2016's Sorry Batch Of Self-Funders Are All Crooked Conservatives, As Usual

Money always buys access-- the Trones and you-know-who

A week from tomorrow Maryland's wealthiest wine and beer distributor, David Trone of Total Wine and More, is likely to come in 3rd in a primary contest for the seat in the DC suburbs Chris Van Hollen is giving up to challenge Donna Edwards for the open U.S. Senate seat. Recent polls show progressive and labor champion Jamie Raskin ahead with wealthy lobbyist Kathleen Matthews second and Trone and half a dozen other Democrats battling it out for third. During this cycle Trone has given the DNC $231,500 while his wife June was writing checks to the RNC. The Trones have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to both parties and to candidates from both parties, usually establishment conservatives like Hillary, Chris van Hollen, Mitt Romney, and John Delaney, never to progressives.

Last week the papers were filled with stories about how Trone was putting up $9.1 million for his own race, a congressional seat record in the annals of self-funding. His April 6 FEC filing shows a total of $9,973,620 raised, $9,968,000 of which came from his own pockets. The report shows that $9,025,798, which could mean just about anything, although he has been blanketing the Montgomery County airwaves and stuff every mail box in Bethesda, Silver Spring, Potomac and Rockville will glossy mailers as well as in the more exurban parts of the district up in Carroll and Frederick counties. Political consultants are making a killing on this one too, of course.

Like Trump, Trone brags incessently about being a self-funder. An ad he ran in the Washington Post read: "I certainly could have raised enough money to fund a competitive campaign. But the PACs, lobbyists and big dollar donors who give money would expect special attention." And, like Trump, he ought to know since he's made a habit of renting congressmen. He pumped immense sums of money into the corrupt Van Hollen's career and Van Hollen was always at his beck and call.

UPDATE: Trone put another $2.5 million into his campaign over the weekend. So his grand total is close to $11.5 million. Third place!

Other major self-funders this cycle are 4 corrupt conservative Democrats-- Randy Perkins in Florida ($1,000,000), Mary Lawrence in Minnesota ($1,175,400), who's money bough her no traction and who's already dropped out, Vicente Gonzalez in Texas ($1,000,000), and Shawn O'Connor in New Hampshire ($1,000,000), currently pretending to be a Bernie guy. 7 figure self-funding Republicans this time include Mark Freeman in the same Florida district Perkins is running in ($1,207,000), Paul Mitchell in Michigan ($1,140,406) and Martin Babinec in New York ($1,000,000). Last cycle there were 10 self-funders running for House seats:

• Thomas MacArthur (R-NJ)- $5,000,000
• Sean Eldridge (D-NY)- $4,255,000
• Curt Clawson (R-FL)- $4,017,543
• Dave Trott (R-MI)- $3,623,402
• Paul Mitchell (R-MI, same creep/new district)- $3,560,345
• Doug Ose (R-CA)- $3,441,000
• George Demos (R-NY)- $2,500,000
• Nan Hayworth (R-NY)- $1,642,077
• Tom Sanchez (D-TX)- $1,475,000
• Mark Greenberg (R-CT)- $1,441,530

Seven of the ten lost; only MacArthur, Clawson and Trott won, each quickly subsiding into a the realm of the influenceless backbenchers. Two years earlier there were 4 winners among the 10 heaviest House self-funders, 3 contemptible New Dems-- Suzan DelBene (WA- $2,796,879), Scott Peters (CA- $2,757,452) and John Delaney (MD- $2,370,556)-- and one teabagger, Bob Pittenger (NC- $2,310,735). Losers that year included Bill Bloomfield, who ran against Henry Waxman, spent $7,567,080, and lost, Joe Coors (R-CO- $3,535,767) and a couple New York GOP crackpots, Jack Davis and Jane Corwin, each of whom wasted $2.7 million. The big losers in 2012, though were 4 crazy Republican Senate wannabes Linda McMahon (CT- $48,692,316-- this after spending $50,104,984 two years earlier on a failed Senate run!), David Dewhurst (TX- $19,678,457), Tom Smith (PA- $16,272,361) and John Brunner (MO- $7,995,406).



Usually these stories about self-funders end with the warning that most of them lose, sometimes spectacularly like Linda McMahon did, wasting nearly $100,000,000 from her own fortune). But there are 9 members of the House currently serving who self-funded their way in since 2010, 6 right-wing Republicans and 3 shady conservaDems. (Crooked Republican Darrell Issa spent $3.1 million to buy a seat in 2000 and he's still hangin' in there.)

• Scott Rigell (R-VA)- $2,971,364
• Bill Flores (R-TX)- $1,486,227
• Suzan Del Bene (New Dem- CA)- $2,796,879
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- $2,757,452
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)- $2,370,556
• Bob Pittenger (R-NC)- $2,310,735
• Thomas MacArthur (R-NJ)- $5,000,000
• Curt Clawson (R-FL)- $4,017,543
• Dave Trott (R-MI)- $3,623,402

In 1998 the Maloof family-- Lebanese bandits, like Issa-- tried buying their no-account son, Phil, a congressional seat in New Mexico. They own the Sacramento Kings, a Vegas casino, some Coors dealerships and a huge stake in Wells Fargo. They spent $9.9 million, which is almost $14 million in 2016 dollars, but lost against Republican Heather Wilson for an open seat. Ten years later Wilson ran for the Senate-- losing in a landslide to progressive Tom Udall-- and the House seat fell to Democrat Martin Heinrich (55-45%), who didn't self-fund at all.

Patrick Murphy owns a hefty chunk of his father's company, Coastal Construction, which has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Patrick's campaigns. So far this cycle, Coastal Construction, has given $300,000 to the SuperPAC set up to back Murphy's Senate bid. Campaign finance experts all agree, that makes Murphy a self-funder in the ranks of other rich people trying to buy political office. When he talks to voters, Murphy claims he wants to get big money out of politics, but behind the scenes, he's pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into his own bid for the Florida Senate seat. Oh... and by the way-- non-self-funders, who get no help from the DCCC either:

This Is What Happens When DC Insiders Recruit Wretched Conservatives To Run As Democrats

Even a low-level Mafia thug like "Mikey Suits" Grimm was able to beat Blue Dog Mike McMahon, who consistently voted against Democratic Party values

Do you remember when Chris Van Hollen's DCCC recruited conservative Democrat Mike McMahon to run for the Staten Island congressional seat after incumbent Republican Vito Fossella was discovered to have two families, one in NY and one in Virginia? McMahon beat Republican Robert Staniere 61-33%, promptly joined the Blue Dogs, voted with the GOP almost all the time-- including against the Affordable Care Act-- and made sure no Democratic base voters would be interested in voting for him again. Two years later, the GOP ran a low-level Mafia crook, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm, who was able to beat McMahon while Democratic voters sat on their hands. Thanks, Chris Van Hollen (and Chuck Schumer, who had also pushed McMahon as a nice, safe DINO).

This is what happens when the Democratic Party recruits conservatives who don't share the values and principles of Democratic voters. It happens all the time when party bosses like Schumer, Van Hollen, Rahm Emanuel and Steve Israel think they know better than the voters.

Today McMahon is competing-- as a Democrat-- against Republican Joan Illuzzi for the Conservative Party endorsement in the Staten Island district attorney race. He may actually win it too; after all; he is a conservative and backs the conservative agenda.

Now let's head down South to Louisiana, the ancestral home of McMahon's disgusting Blue Dogs. Mary Landrieu was a right-wing Democratic senator who finally pissed off enough Democratic voters that she lost her seat in 2014 to actual Republican Bill Cassidy. She often voted with the Republicans on crucial matters-- more than almost any other Senate Democrat, especially when it came to anything to do with her campaign donors at Big Oil (like the Keystone XL Pipeline). She voted to confirm corporate whore John Roberts to the Supreme Court, voted for wire-tapping US citizens without court orders and opposed minimum wage increases and opposed the public option in the Affordable Care Act, which she explained by saying, "When people hear 'public option' they hear 'free health care'. Everybody wants free health care. Everybody wants health care they don't have to pay for." In 2012 National Journal named her the 47th most conservative member of the Senate.

After the voters of Louisiana tossed her out, she took a job as a lobbyist with one of DC's slimiest lobbying firms, Van Ness Feldman, and more recently she worked with Joe Lieberman to influence Democratic senators to vote against the Iran nuclear deal. She's on the board of Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, a front group for AIPAC and a bunch of warmongers who want to attack Iran. Landrieu and her pals-- slimy right-wing Dems like Lieberman, Evan Bayh and Shelley Berkley-- are part of the operation spending $20 million in deceitful TV ads about the Iran deal, like this one:



Meanwhile, Landrieu announced that she has $146,261 left in her campaign war chest and will hand it out to help some of her former colleagues running for reelection. "I can use that money," she said, "to help other Democratic candidates that helped Louisiana and that continue to be in a position to help Louisiana." Really? She tried persuading Ron Wyden (D-OR) to vote against the Iran deal, and failed-- he announced yesterday he's voting for it. But among the "Democratic candidates" she says she'll give money to are Republican incumbents Rob Portman (OH) and Susan Collins (ME).

This is exactly what happens when conservative careerist insiders in DC call the shots for the Democratic Party. They recruit right-wing candidates like Landrieu, McMahon, Blanche Lincoln, Heath Shuler, etc., and sell Democratic voters a bill of goods. When the voters figure it out-- once the reprobates start voting-- they stay home on Election Day and the Republicans win the seat. Landrieu, McMahon, Lincoln and Shuler were all replaced by actual Republicans-- instead of by Republicans calling themselves Democrats.

Today the DSCC-- under the thumb of Schumer and his puppet Tester-- is doing the exact same thing in Florida, where they are smearing the good name of progressive icon Alan Grayson to get their Wall Street shill, "ex"-Republican Patrick Murphy, into the seat, and the DCCC is doing the same thing by recruiting countless conservatives and even "ex"-Republicans like the execrable Monica Vernon (IA-01) and Mike Derrick (NY-21), while they undermine and sabotage solid progressives everywhere-- like these.

It's time to say NO to Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Steve Israel at the ballot box. Don't vote for the Republicans and right-wing Democrats they are recruiting. Lesser-of-two-evils is not a good enough reason to throw the Democratic Party to the dogs.

UPDATE: Progressive Dem Wins In Oklahoma

This week, Steve Israel's, Rahm Emanuel's and Chuck Schumer's anti-progressive theory of candidate recruitment was proven wrong again. In a deep red Oklahoma legislative district once held by now-Governor Mary Fallin, right-wing Republican Chip Carter was defeated by progressive Democrat Cyndi Munson 53.7-46.3%. It's a district that hasn't been in Democratic hands in living memory. And Munson is no Republican-lite Blue Dog-type preferred as "electable" by the DCCC, DSCC and DNC. Cyndi campaigned on a platform that included LGBT equality, women's Choice and repealing a tax cut for the rich that will take effect on January 1. Carter had been endorsed by Fallin and Senators Inhofe and Lankford and had massively outspent Munson. Beltway Democratic insiders need to rethink their recruitment strategies at the DCCC and DSCC immediately and stop pushing right-wing fake Democrats like Patrick Murphy (FL) and Monica Vernon (IA).

Who Was Protected In Michael Grimm's Sweet Plea Bargain Deal?

The Michael Grimm saga has always been special for me-- not because my sister lives on Staten Island or because his congressional district includes a part of the Brooklyn neighborhood I grew up in-- but because, in 2005-06-- when I was looking into the "disappearance" of a $400,000 that GOP serial criminal Tom Kontogiannis paid Duke Cunningham to get Bush to pardon him-- a reader informed me that an otherwise unknown crooked FBI agent who had gone over to the Gambino Crime Family, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm, was involved in the "missing" Bush bribe. The media, of course, covered the whole thing up. And then, seemingly out of the blue just a few years later, the Mafia's boy "Suits" beat sad-sack Blue Dog Mike McMahon and was suddenly a Republican serving in Congress.

Yes, in Congress-- with a trail of criminal behavior beyond the ken of most run-of-the-mill bribe-taking congressmen. He also knows where a helluva lot of FBI bodies are buried-- at least metaphorically-- and it was an awkward minuet, that also involved the Israeli government, in making sure he could seem to be held accountable for something without pushing him to go ballistic enough to bring down the FBI-- and God knows who and what else. The plea bargain in Brooklyn Federal Court this morning was sweet. The 20 felony indictments-- for the charges that are relatively minor as part of the career of crime that has defined his entire life-- carry as much as 20 years in prison. 

The judge asked him if anyone had threatened him into taking the plea agreement and he answered, "No, your honor." She followed up with, "Do you understand the criminal charge to which you will be pleading guilty?" He responded, "Yes, your honor." She then reminded him, ominously, that there is "no parole in the federal system." He pled guilty to criminal tax evasion.

We won't know the sentence until June 8 but there was a good deal of media speculation locally that the plea deal didn't force him to give up his House seat.

Rep. Michael Grimm may not spend a day behind bars even if he pleads guilty Tuesday to a federal tax-evasion charge as expected, legal experts said.

Grimm's lack of criminal history, his military service and years of service as an FBI agent should weigh in his favor, said experts.

"When somebody who's never been arrested before comes to the table with Michael Grimm's achievements, it's very likely he'll receive a probationary sentence," said Mario F. Gallucci, a Willowbrook-based criminal defense attorney and former state prosecutor.

"I would not be the least bit shocked if he didn't get sent to prison," said a legal source.

Yeah... tell it to ex-Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., who faced a very different media narrative... and is in prison now.

After a stunning reelection victory last month-- over a typically incompetent and unqualified nebbish Steve Israel recruited-- what Grimm did was plead guilt to just one serious felony charge (tax evasion on over a million dollars in gross receipts from a money laundering operation/"health food" restaurant on the Upper East Side), although, relative to his career in crime-- which the mass media keeps substituting "his record of public service," he plead guilty to the equivalent of an unkempt hang-nail. When he was indicted on the 20 felony counts, he told the media, "I know who I am, and I know what I’ve done for this country… I know I’m a moral man, a man of integrity. We’re going to fight tooth and nail until I am fully exonerated."

Both during the election and since, Grimm had bragged that Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the crooked chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who has pumped considerable money into Grimm when other GOP leaders were keeping him at arm's length, was reinstating him on the committee he had been forced to resign from. That reinstatement now comes into question, as Bob Costa and Paul Kane pointed out in the Washington Post Monday evening.

If Republican House leadership were to ask Grimm to resign when Congress returns in January, and he stepped down, a special election would be held to fill the seat.

Should Grimm decline to ­resign, House GOP leaders believe the House’s code of conduct could force him to abstain from congressional activities, according to a House Republican aide who requested anonymity to speak freely about internal discussions.

The aide pointed to a clause in Rule 23 as a guide for the leadership as it considers its response. The clause states that a member who has been convicted of a crime “for which a sentence of two or more years’ imprisonment may be imposed should refrain from participation” in committees and from “voting on any question at a meeting of the House,” until the member is “reelected to the House after the date of such conviction.”

During the election, Grimm promised voters that if he was found guilty-- and I guess that admitting guilt is covered in that-- he would resign from Congress. "If things don’t go my way, right? And I had to step down in January," he told a radio interviewer, "then there will be a special election, and at least the people of Staten Island and Brooklyn can then have qualified candidates to choose from." Qualified candidates? That may be a stretch considering what the party machinery is looking at, but at least neither Grimm nor Recchia would be among the choices.

Will Boehner force him to resign? He certainly wants him to but he'll go slow and won't go public unless Grimm balks. It's hard to imagine him ever taking another vote in the House or being on a committee, despite Hensarling.

The House Ethics Committee has deferred its own investigation into Grimm at the request of the FBI who doesn't want anyone looking too closely into any of the related matters involving Grimm's long and complicated criminal career. Presumably, if Grimm decided not to resign, they would stop pussyfooting around and launch a real investigation. The committee's new chairman, Charlie Dent (R-PA, isn't likely to let the matter slide and could a recommendation of expulsion, which would formally require a vote by the full House, would be likely. Last Member expelled was Jim Traficant a conservative Democrat (and crackpot) in 2002.

A poll this morning in the Staten Island Advance indicates a small majority think Grimm should be able to continue on in Congress unless he's actually behind bars. He left the court house on his own recognizance; no bail was asked and no passport was surrendered, even though he has extensive ties to both Cypriot and Israeli organized crime. On his way out he told the media he will NOT resign from Congress.

The DCCC is eagerly recruiting the Blue Dog Grimm originally beat, Mike McMahon, to run-- certain to turn off progressive voters who will, once again, have no choice but to sit on their hands at home. McMahon isn't as awful as Recchia... but he isn't any good and not worth voting for. The DCCC is pressuring him to run but he's telling intimates that Obama is so hated in the district that no Democrat can win and that he won't run. That doesn't stop the Beltway media from reporting that it's a done deal and that he's the candidate. When will the DCCC ever learn? Never. A more likely Democratic nominee is Assemblyman Michael Cusick. The Republicans have two candidates, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotaki and state Senator Andrew Lanza.

Can Staten Island Crooked Republican Michael Grimm Handle The Truth?

Mikey Grimm (R-Mafia)

Former Congressman Mike McMahon sat out the 2012 election and let another former Staten Island congressman's son, Mark Murphy, take on one of Congress' most overtly corrupt members, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm. Although Obama won the 11th district (51.6-47.3%)-- and even won the more conservative Staten Island 65% part of the district (67,524- 66,420)-- Grimm was reelected 53- 46%, losing in Brooklyn but beating Murphy 53-46% on Staten Island. As my sister, a resident, said, "People know he's a Mafioso... and they like that."

With major encouragement from DCCC head Steve Israel, McMahon is contemplating a comeback bid in 2014. Grimm first beat him as part of the Great Blue Dog Apocalyse of 2010, 51-48%. The DCCC is already targeting Grimm. Grimm, mired in a wide range of public scandals still hasn't been charged with any crimes, but that seems like only a matter of time. His constituents have noticed that he seems distracted from his official duties-- busy keeping law enforcement at bay-- and that he's become wishy-washy on the issues. Two years ago, in his first meeting with John Boehner, he damanded that Members of Congress be allowed to pack heat on the floor of Congress. Grimm, who was given $1,000 by the NRA and has a B+ rating from the gun lobbying group, was shown the door. On January 16 of this year Staten Island's Democratic Party chairman, John Gulino, started needling Grimm for his refusal to support President Obama's very modest gun safety proposals, calling him "missing in action on this important issue. Now he has an opportunity to help enact real solutions that can help save the lives of our children and our families. Congressman Grimm must put aside the blind partisanship he embraces so fervently... and help President Obama pass the legislation... At minimum, there have been 1,000 deaths related to gun violence since the tragedy at Newtown in America. How many more people have to die before House Republicans act on these proposals?"

Stung by the attack, the very next day Grimm took some time out from defending himself from FBI investigators to say he supports the assault weapons ban, a position at odds with the NRA. "The NRA's message," Grimm told local media, "hasn't been good... "I had been leaning toward it. This is a big move for me. I had not been there before. Truthfully, it was the devastation of the families. I think of mothers and fathers now sending their kids to school. If it gives them peace of mind, if it makes people feel better, as part of the healing process, I am comfortable with it. I really want to see a safer America."

Some Republican groups, even besides the NRA, are starting to wonder if Grimm is worth all the money they've spent propping him up. Although he has $241,924 in his campaign coffers right now, he owes close to $600,000, having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to keep from being indicted. And on two of the most high-profile House votes so far this year, Grimm abandoned the conservative position, part of the reason the so-called "Hastert Law" went up in smoke. On January 1, he was one of 85 Republicans voting against going over the so-called "Fiscal Cliff/Curb." 151 Republicans, including most of the Tea Party favorites, opposed Grimm's position. He was also one of only 49 Republicans (with 179 opposed) to go along with President Obama's efforts to help Hurricane Sandy survivors. Again, he voted in opposition to virtually all the Tea Party stalwarts. There are only 29 Republicans who broke with the GOP majority on both bills, an uncomfortable position for Grimm to be in, especially if he winds up, as is likely, with a strong challenger in 2014. In fact, if his legal situation doesn't start clearing up, Staten Island Republicans could start looking for a primary challenger against him as well. His American Conservative Union score (52.0)-- around the same as the scores of Blue Dog Democrats like Jim Matheson and Dan Boren-- is considered a failing grade among Republicans.

Conservative Outside Groups Outspending Liberals 4 To 1 On Congressional Campaigns

Lee Rogers & Norman Solomon, Blue America's top 2 California candidates

The good news--at least so far-- is that they're spending the money mostly to beat themselves up, defeating incumbents like Richard Lugar (R-IN) in the Senate and Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and Don Manzullo (R-IL) is the House... and replacing them with weaker, most ideologically extreme candidates who Democrats may have a better chance to beat in November. Democrats have been far more reluctant to go after ideologically "impure" incumbents, the big progressive victory over corrupt Blue Dog Tim Holden (PA) being the exception. Still 4 to 1 scares Democratic Party leaders more than it relieves them. That $20 million right-wing groups have dumped into congressional races so far is seen as a harbinger of something far worse coming down the pike in their direction.

The surge suggests that big-spending super PACs and nonprofit groups, which have become dominant players in the presidential race, will also play a pivotal role in House and Senate contests that will determine the balance of power in Washington in 2013.

The money could be particularly crucial in races below the national radar that can be easily influenced by infusions of outside spending. One example came this week in Nebraska, where a dark-horse Republican Senate candidate upset two better-funded rivals in the GOP primary thanks in part to a last-minute, $250,000 ad buy by a billionaire-backed super PAC.

...“We’re just getting started,” said Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller, who said the group will soon begin training its fire on Democrats. “Our group has already had an impact on what the composition of Congress is going to look like next year. That’s our whole goal is to have an impact, to improve the gene pool in Congress.”

Interest groups on both sides have reported spending $29.7 million on congressional races so far this election cycle, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission reports.

The spending is more than twice the amount similar groups had spent at this point ahead of the 2008 elections. It’s also higher than the $25.2 million spent during the 2010 midterms, when several high-profile special elections and primary fights drove outside expenditures to new heights.

Spending among the largest groups favors Republicans by about 4 to 1, although that is due in part to a number of fierce Republican primary fights, the data show. GOP Senate primaries in Indiana and Texas, for example, have each drawn more than $4 million in spending by independent groups.

Over the weekend, big-spending wrestling executive Linda McMahon, an extremist with no chance of winning a general election unless she moves from Connecticut to Alabama or Idaho, beat mainstream conservative Chris Shays, 730-389 for the official GOP Senate nomination in their state. The big winner: Democratic nominee Chris Murphy, who will now sit back and watch a bloody and costly primary battle that can only leave half the party base bitter and feeling cheated. In 2010, the deranged McMahon spent $50 million of her own money, won the primary against a mainstream conservative, Rob Simmons, and went on to have her head handed to her in the general election, losing in November 636,040 (55%) to 498,341 (43%)... in a banner year for Republicans. At the same time Tom Foley, the more mainstream Republican candidate for governor, came much closer to winning with 560,874 (49%).

So, it's not just all about money. But it's mostly just all about money. A couple weeks ago, when we asked Alan Grayson what political lessons he had learned from his 2010 defeat he told us that there was nothing worthwhile to "learn" about being swamped by outside special interests. (The context was how after Bill Clinton was kicked out of the governorship of Arkansas by special interest money he never took on special interest money again, abandoned any kind of economic populism and became a neo-liberal corporatist whore who served the interests of the one-percent for the rest of his career.) Grayson:

I represented a district that had been Republican for 34 years. I did the job in the way that I considered best for the people who were depending on me, knowing full well that it would invite vicious attacks from the other side, and it did. I was treated to a $2 million carpet-bombing from the health insurance lobby, $2 million more from the Koch Brothers, etc. But if you want to do the job properly, you have to accept that you might lose it. That's the way it goes. If I return to Congress, I won't do anything differently, because I'm still willing to take it or leave it-- as long as I can get things done for people who need help. If that makes the Koch Brothers hate me and attack me, then as FDR said, "I welcome their hatred." If all you care about is just being a Congressman, then you're no good to anyone but yourself."

Although Blue America, a strictly grassroots, small donor PAC, will never be able to compete financially with corporately-funded superPACs like Rove's outfits or with the Koch brothers or the neo-fascist Club for Growth or Chamber of Commerce, we are backing Grayson again in what looks like an excellent chance for a return to Congress. And we have endorsed 3 progressives for Senate and close to two dozen for the House, some of whom-- like Patsy Keever (D-NC), Matt Cartwright (D-PA) and David Gill (D-IL)-- have already gone on to beat conservative DC Democrat-backed corporate whores. Our next big challenge comes June 5 when 4 of our top candidates, Norman Solomon and Lee Rogers in California, Franke Wilmer in Montana and Eric Griego in New Mexico go up against more conservative and better-financed Establishment candidates in a veritable super-Tuesday.

Griego is being backed by a wide array of progressive groups but a strategically-impaired EMILY'S List has thrown a monkey wrench intothe race by backing a mediocre candidate and that support could throw the race to corrupt conservative Marty Chavez, exactly what the DCCC wanted EMILY'S List, no longer a part of any kind of a progressive coalition, to accomplish.

Blue America is virtually alone in our backing for Franke Wilmer and for our two candidates in California's jungle primaries. That our three candidates are in contention at all-- and Rogers and Solomon look like good bets to finish in the top 2 and proceed to the general-- has a great deal to do with the small donors who have been so generous and forthcoming with small contributions. All those $10 and $20 donations add up. Yesterday we made one last plea to our donors for the final sprint in CA-2 on behalf of Norman Solomon. (Lee Rogers is way ahead in polling and the big push for him will come in the general election against warmonger and bitter, deranged homophobe Buck McKeon.)

Tuesday, June 5th is what Blue America is calling its "Super Tuesday", when several extremely important primary races will be decided. In fact, early voting has begun in California and what we believe is one of the most meaningful congressional races of our era will be decided that day. We're talking about the election to replace progressive stalwart Lynn Woolsey in the second district just above San Francisco. We're talking about progressive hero Norman Solomon.

We don't need to tell you again what an amazing person Norman is. We have been among his staunchest supporters from the moment he announced he would run and endorsed him from the beginning. His progressive resume spans 30 years as an activist and media critic and an elected official. He's been endorsed by the most committed progressives in the nation.

His good friend and longtime colleague Jeff Cohen, co-founder of FAIR, is one of them. In a recent impassioned endorsement, he explained why this particular race is so important:

Getting to a bloc of 25 genuine, principled progressives in Congress is attainable. What’s needed is a strategy and resources to develop candidates in dozens of solidly progressive congressional districts nationwide: black, Latino, college town, liberal urban, etc. When an incumbent Democrat sells-out or leaves office, activists in such a district should be able to call upon national organizational and netroots support to get a 100% progressive into Congress. Once elected by the grassroots in such districts, it’s hard for corporate or conservative forces to ever get them out. Think Bernie Sanders. Think Barbara Lee.

Think Blue America. Think Norman Solomon-- a progressive leader with a lifetime of liberal activism representing a deep blue district, unencumbered by obligation to business or the Democratic establishment. This is how we build our bloc.

We don't have to worry about a bunch of Republicans and ConservaDems demanding "centrism" in the second district of California. It's a place filled with voters who will support liberal policies and reward political courage. It's a seat that rightfully belongs to a leader of the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Ask yourself, if not Norman Solomon, then who? If not in a deep blue district that believes in progressive values, then where? If not now, when?

If you haven't given any money yet this year or if you planned to give a little more, please consider donating to Norman Solomon.

Ousted Conservative Democrat From Staten Island Michael McMahon Appeals To Liberals To Help Him Win Back His Seat

Michael McMahon-- neither fish nor foul... nor good red herring

Michael McMahon didn't officially ever join the Blue Dog caucus, but he tended to vote with it an awful lot. He was more likely to vote along the same conservative line as reactionary Blue Dogs like Bobby Bright (AL), Travis Childers (MS), Jim Marshall (GA), Allen Boyd (FL) and Lincoln Davis (TN), all of whom were also defeated in November-- than he was with fellow New York City Democrats like Jerry Nadler, Carolyn Maloney, Jose Serano or Yvette Clarke, all of whom won reelection with between 75% and 95% of the vote. 

McMahon, after winning the open Republican seat in 2008 in a landslide (114,219 (61%) to 62,441 (33%), even with McCain narrowly beating Obama), saw a real reversal of fortune three months ago, when his conservative voting record kept Democrats away from the polls just when a Fox-fueled teabagger wave swept over angry white neighborhoods of Staten Island. (The 13th CD covers all of Staten Island and selected neighborhoods in Brooklyn.) This time Michael Grimm took 59,346 (51%) and McMahon only squeezed out 55,056 (48%). As you can see, almost all of the Republicans from 2008 were out to vote, while of Democrats and left-leaning independents, almost half stayed home. 

McMahon gave them little reason to do otherwise. He was one of only 39 Democrats to cross the aisle and vote with the GOP against healthcare reform, for example. That high-profile vote probably sealed his fate. He managed to narrowly win in the Brooklyn part of the district, but not by enough to make up for a 6,000-vote deficit in Staten Island, where he won in 2008 by a 40,000-vote margin.

In 2008 McMahon took 26,411 votes in Brooklyn (against 13,549 for the GOP) and 87,808 in Staten Island (against 48,892 for the Republican). This time Brooklyn gave him 14,389 while Grimm took 12,806, and Staten Island gave Grimm 46,540 and McMahon just 40,676-- less than half what he won in 2008.

The DCCC, which learned absolutely nothing from their gargantuan losses in 2010, has been eager to get him-- and other defeated conservatives like him-- to run again. Former Blue Dog Steve Israel, who brags he's "Rahm Emanuel without the curse words" wants to rerecruit all the Blue Dogs and other reactionaries who so turned off Democrats in 2010 to run in 2012. What an idiot! The GOP couldn't have asked for a better DCCC chairman.

Meanwhile McMahon is trying to shore up the Democratic base in NY-13.

In a spirited defense of his tenure in Congress -- including his controversial vote against health care reform -- former Rep. Michael McMahon appeared to be laying the groundwork for a comeback last night with an appeal to a liberal political club to help return the coveted House seat to the Democratic column, "whoever" the candidate may be.

He also told some 100 members of the Staten Island Democratic Association, meeting in St. George, that Democrats need to have a "unified message" going forward, rather than "writing letters complaining" about isolated votes a Democratic elected official might take.

"Some people told me, 'I didn't vote for you because you voted against health care,'" said McMahon. "OK, but look what you got."

...While McMahon said he wanted an honest assessment of his performance, he seemed to bristle initially at criticism, talking over one person's remarks, but later dialing back his response when another person said, to applause, that he had abandoned his political base by opposing the health care bill and failing to be a "leader" on the issue.

"I saw it a little differently at the time," said McMahon, "but I take what you say very seriously. I hear you loud and clear. ... Maybe I made some mistakes along the way."

Although old-line Republicans are already plotting a primary challenge against Grimm-- they hope to get crooked and perverted Vito Fossella, the former five-term congressman who resigned in disgrace, to run again, for some reason no one can explain-- Steve Israel and Michael McMahon may be thwarted by actual Democratic voters who don't want the conservative McMahon representing them again. Earlier this week, the Staten Island Advance wondered aloud if McMahon would win the nomination again.

Could the Democratic Party actually deny him another run at the job he so clearly relished and labored at 24/7? Already, it would seem, he is seeking to recapture his momentum, including hosting his annual St. Patrick's Parade party, this year at his old law firm in West Brighton.

While Fossella likely would have to publicly answer for his personal transgressions, something he has never done, McMahon still seems to have a lot of explaining to do for his health care vote. Party progressives maintain he abandoned his base to seek favor among conservatives, whose votes he was never going to get anyway.

One such Democrat is Teresa Caliari Olya, who hosted a State of the Union "watch party" in her home last week.

"Mike McMahon wanted nothing to do with us," recalled Ms. Olya. "He wanted nothing to do with Barack Obama. We offered to help him in his campaign, but he turned us down. He said, 'I don't want to be involved with liberal progressives.' He was very much, 'Keep your distance.' Some of us didn't vote for him or against him. He lost because of his hubris."

And so will Steve Israel. He hates progressives and refuses to understand that without them the Democratic Party is nothing but some insider careerists with no appeal to anyone. Monday we looked at another clueless conservative, Stephen Lynch, coming right out and telling progressives to keep out of Democratic politics. Like I said, these people have learned nothing from their shellacking. Polling is consistently showing the most right-wing, anti-Democratic Democrat in the Senate, the detested Ben Nelson, losing next year as Republicans flock to the red team and Democrats wonder why they should bother voting for someone who votes with the GOP on key issues more frequently than with the Democrats.

McMahon seems to be getting the message far more than either Israel or Nelson, both driven by ideological hatred towards progressives and fear of and disdain for ordinary working families, cut off from the realities on the ground and surrounded by sycophants and K Street-lobbyist yes men. Things could easily get even worse for Democrats in 2012. Steve Israel, already busy recruiting conservative candidates like himself, was probably the worst choice the Democratic Party could have made to head the DCCC. Indeed... Rahm without the curse words. FDR must be rolling in his grave.

Is It Fair To Call Tea Partiers "Chumps" Now That They Screwed Up The Whole Country?

I sincerely hope your brother-in-law isn't some kind of a loutish, self-righteous asshole who gets all his information from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and considers himself a proud member of the Tea Party Nation, even if he has, with due embarrassment, now finally stopped referring to himself as a teabagger. But since this weekend is considered the beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday travel season, I thought we should at least discuss the possibility that he-- or someone equally contemptible-- will be crowing over the turkey dinner. He probably hasn't seen the video from our pals at Americans United For Change, and if you show it to him... well, why bother? You know he won't get it.

Now you could discuss Jan Schakowsky's or Bernie Sanders' earnest efforts to address the country's economic and fiscal problems. But we know he's going to plug up his ears if you bring either one of them up. Yesterday Bernie made the point that "the billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more." Is your brother-in-law a billionaire? No, neither is mine. Is he ever going to be one? Mine isn't either. In fact, mine is almost totally dependent on government assistance to maintain his middle class existence. He's very excited to have helped defeat a conservative Democrat, Michael McMahon, his former congressman-- but even more excited that he helped elect a teabagger and sociopath, Michael Grimm (aka Mikey Suits), in his place. Like many chumps, he defends the rights of billionaires to exploit the rest of us and crap all over society because in his fantasy world he'll hit some kind of jackpot someday and be a billionaire too.

For people less afflicted with that particular mental illness, Bernie Sanders, who grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood as my brother-in-law and I did, tries to address the reality of a country with a middle class busy committing suicide.

In 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23.5 percent of all income – more than the bottom 50 percent. Not enough! The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent nearly tripled since the mid-1970s. Not enough! Eighty percent of all new income earned from 1980 to 2005 has gone to the top 1 percent. Not enough! The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Not enough! The Wall Street executives with their obscene compensation packages now earn more than they did before we bailed them out. Not enough! With the middle class collapsing and the rich getting much richer, the United States now has, by far, the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth. Not enough!

The very rich want more, more and more and they are prepared to dismantle the existing political and social order to get it. During the last campaign, as a result of the (Republican) Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, billionaires were able to pour hundreds of millions of dollars of secret money into the campaign-- helping to elect dozens of members of Congress. Now, having made their investment, they want their congressional employees to produce. Republicans in Congress, needless to say, are all on board. The key question is whether a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate go along to get along, or whether they draw a clear line at protecting the interests of the middle class and vulnerable populations of our country while tackling our economic and budgetary problems in earnest.

In the next month, despite all their loud rhetoric about the “deficit crisis,” the Republicans want to add $700 billion to the national debt over the next 10 years by extending Bush’s tax breaks for the top 2 percent. Families who earn $1 million a year or more would receive, on average, a tax break of $100,000 a year. The Republicans also want to eliminate or significantly reduce the estate tax, which has existed since 1916. Its elimination would add, over 10 years, about $1 trillion to our national debt and all of the benefits would go to the top 0.3 percent. Over 99.7 percent of American families would not gain a nickel. The Walton family of WalMart would receive an estimated tax break of more than $30 billion by repealing the estate tax.

That’s just the start.

The billionaires and their supporters in Congress are hell-bent on taking us back to the 1920s, and eliminating all traces of social legislation designed to protect working families, the elderly, children and the disabled. No “social contract” for them. They want it all.

They want to privatize or dismantle Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and let the elderly, the sick and the poor fend for themselves.

They want to expand our disastrous trade policies so that corporations can continue throwing American workers out on the street as they outsource jobs to China and other low-wage countries. Some also want to eliminate the minimum wage so that American workers can have the “freedom” to work for $3.00 an hour.

They want to eliminate or cut severely the U.S. Department of Education, making it harder for working class kids to get a decent education, childcare or the help they need to go to college.

They want to rescind the very modest financial reform bill passed last year so that the crooks on Wall Street can continue to engage in all of the reckless behavior that has been so devastating to our economy.

They want to curtail the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy so that Exxon-Mobil can remain the most profitable corporation in world history, while oil and coal companies continue to pollute our air and water.

They want to make sure that billionaire hedge fund managers pay a lower federal tax rate than middle-class teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers by maintaining a loophole in the tax code known as "carried interest."

We know what the billionaires and their Republicans supporters want. They’ve been upfront about that. But what about the Democrats? Will President Obama continue to reach out and “compromise” with people who have made it abundantly clear that the only agreement they want is unconditional surrender? Or, will he utilize the powerful skills that we saw during his 2008 campaign for the White House and bring working families, young people, the elderly and the poor together to fight against these savage attacks on their well-being? Will the Democrats in the Senate continue to pass tepid legislation, or will they use their majority status to protect the interests of ordinary Americans and, for a change, put the Republicans on the defensive?

The time is late. The stakes are extraordinary. While it is true that the billionaires and their supporters are “fired up and ready to go,” there is another more important truth. And that is that there are a lot more of us than there are of them. Now is the time for us to stand together, educate and organize. Now is the time to roll back this orgy of greed.

You think a discussion of this analysis by Bernie Sanders-- even if he didn't grow up in your neighborhood-- wouldn't do any good? I suspect bringing up Michael Moore isn't going to help either. He hasn't been very friendly towards corporations lately, and chances are your populist brother-in-law is slavishly devoted to their well-being and is the victim of the concerted right-wing effort to always refer to documentary-maker Moore "as 'Hollywood entertainer' or 'Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore.' They don't want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth." So show him this:



Then tattoo this to his forehead before you leave, and let him take the rest of his life to work out what it means, although you might want to remind him that the Bush tax cuts passed in 2001 with the GOP crossing its heart and hoping to die that it would spur gigantic economic growth.

Buying Elections... Like Shopping At Saks

Matt Miller's just filled with sober infatuation for New York Republican/billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg, who's taken to masquerading as an "indie." Miller, an archetypal and unabashed toadie, worships wealthy people and people in power. I believe he works for Bloomberg TV as well. He's been telling people that what this country needs now is a rich person to run the show-- not some piddling multimillionaire but someone who is really rich. Funny, my own instinct is that those people should be rounded up and shot before they can do any more damage to society. To each his own. Miller would like to see Bloomberg run for president for a bunch of childish, fatuous reasons not worth repeating.

Most of the biggest self-funders in the latest election cycle-- Florida gangster Rick Scott excluded-- lost their races. Voters are more discerning about the super-wealthy and their self-proclaimed worthiness than Miller (except in Florida). Yesterday's post dealt with the rich bitches-- NutMeg, Carly and Linda McMahon, the wrestler lady from Connecticut-- apparently so that Scott wouldn't muck up the narrative with his win. They all made bundles in business and tried buying their way into the U.S. Senate, a tradition for the stinking rich that goes back to the beginning of time.

Meg Whitman was hardly a household name when she commenced her run. Now she is-- and one that is really disliked. The more TV and radio and internet ads she ran, the more people started detesting her. By the end of the campaign they hated her so much that it was hard to believe that people started saying how they disliked Carly Fiorina even more. Imagine what Whitman could have done to win widespread social approval and admiration with even half of the $143 million she spent on the failed campaign! (She lost by almost a million votes out of seven million cast.) Perhaps if she had deployed $70 million helping the needy, she could have used the other half to win in the following cycle. I guess she was in a rush.

McMahon only spent $50 million of her own and, a real cheapskate, Fiorina only put up $7 million of the money she looted from Hewlett-Packard before she was unceremoniously fired as the worst chief executive of any major company in recent memory. Although the Post insists these three are "savvy," "sharp" and "successful," people who have dealt with them haven't been so kind. But the Post wants to know why each failed so spectacularly despite how absolutely fabulous they insist each is.

"It's in some ways like a highly underdeveloped country that suddenly strikes oil and they don't know what to do with the money and start spending it unwisely," said Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. Baker said that money is a threshold requirement in politics, "but above a certain amount you don't get a dividend for every extra dollar."

"And when it's your own money, you cast aside some of the restraints and keep spending, to the point where you cast aside certain other aspects of the campaign that might be deficient."

Whitman was the shakiest campaign presence of the three, and a colossal ad campaign could not correct that. Awkward on the trail and hounded by embarrassing reports that she had failed to vote most of her adult life and that her housekeeper was an illegal immigrant, she hired expensive media consultants, including chief strategist Mike Murphy, who made hundreds of thousands of dollars of Whitman's money and financed an onslaught of on-air ads that targeted women, Latinos and other traditionally Democratic constituencies. But the millions she spent to boost her appeal seemed to have the opposite result, as her likeability dropped below where it had been when she started.

...[T]here was plenty to second-guess in Fiorina's inability to drift back to the center after her sharp tack right in the primary. In contrast to most centrist California candidates, Fiorina stuck to her opposition to abortion except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's life; touted the benefits of offshore drilling; and championed gun rights.

Boxer pounced on Fiorina's positions on social issues and constantly linked the Republican to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who endorsed the GOP challenger.

And in a brutal economy, Boxer incessantly excoriated Fiorina's record at Hewlett-Packard of sending jobs overseas. Democrats sought to cast Whitman and Fiorina as one in the same: Silicon Valley executives who were trying to buy the election. Boxer, who had raised plenty of money in her own right, made sure California's television viewers got the message, and it clearly resonated.

"These women are trying to buy the election as if it's their birthright," chef Mark Peel, 55, said as he sat in the Tar Pit, an elegant Art Deco cocktail bar in West Hollywood.

Doug Kottler, a 45-year-old lawyer walking through The Grove in Los Angeles, agreed: "What's refreshing is that the election couldn't be bought."

Kottler said he did distinguish between the two California businesswomen, although that hardly helped them. "I just looked at them and said 'Ugh' and 'Ugh,' " said Kottler, who added that he planned to vote the Democratic line the next day. "They didn't need to bring each other down. They were both in their own freefalls."

On the other side of the country, McMahon seemed to have an even stronger chance of filling Sen. Christopher J. Dodd's seat. "I am an outsider-- I am not a career politician," she said in February. "What I hear over and over and over again is, 'We want somebody with real-life business experience.' "

Ultimately though, Connecticut voters rejected the notion that her business experience had much to do with real life. She emphasized the "corporate skills" and not the "soap opera" quality of wrestling, but exit polls by Edison Research showed that the unsavory wrestling aura stuck. Half of voters polled said that the wrestling association weighed on their vote, and almost all of them-- four out of five-- said it made them unlikely to send her to Washington.

For all the obvious attention to the onstage antics, it was, to a certain extent, the real-world business experience that brought McMahon down. Just as attacks of heartless labor cuts hurt Fiorina and Whitman in California, Blumenthal pointed to her decision to send pink slips to 10 percent of World Wrestling Entertainment's workers.

I think I would have found the Post's story more compelling if it had dealt with all the multimillionaires who ran and how their wealth impacted their races, not just the three sadsack ladies. For although McMahon holds the record for dollars spent per vote ($95-- a bargain compared to her $454 spent per primary vote) and NutMeg was #2 with $57 spent per vote, #3 was Rick Scott, who spent $29 of the money he ripped off from Medicare scams per vote he received from Florida voters who didn't seem to care where he stole his money). #4 was that Ganley guy-- who spent $29 per vote, losing badly to Betty Sutton, after it was revealed that he had tried to rape several female campaign volunteers.Like Ganley, Scott Rigel is also a used car salesman and like Ganley he spent lavishly on his campaign, coming in at #5-- $28 per vote, and beating Blue Dog Glenn Nye in Virginia's second CD. None of this answers the question how, for example, did a bona fide nitwit, Ron Johnson, who actually makes the three female kooks look good, manage to use his money to defeat one of the most admired political figures in America, Senate icon Russ Feingold? And Rick Scott? Like I said, a notorious-- if unindicted-- criminal? Why did those two make it and the three free-spending gals fail? Is sexism part of the picture here?

Vito Fossella Looking To Run Again in 2010? And What About Norm Coleman's Corruption Case?

Republicans, always and forever the America First Party, are happy as clams about Rod Blagojevich's arrest. In their dreams the worm has turned and the pendulum has swung. But if they were smart they'd forget about Blagojevich and William Jefferson and let the law take care of those two and instead concentrate of Nancy Pelosi's stubborn refusal to take hard lines on unindicted criminals like Charlie Rangel, George Bush and Dick Cheney. Rangel should have been forced out of his Ways & Means Chair months ago and Pelosi's gross dereliction of duty inherent in preventing the impeachment of Bush and Cheney makes her an accessory after the fact in their long catalogue of crimes. And over on the Senate side, I believe Ted Stevens' 7 criminal indictments were greeted not with a serious ethics investigation but with a standing ovation. There are tapes of that; none of those people applauding him should be eligible to continue serving in the Senate. Why can't Harry Reid keep that body of geezers in line?

And speaking of people who shouldn't be eligible to serve in Congress, Vito Fossella hasn't even served his 5 days in jail yet-- let alone explained why he happens to have two families, one in NY and one in northern Virginia-- and he's already serving everyone in Staten Island who will come bagels and lox. His brunch this Sunday is widely viewed as a first dip of the toe back into the addictive waters of politics for the disgraced Fossella.

[I]t seems that event organizers, including members of the Fossella family, are having difficulty getting ordinary rank-and-file Republicans to come to the 11:30 a.m. event.

"They're having trouble getting people," said source with knowledge of the event. "Apparently they're not getting enthusiasm. Don't forget, it's Christmas time. On the other hand, a lot of people might be thinking, 'What can he do for me now?'"

...The Fossellas are billing the Hilton soiree as "thank you" party for supporters, but some believe that Fossella is using the shindig as a way to gauge support for a possible run at McMahon in 2010.

If that's the case, insiders said, Fossella might be disappointed at the turnout, especially with Republicans, including elected officials, being pressed to bring along enough people to stock a table of 12.

"I'm having a hard time," admitted one Republican. "It's, like, 10 days from Christmas. People are going to be away or putting up their trees, or shopping."

Any poor attendance at the brunch should be attributed to the holiday season, he hastened to add, and shouldn't be used as a measure of Fossella's popularity.

Not every Republican sees it quite that way. In fact, the top GOP dog on Staten Island, Guy Molinari, seems to feel that Fossella's future in politics hinges on the brunch. "The bottom line is how many people show up to his event. If a lot of people show up, it would be an indication that he’s very popular and would be a formidable candidate.” With $220,000 in his election fund and a household name, Fossella is eager to challenge conservative Democratic freshman Michael McMahon in 2010. But former state Assemblyman/hot dog vendor Bob Straniere, who ran against McMahon last month and was tounced 105,128- 57,530, is less optimistic about the Republican Party's future in the Staten Isaldn/Brooklyn district. “Republicans can still succeed selectively, but the congressional seat is now lost forever,” he told yesterday's Hill.

And while we're on the subject of political corruption and investigations thereof, many outside of Minnesota are unaware that the intense vote count battle between Al Franken and Norm Coleman is taking place in the context of an FBI investigation into Coleman's corrupt behavior. One of Coleman's cronies, Nasser Kazeminy, paid the senator off, to the tune of at least $100,000, through Coleman's wife, Laurie, who has acted as a kind of moll in a crime syndicate, not unlike John Doolittle's wife and Tom Delay's wife.

Kazeminy tried improperly to send money from his company in Texas to Coleman through Coleman's wife's insurance company in Minneapolis and then forged a bogus contract in an attempt to cover-up the improprieties. Kazeminy has also been flying Coleman and his family around on private planes.

Some in Minnesota are comparing Coleman's corruption-- still in the investigation stages-- with Blagojevich's corruption, now being played out on the front pages on the nation's mass media.

In both cases, the charges are that illegal payoffs to the elected official would be masked as payment of work performed by the wife. The monetary amounts are in the same ballpark: Laurie Coleman’s company received $75,000 and was to be paid $25,000, while the salary proposed for Patricia Blagojevich ran as high as $150,000.

One difference: In the Colemans’ case, payments-- which haven’t been shown to be illegal, and whose propriety Sen. Coleman has insisted on-- were actually made, not just talked about during wiretapped conversations.

...Here are allegations concerning Laurie Coleman contained in the first of two lawsuits filed in Texas against Coleman benefactor and family friend Nasser Kazaminy and Deep Marine Technologies, Incorporated (DMT):

… Kazeminy told Mr. McKim [former CEO of DMT] that he [Kazeminy] would make sure there was paperwork to make it appear as though the payments were in connection with legitimate transactions, explaining further that Senator Coleman’s wife, Laurie, worked for the Hays Companies (”Hays”), an insurance broker in Minneapolis, and the payments could be made to Hays for insurance…

Hays provides risk management, insurance, and employee benefits consulting. It is also the employer of Senator Coleman’s wife, Laurie, who is an aspiring actress and holds no insurance licenses in the State of Texas. Kazeminy informed Messrs. McKim and [former DMT CFO B.J.] Thomas that Hays would funnel the money from DMT to Senator Coleman through the payment of compensation to his wife, Laurie, and that there was nothing to worry about. Laurie Coleman never provided any type of services or products to DMT…

Specifically, Defendants breached their fiduciary duties by: (1) directing improper payments to Hays for the benefit Senator Norm Coleman [sic] and his spouse for no legitimate business purpose …

Staten Island-- The Craziest Congressional Race Anywhere

On Saturday we explained why the much-hated Republican hot dog vendor-- hated by Republicans-- had virtually no chance of winning the Staten Island (plus a bit of Brooklyn) congressional seat that was abandoned by Bush rubber stamp Vito Fossella after he was caught with two families. We accepted that the likely next congressman would be, by default, a very conservative Democratic hack from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, Michael McMahon.

But then there was a new and bizarre development. On Sunday, some Fossella cronies sent up a trial balloon that their man was back in the race and that the hot dog vendor was being convinced to give up his pointless place on the ballot-- in return for a judicial appointment.

"It's absolutely true," a source close to Fossella said of rumors that Fossella and his allies are quietly plotting his comeback.

Voters in the 13th Congressional District got polling calls about Fossella this weekend, the Staten Island Advance reported Sunday.

There's only one problem: The election lineup is already set.

...A candidate can only be bumped off the ballot now if they die, move out of state or are nominated to run for a judgeship.

Both Straniere and Atanasio are lawyers and eligible for the bench - and there are plenty of open races throughout the city and state.

Straniere isn't universally supported by Staten Island Republicans. He only got the party's nod after the abrupt death of Frank Powers, its first-choice pick. Even then, insiders suspected Straniere's ability to switch and run for a judgeship was part of his appeal.

With Fossella's trial scheduled for October-- right in the midst of an election campaign-- many thought this was an impossible scenario... although it is Staten Island. But then late yesterday, Fossella issued a statement saying he's not running after all.

“I am deeply humbled by the outpouring of support that I have received from people throughout the district through these difficult times, but I am not a candidate for Congress,” Mr. Fossella said in a statement released by his office. “As I have stated before, my priorities are my family and serving the people of Staten Island and Brooklyn.”

Obviously Fossella being back in Congress and him "serving the people of Staten Island and Brooklyn" are mutually exclusive. Straniere, the hot dog vendor, breathed a sigh of relief when he was informed that he could continue his hopeless run for Congress/. “I am the Republican candidate in the 13th Congressional District,” he said in an interview on Monday afternoon. “I won overwhelmingly in the Republican primary and I’m running for Congress. I have been strongly supported by the Fossella family. In fact, the congressman’s father was with me on primary night. I have no idea where these rumors come from.”

Staten Island Congressional Race Looking A Little One-Sided

Conservative Molinaro endores conservative McMahon

The other day we looked at ominous signs -- for generic Democrats -- that, nationwide, generic Democrats were no longer polling double digits ahead of generic Republicans. (Note: all Republican members of Congress are generic.) They're still ahead but by a rapidly shrinking margin. As I said at the time, Blue America endorses outstanding progressives and never generic Democrats. We don't much care for generic Democrats.

One very generic Democrat we really don't care for, Michael McMahon comes right out of the deepest, darkest bowels of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. He won his primary battle last Tuesday for the mostly Staten Island seat being abandoned by Republican incumbent Vito "Two Families Values" Fossella. He isn't rated as a sure thing... but almost. The generic Democrats losing ground finding will have no impact on McMahon. In fact, his GOP opponent, hot dog vendor Bob Straniere, is so intensely disliked by the Republican Establishment that they are publicly declaring they won't vote for him. Back in May the biggest shot in Staten Island Republican politics, Guy Molinari, said he "would rather vote for a Democrat" than Straniere. Now that the Conservative Party decided to not endorse Straniere, Molinari is saying he'll probably vote for the Conservative Party candidate, Paul Anatasio. And that's just the beginning of Straniere's electoral woes.

Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, a right wing kook, has actually endorsed McMahon. He wasn't exactly gracious about Straniere either:

"I don't think he's fit to run," Molinaro said of Straniere, a state Assemblyman for 24 years. "Straniere is the best friend of Straniere, and that's it. He's a loner; he never helped anybody."

Straniere released a statement that accused Molinaro of turning his back on party values for "personal, petty vendettas." Straniere in 2001 ran against Molinaro for borough president, and is somewhat of an outcast among Island Republicans.

And beyond Molinaro and Molinari, the guy Straniere beat in the Republican primary on Tuesday, Republican Party treasurer, Dr. Jamshad Wyne, said out loud what everyone already knows, that Straniere is a racist swine, something that works better for Republicans in the Deep South than in the Northeast.

Straniere accused the Pakistani-born Dr. Wyne of trying to hide his ethnicity by referring to himself as “Jim.” Dr. Wyne, who is also a cardiologist, said that Mr. Staniere was “race baiting,” and “trying to stir up fear” by repeatedly highlighting his ethnicity in a largely white electorate as well as the fact that Dr. Wyne is Muslim.

It was a point Dr. Wyne made in his resignation letter to John S. Friscia, the chairman of the Republican Party on Staten Island.

“Honestly, I cannot serve effectively under the current leadership who instead of denouncing, supports a racist candidate Robert Straniere for Congress who attacked my race and religion to become a congressman,” the letter states. “And I believe I was not given the nomination of the Republican Party because of my religion and ethnic background.”

And yet another wingnut, GOP write-in candidate Carmine Morano, who took 10% of the Republican vote on Tuesday, is running as the Independence Party candidate in November.

In the money raising department (as of August 20), McMahon had taken in $717,124 and had $413,062 on hand. Straniere had raised $14,968 and had $11,777 on hand. The DCCC is willing to spend freely to capture the last remaining GOP seat in New York City and Republicans have already written Straniere off as a loser with no chance. We have no horse in this race, but if I were betting, I'd put my $20 down on McMahon. That way when McMahon starts voting straight Republican in Congress I'll at least have $20 to use for postage to send nasty letters to the DCCC.

Primary Day In New York-- And Six Other States

Howie drags another unsuspecting congressional candidate, Jon Powers, to a raw food restaurant

There are a seven states with primaries today, although New York's is the only one worth reporting on. A gaggle of greasy Republicans are fighting amongst each other to take on Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes in New Hampshire but Carol and Paul are expected to beat back whichever clown is nominated by the reactionaries. The gubernatorial primary in Delaware takes on some meaning because whoever wins the Democratic nod is likely to be appointing a U.S. Senator after November.

In New York, however, there really are some hot races. In the Staten Island/Brooklyn district (NY-13), the Democratic Establishment has gotten behind pro-war, pro-corporate, conservative shill Michael McMahon from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party while grassroots Democrats back Steve Harrison. According to this morning's CQPolitics "Harrison held Fossella to the lowest take of his congressional career, 57 percent, in 2006 but with the scandal surrounding Fossella and the subsequent chance to pick up the seat, Democrats turned to McMahon for the general election. McMahon reported raising $717,000 and had $413,000 on hand through Aug. 20, according to his pre-primary report, while Harrison raised $201,000 and had $45,000 on hand by the same date. The Republican primary, meanwhile, has turned nasty. Two candidates are competing for the party nomination: former state Rep. Robert Straniere and Staten Island GOP Finance Chair Jamshad Wyne. The district encompasses all of Staten Island and the southern tip of Brooklyn and both county Republican parties have endorsed Straniere. But Wyne has boosted his candidacy with $325,000 in self-loans, which puts him far ahead of Straniere in fundraising. Wyne raised $334,000 and had $203,000 on hand through Aug. 20 while Straniere raised $15,000 and had $12,000 on hand by the same date. The local Conservative Party favors McMahon but the state party overruled their attempt to endorse him. Instead the Conservatives are running their own far right lunatic fringe candidate, depriving the GOP of their line-- and likely to help the Democrat in November.

Up in the suburban/exurban area between Buffalo and Rochester (NY-26) the DCCC insiders and the grassroots are on the same side-- both backing Jon Powers against an extremely nasty and deranged Republican billionaire running as a Democrat, Jack Davis. Davis has spent $3.6 million on his campaign and, according to CQPolitics has no support whatsoever from the Democratic Party and is simply running a "sabotage campaign against Powers... bleeding him dry,” something which may well help Davis' old friends in the GOP come November.

In the Albany district, where Mike McNulty is one of the few Democrats retiring from Congress this year, the field is crowded and the campaign hasn't yielded much heat or light. Soundpolitic over at TheAlbanyProject has the best analysis I've seen and has come to the conclusion that Phil Steck is the best candidate.

There is also an outside chance that Kevin Powell will beat corrupt reactionary Democratic hack Edolphus Towns in Brooklyn. CQPolitics: "It will be Towns’ second tough challenge in a row after winning the 2006 Democratic primary with less than 50 percent of the vote over two little-known Democratic challengers. Towns was criticized by party leadership for failing to vote with the party, including a vote in support of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which passed 217-215 but was unpopular with many top Democrats. Towns is favored to survive the primary; he has raised more than 10 times more money than Powell ($1.2 million to $100,000) and had seven times more cash on hand ($417,000 to $57,000) by Aug. 20."

And speaking of New York, Ed Koch, a posterboy for Democrats who have gone over to the Dark Side, has taken leave of his Republican allies and endorsed Obama. He says Palin is too scary for mainstream Americans to support the McCain-Palin ticket.

I have concluded that the country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama, leader of the Democratic Party and protector of the philosophy of that party. Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs, e.g., national health insurance, the right of abortion, the continuation of Social Security, gay rights, other rights of privacy, fair progressive taxation and a host of other needs and rights.

If the vice president were ever called on to lead the country, there is no question in my mind that the experience and demonstrated judgment of Joe Biden is superior to that of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a plucky, exciting candidate, but when her record is examined, she fails miserably with respect to her views on the domestic issues that are so important to the people of the U.S., and to me. Frankly, it would scare me if she were to succeed John McCain in the presidency.