Trump And American Disunity

Blue skies, nothing but blue skies

If you were shocked to hear polling that indicated that a majority or plurality of Americans approved of how Trump was handling the pandemic, keep in mind that whenever there's a national calamity, Americans tend to rally round the flag. Sometimes that is short-lived though-- and in this case it was very short-lived. A new poll from Navigator shows most Americans have now regained their senses and see Trump as part of the problem, not part of the solution. When asked about Trump's erratic and self-serving handling of the pandemic, we see a 13-point swing in his net approval on this from 52% to 42% (+10) to 47% to 50% (-3). "Trump is wildly out of step with Americans with his new push to relax social distancing," concluded the pollster. "Only 5% say we should roll back precautions, even at the expense of economic losses, while 74% say we should wait however long it takes for public health experts to say it’s safe, including 70% of Republicans... Trump didn’t cause coronavirus, but his actions have made it worse-- and Americans are looking to others, from governors to health experts, to lead us out of this... Lives have been put at risk by Trump’s senseless delay on invoking his authority to produce more needed supplies like masks and ventilators."

One of my sisters is tucked away in self-imposed isolation at her home in Brooklyn, venturing out only rarely and only with her N-99 mask and latex gloves. The other-- who is married to a dyed-in-the-wool Trumpist-- has been incredibly hostile to the idea of precautions... until yesterday when her fearless leader announced he was considering some kind of a enforceable travel quarantine against New York and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, whatever that means. If Trump says it's real, in her mind, it's real.

Some of Trump's political allies-- the reactionary governors of Florida and Texas for example-- had already put up barriers against New Yorkers. And now the truly repulsive conservative governor of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo, a pretend-Democrat, who has adamantly refused to issue shelter-in-place orders, announced Friday that "members of the National Guard, along with local law enforcement, would be going door-to-door in shore communities to look for people who have come here from New York. The troops will collect their contact information and work to enforce the 14-day quarantine. They will do their best to target homes where the state believes people may have come from New York, Raimondo said. People who violate quarantine orders would be subject to a fine at first, and prison time on subsequent offenses, Raimondo said." Her troops have been ordered to pull over cars with New York license plates... respectfully. Cuomo said he would sue her if she didn't roll back her diktat immediately. [Instead she just announced that the restriction apply to any non-Rhode Islander-- so she's giving the finger to the rest of the country. No comment.]

Raimondo is widely considered one of the most disgusting, puke-worthy governors of any state regardless of party. She told the media that "This is an emergency. What is constitutional in one scenario is different than in another. This is pinpointed, this is targeted, this is a state of emergency, this is limited in time, and it’s going to be enforced in a respectful way. And it’s a public health necessity." She said "Right now we have a pinpointed risk. That risk is called New York City."

He backed off today

Janet Mills, Maine's lame (Democratic) governor hasn't had the brains or spine to order Mainers to shelter in place either. Officials on the island of North Haven, Maine issued an order banning all visitors to the island-- even ones who own homes there.




Vox's Ian Millhiser noted the same thing and wondered how much this is going to weaken the union, "testing the very notion that the United States are united."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed an executive order on Thursday that would require travelers from some coronavirus hotspots to self-quarantine: It provides that “every person” who flies into Texas from “New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or the City of New Orleans, or in any other state or city as may be proclaimed hereafter, shall be subject to mandatory self-quarantine for a period of 14 days from the time of entry into Texas or the duration of the person’s presence in Texas, whichever is shorter.”

Other states have imposed similar orders. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) imposed an order on Tuesday that requires anyone flying from New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut to self-isolate for 14 days. Alaska and Hawaii also imposed self-quarantine orders on people traveling from other states.

These orders implicate one of the fundamental premises of the union among the 50 states: the right of American citizens to travel among them freely.

As the Supreme Court recognized more than 170 years ago, “we are one people with one common country. We are all citizens of the United States, and as members of the same community must have the right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own states.” The right of all US citizens to travel freely among the states, the Court later explained in United States v. Guest (1966), “was conceived from the beginning to be a necessary concomitant of the stronger union the Constitution created.”

If states can decide that some US citizens are not welcome within their borders, it may cease to be a union at all. This right to travel is implicit in the notion that citizens are Americans, and not simply Texans or New Yorkers.

But should that principle hold during a pandemic? Does the Constitution forbid states from taking drastic actions to slow the spread of a potentially deadly disease within their own borders?

Gov. Abbott’s order, at the very least, is probably carefully drafted enough to survive constitutional scrutiny. That order applies to “every person” who flies into Texas from the designated areas, regardless of whether that person is a resident of Texas or some other state. Read in that light, it does not discriminate against non-Texans.

But orders like Gov. Abbott’s do raise troubling constitutional questions. And they cut against the concept of a union of states that has prevailed in this country, especially since the New Deal.

The modern notion that every US citizen has the same rights, no matter where they travel within the nation, is rooted in a notion of nationwide solidarity that depends on a strong and competent federal government. And the Trump administration is not holding up its end of that bargain.

...But even if such travel bans are legal, they are still indicative of a greater rot within our constitutional system. The premise of our Constitution is that the states gave up some of their sovereign authority to the federal government, in return for mutual benefits such as collective national defense and free trade among the states. The premise of the post-New Deal order is that the federal government must take on additional obligations, including providing a basic social safety net.

And the evolution of the right to travel played a significant role in establishing this new order. The right to travel is fundamentally tied to our conception of what it means to be a citizen of a nation. We’ve spent most of the last century fleshing out our understanding of what obligations our nation owes to its citizens.

...The United States was one collective community, not 50 insular communities.

But Trump is slashing the safety net that holds this national community together. He spent much of the first three years of his presidency dismantling the federal government’s permanent infrastructure, that his predecessors set up to deal with a pandemic-- including ordering the White House National Security Council’s (NSC) entire global health security arm shut down. He’s repeatedly proposed budgets making sharp cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

Trump abdicates his role as the custodian of a nationwide safety net. Indeed, he recently told a group of governors who needed ventilators to deal with the rise of coronavirus cases to “try getting it yourselves.”

Thursday night, after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) requested tens of thousands of ventilators to protect the lives of infected New Yorkers, Trump dismissed this request in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” Trump claimed. “You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now, all of a sudden, they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

Nor is Cuomo the only governor frustrated by the federal government’s inaction. After Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) sought much needed medical gear and equipment to protect the people in his state, the federal government provided only a fraction of what his state needed.

Moreover, as Pritzker wrote on Twitter, Trump’s inaction forces governors to compete with each other-- potentially even pushing them into a bidding war. “I have medical professionals and first responders begging for the things they need to keep them safe-- but so does” Cuomo. So does Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R). So does Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D).

Trump, meanwhile, was extraordinarily slow to use the Defense Production Act, a federal law that would allow the federal government to coordinate a national response among state and private industry. As Pritzker writes, “it’s the federal government’s job to make sure that a nurse being properly equipped in Illinois doesn’t come at the cost of a doctor being ready for work in California.”

If the Trump administration is unwilling or unable to uphold its end of the post-New Deal bargain, the implications are staggering. Trump’s inaction does not simply threaten to exacerbate a pandemic. It threatens the very concept of what it means to be the United States of America.

Could Putin have foreseen all this when he invested a measly few million dollars towards getting Trump elected in 2016? What an absolutely brilliant investment-- at least from a Russian perspective! Shrewdest foreign policy move in Russian history!

Gina Raimondo Is Not A Moderate But Frank Bruni Sure Hates Progressives

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a mainstream Democrat who was reelected in November with 231,477 votes (61.5%) against Republican Robert Flanders, who took 6 of Rhode Island's 39 municipalities. Frank Bruni's distorted puff piece on Rhode Island's right-of-center crooked governor, Gina Raimondo-- The Loneliness Of The Moderate Democrat didn't mention Whitehouse, only that Raimondo had been "reelected by a margin of more than 15 percentage points." She took 196,977 votes, significantly fewer than the normal Democrat won with. But that didn't fit Bruni's dishonest narrative. So why mention it? Bruni's whole twisted piece was deceptive, an attempt to paint the Republican wing of the Democratic Party heroic. Worst of all, he was happy to confuse "corrupt" and "right-of-center" with "moderate, saddened she isn't running for president." He bales that she "won her primary against a progressive rival by more than 20 points, then trounced her Republican opponent in the general election, 52.8% to 37.3%. No mention by Bruni that Obama won it both times he ran with over 62%-- just a little better Gore (61%) and Kerry (59.4%)-- and that even Hillary did better than her with 54.4%. 52.8% for a Democrat in Rhode island is pretty bad. Senator John Reed won his seat last time he was reelected with over 70%.

Also no mention that she spent over $7 million, to Republican Allan Fung's $2.3 million. Independent outside spending for her was at least $5.5 million more, compared to just $1.8 million for Fung. Her primary challenger, Matt Brown, was also swamped by her flood of corporate money. Last year The Intercept's Aída Chávez did a much better job of reporting truthfully than Bruni did for The Times.

Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo is working to fend off a progressive, albeit underfunded, primary challenge from the left. Matt Brown, a former Rhode Island secretary of state, is running a grassroots campaign against Raimondo, who he describes as “the most extreme corporatist Democrat in the country.”

The Democratic Governors Association has pumped in $1 million to support Raimondo, money that won’t be available for Georgia, Florida, or Maryland. EMILY’s List, which helps elect pro-choice women, jumped in as well, spending $345,000 on pre-primary mailers for the incumbent. Although Raimondo presents herself as pro-choice, she was criticized by reproductive rights advocates for passing what amounted to restrictions on abortion access during her first term in office and is listed as “mixed-choice” by NARAL Pro-Choice America.

A July survey found Raimondo with a 40 percent job approval rating among the general public and 58 percent among Democrats. That dropped to 29 percent among independents, who are legally allowed to vote in Wednesday’s primary.

Raimondo, a former venture capitalist, has raised nearly $7.8 million for her re-election, raking in much of her fundraising from the same corporate players responsible for the state’s fiscal problems. The claim of “most extreme corporatist” may sound like hyperbole, but as state treasurer, Raimondo touched off a scandal by pushing through pension reform legislation that handed a billion dollars of state worker money over to hedge funds with links to the conservative movement, which harvested eye-popping fees.

...Raimondo’s head-to-head polling calls into question the conventional argument that centrist or pro-corporate candidates deserve support because they are more electable. “She’s taken millions in campaign contributions from Wall Street, fossil fuel industry, tobacco industry, lobbyists, corporations, tax breaks, and benefits from the state,” Brown said in an interview. “And she has, I think, raised a total of $7 million dollars now for this race and yet, as you point out, still a large majority of Rhode Islanders are looking for a different candidate with a different vision.”

Throughout her political career, Raimondo has also received thousands of dollars from the family that owns Purdue Pharma, a company widely blamed for fueling the opioid epidemic.

Brown’s campaign has sworn off corporate political action committee money, relying instead on individual contributions. The campaign boasts hundreds of volunteers that knock on doors and hold phone-banking sessions. In the first two months of the campaign, he said, they held over 70 events all across the state, “in people’s living rooms, talking to their friends and neighbors.” As for his policies, he’s running on “Medicare for All,” the creation of a public bank, tuition-free college, undoing Raimondo’s cuts to Medicaid, and a “Green New Deal.”

...Raimondo has refused to participate in even a single debate with her primary opponent. “She has funded her campaign with millions of dollars from Wall Street and corporations in an attempt to buy the election, while doing no debates with me about our records and our visions for the state,” Brown said. “So, it’s really-- the kind of campaign she’s running is not democracy.” Raimondo told the Providence Journal she skipped out on debating because Brown is “not operating in good faith,” accusing him of telling lies.

The only conclusion one can come to when a candidate avoids debate, Brown said, is that the candidate has an indefensible record. “And in her case, it’s a record of always working for Wall Street and corporations at the expense of the people. It’s a record of cutting Medicaid and giving out corporate giveaways, handouts, out to handpicked corporations that are often her campaign donors,” he continued.

“It’s a record of taking money from the executives of a gas company and then turning around and announcing that we’re going to do ‘whatever we have to to make sure we’re successful here at building a fracked gas and diesel oil burning plant in Rhode Island,’ which would be bad for everyone in the state, bad for our future, bad for our children. The only one it’s good for is the corporation. The fracked gas corporation, they’d make a bundle off Rhode Islanders, and Gov. Raimondo gets campaign contributions from them in return.”

Frank Bruni looked at that pile of congealed puke and calls it "moderate" and just could not wait to bash Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in his shameless and misleading propaganda column. "She can't tweet worth a damn," he wrote, "and the same goes for Instagram. She winces at talk of a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent and cringes at the growing use of 'corporatist' as a slur against Democratic politicians deemed too cozy with business interests. She thinks that big companies often need to be prodded forcefully to do right by their employees, but that it’s bad policy and bad politics to paint them as the enemy." No one will ever confuse Gina Raimondo with an enemy of Big Business; no need to worry about that. She's an old style conservative who even hates the idea of a minimum wage for workers.

She recalled an exchange with college students not long ago. One of them said: “I get who you are. You’re one of those spineless centrists.”

“And I was like, ‘Excuse me?’,” she said. “It takes a lot of spine to be a centrist in America today. You get whacked from the left and whacked from the right. That’s my life. I get whacked.”

Moderate Democrats have certainly had their day and their sway. In fact the passions of the left arise in part from how much compromise there has been-- and here we are stuck with Donald Trump. The rage of less moderate Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is earned and righteous. And Raimondo said precisely that to me.

But Ocasio-Cortez is by no means the whole of the Democratic Party. And is the leftward lurch that she personifies the best and safest bet for 2020? I worry, because there’s no political priority higher than limiting Trump to one term. Raimondo also worries-- a lot.

“So many Democrats just assume we’re going to win,” she said. “They underestimate how hard it’s going to be.” And it might be a serious tactical mistake, she added, to nominate any candidate who seems to be at war with capitalism itself or entertains the idea of a guaranteed minimum income.

“We have become the party that is anti-business,” she told me. “We need to be the party of work.”

She acknowledged that “the system we have today is totally broken.” She cited grotesque income inequality. She noted that too many Americans have no economic security and no prospects for achieving it.

“But I fall in the camp of: Let’s fix it,” she said. “Let’s embrace business to come to the table. Someone needs to make the case that it’s in the best interest of businesses and wealthy people to be better corporate citizens. Pay for health care. Help people get their college degree. Pay for job training.”

Along those lines, she recently proposed that companies doing business in Rhode Island be taxed up to $1,500 annually for every employee who is enrolled in Medicaid because he or she can’t get health insurance through a company-sponsored plan. “I hope that they’re embarrassed,” she said.

But, she added, “Where I think we are at risk is if all we do is beat up and crap on businesses.”

Sound like a Republican to you? Even Bruni admits her right-wing bullshit is "an exaggeration of where the party is." But he forgives her instantly for it; "I take her point." He sure does. He goes on the moan that "The media attention to full-throttle progressives among newly elected House Democrats is disproportionate to their numbers, and it sometimes obscures a sizable, practical middle. Besides, their more moderate peers are the ones who wrested seats from Republicans in districts that, like America, aren’t deep red or emphatically blue. 'I don’t think the lefties can win a general election,' Raimondo said. But, she conceded, 'Who knows? I’m not running in 2020. I could have missed the boat.'"

David Segal, a former Green Party city councilman who later joined the Democrats, represented East Providence in the state House and founded Rhode Island's Progressive Caucus, told us that "Decades of neoliberal policies that assume we should outsource political decisions to 'the market' have ruined untold millions of lives and left our democracy strained. Just as a consensus is emerging that we must act to systematically reform our political economy by instituting a new, progressive social contract, implementing state programs that provide for the general welfare, and undermining the power of this generation's robber barons, my governor gains praise in the paper of record by asserting that we should solve of nation's vast problems by begging our corporate overlords for more crumbs. It's appalling, but in the context of Raimondo's record of subservience to Wall Street and the donor class, it is anything but surprising."

Three More Primaries This Week: New Hampshire Today, Rhode Island Mañana, New York Thursday

In a few hours we should have results from New Hampshire's first congressional district, where Carol Shea Porter is retiring, and from the gubernatorial race. This is 2018's last contested congressional primary in the country. We'll get back to that in a moment. Tomorrow we'll be watching Rhode Island, where a a disgusting pair of corrupt conservative Democrats, Governor Gina Raimondo and Lt. Governor Daniel McKee, are fighting for reelection. And then Thursday, it's New York's non-federal primaries. Lots of excitement-- and probably lots of disappointment.

Last time I counted there were a dozen Democrats, 5 Republicans and a really horrible independent, Shawn O'Connor (who challenged Shea-Porter in 2016, first as a Democrat backed by Bernie (no one is perfect), then as an "independent"-- but always from the right and always steeped in dishonesty.

As of the August 22 FEC reporting deadline, 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans had raised significant money and gotten most of the endorsements.

• Carpetbagger and ex-Marine Maura Sullivan (D)- $1,840,889- The rotgut conservative among Democrats, endorsed by EMILY's List and right-of-center Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton (conveniently, one of the current signifiers that a candidate is terrible).
• State Senator and sexual harasser Andy Sanborn (R)- $865,440 (mostly self-funded), endorsed by Rand Paul, Corey Lewandowski, Gun Owners of America and a gaggle of right-wing state Reps.
• Executive Councilor Chris Pappas (D)- $823,289- Clearly the establishment candidate, endorsed by Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan and Annie Kuster and the majority of Democratic state Representatives, state Senators and local mayors, as well as lots of unions, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, End Citizens United, and the Giffords gun safety organization (the 2 last ones an indication that he's the DCCC candidate). He's openly gay.
• Corrupt lobbyist Eddie Edwards (R)- $628,699, endorsed by Rudy Giuliani, Rick Santorum, and former Senator Bob Smith. He's openly African-American.

Levi & some guy

Progressives running include Carol Shea-Porter's chief of staff, Naomi Andrews-- who only raised $86,641 but has been endorsed by Shea-Porter as well as by Donna Edwards, Marcy Kaptur and the Feminist Majority PAC-- and Levi Sanders (yep, Bernie's son), who raised even less money than Andrews ($39,270) and was endorsed by Ro Khanna, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and a couple of state Reps. Unlike the other top candidates, he explicitly backs Medicare-for-All and tuition-free college and trade schools-- Bernie issues. Bernie hasn't endorsed him and Levi lives just outside the district.

Other Medicare-for-All (and single-payer) proponents are Mark MacKenzie, who raised $277,110 and has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, the SEIU and 18 other unions; Lincoln Soldati, who raised $156,967; Mindi Messmer, who raised $100,569; Deaglan McEachern, who raised $215,085; William Martin, a vanity candidate; and Paul Cardinal, another vanity candidate.

There are also two Democrats, former Portsmouth Mayor Steve Marchand and former state Sen. Molly Kelly (the establishment candidate) competing to take on almost certain winner, popular GOP incumbent Chris Sununu. Kelly has raised $639,000 to Marchand's $291,000.

On to tomorrow's Rhode Island primary. Rhode Island is, ostensibly, one of the bluest states in the union-- D+10. And Hillary beat Trump 54.4% to 38.9%. But a corrupt and reactionary Democratic machine controls the state and people are sick of it-- and sick of Raimondo and Lt. Governor McKee, both just Republicans with disguised as conservative Democrats. Progressive former Secretary of State Matt Brown is challenging her and Berniecrat state Rep. Aaron Regunberg is going after McKee. If Raimondo wins the primary there's a good chance progressives will just sit on their hands in November and let Cranston Mayor Allan Fung (R), beat her. Yeah, she's that disgusting-- and has national ambitions. Wealthy Republicans have been funneling money into Rhode Island to help the conservative Democrats.

And then on Thursday... New York. But this is getting long-- and New York will double it-- so let me take on New York tomorrow or Thursday morning, OK?


UPDATE: NH-01:

Just 6 small precincts left to count in in the district. What do you think November will look like? Trump beat Hillary here 48.2% to 46.6%. And the PVI is R+2. Today 61,503 Democrats voted and just 47,058 Republicans. Expect a midterm bloodbath... and not just in New Hampshire. Anywhere where there are significant numbers of independent voters, the Republicans who have enabled and rubber-stamped Trump will suffer.

We Back Replacing Democraps But Not Primarying Good Dems For The Sake Of Identity Politics

There aren't many primaries left this cycle-- Massachusetts today, Delaware Thursday, New Hampshire a week from today, Rhode Island a week from tomorrow and Louisiana on election day in November (don't ask). Dave Weigel covered this month's primaries for the Washington Post, but from their very peculiar angle: 'Any old blue just won’t do': Insurgents seek to topple more Democratic veterans in September primaries.

A little background. Only two outside PACs did any independent spending in the New York primary in which Alexandria Ocasio Cortez ousted powerful, entrenched Machine hack Joe Crowley. One was the Sierra Club, which, of course, backed Crowley. (Their mission is great but, politically, that's who they are.) The only other PAC spending in that race was Blue America-- and we backed Ocasio. Our hatred of Crowley was more than a decade old but Ocasio convinced me that she and her team had what it took to do what no one believed possible: beat Crowley, which she did 56.75% to 43.25%.

Crowley deserved-- richly-- his defeat. It wasn't just a matter of a better Democrat defeating a good Democrat. That primary was an excellent Democrat defeating a complete piece of shit, a major danger to his constituents and to the country. The Sierra Club didn't see that... and neither did almost any of the constituent parts of the Democratic Party coalition. The entire establishment backed Crowley-- included groups (like the Working Families Party) who should have known better. Groups that generally do whatever the Democratic Party bosses tell them to do-- the AFL-CIO, the SEIU, Gabby Gifford's conservative-backing anti-gun group, NARAL, Planned Parenthood... You get the picture.

Weigel reported that "Ayanna Pressley’s rationale for unseating a 20-year incumbent was simple, starting with what Rep. Michael E. Capuano has done right. Yes, the Democratic congressman had voted the right way nearly all of the time. Sure, he’d resisted President Trump. 'A progressive voting record in the most progressive seat in the country is not enough,' Pressley said recently at a small canvass launch that quickly took over most of a coffee shop. 'This district deserves bold, activist leadership! The only way we can beat the hate coming out from Washington is not with a vote-- it’s with a movement!' Pressley, a 44-year-old Boston City Council member with a long political résumé, was long expected to make a play for higher office. Her race against Capuano, a well-liked liberal and leading antiwar voice in his party, has created an expensive and divisive race in a seat Republicans have not contested since 1998."

MA-07, which includes most of Boston, part of Cambridge and all of Somerville, Chelsea, Randolph and Everett, is not "the most progressive seat in the country," as she claims. The PVI is D+34, the most progressive district in Massachusetts for sure. But ... California 12 has a PVI of D+37, California 13 is D+40, California 34 and 44 each has a D+35, California 37 is D+37. Other districts that tie MA-07's D+34 include Florida 24, Georgia 05 and New York 09. Other that beat Capuano's district:

• IL-07- D+38
• NJ-10- D+36
• NY-05- D+37
• NY-07- D+38
• NY-08- D+36
• NY-13- D+43
• NY-15- D+44 (the actual most progressive seat in the country)
• PA-03- D+41
• DC- D+43

Some of these super-blue districts actually desperately need primaries to remove incumbents who are far less progressive than the districts. CA-12 is Nancy Pelosi's district. She used to be as progressive as the district... a long time ago. Frederica Wilson is a garden variety Democrat is a super-blue seat. Danny Davis isn't as progressive as his Chicago district. Donald Payne is less progressive than his Newark/Jersey City district. Gregory Meeks is the worst Democrat in a super-blue seat-- conservative and corrupt. Hakeem Jeffries should stop thinking about higher office and step up his game to better serve his current constituents in Brooklyn. But if you want to follow Pressley's reasoning, Democrats who might have to watch their backs would include some of the best of the best, like Barbara Lee in Oakland and Jerry Nadler in NYC.

Capuano told Weigel that "Some people want to snap their fingers and get whatever they want. So do I. But I haven’t had that experience any place in my life."

In four of September’s five primary states-- Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island and New York [stae, not federal]-- efforts are underway to dismantle the party establishment, starting with long-tenured politicians who first took power when compromises with the right were more routine. Democrats who are used to locking up endorsements and rolling into November are being challenged on decades-old votes, or their slowness to embrace reform, or why they haven’t been more visible in the Trump era. The same dynamic is playing out in open seats, where candidates are often debating who can provide the brightest, loudest contrast to Republicans.

“Anyone who represents this district is going to vote the right way on what gets to the floor,” said Andre Green, 37, a Somerville city councilor who is backing Pressley. “I want leaders who will change what actually gets to the floor.”

The Pressley-Capuano race, like most of September’s primaries, is taking place in an environment where Republicans have opted not to compete.

...In New York, primaries for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the state Senate have become referendums on the leadership of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).

While actor Cynthia Nixon’s challenge to Cuomo has lagged in polls, activists have forced serious contests in a half-dozen Senate races. And in the race for attorney general, law professor and activist Zephyr Teachout, a 2014 Cuomo primary opponent, has risen from fringe status to the front of a four-way race. While Republicans have picked candidates for both offices, they’ve raised around $1 million apiece, less than each of the leading Democrats.

In Rhode Island, where Democrats hold every statewide office, both Gov. Gina Raimondo and Lt. Gov. Dan McKee [both corrupt and conservative] are facing credible challengers from their left-- former secretary of state Matt Brown and 28-year-old state legislator Aaron Regunberg. As in New York, the challengers have asked why a state that votes overwhelmingly for Democrats cannot pass the sort of reforms-- starting with automatic voter registration-- that some other blue states have passed easily.

“I’ve fought to pass protections for working families in our state, like higher wages, like paid sick days,” Regunberg said in a debate recently. “My opponent sided with corporate lobbyists.”

And in Delaware, where Democrats only narrowly control the legislature, statewide races have been reshaped by liberal politics. A primary for attorney general has turned on a debate over whether to end “mass incarceration,” while the primary for U.S. Senate has found challenger Kerri Evelyn Harris asking whether incumbent Thomas R. Carper [a conservative Democrat] has answered to business interests instead of voters.

“Any old blue just won’t do,” Harris said during her sole debate with Carper.

National Republicans have not targeted the Delaware race, and none of the Republicans running for Carper’s seat has raised more than $350,000-- less than one-tenth of what the party spent in 2000, when Carper knocked off an incumbent to win.

...Democratic activists, however, have piled into races where incumbents have not faced serious competition in a decade, if ever. [Right-of-center Dems] Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-MA) and Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA) are being challenged, respectively, by Muslim civil rights attorney Tahirah Amatul-Wadud and transgender video game designer Brianna Wu. And longtime Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin, who heads the state’s elections system, is being challenged by Josh Zakim, a Boston legislator half his age.

“We need to be willing to challenge people, even in our own party, when they’re wrong,” Zakim said in an interview after a town hall at a Somerville brewpub. “When I got into this race, he was against automatic registration. Now he’s for it. What does that tell you?”

Democrats crowing about left-wing bona fides have also crowded into the race for the newly open 3rd Congressional District, which stretches between the outskirts of Boston and the state’s border with New Hampshire.

The five front-running candidates-- 10 will appear on the ballot-- agree that Medicare should become a universal program, that the minimum wage should be raised to $15 an hour, and that college should be tuition-free. None of the contenders is, like retiring Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-MA), related to a former U.S. senator. None of the front-runners is a straight, white man.

That has led to a fight about something candidates cannot change-- namely, whose biography would position them as the fiercest liberal advocate. Dan Koh, a former chief of staff to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, has piled up $3 million for his first-ever political campaign. The son of a Korean father and a Lebanese mother-- “the most random combination in the world,” he told supporters at one rally-- Koh has argued that his roots and his record in a liberal city hall qualify him to run.

“If Donald Trump had his way, I literally wouldn’t exist,” Koh said in an interview, adding that he worked to help Boston fight climate change even as Trump spurned such efforts. “Sure, people want to hear you stand up to Trump, but they want to know how you’ve done it.”

Koh’s rivals refuse to concede the biography wars. Juana Matias, a first-term state legislator, points out that she immigrated to the United States when she was 5 years old. “I don’t need to talk to anyone about these issues; I’m living them as I speak,” she said.

State Sen. Barbara L’Italien reminds voters of her legislative service and adds that she is the only candidate to call for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Rufus Gifford, a wealthy former ambassador to Denmark, tells audiences that he has a unique perspective on how universal health care and tough climate laws can work, but acknowledges that some voters are yearning for candidates who can reate to their life experiences.

“My story, growing up as a young gay kid, feeling isolated in communities like this-- that told me that I wanted to devote my life to service,” Gifford said after a house party in a wealthy neighborhood of Concord.

Despite Capuano’s best efforts, his primary also has been defined by identity, and not by his voting record. In his latest televised showdown with Pressley, Capuano looked on in amazement as the challenger said he should have blocked an effort to mollify antiabortion Democrats to get their votes for Obamacare-- and said she would have opposed the law unless that was fixed.

“I have a hard time with that,” said Capuano. “We won it by one vote, and you wouldn’t have voted for it, because it’s not perfect?”

Capuano, who points out that he has a more liberal voting record than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has gotten some reinforcements on the left. Antiwar groups have endorsed him because of his effort to end the war in Afghanistan, and because Pressley was unclear on whether she would undo the post-9/11 authorization of war that’s been used to justify 17 years of intervention.

...Pressley, with a record in local government of her own, has argued that voters could trade one congressman who votes the right way for one who would inspire and organize them. The difference was clear in a few comments Capuano made about race, said Pressley, who is black. In a 2017 town hall, Capuano said that he disliked how “Democrats had balkanized themselves,” and that former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick had “turned off half of America” by kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.

The incident was a boon for Pressley, who has outpaced other Democratic challengers with endorsements from local politicians and from Boston’s major newspapers.

Last month, as Pressley marched in the city’s Caribbean parade, Mimi Jones, 70, waved from the sidelines. Pressley, she said, would get her vote over Capuano.

“I like him, I’ve voted him, he’s done a good job,” said Jones. “But we need some changes, and we need some people who look like I do.”

Blue America has endorsed Aaron Regunberg because he has an excellent record and his entrenched primary opponent is a corrupt conservative. That was easy. We endorsed Zephyr Teachout because she's much, much better than any of her opponents. I don't believe in primarying elected officials who have done a good job just because someone else is from a different identity group; in fact, I hate that. (Note: We would have happily endorsed Brianna Wu against Stephen Lynch, but she never quite got it together to return any messages. I hope she wins today, but I wouldn't bet on it. Competent campaigns matter too, not just being better than a crappy opponent.)

Pressley's great... but so is Capuano

Conservative Billionaires Think They Can Buy Democratic Primaries-- Can They?

The day after the New York congressional primaries, geniuses in the mass media, including in New York City, were running around asking how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spells her name. They missed the boat on that one-- missed it entirely. Now they're missing the boat on another big story-- that Republican billionaires are spending heavily in Democratic primaries. They want to pick the Democratic nominees, just the way they pick the Republican nominees. I sent one of the smartest mainstream media guys a tip-off about it. His response was "hey man, will def take a look and give it some thought! maybe not today, buried. but this week. will be in touch." Let's see, that was on August 8 so it's no longer "this week," nor even the week after.

The money is being funneled into Democratic primaries by one of the shadiest conservative operatives in American politics, Nancy Jacobson who controls a network of SuperPACs through her No Labels/Problem Solvers outfits. I first noticed when she was up to when she dumped a ton of last minute sewer money into the IL-03 race pitting progressive Marie Newman against right-wing Blue Dog Dan Lipinski. Marie was winning the race when a tidal wave of Jacobson slime flooded the district, one smear after another. In the end all the No Labels garbage ads saved Lipinski's neck. He beat Newman 48,675 (51.1%) to 46,530 (48.9%). Who put up the millions of dollars for a Democratic primary? Republicans and conservative Democrats. One name I noticed today was in a letter from progressive candidate for Rhode Island Lt. Governor, Aaron Regunberg, running against a conservative Republican with a "D" next to his name, Dan McKee (who took $150,000 from the Walton family and from Jonathan Sackler, the big Bobby Jindal and Joe Lieberman financial backer and the pharmaceutical billionaire behind the nation’s OxyContin crisis. The name I recognized from the Wall Sreet billionaire campaign to save Lipinski was Tony Davis, a Rahm Emanuel ally who founded and is president of Linden Capital Partners. He just dumped $50,000 into the relatively low-profile Rhode Island race.

"We think," wrote Regunberg, "this is just the beginning of the corporate dark money coming into our state to support Dan McKee... I’m proud to run a campaign that doesn’t take money from Wall Street, corporate PACs, fossil fuel interests, drug manufacturers or the gun lobby. We don’t have out-of-state millionaires and billionaires, because we have something more powerful-- the people. And in a fight with Big Money, the people can win."

I hope he's right because billionaire Republicans are spending big to defeat progressive Democrats in every part of the country. And that trend is accelerating right now. James Rupert Murdoch-- yeah, the Fox guy-- gave Jacobson SuperPACs to support conservative Democrat Darren Soto against Alan Grayson in their primary. Jacobson is also spending dark money in favor of Arizona conservative Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick in her primary against Matt Heinz. Sad Horrifying that the DCCC and EMILY's List and the Republican billionaires-- including James Murdoch-- behind the Progress Tomorrow right-wing PAC, are all spending money against the progressive in the Tucson primary, Matt Heinz, and trying to bolster Kirkpatrick. So far they've spent half a million dollars to make sure the Democratic nominee is a conservative. Ironically, the ugliest and most vicious and untruthful of all the ads are from EMILY's List, a group that never used to but now absolutely hates progressive men even more than the DCCC or the GOP does.

Jacobson's web of sleazoid SuperPACs include innocuous-sounding outfits like United for Progress, United Together, Forward Not Back, Progress Tomorrow, Patriotic Americans PAC, Citizens for a Strong America, etc, but they are entirely funded by contributions from 5 and 6-figure right wing donors, such as Rupert Murdoch and his son, Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, hedge fund manager Louis Bacon, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan Selig and Wheels Inc. executive Jim Frank. As of Friday they had poured almost $600,000 into the smear campaign against Grayson. Jacobson has already lost in primary races for right-wing Democrats John Morganelli (PA) against Susan Wild (PA) and against Debra Haaland for No Labels DINO, Damon Martinez in Albuquerque.

Darren Soto is exactly the kind of fake Democrat Jacobson, the Murdochs and other GOP billionaires want to see beat progressives like Grayson. Soto voted to prosecute all abortions as murder and voted to force women who want an abortion to undergo a humiliating procedure called "transvaginal ultrasound." Since being primaried by Grayson he's been apologizing for those votes, saying he "made a mistake." He hasn't apologized for the votes that earned him "A" ratings from the NRA-- twice. And because of those hair-raising votes, the NRA endorsed him. He voted for Trump-sponsored laws 58 times in Congress and both times impeaching Trump came up in Congress, Soto voted NO. The reason No Labels is so enthusiastic about him is because he has said that he is "open-minded" about phasing out Social Security benefits or eliminating them altogether, No Labels' top issue.

Meanwhile, Soto is one of Congress' most corrupt Democrats, well known for partying with lobbyists, spending taxpayer money and campaign money illegally on personal items for himself and his wife. He has even accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign support from Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her charter school allies. Generally speaking he's been a big waste of a solidly blue seat in Congress, accomplishing nothing for anyone... but himself. That compares badly with Grayson's record:

During a debate with Grayson two weeks ago, Soto claimed "to be a great champion of women’s rights," a lie Grayson directly challenged, bringing up the specifics of Soto's shameful voting record-- like voting twice to criminalize abortion so that doctors could be charged with murder for performing one. Soto had no answer... except to say he regrets those votes. He doesn't regret them enough to turn down the help he's getting now from the anti-Choice extremists who are flooding central Florida with lies against Grayson and nonsensical assertions of Soto's grandeur.

Blue America members have been helping Grayson with his election campaigns since 2006. And he's never let us down-- always one of the 2 or 3 best members of Congress and living up to his promises. He needs us again now. The primary is August 28 and he really needs to get on the air and respond to the lies Jacobson and Murdock are flooding TV and radio with. Please consider contributing what you can by clicking on the Blue America 2018 congressional elections thermometer on the right. As of yesterday another dark money PAC had bought ads on one of the big Spanish language radio stations-- one ad every hour until election day! That's called brain-washing. It's what fascists do; it's what Republicans do. Republican billionaires know their party is going to lose control of Congress in November. So they are working to defeat progressives and make certain friendly conservative DINOs become the nominees of the Democratic Party. We can't let this happen. It's our party, not theirs.

You Think Republicans Are The Only Bad Guys? The Rhode Island Democratic Party Isn't Any Better-- An Insider's Guest Post

Lauren and... a familiar looking guy

by Lauren Niedel-Gresh

Earlier this month DWT reported about the systemic shenanigans in the Rhode Island Democratic Party endorsement process. Three completely inappropriate and vile men were endorsed over 3 progressive women and one anti-choice woman is being endorsed over a progressive pro-choice woman of color who is currently a sitting Representative.

Two of those endorsements have been rescinded (after I, a sitting member of the RI Democratic State Committee, was told that would be impossible by Executive Director Kevin Olasanoyer). The two that have been rescinded were Michael Earnheart a Trump-voting Republican who switched to Democrat just three months ago, and another candidate, Greg Arciado, who has a criminal past.

“Acciardo was convicted in 1994 of vehicular manslaughter after he hit a 62-year-old woman. He’s also been arrested twice for driving under the influence and has been accused of domestic assault.”

This whole debacle caused a major rift within the party. Progressives and many moderate democrats were outraged over the lack of respect for first term women who have done a fabulous job representing their districts. The committees that made these endorsements were stacked with Conservative Democrats who are anti-choice and pro-gun… But hey open up the tent to more republicans because that is what the RI Democratic Party really needs.

But wait, it gets better. There were two Town Committee signing parties that would not even let Un-endorsed candidates in. These towns had many progressives challenging endorsed candidates. These signing parties are for the specific purpose of making sure candidates get enough valid signatures to get on the ballot. In RI that is anywhere from 50 - 1000 for those running for Senate. Excluding these male and female candidates including unendorsed sitting Senator Jeanine Calkin was an outrageous act of cowardice and completely undemocratic.

Rhode Island is known as a “BLUE STATE” throughout the country. All of our elected officials in Congress and Statewide are Democrats. We have Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative David Cicilline, and we have Hillary wannabe Gina Raimondo as Governor.

In 2016 Bernie won RI with an astounding FU to the RI Democratic establishment beating Clinton 55% to 43% in the Presidential Primary. As a Bernie Sanders delegate and state contact for the Sanders 2016 campaign I can tell you first hand the powers to be were pissed! Of course all 9 Superdelegates voted for Clinton-- so our grassroots effort was hijacked by the party. We as progressives want to put that aside. But the right wing male Democrats who control the party are doing everything possible to keep progressives out. The divide and conquer message is alive and well and continues to show its ugly head in the biggest little state in the union.


Lauren Niedel-Gresh is a sitting member of the Rhode Island Democratic State Committee and is running for re-election. In addition, she is running for State Representative in District 40. You can donate to her campaign via ActBlue

The Rhode Island Democratic Party Establishment-- Just Like The DCCC

This is the right-wing Trumpist nut the Rhode Island Democratic Party endorsed instead of the progressive incumbent

Rhode Island is a very blue state. In 1928 the whole country lined up behind Herbert Hoover, except the Lincoln-hating Solid South plus Massachusetts and Rhode Island which both voted for Al Smith. It wasn't until 1952 and 1956 that Rhode Island went Republican (they loved Ike)-- as did everyone but the Lincoln-haters. All Democratic after that except for 1972 (Nixon over McGovern) and 1984 (Reagan over Mondale, narrowly). Other than those it was all Democrats. The state's PVI is D+10. Bernie won the primary 54.6% to 43.6% and Hillary beat Trump 55.4% to 39.8%. Of the 75 members in the state House, only 12 are Republicans. And in the state Senate just 5 of 38 members are Republicans. All the federal officials are Democrats, as are the governor and lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state-- every statewide post. The voters vote for Democrats and they tend to vote progressively. The Democratic establishment stinks to high heaven and calls itself Democratic but is almost entirely corrupt, owned by Wall Street, backward and from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Rhode Island is always an uphill battle for progressives because of the state establishment which always prefers Republicans to progressives.

There's been an exposure of this dynamic blowing up in the last week. Ted Nesi, reporting for WPRI wrote that progressives are at war with the establishment shitheads House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Warwick Rep. Joe McNamara. Why? The party they control-- the Democratic Party (not us, them, our enemies)-- endorsed corrupt conservatives, one of whom, Michael Earnheart, a challnger against a sitting Democratic state Rep, Moira Walsh, had voted for Trump.

“It is absolutely shameful that the establishment machine is lining up behind conservative, unethical and anti-woman candidates to run against real Democrats in races across Rhode Island,” state Rep. Aaron Regunberg, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, said in a statement Monday.

The controversy is the latest evidence of a deep divide in the Rhode Island Democratic Party, which holds every federal and statewide office as well as durable supermajorities in the state legislature, at the price of massive differences in policy and perspective across its membership.

...Progressive women have also been frustrated that their priorities got short shrift in this year's legislative session, particularly a high-profile bill on abortion rights that the General Assembly's pro-life leaders kept bottled up in committee.

In addition to Earnheart and Carnevale, Regunberg took issue with the state party’s endorsement of former state Sen. Gregory Acciardo over Bridget Valverde in Senate District 35, as well as the House District 5 Democratic committee’s endorsement of Holly Coolman over incumbent Rep. Marcia Ranglin-Vassell. Acciardo pleaded no contest to driving under the influence in 2010 and is currently seeking to have the record expunged; Coolman is pro-life, while Ranglin-Vassell is pro-choice.

...A story on Slate.com asked, "Why did the Rhode Island Democratic Party endorse an alt-right supporter over a progressive incumbent?" Topher Spiro, a former staffer for U.S. Sen. Jack Reed who is now a prominent leader at the liberal Center for American Progress, called on Reed, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Gov. Gina Raimondo to endorse Walsh and "call for a shake up" in state party leadership.

"This is totally unacceptable," Spiro tweeted. "Deal with it swiftly."

The first high-level officeholder to take sides was Democratic Congressman David Cicilline, who said he had reached out to Walsh to offer his support. "Rep. Walsh has consistently stood up for Democratic values," he tweeted. "Something that clearly cannot be said for her opponent." Within hours, General Treasuer Seth Magaziner and state Sen. Donna Nesselbush said they had donated to Walsh, too.

A few days later Nesi was back on the beat: "The ex-Republican endorsed by Rhode Island Democratic Party leaders to unseat a progressive incumbent female lawmaker says he has no plans to exit the race despite a backlash that’s drawing national attention." This is exactly the problem with the Democratic Party nationally as well. Party Chairman Joe McNamara is like the DCCC-- corrupt, conservative, authoritarian. He gave "the party" endorsement to Trumpist (an "ex"-Republican crackpot) over Rep. Moira Walsh, for giving right-wing corrupt House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello shit. "[P]rogressive women,"he wrote, "[are] casting it as another sign the male-dominated party leadership doesn’t respect them. A number of prominent elected officials have broken with party leadership and sided with Walsh, while old-guard Democrats have mostly remained silent so far." Meanwhile Mattiello and the other establishment thugs are avoiding the media and laying low to try to ride out the growing firestorm.

“Rhode Island is very much a microcosm of what’s going on nationally,” Walsh, who defeated an incumbent herself in the 2016 primary, argued in an interview. She linked her situation with last week’s primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old progressive, over powerful New York Congressman Joe Crowley.

“The establishment often puts their weight behind the wrong horse,” she said. “And more times than not, young progressive women get snubbed for male candidates who aren’t going to have the audacity to ask for reproductive rights or equal pay or many of the other things that us progressive women are demanding and deserve.”

"Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo [a total Wall Street whore] weighed in Tuesday, tweeting: "Endorsed Democrats should be candidates who embrace our party’s values and stand against the Trump agenda. If I’ve learned anything, it's that being in the trenches fighting for change and helping people keep up and get ahead matters more than any endorsement." Her primary opponent, Matt Brown, criticized Raimondo for not explicitly backing Walsh, and called the endorsement of Earnheart "outrageous."

Walsh and Earnheart will square off in the Sept. 12 primary in House District 3, a heavily Democratic seat that includes Providence's North End. The primary winner will be unopposed in the November election, virtually guaranteeing he or she will take the seat.

Earnheart was a registered Democrat from 2008 to 2014, then a registered Republican from 2014 until last year, when he switched back to Democratic, according to the secretary of state’s office. A photo circulating on social media shows him holding a “Make America Great Again” sign at a pro-Trump rally. He also voted in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

“I only voted for Trump on economic policies,” Earnheart said. “Trump’s rhetoric is awful. He says divisive things. He’s a little bit mean-spirited and bullyish. But the reality of the situation is he’s a very pro-business candidate, and … I want to be able to see that trickle down into Rhode Island.”

Earnheart said he was not impressed by either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, the major 2016 Democratic presidential candidates.

Sanders has “basically never had a job in his entire life. He’s going to dictate how the economy runs?” Earnheart said. “And then Hillary Clinton, who got so fabulously well-connected and disconnected from the populace that it’s almost laughable. These were my choices.”

“So I was, like, I can’t do this,” he continued. “I’ve got to go with somebody who’s a proven businessperson or somebody who at least purports to support the interests of the middle class, the working class. That was him.”

Earnheart had told Eyewitness News back in late May that he planned to run as an independent, not a Democrat. But he said he eventually approached McNamara to ask for the endorsement. “I think he represents more of the vision of the party that I ascribe to, which is the moderates,” Earnheart said, adding that he also “knew Moira was kind of a controversial figure.”

You can contribute to Moira Walsh's grassroots campaign by clicking on the 2018 ActBlue state legislative thermometer on the right. Moira needs a little love to take on the stinking corrupt establishment and their Rhode Island Trump-like swamp. Earnheart is exactly the kind of fake "Democrat," the establishment recruits and thereby confuses voters who then find it hard to even identify which party actually is the lesser evil.


UPDATE: Ghost In The Machine

This morning, Aaron Regunberg, the progressive state legislator, Blue America endorsed for the lieutenant governor job, issued a statement: "In a string of shameful endorsements this week, the State Democratic Party endorsed conservative, criminally indicted, and even Trump-supporting candidates running against strong progressive women incumbents. The state party machine has been operating like this for a long time. What's new is that our Democratic movement is actually standing together, speaking up and fighting back. And guess what-- this advocacy works! Today, the party officially rescinded its endorsements in two of these races, against Rep. Moira Walsh and Bridget Valverde. That is the power of this movement. But we’re not done yet. There are other powerful women incumbents still being targeted. Let’s keep the pressure on... The machine is getting nervous. They should be. Let’s show them what our movement is really made of."

Can The Koch Brothers Buy Democratic Primaries Too? Rhode Island

Yesterday, we looked at a few Democrats with their greasy palms out for cash from the Koch brothers, like Ben Ray Luján (NM), Raul Ruiz (CA) and Pete Aguilar (CA). And it isn't just corrupt conservative Democrats in Congress who have been compromised by the Koch brothers and their network. A Koch aligned organization is sending out attack mailers against progressive Rhode Island Lt. Governor candidate Aaron Regunberg. And here’s the thing-- they're attacking him in the DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY.

We're starting to see this more and more frequently around the country-- right-wing groups backing New Dems, Blue Dogs and other faux-Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party in Democratic primaries. It's revolting... especially whenBen Ray Luján, chair of the DCCC is very much a part of it. almost every candidate endorsed by the DCCC this cycle is from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. It was horrifying yesterday when the bodies of the dead students in Texas weren't even counted yet and Democrats had two contend with the DCCC's recruitment of NRA allies-- like Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Anthony Brindisi (NY), Paul Davis (KS) and Elaine Luria (VA). Establishment Democrats have been accusing progressives of not being "real Democrats."

And in Rhode Island, a blue blue state, state Rep. Aaron Regunberg, who's running for Lieutenant Governor against a corporate DINO extraordinaire, incumbent Dan McKee, is watching his own progressive record being savaged by people who have nothing to do with Democratic values and principles. McKee-- while technically a “Democrat”-- looks a lot like a Republican on every important issue. He fought against increasing the minimum wage and job protections like paid sick days for workers (both legislative wins that Regunberg successfully led the charge for in the state legislature). He opposes single payer (Regunberg has introduced single payer legislation each year since he’s been elected).

Furthermore, McKee was singled out for praise by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for being one of the leading proponents of school privatization in the country (Regunberg is a champion for public education). And McKee has dismissed efforts to protect abortion rights at the state level (Regunberg is endorsed by Planned Parenthood, RI-NOW, and other reproductive justice groups for his leadership on choice).

The media routinely labels McKee a "moderate," but is an anti-Choice, anti-worker, anti-public education conservaDem a "moderate?" Give me a break!

Luckily, in Rhode Island, there actually is a chance to pass bold progressive policy, from universal healthcare to the Fight for $15 to 100% clean energy transition and more, and those successes can ripple out to the rest of the nation. And for that to happen we need to elect a bold progressive like Aaron Regunberg, the first Lt. Governor candidate ever endorsed by Blue America. We thought this race was too important to pass by-- Aaron is too good a candidate and McKee is absolutely too horrible. The Blue America thermometer on the right includes the state executive branch candidates we've endorsed so far this cycle. There aren't many. In Rhode Island, the Koch brothers are trying to decide the Democratic primaries. Let's not let them. Click on that thermometer and help Aaron win. Or go right to his campaign's own ActBlue page. Let's not let them turn the phrase "progressive" into something reactionaries can use against champions of working families.