the DSCC, the same way other equally corrupt corporate special interests have financed the NRSC and Bush and the GOP. With power-hungry sleazebags like Schumer (or McConnell for that matter, a kind of Schumer doppelganger in many horrifying ways) in charge do you think effective campaign finance regulations-- taking the billions of dollars pumped into our political system by special interests eager for special consideration-- will ever be enacted? There's only one answer and it has two letters and the first is "no."

According to campaign-finance records, seven of the country's 10 richest hedge-fund managers contributed an average of $24,400 to the DSCC last year. "Schumer didn't want to turn the spigot off," says Bob McIntyre, director of the nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice. All told, the hedge-fund and private-equity sectors have showered the Democrats with more than $14 million this year-- double what they have given Republicans.

As the hedge-fund fiasco demonstrates, Democrats have turned the Senate into the chamber where good legislation goes to die. Since regaining the majority in 2006, the Democrats have granted the Bush administration and big telephone companies immunity for illegal wiretapping, declared a branch of the Iranian military a terrorist organization and stuffed the recent Foreclosure Prevention Act with far more goodies for big lenders than for struggling homeowners [$25 billion in corporate welfare-- including, outrageously, billions in tax breaks to speculative home builders who helped create the disastrous housing bubble in the first place-- and only $9 billion for struggling homeowners]. They also confirmed Attorney General Michael Mukasey despite his refusal to disavow torture-- a move engineered by Schumer. "You really want to like the Democrats," says Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Then they go and do shit like this."

...The bitter truth in the Senate is that it's not Republicans who are betraying the Democratic agenda-- it's Democrats themselves. "It's not the Congress that's ineffective," says Rangel. "It's not the promises that Nancy Pelosi made. We have passed the courageous bills — but for what? To be told what's 'acceptable' by the Senate." These days, he adds bitterly, "We don't need no House of Representatives. All we need to do is go over and ask the Senate, 'What have you Democrats and Republicans agreed to?'"

But the problem with the Insider Democrats who think they know better than the grassroots isn't just about Harry Reid and the NY Reptile-- and it isn't even only about Republican-lite Blue Dogs conspiring with the GOP to thwart a progressive agenda. House Democrats are always whining that it's the Blue Dogs who hold them back and there is a modicum of truth in that. But then how do you explain the fact that the House Democrats consistently break their own rules to prevent real Democrats from being nominated by throwing DCCC support behind Blue Dogs? Oh, they stopped doing that when Emanuel moved upstairs, you say? Well, Chris Van Hollen promised they would-- but they haven't.

Just yesterday the DCCC violated it's own rules by following John Boehner, Tom Cole and the NRCC down an old Stalinist model for candidate selection, backing a clueless Insider stooge, Ann Kirkpatrick in AZ-01 over a grassroots progressive, Howard Shanker. This thoroughly anti-democratic, old Communist regime way of doing things is working out really badly, even catastrophically, for the Republicans... so why would Van Hollen blunder into it, just when everything has been going so well?

A disgruntled Democrat from Flagstaff, on the DCCC's own website wants to know too:

Why does the DCCC pick before the people of the democratic party?

First you quietly pad Ann Kirkpatrick’s coffers, and then you call her the candidate to beat and offer public support. And all this before the primary. If you @$$holes would stop trying to force a candidate down our throats then we would have turned CD1 blue years ago.

Your “anointed” candidate (which you always seem to choose before the primaries) has lost in the last four elections.

Ever thought of playing fair with your own people before? It might work. Either wait till after the primary to back someone, or give a little bit to everyone who brings in enough petition signatures when qualifying.
And personally, I would set the bar higher than the measly 2500 signatures Ann K. brought in.

In fact all the comments on the DCCC site oppose Van Hollen's decision to morph into an unpleasant combination of Rahm Emanuel, John Boehner and Stalin. Another Arizona commenter: "This is pretty simple: Kirkpatrick is not the strongest democrat in the race. I wish folks at the DCCC had seen a debate or two between Kirkpatrick and Howard Shanker-- there’s no contest here. People on the ground in CD1 know that, but people out in DC don’t. This race is Shanker’s to lose, and all the top-down pressure from the Governor and the DCCC isn’t going to change much. Except maybe increase democrats’ frustration with the party." And another: "Yet another lame election year where the party decides who we should vote for even before we vote. Rick Renzi must have enjoyed having the DCCC in his corner for all those years. He would have faced some stiff competition if you actually took the time to see what the Democrat voters of DC1 wanted. Nobody likes being told who to vote for. Ann Kirkpatrick would make a T-shirt illegal if she does not like what it says. I guess she fits well in the DCC’s 'we’ll think for you' approach to politics."

Please think about that the next time the DCCC send you an e-mail begging for money to elect more Democrats-- never BETTER Democrats, always more Democrats, more Democrats to vote exactly how their Republican opponents would have voted on the issues that matter most.

And it isn't only the Inside the Beltway insiders who are systematically betraying the grassroots. A couple weeks ago former grassroots hero-- though never someone him trusted for 2 seconds-- Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia endorsed a corrupt reactionary, Gerry Connolly, for Congress, over Leslie Byrne, the grassroots progressive. Only 18% of Kaine's own base, Raising Kaine, agreed with his decision; 65% disapproved. (Fortunately, Jim Webb endorsed Leslie-- as did Blue America.

But I'm not just complaining because Leslie is a Blue America candidate. Out in southern New Mexico's sprawling second CD, Blue America hasn't endorsed any candidate, although we have noted that nearly 800 people have gone to ActBlue to donate to the progressive grassroots candidate, Bill McCamley, while only 2 people have donated to Harry Teague. It doesn't matter to Teague, a multimillionaire oilman, who is self-funding. Teague was just endorsed by Governor Bill Richardson, who everyone loves because he endorsed Obama. Predictably Teague is a huge Hillary supporter and has donated tens of thousands of dollars to politicians-- from both parties-- and immense amounts to... Bill Richardson. In fact, Richardson for President, Inc. owes Harry Teague's company-- Lea King LLC-- $203,850.70 for the use of Harry's private jet during the campaign. This currently comprises 64% of his campaign debt. Since the end of February Governor Richardson's Campaign has paid off $103,354.41 or 24.5% of his debt. Not a single penny had been paid to Lea King. (Under FEC regulations a vendor like Lea King may forgive debts owed by a committee if the debt was incurred in the normal course of business, the committee “undertook all reasonable efforts” to raise the funds, and the vendor made “the same efforts to collect the debt as those made to a non-political debtor." It doesn't mention endorsements.) On top of that, Teague's company, Teaco Energy, and its employees have bundled over $30,000 in campaign contributions for Richardson and some of that money may have been provided to the "donors" from Teague himself like a $4,600 contribution from an office assistant; that's illegal.

Democrats want our political leaders to act like Democrats, not like Republicans-- whether it's Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Chris Van Hollen, Rahm Emanuel, Bill Richardson or Tim Kaine. Grassroots Democrats should stop funding the DSCC and DCCC and donate directly to the candidates who they know they can trust. You can count on the Blue America candidates to support the people's interests, not the special interests and party bosses. Should you decide to donate to Leslie Byrne or Howard Shanker or any other of our progressive, grassroots canddiates today, please remember to add one cent to your donation so it counts as a vote in the Air America contest, which ends Monday morning at 6am, PT.

Air America Contest Update-- Did You Vote Yet?

6 Blue America candidates that the DCCC is supporting too

Every other e-mail I'm getting is from someone wondering how the DownWithTyranny/Air America contest is going. I can't believe all the contributions of $1.01. They add up though. The biggest donation since we started on Monday morning was for Regina Thomas for over $600. The average contribution is for around $20. So far the candidates with the most donations are Debbie Cook (CA), Dennis Shulman (NJ), Leslie Byrne (VA), Howard Shanker (AZ), Eric Massa (NY) and Ed Fallon (IA). We just added Virginia progressive Democrat Judy Feder to our list of endorsed candidates-- since she'll be our guest at Firedoglake on Saturday-- so you can vote for her as well if you'd like.

Overnight enough votes came in for Leslie Byrne to put her slightly ahead. We've been presenting Leslie as an example of "Better" in the popular aphorism "More and Better Democrats." This morning Matt Stoller at Open Left and Lowell at RaisingKaine both focus on some of the shady activities surrounding Jerry Connolly, the Joe Lieberman/Zell Miller type Democrat who is running against Leslie-- and running hard; the race is neck and neck and it will come down to a GOTV effort next Tuesday.

WHAT ABOUT THE "BETTER" IN "MORE AND BETTER DEMOCRATS?"

Today in the FDL discussion of the victory in Mississippi yesterday, people were wondering about the progressive commitment not just to "more Democrats" but to "more and better Democrats." One might ask, better than what, of course, but one thing liberals know we want are more Democrats like Donna Edwards, genuine and energized progressive leaders. Can reactionary Republicans (basically all of them) and reactionary Democrats be held accountable for the Iraq catastrophe and for the de-funding and the disabling of the federal regulatory agencies?

I was happy to see far right Republicans lose in deep red districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi. It is demoralizing and panicking Republicans; great. When grassroots progressives help beat reactionary Republicans, the Democratic Insider Establishment is as happy as we are. When I mentioned Al Wynn to Rahm Emanuel at a chance encounter in a bar a few weeks ago, I thought he was either going to lunge at me or have a heart attack. When Democratic reactionaries fall, you might notice rage in Beltway eyes. Democratic primaries are crucial for holding bad Democrats accountable and for electing better Democrats. Blue America is working hard to help trade in Bush rubber stamps Leonard Boswell (IA) and John Barrow (GA) for Ed Fallon and Regina Thomas. Another one of our favorite candidates this year, Leslie Byrne (VA-11), also has a primary coming up, but not against an incumbent. It's a primary pitting a proven progressive against a stealthy and reactionary puppet of war profiteers.

Long before Republican Tom Davis read the writing on the wall and announced he would not run for re-election, Virginia's 11th district was at the top of every Democrat's wish list. With Northern Virginia trending blue over the last two cycles, it's perfect for a red-to-blue turnover. But first we've got to make sure we don't elect another Blue Dog/DLC-type "corporate Democrat."

Fortunately, we have a great candidate in the field. Leslie Byrne has been a strong, progressive voice for decades in the state legislature, in Congress and as our nation's consumer advocate. She opposed the war in Iraq from the start, will fight to make health care more affordable and more accessible, and has always supported a woman's right to choose. Please check out her live blog session at FDL from last March.

As the Washington Post has pointed out, Leslie's opponent, Gerry Connolly, basically a Zell Miller/Joe Lieberman type Democrat, is trying to trick voters into thinking he's suddenly a progressive, just the way Lieberman persuaded Connecticut voters in 2006 that he had seen the light and had suddenly become anti-war. Let's go over why Connolly is such a terrible choice for grassroots and progressive Democrats.

First off, Connolly's record conforms to the worst stereotypes of the corporate Democrat and threatens to cost the party a long-awaited takeover. Connolly has been mired in questions about his employment with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), one of the worst of the major defense contractors, his cozy relationship with business developers and his general affinity for what most of us would call pay to play politics.

Connolly's most egregious offenses against the progressive agenda are only recently coming to light, largely due to his own hypocrisy on the Iraq war. Connolly, who was a proud "moderate" until the moment he declared for the House, has taken to touting his anti-war credentials by claiming that he's "been against the Iraq war from the beginning" and that he plans to "hold CEOs criminally accountable for wasting tax payer's dollars."

So, why is this a problem? Well, it's an issue because Connolly's employer, SAIC, is one of the most secretive defense contractors in the world. Think about that: Connolly works for a war profiteering company that not only cheer-led for Bush's unjustifiable invasion but that makes much of its money by cheating taxpayers.

The War Profiteering Act that Connolly "claims" to support could devastate SAIC. If convicted under the terms of that act, the company could have to pay up to one million dollars in fines after forfeiting all property gained through the terms of the contract. Company officials involved in fraudulent behavior could have faced 20 years in federal prison. So we've got a congressional candidate claiming that he would vote for a law that could land his co-workers in jail for two decades and devastate his employer's profit margin-- and his stock options.

Gerry Connolly has never commented on any of this. Never uttered a word, never explained to the voters in his district how his public statements can possibly be reconciled with his private employment.

He's never explained how he reconciles his claims that he "opposed to the war from the very beginning" when he was simultaneously employed by a company playing a major role disingenuously convincing Americans that Iraq posed a real threat.

Yep, that's right folks, Gerry Connolly is running for Congress claiming that he plans to "hold CEOs accountable for wasting tax payers dollars" all while working for a company that made the case for the Bush Regime to attack Iraq and that has been accused of cheating taxpayers out of millions of dollars related to defense contracts.

Doesn't even pass the laugh test, does it? It sort of begs the question: Why would SAIC continue to employ someone who claims to support legislation that would have devastating effects to the company? Makes you wonder if maybe SAIC doesn't really believe Connolly plans to follow through, doesn't it?

Well, why shouldn't he be? He has a record of taking money from companies and then doing their bidding. He's already influenced local building projects as the board of supervisors chairman for local real estate developers. Why would one believe he wouldn't continue this influence for the war profiteers?

Right after Connolly was hired at SAIC, he pushed the Board of Supervisors to build a new Metro stop right by their property, raising its value by millions. Connolly talked about how important the new stop would be for SAIC. He didn't disclose the fact that he was now one of their employees.

When the real estate developer WestGroup wanted to build luxury town homes in his district without doing much for the neighborhood, Connolly voted for their proposal. He didn't think it was important to mention that he had been a consultant for WestGroup, making at least $10,000 after he went to them for work.

When Lerner Enterprises wanted to build a residential and office complex in Fairfax County, they wrote Connolly a series of checks for just under the amount at which they would have to publicly disclose. Gerry Connolly got their project approved.

Bad enough that he's trying to convince people that he wants to punish the company that pays his bills. But Gerry Connolly has spent years giving big developers everything they want if they were willing to fill his campaign coffers. Now that he's running for Congress, pay to play is suddenly the root of all evil instead of a fundraising strategy.

Yet, surprise, surprise, the mainstream media's not calling him on it. I suppose it would have taken some really hard-hitting, deep-digging investigative journalism to uncover all this, maybe even a Deep Throat from inside his campaign. Or they could have googled SAIC, Gerry Connolly, like I just did. He's gotten a pass from everyone so far, and he's hoping that it will last right up until Election Day.

Gerry Connolly: "Progressive change (unless it hurts my corporate backers)!" Now there's a bumper sticker I want on my car.

With only 27 days until VA-11's June 10th Democratic Primary, we can help send Leslie to Washington and give her a chance to clean up the mess made by the GOP and the corporate Democrats in power. I know she has the experience, the passion, and the courage to stand up and speak out on the important issues. Please stop by our Blue America ActBlue page and make a contribution of whatever you can afford. The netroots have a great opportunity to make a difference in this race. I hope you will join us.

BLUE AMERICA: MEET LESLIE BYRNE, THE PROGRESSIVE REPLACEMENT FOR RUBBER STAMP REPUBLICAN TOM DAVIS IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA

A month or so ago Jane called me and asked me what I knew about the race to replace her congressman, retiring rubber stamp Republican Tom Davis in VA-11. I had read some stuff on the Virginia blogs and knew it was a crowded Democratic field but I didn't have a clear idea of how it was coming down. She had just had lunch with one of the candidates, Leslie Byrne, and Jane had a very clear idea. She asked me to look into the race and talk with Leslie and it didn't take more than a few minutes to see why Jane was so excited. Leslie is the newest progressive candidate to be endorsed by Blue America and we're proud to welcome her for her first official visit to FDL today (2pm EST).

Aside from being Jane's future congresswoman, there is something else different about Leslie and all of the other candidates we have endorsed. She already was a member of Congress-- in 1992-- and she is starting with an incredible wealth of knowledge about how Congress works and how to get things done. And getting things done is why she wants to run again.

Leslie isn't shy about admitting she has a point of view. Since she's already been in Congress, if she's elected in November she goes in as a sophomore, not a freshman and gets her choice of committees. I asked her what it is, specifically, she wants to accomplish.

I had served on the Transportation Committee and that is a very big deal in Northern Virginia where our infrastructure is at a complete standstill. Around the country-- whether it's roads, rail, airports, the bridges that are falling down-- we need to have a massive infrastructure investment. And that ties in to what I believe we've got to do in the long run for the economy and that is to get people into good-paying jobs. We can use that infrastructure investment to create those jobs. That's a very specific thing that I want to do. On a greater scale the thing that propels me is the idea of social and economic justice. That's why I got into politics-- the idea that government should treat people with fairness and dignity and respect. That is my touchstone; everything about government should be viewed through that prism.

By now you're probably catching on to why Jane and I have gotten so excited about Leslie's candidacy. Before she can get to Washington, though, she has a primary on June 10 and then a multimillionaire self-funding wing-nut to beat in November. The district is perfect for a red to blue switch, which has a lot to do with why Tom Davis decided to retire, something Leslie has mixed emotions about. "He won the seat by wrapping Bill Clinton around my neck and I was kind of hoping to return the favor this year... but he left town before I could." Back in 1994, the year Gingrich led his counter-revolution which caused a 54-seat swing from Democrats to Republicans, giving the GOP a majority in the House for the first time since 1954, VA-11 had a 48% Democratic performance. It was redistricted in 2001 to make it more Republican but the demographic tide is not on the side of the right-wing in Northern Virginia and the district went for Mark Warner for governor, Tim Kaine for governor, and Jim Webb for senator. Most important, though, the district went for Leslie by a healthy 55% when she ran for Lt. Governor in 2005.

Leslie has 3 opponents in the primary. She's polling in the lead but her main rival, a Fairfax County Supervisor named Gerry Connolly is a Blue Dog/DLC-type "business Democrat," a darling of the Chamber of Commerce and an acceptable substitute for a Republican. He's good at one thing, raking in large sums of money... the old fashioned way-- don't look for him on ActBlue; he's not there. Local bloggers have told me he uses his position as a Supervisor to raise money for his congressional campaign. Fortunately, Leslie knows how to do primaries. "My race for Lt Governor was also a 4-way primary and I won that with 49.3% of the vote."

When I asked her what the top issue in the primary is, she didn't hesitate to say it's Iraq. "Democratic primary voters know," she told me, "that in order to accomplish anything, we've got to start getting our troops home. It's hard to address the economy, health care, education, transportation infrastructure-- all the things the district cares about-- when there's no money and we're building roads and schools in Iraq and can't build them here The 11th district has the highest household income of any congressional district in the country [medium income is over $83,000] and even in a district like this, the economy is starting to really hurt people. I meet people who tell me it's a good thing we're producing these jobs because they have 3 of them! Most of the households here are two-income families."

The Republicans will pick their nominee in a convention but they have been unsuccessful in recruiting a first tier candidate. All the members of the state legislature and other credible candidates have said "thanks but no thanks." So they wound up with a vanity candidate, like so many GOP challengers this year-- a self- financing businessman named Keith Fimian, a big supporter of Rick Santorum and a member of an offshoot of Opus Dei called Legatus. It was founded by the Domino's Pizza guy, Tom Monaghan, for Catholic CEOs worth more than $10 million. (Same guy who is trying to build an all Catholic town, Ave Maria, in Florida where no contraceptives will be sold). Fimian claims God told him to run but God asked him to wait to see what Tom Davis did. (Even some of the local wingnut sites don't like him... but he's raised over $700,000, half of it from himself.) "I don't think he's a good match for the district," said Leslie, "but in no one's imagination is it going to be a cakewalk."

Still, 2008 is not shaping up to be a good year to run as a Republican.

"It's my personal belief that we're going to have more bad economic news for the next several months and the economy will become more of a factor in the general election. [The next day, the NY Times reported that "the worst fears of consumers, investors and Washington officials were confirmed on Friday, as deepening paralysis on Wall Street collided with stark new evidence of falling employment and a likely recession. In a report that was far worse than most analysts had expected, the Labor Department estimated that the nation had lost 63,000 jobs in February. It was the second consecutive monthly decline, and third straight drop for private-sector jobs."] Here in Fairfax County we now have 4,000 homes in foreclosure as of last September. Foreclosures are coming in so fast they can't keep up the data. And in Prince William County you can see entire blocks where houses are either in foreclosure or where people are trying to short-sell to get out of their mortgages... We've had housing slumps before-- there was a small one in the early 90s-- and in certain areas of the country there have been real estate slumps but never anything as widespread or as systematic as this has been."

I believe very strongly-- and this comes from my experience as the nation's Consumer Advocate-- that in Bush's systematic attempt to destroy consumer protection in this country, which includes almost all of the federal regulatory agencies, the Federal government has turned a blind eye to what has happened in the subprime mortgage lending arena. Figuring out how you save people's homes without propping up the corrupt and fraudulent loans that were made is an important issue for me-- how you help people and not a corrupted, paper-churning system... If we don't put the regulatory infrastructure back we're just setting ourselves up for another fall down the road; this constant bail 'em out and make 'em whole for these big corporations and not doing anything to straighten out bad practices, you just have to bail them out again a few years later. The regulatory agencies, which have been dismantled, have to be put back together again... I think you're seeing something that even the corporate Democrats can't deny: a public outcry... between the biggest beef recall in history, to parents being afraid to buy toys for their kids for Christmas because of safety issues... I mean there were toys with lead based paint and toys with paint that turns into a date rape drug! Even the most cavalier Democrat or Republican can't ignore those kinds of things from their constituents. It's an issue that's hard to sweep under the rug. I can tell you that I'll be a voice for change."

Let's help Leslie get to Washington to she can be a voice of change-- for Jane, for Kobe, for all of us. Even $5 and $10 contributions add up and have helped us collect nearly a million dollars for our candidates since we started. Leslie is our newest addition to our Blue America page. Don't make Jane suffer through the indignity of have a Representative who works for special interests instead of people's interests.