Did Biden Cost Us A Seat In Michigan?

Joe Biden by Nancy Ohanian

Matt Longjohn was a good solid progressive candidate last year in MI-06, the southwest Michigan district that is centered on Kalamazoo and includes all or part of 6 counties: Kalamazoo (the biggest and overwhelmingly blue), Berrien, Allegan, Van Buren, St. Joseph and Cass. Upton only managed to get 50.2% of the vote, his worst showing ever. Not one poll leading up to the election showed Upton hitting 50% and the last poll, from Change Research, had Longjohn beating him 42-40%. The Change Research polling for half a dozen tight races was extremely predictive, except in MI-06.

Upton, a hereditary multimillionaire, out-spent Longjohn $3,527,274 to $1,443,894. The DCCC largely ignored the race, as they did with nearly all progressive candidates, spending just $219,564. Did the DCCC kill the chance to replace Upton with a progressive? They had a role-- but apparently not as much as Joe Biden's! According to Alexander Burns' report, Biden's Paid Speech Buoyed The GOP In Midwest Battleground, Biden, well known as a virtual gaffe machine-- worse now that he's been getting increasingly senile-- stumbled into the MI-06 race and screwed it up for Longjohn, not on purpose, of course, but because he's still an asshole.

It was just before the election in November in one of the biggest and most crucial towns in the district, Benton Harbor in swingy Berrien County. Burns wrote that Biden "took the stage at Lake Michigan College as Representative Fred Upton, a long-serving Republican from the area, faced the toughest race of his career. But Mr. Biden was not there to denounce Mr. Upton. Instead, he was collecting $200,000 from the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan to address a Republican-leaning audience, according to a speaking contract obtained by the New York Times and interviews with organizers. The group, a business-minded civic organization, is supported in part by an Upton family foundation."

Biden stunned Democrats and elated Republicans by praising Mr. Upton while the lawmaker looked on from the audience. Alluding to Mr. Upton’s support for a landmark medical-research law, Mr. Biden called him a champion in the fight against cancer-- and “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with.”

Mr. Biden’s remarks, coming amid a wide-ranging discourse on American politics, quickly appeared in Republican advertising. The local Democratic Party pleaded with Mr. Biden to repair what it saw as a damaging error, to no avail. On Nov. 6, Mr. Upton defeated his Democratic challenger by four and a half percentage points.

As Mr. Biden considers a bid for the presidency in 2020, the episode underscores his potential vulnerabilities in a fight for the Democratic nomination and raises questions about his judgment as a party leader. Mr. Biden has attempted to strike a balance since leaving office, presenting himself as a unifying statesman who could unseat President Trump while also working to amass a modest fortune of several million dollars.

But Mr. Biden’s appearance in Michigan plainly set his lucrative personal activities at odds with what some Democrats saw as his duty to the party, linking him with a civic group seen as tilting to the right and undermining Democrats’ effort to defeat Mr. Upton, a powerful lawmaker who in 2017 helped craft a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Ac

Eric Lester, a retired physician who chaired the Democratic Party in Berrien County, Mich., during the midterms, said he viewed Mr. Biden’s supportive remarks about Mr. Upton as a betrayal. Mr. Lester, who attended the speech, said he had confronted an aide to Mr. Biden in the hallway, telling him the former vice president had badly damaged the Democratic cause.

“It just gives Fred Upton cover and makes it possible for him to continue to pretend to be a useful, bipartisan fellow,” Mr. Lester recalled saying, adding, “I entered the hall with positive feelings about Mr. Biden and felt very frustrated.”

Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist and veteran of several presidential campaigns, said it was an open question whether voters in the party would punish candidates they see as overly friendly or cooperative with Republicans. He suggested that could be one of the defining pressures for Mr. Biden if he announces his candidacy.

“I really believe the country does not want to be at war with each other,” Mr. Trippi said. “But there is also the polarization going on, where people say: Damn it, I want to fight.”

Several people involved in planning the event said Mr. Upton, 65, had no role in arranging Mr. Biden’s appearance, and Mr. Upton said he was not involved. There is no evidence Mr. Biden was motivated to praise the lawmaker by anything other than sincere admiration, stemming from Mr. Upton’s role in crafting the 21st Century Cures Act after the death of Mr. Biden’s elder son, Beau, from cancer in 2015.

Bill Russo, a spokesman for Mr. Biden, said the research-funding legislation was the foundation of Mr. Biden’s relationship with Mr. Upton.

“It was one of the few bipartisan bills passed in an otherwise deeply divided and gridlocked Congress,” Mr. Russo said. “Vice President Biden believes to his core that you can disagree politically on a lot and still work together in good faith on issues of common cause-- like funding cancer research.”

Regarding Mr. Biden’s decision not to endorse Mr. Upton’s Democratic challenger, Matt Longjohn, Mr. Russo said the former vice president “received hundreds of requests for endorsements from all over the country and endorsed in 135 races this cycle where his impact could be greatest.”

Since leaving office, Mr. Biden has sought out opportunities to earn substantial income-- mainly through paid speeches and a multimillion-dollar book deal-- and his newfound wealth would be closely scrutinized in a presidential race. Mindful of Hillary Clinton’s stumbles in the 2016 presidential race, Mr. Biden has attempted to set guidelines for his activities that would minimize any political sensitivity, declining to give paid speeches to big banks or to accept foreign contributions to several nonprofit organizations he controls.

Mr. Biden has continued to pursue commercial activities while he is in the final stage of making a 2020 decision; he is scheduled to give a talk in Grand Prairie, Tex., a suburb of Dallas, on Thursday, as part of an extended tour promoting his 2017 book, Promise Me, Dad.

The speaking contract for Mr. Biden’s October appearance in Michigan suggests that the popular Democrat would have known he was addressing a Republican-leaning crowd. The speaking series was underwritten in part by organizations connected to Mr. Upton’s family: Among the biggest sponsors listed on the Economic Club’s website are the Whirlpool Corporation, which was co-founded by Mr. Upton’s grandfather, and the Frederick S. Upton Foundation, a family charity named for the same man.

The contract for Mr. Biden’s visit shows he was paid $200,000 for his appearance, including a $150,000 speaking fee and a $50,000 travel allowance. It also specifies that the audience would be “primarily older, conservative Republicans and local community members.” The document was disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information request made by America Rising, a Republican group that conducts research on Democratic candidates.

It is unclear whether the fees Mr. Biden received in this case are standard for all his speeches. Mr. Biden’s aides have declined to confirm what his rates are for paid appearances, including the appearance in Michigan, or how much he has earned through paid speaking since leaving office. In at least one instance, his speaking bureau, Creative Artists Agency, offered a reduced rate of $100,000, plus travel expenses, to the University of Utah.

If Mr. Biden were to have charged a similar range of fees for all his comparable speeches since leaving office, he would most likely have collected between $4 million and $5 million through speeches over the last two years.

Representatives of Lake Michigan College, which recently took over management of the Economic Club speaker series, and the Fredrick S. Upton Foundation confirmed that the Upton organization was a major sponsor of the series. Both organizations said Mr. Upton had no role in proposing or choosing the speakers. Lisa Cripps-Downey, president of the Berrien Community Foundation, a nonprofit that administers the Frederick S. Upton Foundation, confirmed that the organization had given substantial funding to the Economic Club, with an annual grant of $80,000 over the last three years-- a total close to a quarter-million dollars.

“When we see the speakers, we’re just as surprised as everybody else,” Ms. Cripps-Downey said.

Mr. Russo said Mr. Biden’s team had been aware that the Frederick S. Upton Foundation helped fund the Economic Club. He said Biden aides had vetted the funding sources for the speaking series and concluded they met his standards.

Mr. Upton, who confirmed in a statement that he attended Mr. Biden’s speech at Lake Michigan College, said he had “no idea” that Mr. Biden would refer to him at all, let alone so favorably. The two men ran into each other briefly at the venue, before Mr. Biden’s speech, and they agreed to follow up to discuss the medical-research law’s implementation, an aide to Mr. Upton said.

“Being in the audience with my family and hearing Vice President Biden reference our work together was an immense honor,” Mr. Upton said. “He was warmly received by everyone in attendance who were thrilled to have him there, including myself.”

For campus speeches, Mr. Biden refuses to let schools pay him with funds that come from the government or from extra fees charged to students-- requirements that appear to have been met in this case.

Candice Elders, a spokeswoman for Lake Michigan College, said funding for the speaking series there “comes from private sources through ticket sales, memberships, contributions, grants, sponsorships and event proceeds.” She said the grant from the Frederick S. Upton Foundation is part of a fund designed to make up any difference between expenses for the speaker series and the revenue brought in by events. Ms. Elders estimated that the Upton grant makes up about 11 percent of the series budget.

Ms. Elders said that no public money was used for the event, and that Mr. Biden addressed a group that included several hundred college and high school students while he was on campus. “Young people from area schools and nonprofit organizations are routinely invited to attend Economic Club events at no cost,” Ms. Elders said.

The greatest impact of Mr. Biden’s speech, however, was outside the lecture hall. His remarks about Mr. Upton ricocheted through Michigan’s Sixth Congressional District. Mr. Upton alluded to Mr. Biden’s praise in a debate with Mr. Longjohn the next day, and his campaign sent out a mailer stressing Mr. Upton’s bipartisan streak, including Mr. Biden’s description of him as “the reason we’re going to beat cancer.”

A business-backed Republican group, Defending Main Street, ran digital ads on Facebook showing a grinning Mr. Biden and the crucial quote-- “Fred Upton is one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with”-- above a mock version of the former vice president’s signature.

Mr. Lester, the local Democratic chairman, said he strove to contain the damage. In an email to Mr. Biden’s staff, Mr. Lester implored the former vice president to back Mr. Longjohn: “Surely VP Biden did not intend to endorse Mr. Upton and slight the local Democratic candidate here,” he wrote.

Mr. Longjohn, the former national health officer of the YMCA, said in an interview that he had been disappointed to see Mr. Biden “clap Mr. Upton on the back in an establishment political way.” He said his campaign had reached out to Mr. Biden’s staff through an intermediary, seeking to discuss his involvement in the race.

“There was nothing but silence,” Mr. Longjohn said. “We had just requested a phone call and there was no response.”

Suggested follow-up reading: The Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President-- Part IV, Joe Biden... or these 7 posts explaining why Biden should not be the Democratic nominee in 2020. It's hard to think of a worse next president to follow Trump-- but if pressed I can. Biden would be the Democrats' Warren G. Harding... and that turned out rather badly for everyone, especially the American people.

DCCC Still Refusing To Back Progressive Primary Winners

Last Tuesday one of the most promising candidates running for governor, Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, lost his race. I tweeted that he ran a great campaign but that it was now time to get behind Gretchen Whitmer and help her defeat Trump's hand-picked extremist candidate Bill Schuette. One of the first people to "like" my tweet was Abdul. Whitmer might not be my kind of candidate-- nor his-- but she's the legitimately nominated Democrat-- and the only way to stop Schuette.

After the congressional races on the same day, the DCCC added some of the winners to their Red-to-Blue page... but not the progressives who won. This is outrageous. On Tuesday, James Thompson won an astounding 65.3% in his Wichita-based district, a nearly two-to-one victory. He congratulated his opponent on a well-run campaign and she did likewise and now Democrats in the 4th district are united and working towards defeating Ron Estes. Although not with the DCCC, who is, once again, refusing to recognize Thompson as a candidate.

Likewise in southwest Michigan, the progressive in the race, Matt Longjohn, came in a strong first in a 4-way race. He beat the establishment fave, wealthy lobbyist George Franklin, 37% to 29% with the other progressive in the race, Dave Benac, taking 21%. Democrats in MI-06 are unified now in their determination to defeat Fred Upton-- but not the DCCC. Longjohn was recognized by President Obama as one of America's best physicians and called him one of the "top healthcare innovators in America." Not good enough for the DCCC, which is still pouting that a wealthy conservative lobbyist like Franklin didn't win.

This isn't new to the DCCC. Rahm Emanuel inserted it into their DNA when he was chairman and he was infamous for undercutting progressives who won primaries and refusing to back them in the general election. Many of them would go on to win without his help, making them independent of the corrupt Democratic establishment, a boon to them and to their constituents and to all of America.

As you probably know, Blue America has a page for progressive primary winners who the DCCC refuses to back. I just want to point out that one of the candidates on it is J.D. Scholten, who is going up against America's most vile bigot, Steve King in Iowa's 4th congressional district. He was in a tough 3-way primary over two months ago. He won over 50% of the vote. But the DCCC has still refused to get behind his campaign.

One pundit in Iowa told me there was more to it than just how much the DCCC hates progressives. "They make money off King," she told me on Thursday. "Every time he says something racist or insane, they send out a fundraising letter. They'd rather see him stay in Congress as a cash-cow for themselves than see someone actually defeat him." She told me that staffers at the DCCC were actually disappointed that small donors were contributing to J.D. so heavily and that as of the June 30 reporting deadline he had outraised King significantly-- $755,973 to $505,775. Let's help keep that ball rolling for J.D. and the other progressive candidates the DCCC is still ignoring. Please click on the Blue America 2018 congressional thermometer on the right and contribute what you can to all the candidates. These men and women are working so hard every day and finding no support from their own party officials, though plenty from their own party grassroots. Every Democrat we help elect without help from the DCCC and the corrupt DC establishment is another independent who owes them nothing at all. These are all men and women who will be listening to their own constituents when subjects like Medicare-For-All and Job Guarantee come up-- not to status quo "leaders" like Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Joe Crowley.

Yesterday's Elections-- The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

There was no primary or special election in North Carolina yesterday and the Democratic candidate, Dan McCready, is a Blue Dog who will be voting frequently with the GOP when he gets into Congress-- Blue Dogs always do. But with the existential danger of Trump hanging over us, with have to hold our noses and hope congressional candidates like McCready win. And in this case, we probably don't have to hope too hard, because he's very likely to win. His opponent, far right crackpot Mark Harris (R) keeps saying women must submit to their husbands. I'm sure there are some people who will love that message. But not enough to win in a district that includes lots of well-off suburbs of both Charlotte and Fayetteville. He also keep denouncing homosexually as "evil." Harris is from another time and another North Carolina.

One more thing before I get to yesterday's results. 43% of Republicans-- not 43% of voters, just members of the Trump Party-- think Trump should be able top shut down media outlets he doesn't agree with. I guess, as a people, as a nation, we need to shut down the GOP.

First contest to be decided was the Ohio special election to replace Pat Tiberi in a very gerrymandered, very Republican district, OH-12 (PVI is R+7 and Trump beat Hillary there 53.2% to 41.9%). These were the early votes before any election day precincts came in. Encouraging, huh:

No one thought that was going to hold for long once yesterday's votes started coming in, especially votes from Licking, Muskingum, Morrow and Richland counties. Once over 70% of the votes were counted, it became a see-saw race depending whether red precincts or blue precincts were being counted. In the end, Balderson won with 101,574 votes (50.2%) to O'Connor's 99,820 (49.3%), so 1,754 votes separating them. It doesn't look to me that even if provisional votes go for the Democrats (in 10 days) it will be enough to turn the race around. Balderson and O'Connell will meet again in November where Balderson is unlikely to have $6 million in independent expenditures on his behalf.

Once votes started rolling in in KS-04, James Thompson started building a landslide victory over Laura Lombard. He's the Wichita progressive who ran an extraordinarily good campaign, highlighted by Bernie and Alexandria doing a massive get-out-the-vote rally with him in Wichita. He beat Laura Lombard 65.3% to 34.7%. And he'll need help to beat Trump enabler Ron Estes in November. You can help him here.

In the other important Kansas race (the 3rd district), the ultimate identity politics candidate, Sharice Davids, edged progressive Brent Welder in a 6-person race-- 22,891 (37.3%) to 20,803 (33.9%). She's likely to make a good member of Congress though. In the gubernatorial race, the Democrats got their strongest candidate, state Senator Laura Kelly with a landslide. On the Republican side, two far right Republicans faced off against each other, appointed incumbent Jeff Colyer and neo-fascist, Trump-endorsed Kris Kobach. This is probably headed for a recount. Kobach pulled ahead this morning by 0.1%-- 126,257 (40.6%) to 126,066 (40.5%). Now that's close!

In the Michigan gubernatorial contest, the Republicans picked the far right candidate, Bill Schuette and the Democrats went with the status quo candidate, Gretchen Whitmer over progressive champion Abdul El-Sayed. The fake Democrat Shri Thanedar, who seemed to be in the race solely to draw off votes from El-Sayed, played the role of spoiler.

The hot Democratic congressional races were in MI-06, MI-09, MI-11 and MI-13 (special and general). I was very nervous that in the 6th, the slimy Republican lobbyist masquerading as a Democrat (George Franklin) would slip in with the two progressives, Matt Longjohn and David Benac splitting the progressive vote. It didn't happen that way. Longjohn is a brilliant physician and in November he'll offer Fred Upton his strongest battle ever. He beat Franklin 22,077 (37.1%) to 17,222 (28.9%). In the 9th district, Andy Levin beat the more progressive Ellen Lipton 52.5% to 42.4%. Haley Stevens will be the candidate in MI-11 to face Republican Lena Epstein. There were 5 canddiates from each party and 88,715 Democrats voted, while 84,961 Republicans voted; good indicator for November. And in the Michigan district we were watching most closely, the open 13th, Rashida Tlaib won the 6-person contest for November, although appears to have lost the special election to Brenda Jones. Having Rashida in Congress starting in January will be a huge boon to the progressive movement.

Washington state has a jungle primary system, like California's, where all candidates run on the same ballot, regardless of party. The good news is that all the strongest Democratic candidates emerged in the 3 Republican-held vulnerable districts. In WA-03 Carolyn Long will be the candidate against Jaime Herrera Beutler. Just a few votes separate Lisa Brown (D) from GOP incumbent Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R) and they will face off in November in a race that will be one of the biggest deals of the cycle. And in the wide open 8th district, where incumbent Dave Reichert is retiring, the two top candidates are wing nut Dino Rossi and Democrat Kim Schrier, although 32% of the precincts were yet to report this morning. It looks like there were far more votes for the 4 Democratic candidates than for the 3 Republican candidates, a good sign for November. It still isn't clear if New Dem Adam Smith will face Republican Doug Basler or progressive Democrat Sarah Smith in November.