A Race Too Close To Call-- And Over Two-Thirds Of The Votes Uncounted

Lee Zeldin and his boss-- undermining America

When I lived there is the 1960s, Suffolk County was still to some extent a rural backwater. It was still the biggest potato-growing county in the U.S., although Idaho was coming on strong. I was once dragged in front of a grand jury in Riverhead, the county seat and, judging by the cast of characters and their values, I could have easily have been in Kansas. Today Suffolk County is the 4th most populous in New York State (about a million and a half people), after Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, with more people than the Bronx, Nassau, Westchester, Erie (Buffalo) or Monroe (Rochester). It takes up most of Long Island and is overwhelmingly suburban now, although it is still the most important farming county in New York.

NY-01 is most of Suffolk County, although both NY-02 in the south and NY-03 in the north both have sizable pieces. NY-01 is a swing district with a Republican congressman, Lee Zeldin. Obama won the district-- narrowly-- both times he ran, but in 2016 Trump beat Hillary by over 12 points.

A week ago, Democrats had a primary to pick the nominee who would take on Zeldin in November. Of the 3 serious candidates, two ran as moderately progressive, Perry Gershon and Nancy Goroff, and one ran as a typical conservative Democrat, Bridget Fleming. With all precincts counted, Wednesday showed an election way to close to call-- because most votes had been cast by mail and they had not been counted. This is what was counted:

• Perry Gershon- 5,166 (35.4%)
• Nancy Goroff- 5,002 (34.3%)
• Bridget Fleming- 4,062 (27.8%)

As of the June 3 FEC reports, Goroff had raised $2,342,792 ($1,005,600 self-funded) and spent $1,584,630; Gershon had raised $1,113,460 and spent $925,637; and Fleming had raised $703,116 and spent $591,288. Two dark money groups spent independent money in the primary, Blue Tide NY-1 LLC spent $168,919 in favor of Gershon and a notorious scam-artist/grifter sewer money group, 314 Action Fund, spent $516,670 smearing Gershon and supporting Goroff.

So what do the candidates do while they sit in limbo waiting to see which one of them will be duking it out with Zeldin? He has raised $3,906,970 so far this cycle. An e-mail to her supporters from Goroff helped shed some light on how a candidate navigates this in between time.

This campaign has always been focused on facts, data, and reality. So let me tell you where things currently stand.

Here are the facts: after an incredible election day with almost 15,000 votes cast in person, we’re down 164 votes. There are currently over 35,000 absentee votes still to be counted-- over ⅔ of the votes in this election. We’re very much in this.

Those votes won’t be counted until at least July 1, and depending on how fast the Suffolk County Board of Elections can count, we may not know the winner of our Primary until mid-July. Our campaign has promised to support this process to ensure that votes are counted as smoothly and quickly as possible to help us declare the eventual nominee and move on to run against Lee Zeldin.

As the absentee count progresses, we are cautiously optimistic that once every vote is counted, I will be the Democratic nominee. Here’s why:

On election day, we won the town of Brookhaven, and Brookhaven makes up substantially more of the absentee ballots than of the in-person vote-- 61% compared to 58%.

Our very active field program was exclusively designed to encourage our supporters to vote absentee until right before election day, so there is reason to believe that our supporters heard from us and submitted their votes by mail.

We are modeling these results, and any small adjustments in the margins make all the difference. For example, if we increase our margins by .5% across the district compared to the in-person vote, we win. If the absentee votes are split like the in-person votes, but we do 1% better in absentees in Brookhaven, we win. The uncertainty is greater than the precision we can get in any of our models. The situation boils down to this: we need to make sure every vote is counted, and when they are, we remain hopeful we will win.

But here’s the thing: While we watch the vote counting, Lee Zeldin isn’t slowing down. In fact, he just announced a fundraiser featuring fellow Trump apologist Jim Jordan as a special guest!

The primary is a first stop on the way to our goal of beating Lee Zeldin and replacing him with a scientist who is working to actually make lives better. We need to begin raising money to compete with Zeldin’s $2 Million war chest. With just over 130 days until the General Election, we can’t miss a day, even with the Primary winner uncertain. So we’re going to keep sending emails with updates, we’re going to keep holding Zeldin accountable, and we’re going to keep asking for money to do exactly that. And if it turns out that I am not the nominee, any funds you donate from this date forward will be refunded.

With two-thirds of the votes uncounted, there is no telling who the winner will be, not in a race this close. And one has to wonder how many races from last Tuesday that is true of. It certainly is the case in Kentucky's Senate race, where the Schumer candidate looked like she was leading but, since then, Charles Booker, the progressive, has pulled ahead-- and where most votes are still unaccounted for, but where we should see final results tomorrow.

How To Use Trump's Impeachment To Win 2020 Congressional Races

Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and Trump, welded at the hip

Smart Democratic candidates running for Congress against GOP incumbents have gone on the offense against their Trump-enabling opponents. Nancy Goroff is running to represent the Suffolk County residents of swingy NY-01. The current incumbent gave up trying to pretend to be a mainstream Republican and shifted all the way too the right lately, likely with an eye on becoming a Fox News host in the near future. He became one of the most aggressive and obnoxious of the Trump defenders in the House.

Goroff sent out an e-mail to her supporters Wednesday night right after the vote reminding them that "the House of Representatives just voted to approve articles of impeachment against Donald Trump for his abuses of power and obstruction of Congress. This action was necessary against a President who has proven to be a clear and present danger to our democracy." She quickly turned the discuss to Zeldin:

But Lee Zeldin chose to put party over country. He ignored clear evidence that Trump attempted to bribe Ukraine with taxpayer dollars into interfering in the 2020 election. He voted to protect Trump and uphold corruption at the highest levels.

History will judge politicians like Zeldin for their lack of principle. But right now, we need to hold them accountable at the ballot box.

We need honest leadership in Congress - not unbridled partisanship.

...Tonight's vote is not about Democrats or Republicans. It is not about our personal opinions of Donald Trump's character. It is about affirming that no President is above the law, that we have co-equal branches of government, and that foreign interference in our democracy must be stopped.

By opposing the articles of impeachment, Zeldin showed that he cares more about his political networks than upholding free and fair elections. It's up to us to hold Zeldin accountable.

Two day earlier, Goroff had effectively set Zeldin up for what she knew was coming. She wrote: "Breitbart News-- the extremist news outlet which aligned with the alt-right under the leadership of Steve Bannon-- just came out with a glowing profile of my opponent in NY-01, Republican incumbent Lee Zeldin. They called him a 'legend' and 'impeachment’s biggest star.' Zeldin continues to see his job as a way to raise his profile in right-wing media-- not to represent the people in Suffolk County. Zeldin has grown more and more radical at the same time the district is growing rapidly more Democratic. The New York Times recently reported the profound political shift, and there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans on Long Island. The good news is that we can win: In my first quarter, with your help, I outraised Zeldin by $70,000 in individual contributions. Next November, I’ll unseat him to become the first female Ph.D. scientist in Congress, but as Trump’s GOP props up Zeldin, I will need your help."

She ended with an appeal to people "as frustrated as I am with Trump, Zeldin, and the rest of the GOP circus in Washington." Later, Nancy told me that "With his vote, Zeldin cemented his place on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of his constituents. There has never been energy and activism in NY-01 like we've seen due to Zeldin's votes to protect the president while harming his constituents (ie. not signing on to remove the SALT tax cap). Just this week, on a cold rainy night, over 600 people came out across Suffolk County to call for impeachment-- numbers at protests we've never seen before."

Mike Siegel is the progressive candidate running against far right Trumpist Michael McCaul in a gerrymandered central Texas district. Like Nancy Goroff, Mike saw an opportunity to draw a contrast between himself and his opponent on the question of impeachment. "Yesterday was a historic day," he wrote. "The House impeached a president for the third time in the history of our nation. But here in the Texas 10th, instead of standing up to the President’s abuse of power, Rep. McCaul abandoned all dignity and common sense. He said, 'some 63 million Americans voted for President Trump,' and therefore he should not be impeached. Complete nonsense. McCaul has failed to uphold his oath of office. He claims to be a foreign policy expert-- then he must know how important foreign aid is. He knows that when Congress appropriates aid and the President withholds it to advance his personal agenda-- that is an abuse of power. Michael McCaul swore an oath to defend our constitution but he has done nothing but protect his own political ambitions. While McCaul has been sucking up to Trump, our district is in need. Tens of thousands without health care and closing rural hospitals. Several counties with polluted groundwater due to coal ash contamination and fracking fluids. Closing public schools and a growing homeless population. What has McCaul done with his time in office for the people of Texas 10? Nothing. I am committed to fighting for the people of this district. To ensure their needs are put first. And to fight to protect democracy in the United States, from all threats, foreign and domestic."

Is Long Island Republican Lee Zeldin Throwing Away His Career Defending Trump?

I went to college at Stony Brook University in Suffolk County. Before I started school there, Democrat Otis Pike was the congressman. And when I graduated in 1969 he was still Suffolk's representative in Congress, a job he kept for another decade. I was never a big fan. He was too conservative and way too militaristic-- and at the height of the Vietnam War. When he retired he was succeeded by a far right crackpot, William Carney, best known for having been the first member of the Conservative Party to serve in the House. He later switch to the Republican Party and then retired after 4 term and was succeeded by Democrat George Hochbrueckner and was beaten by Republican Michael Forbes in 1994. Forbes, noting that the GOP was "tone deaf" to the plight of working families, switched to the Democratic Party in 1999, while still in Congress, but was so right-wing that he lost the Democratic primary to a 71 year old librarian (who was financed by the GOP to the tune of a quarter million dollars). Republican Felix Grucci beat her and represented Suffolk County in Congress for one term before being beaten by Democrat Tim Bishop, who served from 2003 to 2014 when he was beaten by Lee Zeldin, 55-45%, primarily because of a scandal in which a hedge fund manager paid him off in return for getting the family a fireworks permit for their kid's bar mitzvah.

Got it? That's Suffolk County, a quintessential swing district on the high growth eastern end of Long Island. When I lived there, it was the biggest potato-growing county in the U.S. Now it's 99.9% suburban (actual statistic) and 0.1% rural. It's also the 28th richest congressional district-- in terms of median income-- in the country. The more diverse and more Democratic western parts of the county are no longer part of the first congressional district. The northwestern area is part of NY-03 (Tom Suozzi's district) and the southwestern area is part of NY-02 (Peter King's district, soon to turn Democratic). Zeldin's district, which still includes Stony Brook starts at Nissequogue in the north, encompasses Smithtown, the eastern shore of Lake Ronkokoma and Patchogue. Everything to the east of that is Zeldin's district, including Port Jefferson, Brookhaven, Fire Island, the Hamptons, Riverhead and Montauk. It was an R+2 district until Hillary's abysmal campaign resulted in it being reclassified as an R+5. Obama won the district both times but Trump crushed Hillary 54.5% to 42.2%.

Last year Zeldin hung on, beating Perry Gershon 139,027 (51.5%) to 127,991 (47.4%), Zeldin having successfully labeled him "Park Avenue Perry." Gershon out-raised Zeldin, $5,017,361(about 40% of it self-financed) to $4,447,149. This cycle Gershon is trying again, but he has a strong primary opponent he has to get through first, Nancy Goroff, a distinguished scientist from Stony Brook. So far Zeldin has raised $1,855,879 to Gershon's $605,891 and Goroff's $521,006.

This morning, when Robert Reich wrote to his supporters that "Republican members of Congress are shredding reality to protect Trump in the face of mounting evidence that he and his administration are a criminal syndicate" he could well have been referring to Zeldin, who is apparently staking his whole career on Trump coattails. "Here's the truth," wrote Reich: "Congressional Republicans know that Trump is guilty, and they know that they look like damn fools for protecting him. Every day, they are making a calculation of how far they can take this without losing their careers."

Long Island media is covering Zeldin's role as a Trump enabler very closely and it is likely the 2020 congressional election will hinge, at least in part, on how Suffolk County voters view Trump. As of November 1, this is how party registration looked in the first district:

• Republicans- 159,329
• Democrats- 151,357
• Decline-to-state- 131,158

In other words, it will be the unaffiliated voters--who have been turning sharply away from Trump-- who determine Zeldin's fate next year. Last week a high-dollar donor fundraiser Zeldin held in St James-- one of Suffolk County's toniest neighborhoods-- attracted a strong contingent of protestors. Newsday interviewed several of them who complained about how Zeldin had "decided to throw his lot completely into the Trump camp and to adopt, in full, the Trumpian agenda." Some talked about organizing and how determined they are to remove Zeldin from office.

Last night Perry Gershon told us that "Lee Zeldin hasn’t held a town hall in over two years, and is consistently inaccessible to his constituents, which is why there is such dissatisfaction with him. To make matters worse, most people these days only see him when he is on cable news portraying himself as Trump’s #1 defender and cheerleader. I just held my third town hall in three months where we discussed affordable healthcare and the climate crisis we are in, as well as local issues like dangerous drinking water, lack of federal funding for our antiquated sewers and the crippling tax burden Long Islanders face. It has become crystal clear that residents are sick of Lee Zeldin and itching for a change."

This morning we heard from Nancy Goroff. Zeldin, of course, is the issue where she and Gershon are in complete sync. "Zeldin continues to lie and obfuscate in order to protect a corrupt President," she wrote. "He muddles the discussion of timeline, of what the President requested and of who knew about those requests when, to pretend that the President did nothing wrong. Zeldin has shown over and over that he cares more about getting on TV than about helping the people of our district. And by his metric, he has been enormously successful in the last month, because of his willingness to lie on camera on behalf of the President. Unfortunately, he does not show similar diligence when it comes to looking for solutions for healthcare, climate change, or financial security for his constituents. We deserve better!"

Reporting for NBC News, Allan Smith asked one salient question: how could some virtually unknown GOP lawmaker become a point man for Trump's impeachment defense? Zeldin might not be paying any attention to the water crisis in Southampton, but he's spoken more than any other Republican in the House about Trump's impeachment, which he insists is a "charade," a "clown show," and a "cocktail that is" House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff's "favorite drink to get America drunk on." He's become as much a Trump favorite as Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows. The difference is that they're both in super-gerrymandered districts created to elect Republicans. Zeldin's district is a true swing district and, unlike them, he's endangering his career. "Zeldin's loyalty to Trump," wrote Smith, "as well as his attacks on the impeachment process, has been met with much chagrin from Democrats. One House Democratic aide said Zeldin was 'maybe the best instance I’ve seen of someone using emulating Trump as a pathway to relevance.'"

If Evangelicals Are Supporting Trump Because They Can't Cope With Women's Bodies, Maybe They Should Skip The Election This Year And See A Psycho-Therapist Instead

Trump's support among white evangelicals hasn't sunk much despite the discomfort some of them feel about a few of his noticeably anti-Jesus policies and about the way he comports himself. 80% of white evangelicals voted for him in 2016 and, if the election were held today, 77% of them say they would do the same now. Writing for the Washington Post, Andrea Lucado cited a Maris poll for NPR and PBS from last month, in her piece that ran yesterday, How the female body became the scapegoat for white evangelicals. She pointed to the fact that 70% of white evangelicals reported hating Hillary Clinton, overwhelmingly because of her stand on women's Choice. "As a white, evangelical-raised Christian," wrote Lucado, "I am frustrated, angry and confused by the continued support of Trump even when his first term is coming to an end, but I can’t claim to be surprised." Not only do 65% of evangelicals oppose abortion-- a relatively new phenomenon; American evangelicals used to back Choice and deride Catholics for opposing it-- but "Americans who oppose the legality of abortion (27%) are significantly more likely than those who support the legality of abortion (18%) to say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on the issue."

I have grown suspicious of the way some evangelicals identify with their pro-life status so deeply that it affects every political decision they make.

French literary critic and philosopher René Girard studied how ancient civilizations relied on the tradition of the scapegoat. Girard claimed that scapegoating was necessary due to what he called “mimetic desire,” which, put simply, is the fact that we want what others have. This coveting ultimately leads to conflict only resolved through an act of violence, usually cast upon one victim chosen by the tribe: the scapegoat.





Girard found that this method of scapegoating changed when Jesus arrived in ancient Palestine. Jesus himself was described as a scapegoat, a “lamb led to slaughter” (Acts 8:32). But Girard argued that the circumstances around Christ’s crucifixion symbolized the end of the need of scapegoating. As he explained in his book “I See Satan Fall Like Lightening,” “Jesus is innocent, and those who crucify him are guilty.”





Girard theorized that because Jesus’ innocence was known by those in attendance at his crucifixion (See the accounts of Pontius Pilate in Matthew 27:23-24 and of the centurion in Matthew 27:54), the curtain was pulled back on the scapegoat method. It was finally clear that the truly guilty are those who scapegoat, not the scapegoat. The crucifixion symbolized the final sacrifice and negated the usefulness of the scapegoat tradition.

Even though Christianity was founded upon this very sacrifice, some have not gotten the message that scapegoating has ended.

Although the pro-life movement has made steps toward helping women through pregnancy, many of its tactics to prevent abortion are sometimes driven by shame. Each movie that portrays the horrors of the procedure, each image of a fetus, each hand-scribbled sign bobbing up and down outside a Planned Parenthood seems to be pointing a finger and asking, How could you? And the finger is always pointed at the woman. Her decision, her body, her fault.

What I have seen in the pro-life movement and elsewhere in evangelical culture is this ancient reliance upon the scapegoat mechanism, and the scapegoat is always the same-- the female body.

Purity culture-- an evangelical movement that reached its height in the late 1990s and early 2000s-- promoted a core message of abstinence before and outside of marriage. The way this sexual ethic was taught to me and many others badly warped my view of sex, the body and gender. Only in recent years have I been able to clumsily untangle the message from my faith, namely the weight, guilt and responsibility the movement put on females.

When learning about sex and purity, I was taught my virginity was my greatest commodity, therefore, I must protect it at all costs until I was married. Marriage and childbearing would be the pinnacle of my existence-- a belief many evangelicals still hold today. Just this week, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, suggested being a parent is what makes one human.

According to purity culture, the protection of my virginity was up to me. I remember many lectures about the importance of girls’ dressing modestly so as not to let our brothers stumble into the sin of lust. I once heard a youth leader say that a mere glimpse of a bra strap would cause a boy to have impure thoughts.

I was warned about how often boys thought about sex and the warning’s undertone was a warning for me: Don’t lead him into temptation. It was up to me to keep myself pure and to keep my brothers in Christ pure, as well. If I had sex before marriage, I would not only taint myself, but I would also own the guilt of causing the male I had sex with to have sex with me.

It made for a world nearly impossible for a girl to do right and for a boy to do wrong.

The shame and guilt that drove purity culture is the same shame I see driving the pro-life movement today. And like purity culture, the woman is the scapegoat. She is the one making the decision. She, and she alone, is at fault.

The fact that white evangelicals still as a whole support Trump for a 2020 reelection with abortion as the flag over their crusade points to an important truth: Evangelicals are still obsessed with female bodies, controlling them and blaming them.

Recalling Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, this leads me to wonder, what is the desire behind the scapegoat of the woman’s body? What do evangelicals want that others have? Is it power? Is it fame? Is it women themselves?

Or, do they fear what an end to their scapegoat mechanism would do? When the woman, or scapegoat, speaks, it causes unrest. It causes a dismantling. Look what it did to former Southern Baptist seminary president Paige Patterson, one of the most prominent religious leaders of the late 20th century. Is the pro-life movement just a convenient, moral excuse to keep the woman as scapegoat, and, therefore, maintain order?

Whatever it is, the pull to isolate a presidential vote to one issue is strong enough to blind many evangelicals to what Jesus would care about today: the poor (He was.), the immigrant (He was one.), the marginalized (He was.), the person of color (He was one.). It seems the primary rock some evangelicals are standing on is one in which the woman’s body is scapegoat, in which she is sacrificed.

President of the Evangelical States of America, Pig Man

And this isn't just about people in some backward part of Alabama or Oklahoma. How about Long Island? Nancy Goroff is running for a Suffolk County congressional seat held by anti-Choice fanatic Lee Zeldin. Yesterday, Goroff told her supporters that "Trump has instituted a 'gag rule' that prevents doctors from giving full medical advice to their patients. It has forced Planned Parenthood out of Title X, putting at risk wellness exams, STD and HIV screenings, birth control, and contraceptive education that millions of people count on. As a scientist, I believe medical decisions need to be made with the best information possible, and I don’t believe the government should stand between a patient and their doctor. Anti-choice politicians, like my opponent Lee Zeldin, are part of the problem and need to be replaced. Zeldin has voted to defund Planned Parenthood, to allow for 'personhood' legislation and to repeal the Affordable Care Act-- stripping health insurance from tens of millions of Americans. Overall, he’s voted against Planned Parenthood 30 times THIS YEAR-- and not once in favor of the women who need their help. When it comes to women's healthcare, Zeldin chooses policies that ignore the facts and data. As a scientist and a mom... I will work to debunk the lies about Planned Parenthood and fight to restore critical funding for it."

Northeast Iowa And Suffolk County, Long Island Have Something In Common-- DCCC Malfeasance

Throne-Holst & Vernon, not actual Democrats, "DCCC Democrats"

For progressives and Democrats on the eastern end of Long Island there will be no good solution to awful conservative representation in 2016. The one purely Suffolk County district left, NY-01, has been gradually turning blue since I lived there in the 1960s. Obama beat McCain in 2008 and beat Romney in 2012. But last year conservative Lee Zeldin defeated moderate Democrat Tim Bishop 89,564 (54.8%) to 73,860 (45.2%). Zeldin is a prime DCCC target this year and they recruited a wretched New Dem, venture capitalist David Calone as their candidate. The New Dems have already endorsed him as a group (and given him $5,000) and individual New Dems, particularly one of Congress' most corrupt members, Gregory Meeks, are all over this race. But, as if just being a New Dem isn't toxic enough, Steve Israel jumped in-- with a $10,000 donation-- for a candidate who isn't even a Democrat!

Swedish-born Anna Throne-Holst has always run for local office as a registered member of the Independence Party. A few months ago she filed the paperwork to switch her registration so she can make believe she's a Democrat before the election. She's certainly Israel's type... in more ways than one. He dragged his right-of-center, Wall Street-owned sock puppet from Nassau County into the race, New Dem Kathleen Rice, who also shelled out for Throne-Holst. At least Calone is an actual Democrat, even if the odious plutocracy-oriented kind from the Republican-wing of the Democratic Party-- like like Throne-Holst, Israel, Meeks, Rice... At least, between Rice's NY-04, Israel's NY-03 and Zeldin's NY-01, there is actually a worthwhile race, where progressive Democrat and Suffolk County legislative leader DuWayne Gregory is challenging Republican sociopath (and Israel-ally) Peter King. Lots of money thrown towards conservatives Calone and Throne-Holst, but in the bluer and easier to win NY-02... nothing from Israel, nothing from Rice, nothing from the DCCC. Jesus, these people are so contemptible. You can lend DuWayne Gregory, a lifelong progressive Democrat, a helping hand here.

And speaking of the DCCC penchant for recruiting conservatives and non-Democrats to run for Congress, EMILY's List-- the conservative women's group that has teamed up with Israel for Throne-Holst on Long Island-- is also working to make sure "ex"-Republican Monica Vernon is the Democratic candidate in deep blue (D+5) IA-01, instead of iconic progressive Pat Murphy.

Last week I got wind of another vomit-inducing DCCC story that I've been hoping to report on-- but can't find anyone to go on record about. As you probably know, the DCCC always discourages its staffers from working for progressive candidates. Last week a DCCC staffer, child of a prominent Democratic elected official no less, threaten a campaign manager-- you'll-never-work-in-this-town-again-- for taking a job with for Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy, a man with a long, effective, powerful progressive history that no doubt frightens plenty of DCCC power-mongers. When he was House Speaker in Iowa Pat raised teacher pay, created universal preschool for all 4 year-olds, raised the minimum wage, protected women's rights, expanded stem cell research, passed an LGBT civil rights bill, protected the marriage equality ruling when Iowa was just the third state in the union to allow same sex marriages... That's because this DCCC staffer is pushing for Monica Vernon, who was a Republican just 6 years ago. She wasn't even supporting our current President when he first ran for President in 2008. Worse yet she has a history of contributing to conservative Republicans in Iowa. Does the DCCC want a proven progressive, or do they want another miserable Republican-lite in Congress? And at what point does Nancy Pelosi step in and whip this failed catastrophe of an organization into shape? You know that page above that I suggested going to to help DuWayne? Works just as well for Pat.

Rod Blum is probably the only crackpot extremist from the Freedom Caucus that the Democrats have a chance to replace in 2016. We shouldn't let the DCCC and Monica Vernon screw that up by forcing a candidate on Iowa Democrats who they already know is a Republican and just won't come out and vote for. The DCCC should stop recruiting Republicans and conservatives.