Party Unity Means Something Different In English Than It Does In Beltway-Speak

The DSCC website lists all the Democratic candidates running for Senate this cycle-- except one. And they're not just listing the big battle grounds like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Arizona, Florida and New Hampshire. The DSCC includes races where no one thinks there's one chance in 100 for the Democratic candidate to win-- like in Idaho where some guy named Jerry Sturgill is taking on Mike Crapo and in South Carolina, where Pastor Thomas Dixon is challenging Tim Scott. The most recent poll in Idaho shows Sturgill with support from 20% of registered voters. The DSCC doesn't mention the Kansas or Alaska nominees-- respectively a right-wing fellow named Patrick Wiesner and Berniecrat/former state legislator Ray Metcalfe-- by name, but at least that mention that the states have Senate contests.

The one set they don't mention is Utah. Why? The woman who won the primary against the conservative Democrat the DSCC wanted to see get the nomination is Berniecrat Misty K. Snow, a cashier in a convenience store. She beat conservative Blue Dog Jonathan Swinton 28,929 (59.40%) to 19,774 (40.60%). But she's transgender and that's a bridge it far for homophobic slobs Chuck Schumer and Jon Tester, so they erased Utah from the DSCC election map. It doesn't exist. Misty is polling better in Utah than Jerry Sturgill is in Idaho. But... she's pure working class; she's not connected to the insider establishment in any way; she's 100% progressive and independent minded and was a fighter for Bernie's successful Utah campaign (which won every single county in the state and embarrassed Hillary 79.3% to 20.3%). And then that transgender thing; Schumer just couldn't hack the idea. Party unity only just goes so far... for the establishment.

Bernie and Elizabeth Warren,on the other hand, are out on the road campaigning for DSCC candidates coast to coast. There really aren't many Senate Democrats with any star power or who could appeal to the base, certainly not Schumer or Tester. Who would show up to see either of them-- unless it was people with rotten tomatoes (or bribes)?

Last Friday Elizabeth Warren was with mediocre former fracking lobbyist and Schumer recruit Katie McGinty at the University of Pennsylvania with McGinty. This coming Friday Bernie will be with McGinty at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, both progressive superstars trying to jazz millennial voters up for the lackluster political hack no one but the establishment thought would be a good candidate. Friday McGinty claimed she'll be on board with Warren's agenda in the Senate. I'll believe that when I see it.

Bernie has also endorsed-- and will presumably campaign for-- DSCC candidates in Ohio (Ted Strickland's moribund campaign), New Hampshire (where he and Warren could probably do conservative Maggie Hassan some good), Nevada (where Harry Reid puppet Catherine Cortez Masto is struggling) and in the one state that makes sense, Wisconsin, where the Democratic veteran, Russ Feingold, is an actual progressive like Warren and Sanders. (So far the only U.S. Senate candidate endorsed by Bernie OurRevolution organization is Feingold.)

Remember, when it comes to the DC Democratic establishment, which stinks to high heaven with corruption, "party unity" will always be a one-way street-- and to someone like Chuck Schumer or Jon Tester, a working class transgender woman with the temerity to beat their candidate in a fair contest makes her one thing: roadkill. Blue America only has two Senate candidates we've endorsed going into November. You can find them both by tapping on the thermometer:

Trans Tokenism-- Chuck Schumer's Ugly Bigotry Trumps Love

No, not all the evil bigots are Republicans

Go the the "races" page of the official DSCC website. Tester and Schumer, who run the operation, list every state with a race this cycle from Arizona to Wisconsin-- except one. They even list 3 deep red states, Alaska, Kansas and Louisiana, that haven;t chosen candidates yet. The state the DSCC refuses to recognize is Utah, a averred state... but one where Democrats feel Trumpophobia is so pronounced that Bill Clinton is going to camp[aign for Hillary there. On June 28, Utah Democrats chose their candidate-- and it wasn't even close. The establishment was all in for conservative Blue Dog Jonathan Swinton, someone who was campaigning on a Republican-lite platform. Utah Dems rejected him for Misty K. Snow, 27,138 (59.4%) to 18,530 (40.6%).

Schumer and Tester immediately washed their hands of the Beehive State. According to the DSCC, Utah doesn't exist and much-disliked right-wing kook Mike Lee has no election opponent. How could that happen? Misty is a working class gal who works as a cashier in a grocery store, not as a fracking lobbyist like Katie McGinty (a Schumer recruit who disgraced herself at the convention last week) or as a lawyer, like almost all the other Schumer recruits. Schumer has always been uncomfortable with working class people; he's frightened of them and he has contempt for them. I noticed it in high school, where he was some kind of a strange elitist creep in a Brooklyn neighborhood that also spawned egalitarians Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Bernie Sanders. But Schumer might have swallowed his distaste for working folks and accepted Misty, except for one other thing. Although she's campaigning on working class issues, she's a transgender woman. And that's a step too far for the bigoted Wall Street-backed snob who masquerades as a Democrat. Maybe if Misty was a rich professional transgender woman...

Meanwhile, Dawn Ennis at LGBTQNation.com wrote glowingly that "history was made in Philadelphia once again when a young transgender woman stepped up to the stage at the Democratic National Convention Thursday and delivered a speech, the first-ever by an openly transgender person at any major political convention." Great optics, but no mention of Schumer's and Tester's war against the transgender candidate her state's Democrats had made the nominee over the conservative Schumer wanted as the nominee. Sarah was the student body president of American University and an easier fit than Misty Snow for the Democratic Party recent flirtation with fully embracing a kind of elitism that has turned off working class people.

Sarah McBride, 25, is the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, and came out four years ago as a student at American University in Washington, D.C., where she was student body president. She was the first transgender intern in the White House, and two years ago married her husband, LGBTQ activist and trans man Andrew Cray, who died just days later at age 28.

In her historic address to delegates, McBride spoke of her late husband’s strength and determination, and called upon the community to work together to elect Hillary Clinton.

“Knowing Andy left me profoundly changed. More than anything, his passing taught me that every day matters when it comes to building a world where every person can live their life to the fullest.

Hillary Clinton understands the urgency of our fight. She will work with us to pass the Equality Act, to combat violence against transgender women of color, and to end the HIV and AIDS epidemic once and for all.”

Schumer is an asshole. His unopposed rise to the leadership of the Senate Democrats speaks volumes about the pathetic state of our champions there. If you'd like to support Misty's lonely, quixotic battle against Mike Lee in Utah, Blue America, as far as I know, is the only PAC in the country helping her raise campaign funds. She can use some help:

Meet Misty K. Snow, A Democratic Senate Candidate In Utah Who Chuck Schumer Refuses To Recognize

Pretty much the only Senate race in the whole country that DSCC bosses Chuck Schumer and Jon Tester refuse to even acknowledge exists is the one in Utah for the seat of far right extremist Mike Lee. The DSCC website lists every race-- including ones without candidates-- except the one in Utah, where they are somehow offended that a political outsider, a super-progressive transgender woman, Misty Katherine Snow, won the primary. Misty was an outspoken Bernie supporter, something that infuriated Schumer, of course. When Bernie beat Hillary by a huge margin-- 61,333 (79.3%) to 15,666 (20.3%)-- it just further antagonized the Senate Democrats new self-styled dictator. Misty beat the conservative Blue Dog, Jonathan Swinton, that the party establishment was pushing-- and she beat him convincingly, 27,138 (59.4%) to 18,530 (40.6%), despite Swinton spending almost twice as much as she did.

After she became the official Democratic Party candidate and Chuck Schumer refused to acknowledge that Utah is even a state with a Senate race, Blue America endorsed her. You can contribute to her campaign by tapping on the thermometer on the right. We asked if she would be interested in writing a guest post about the single issue that most animates her campaign and that she feels the strongest about. Please give a read and then consider helping her get her message out to an electorate in Utah that is apoplectic and Trump being the Republican Party's nominee. The DSCC should understand this and give Misty a hand but... well, Chuck Schumer.

Fighting For A Living Wage In Utah
-by Senate candidate Misty K. Snow

Currently 51% of people in this country make $30,000 a year or less. This means a majority are barely making it, they are living in poverty or are close to it. This is unacceptable; we must do better for working people in this country and their families.  

The current minimum wage of $7.25 in this country is not enough. A working person cannot live on that wage anywhere in the county. Such a low wage is not only insufficient to live on; it is actually an insult to working people. No corporation can be profitable without the talents and labor of its workers; do they not deserve to share in the fruits of their labor?

The workers being paid these low wages often rely on public assistance such as food stamps and subsidized housing in order to survive. These benefits paid to low income workers and their families in effect become a form of corporate welfare as it forcing the government to fill in the income gap of workers who are not being paid a living wage while the corporations that employ them make millions of dollars in profits.

Every year taxpayers spend $6.2 billion on food stamps, housing assistance, and other forms of welfare to meet the needs of Wal-Mart employers around the country and that is just one corporation. All together taxpayers are spending $153 billion every year on welfare programs just to meet the needs of already employed people. Why are we subsidizing the low wages paid by corporations that are making millions, or even billions of dollars in profits? Why do we not make these corporations pay their workers a living wage?

We must fight for a living wage in this country. We must raise the minimum wage in this country and we must do so aggressively. I believe that we can raise the minimum wage to $15 on hour over the next several years with an annual adjustment for inflation thereafter. Doing so will finally allow tens of millions of working people in this country to finally make a wage that is much closer to a living wage and by also including an annual adjustment for inflation we ensure that we will not have to fight this battle again down the road.  

Furthermore the workers who are being paid these low wages are disproportionately women, people of color, members of the LGBT community. If we want to help close the wage gap experienced by women, people of color, and the LGBT community then it is necessary that we increase the minimum wage.  

We can win on this issue and we must win on this issue. Inaction here will abandon far to many working people and their families to poverty while allowing corporations to reap the benefits of subsidized low wages. It's time to make corporations pay their workers a living wage so that working people and their families can live with dignity and economic security.

What Do Beltway Party Bosses Chuck Schumer And Jon Tester Have Against Utah Democrat Misty K. Snow?

Yesterday we looked at the resistance of the establishment-- in this case, Pelosi and her incredibly incompetent and corrupt DCCC-- to getting behind progressives after they win their primaries against the more conservative candidates the DCCC prefers. I hope no one imagined I was exempting the DSCC from that dynamic just because I didn't mention them. But, just in case, let me mention them now. This is the DSCC's candidates page. It's not just their frontline candidates like conservative Democrats Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Patrick Murphy (FL), fracking lobbyist Katie McGuinty (PA), failed Blue Dog Baron Hill (IN), Patty Judge (IA), and Ted Strickland (OH) but even mentions candidates no one has ever heard of, like Tom Dixon (SC) and Jerry Sturgill (ID) and mentions that there are races in Louisiana, Alaska, and Kansas where candidates haven't been chosen yet and where the DSCC has no interest anyway. But one state not mentioned at all is Utah, where far right-- and quite unpopular-- extremist Mike Lee is running for reelection. The DSCC seems determined to ignore that race, especially now that the Republican-lite corporatist they assumed would win, Jonathan Swinton, was beaten on Tuesday by Misty K. Snow, a dedicated Berniecrat.

Establishment pols like Schumer and Tester who run the DSCC might not be totally thrilled with all the 15 planks that make up Snow's platform-- Clean Air, healthcare (single payer), getting money out of politics (Schumer's key to power), $15 minimum wage, women's rights, LGBT equality-- "LGBT people deserve full equality under the law, no excuses or exceptions."-- paid maternity leave, immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for people already living here," marijuana legalization, criminal justice reform, including ending private prisons, an industry so many senators take contributions bribes from, clean, renewable energy, a plank that must make Schumer's skin crawl: Wall Street reform (reinstating Glass-Steagall, breaking up the "too big to fail" banks and implementing public, non-profit banking), college for all ("state colleges and universities should be tuition-free"), gun violence prevention, and a public lands agenda that isn't likely to please rapacious developers-- but I wonder how they relate to the fact that she's a transgender political leader. In fact, Snow is the first transgender nominee from a major party to run for a U.S. Senate seat. I don't hear the hypocritical Schumer celebrating that or making any announcements about it. (Blue America was thrilled and immediately added her to our Best Senate candidates ActBlue page.)

Throughout the primary, the 30-year-old Salt Lake City resident has given scant attention to her potentially historic status. She instead has campaigned on a progressive platform and promised to aggressively challenge Lee, whom she has repeatedly called "loathsome."

In unofficial primary returns, Snow had a 59.5 percent to 40.5 percent lead over Jonathan Swinton.

A marriage therapist, Swinton is 35 years old and Mormon. He described himself as a conservative Democrat who sought to govern as a centrist, similar to former Rep. Jim Matheson and Doug Owens, who is running against Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, for the second time.

Snow jumped in the race shortly before the filing deadline because she wanted to offer an alternative to Swinton. And while Swinton led in the state convention, Snow notched enough support to force a primary, largely by criticizing Swinton for advocating for limits to abortion rights.

It appears Utah Democrats were similarly eager to try a different approach against Lee, one of the nation's most conservative senators. Lee faced no challenge from within his party as he seeks a second six-year term.

Swinton said the results were "discouraging."

"We hoped more Democrats were really looking at the long game at this, trying to unseat Mike Lee," he said. "The reality is I've done my absolute best and run an honorable campaign."

Snow credited her primary election performance to her focus on "issues that Democrats care about."

She has called for a $15 per hour minimum wage, paid family leave, legalized marijuana, criminal-justice reform and free or reduced tuition for higher education, a platform inspired by presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. She said her goal is to boost working-class people such as herself. She's employed as a cashier at a Harmons grocery and hasn't gone to college, partly due to the cost and partly because she wasn't sure what career path she would like to take. Now she's seeking to become a federal lawmaker.

Snow began living openly as woman in October 2014 and believes being a transgender person, a rarity in U.S. politics, will drum up attention and campaign money, while her Sanders-inspired run will fire up Democrats and some independents.

A poll in early June, commissioned by the Salt Lake Tribune and the Hinckley Institute of Politics, found that Lee holds a 51 percent to 37 percent lead on Snow. National political handicappers expect Utah's Senate seat to stay in GOP hands, but Snow believes she's in a strong starting position, particularly because most voters haven't heard of her.

Please consider helping Misty Snow make history and win a U.S. Senate seat (and end Mike Lee's career):