NY-22-- A Republican, A Teabagger And A Blue Dog Walk Into A Race. What Happens? Who Cares?

The huge upstate New York district (NY-22) that stretches from Lake Ontario through Rome and Utica and all the way down past Cortland and Binghampton to the Pennsylvania border along the Southern Tier ws virtually tied in the 2008 and 2012 presidential races, Obama (twice) and McCain and Romney each getting 49% of the vote. The congressman from the district, Republican Richard Hanna, is retiring on a note that includes endorsing Hillary and refusing to endorse the Tea Party Republican running for his seat, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney. Hanna has said Tenney is way too extreme for the district and he had endorsed Steve Wells in the June 28 primary. In a 3-way contest Tenney bested Wells 8,876 (41.5%) to 7,214 (33.7%). In 2012, Kirsten Gillibrand was reelected to the Senate with every one of the 8 counties that make up NY-22-- and by a landslide, each of the two big population centers, Oneida and Broome counties giving her well over 60% of the vote.

It''s a swing district that been leaning a little red, although Hillary should do well there. So what about the House seat. The Democrats recruited the daughter of a multimillionaire, Kim Myers, a garden variety conservative Democrat backed by EMILY's List. She's first term member of the Broome County legislature but is best known because he father founded the Dick's Sporting Goods chain. She went to the Blue Dogs and asked for an endorsement, which she got-- so... what we're looking at is a clueless and worthless candidate clearly belonging to the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

A new poll shows a dead heat between the teabagger and the Blue Dog, 35% each (according to the Blue Dog polling firm, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research. The third party candidate, Republican multimillionaire Martin Babinec is drawing 21% but when undecided voters and those supporting Babinec were asked to choose between the two major-party candidates, Tenney and Myers were still tied, at 41% each. Babinec is running on the Upstate Jobs Party, which he created himself and he has already self-funded to the tune of a million dollars and has spent $784,283. Myers had raised $689,220 as of June 30 and had self-funded to the tune of $245,400. Tenney had raised $254,541 by June 30 but had spent all of it to win the primary. The Oneida Indian Tribe spent $601,695 against her during the primary and a Chamber of Commerce-type group (the Defending Main Street SuperPAC) backing Wells spent another $215,000 against her.

Although Babinec had given contributions to both parties-- and to Hillary more than to anyone else-- he says if he wins, he'll caucus with the GOP. Roll Call calls him the "wild card in the race."

Anzalone Liszt claims that the reason Myers has a chance to win is because Tenney hasn't been able to consolidate GOP voters. Only 57% of Republicans support her at this point, while 75% of the district's Democrats say they'll vote for the Blue Dog. Both parties are expected to spend millions of dollars on this stupid race between three awful candidates. What a tragedy that the DCCC will waste a fortune on Myers when they should be spending on any of the progressives who won their primaries currently being shunned by Pelosi and his ridiculous operation-- the candidates you can support by clicking on the thermometer below (no Blue Dogs or New Dems included, of course):

Today's Big News-- Utah And New York Are Pointing In The Same Direction

Which was the bigger deal today, the release of a new poll in Utah, showing Beehive State voters prefer Hillary to Trump 36-35% or the first Republican congressman admitting publicly that he's not only not voting for the Trumpanzee but that he is voting for Hillary?

With Mitt Romney toying with the idea of endorsing Libertarian Gary Johnson for president, the new Hinckley Institute-Salt Lake Tribune poll showing Hillary even with Trump in one of America's reddest states, could be worrying for the Trump campaign. No one ever thought of Utah as a swing state. But no one ever thought of it as Trumpanzee country either. 177,204 Republicans participated in this year's Utah caucuses. Cruz came in first with 122,567 votes (69.2) and won all 40 delegates. John Kasich came in second with 16.8% and the Trumpanzee came in dead last with 14%. He didn't win a single county and in Utah County (Provo) he couldn't even break 10%. The only county where Trump actually did respectably was in tiny Piute County, where his 70 supporters amounted to 41.7%. Trump was basically wiped up in the northern part of the state. Bernie beat him almost everywhere. Almost 3 times as many people voted for Bernie as voted for Trump. Look at these results in the half dozen most populous counties:

• Salt Lake- Bernie- 35,610, Trumpanzee- 6,542
• Utah- Bernie- 6,071, Trumpanzee- 3,713
• Davis- Bernie- 3,563, Trumpanzee- 2,902
• Weber- Bernie- 5,465, Trumpanzee- 1,695
• Washington- Trumpanzee- 3,090, Bernie- 1,509
• Cache- Bernie- 2,906, Trumpanzee- 1,049

And Trump's ugly conflict with the Gold Star Khan family hasn't helping improve his standing with Utahans. Utah has 6 electoral votes and republicans have been able to take the state for granted for half a century, In 2004 Bush won it with 72%. Romney beat Obama 73-25%. And in 1992 Ross Perot finished ahead of Bill Clinton!

The NY Times editorial this morning castigating spineless Republicans, came out just as news broke on the internet that the Republican congressman who represents Utica, Rome and Binghampton in New York, Richard Hanna, has announced he is voting for Hillary. The Times editors pointed out that although "some Republicans, like the House speaker, Paul Ryan; the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell; and Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire released statements defending the Khans... they still refuse to back off their support for Mr. Trump." But they really let McCain have it. "Few carry as much weight on military matters as Senator John McCain of Arizona, himself a decorated hero of the Vietnam War, who issued a statement Monday sharply criticizing Mr. Trump, saying, 'It is time for Donald Trump to set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party.' It’s hard to imagine, a year into the campaign, that Mr. Trump could ever set such an example. The truth is, it’s time for Mr. McCain and other Republican leaders to set an example for their party by withdrawing support for Mr. Trump.

Also early this morning, before the Hanna news broke, Stuart Rothenberg wondered aloud in the Washington Post when Republican officials will really start jumping ship on Trump. "The last couple of weeks," he wrote, "have been nothing short of disastrous for the Republican Party... Things have deteriorated for the GOP because Donald Trump’s comments about Russia and Vladimir Putin have further shredded the Republican Party’s historically greatest strength: national security and defense themes. Add to that Trump’s-- and GOP delegates’-- performance at their convention (“Lock her up!”) and Trump’s positions on trade, taxes, spending and entitlements, which also contradict the long-standing Republican message, and the party is nothing short of a mess." Rothenberg didn't even have to mention the Khans in asserting that "whatever Trump’s personal weaknesses-- and the list is very long-- he is in the process of undermining the entire rationale for the Republican Party."

For many lifelong Republicans and committed conservatives, as well as dozens of down-ballot Republican candidates, the redefinition of their party and the tone of the nominee are simply unacceptable. That’s clearly why Mitt Romney, the Bush family, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and others refuse to back Trump.

Of course, some high-profile Republicans-- from House speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wisc.) to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida-- hesitated to embrace Trump but eventually backed him. They promised (or at least hoped) that Trump would “grow” as a candidate when the general election arrived.

They are still waiting.

...Trump’s message is not about the limits of political power-- it is about the unlimited nature of his own power and abilities.

All of this raises the question of whether Republican officeholders and party leaders who announced their support for Trump will now reverse themselves and pull their endorsements. Though Sen. John McCain of Arizona has come close, it’s very difficult to believe many will take that dramatic step.

Like Ryan and McConnell, most will criticize a Trump statement or otherwise indicate a different point of view. But pulling an endorsement is a much bigger step.

Most, if not all, of those unshakably loyal Republicans apparently have concluded that Clinton is so untrustworthy and her politics so far left that any Republican is preferable, no matter how flawed that person may be. For many, the election is about only the Supreme Court.

It’s easy for those Republicans to rationalize supporting Trump, no matter how vulgar he is or how far his views stray from what only a couple of years ago was Republican orthodoxy. “He’s not Hillary Clinton” covers a lot of Trump’s shortcomings.

Chuck Todd started the day by wondering if this isn't the last exit ramp for Republicans who want to get off the SS Trumpanzee before it goes down and pointed to Bret Stephens' memo to Paul Ryan in today's Wall Street Journal, To the Go-Along Republicans.

Of all of Donald Trump ’s vile irruptions-- about Sen. John McCain ’s military record, or reporter Serge Kovaleski’s physical handicap, or Judge Gonzalo Curiel ’s judicial fitness-- his casual smear of Ghazala Khan is perhaps the vilest.

This isn’t simply because Mrs. Khan is a bereaved mother. Bereavement alone does not place someone above criticism, especially when it comes to political differences. Nor is it because Mrs. Khan’s son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died heroically to protect his troops in Iraq. The special deference given to Gold Star parents is, at bottom, a social convention.

No: What makes Mr. Trump’s remarks so foul is their undisguised sadism. He took a woman too heartbroken and anxious to speak of her dead son before an audience of millions and painted a target on her. He treated her silence as evidence that she was either a dolt or a stooge. He degraded her. “She was standing there. She had nothing to say,” Mr. Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”

In this comment there was the full unmasking of Mr. Trump, in case he needed further unmasking. He has, as Humayun’s father Khizr put it, a “black soul.” His problem isn’t a lack of normal propriety but the absence of basic human decency. He is morally unfit for any office, high or low.

This is the point that needs to dawn-- and dawn soon-- on Republican officeholders who pretend to endorse Mr. Trump while also pretending, via wink-and-nod, that they do not. Paul Ryan has tried to walk this razor’s edge by stressing how much he disagrees with Mr. Trump’s “ideas.” On Sunday the speaker issued a flabby statement extolling the Khan family’s sacrifice and denouncing religious tests for immigrants without mentioning Mr. Trump by name.

Mr. Ryan is doing his personal reputation and his party’s fortunes no favors with these evasions. The central issue in this election isn’t Mr. Trump’s ideas, such as they are. It’s his character, such as it is. The sin, in this case, is the sinner.

It will not do for Republicans to say they denounce Mr. Trump’s personal slanders; his nativism and protectionism and isolationism; his mendacity and meanness and crassness; his disdain for constitutional protections—and still campaign for his election. There is no redemption in saying you went along with it, but only halfway; that with Mr. Trump you maintained technical virginity. To lie down with him is to wake up with him. It’s as simple as that.

That’s a thought that ought to frighten Republicans. The Khan slander was not Mr. Trump’s first and will not be his last or worst. As one wag on Twitter put it, the man always finds a new bottom. Nor are we likely done with new disclosures about Mr. Trump’s business practices and associations. Conservative die-hards may try to hold fast to the excuse that Hillary Clinton was, is, and always will be “worse,” but the argument can’t be sustained indefinitely. Mrs. Clinton is not the apotheosis of evil. She may be a corner-cutter and a liar, and she’ll almost surely appoint liberals to the Supreme Court. But at least she’s not a sociopath.

Politics is mostly the business of maintaining popularity in the here-and-now. Not always. Come January, Mrs. Clinton will likely be president. Whether there is a GOP that can still lay a claim to moral and political respectability is another question. Mr. Ryan and other Go-Along Republicans should treat the Khan episode as their last best hope to preserve political reputations they have worked so hard to build.

And then came Rep. Hanna's editorial for syracuse.com explaining why he's going further than his previous announcement that he won't vote for Trump to the place where Republicans are petrified to go, even-- like McCain and Graham-- they plan on doing so in the privacy of the voting booth: casting their ballot for Hillary. "Months ago," he wrote today, "I publicly said I could never support Trump. My reasons were simple and personal. I found him profoundly offensive and narcissistic but as much as anything, a world-class panderer, anything but a leader. Little more than a changing mirror of those he speaks to. I never expect to agree with whoever is president, but at a minimum the president needs to consistently display those qualities I have preached to my two children: kindness, honesty, dignity, compassion and respect. I do not expect perfection, but I do require more than the embodiment of at least a short list of the seven deadly sins."

I have long held the belief that the Republican Party is becoming increasingly less capable of nominating a person who is electable as president. The primary process is so geared toward the party's political base, which ignores the fact that we have largely alienated women, Hispanics, the LGBT community, young voters and many others in general.

Thankfully gerrymandering does not protect candidates in a national election.

If I compare the life stories of both candidates I find Trump deeply flawed in endless ways. A self-involved man who is worth billions yet is comfortable-- almost gleefully-- using bankruptcy laws to avoid the consequences of his own choices. A man of character would not defend his actions but rather display shame and or at least regret. He is unrepentant in all things. Think about those average people who paid for his choices.

...Secretary Clinton has issues that depending on where one stands can be viewed as great or small. But she stands and has stood for causes bigger than herself for a lifetime. That matters. Mrs. Clinton has promoted many of the issues I have been committed to over the years including expanding education and supporting women's health care.

While I disagree with her on many issues, I will vote for Mrs. Clinton. I will be hopeful and resolute in my belief that being a good American who loves his country is far more important than parties or winning and losing. I trust she can lead. All Republicans may not like the direction, but they can live to win or lose another day with a real candidate. Our response to the public's anger and the need to rebuild requires complex solutions, experience, knowledge and balance. Not bumper sticker slogans that pander to our disappointment, fear and hate.

Trump can't threaten to fund a $20 million superPAC against Hanna-- the way he has in regard to Ted Cruz and John Kasich-- because Hanna, a multimillionaire, is retiring in January. The Republican nominee to replace him, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney is a Trumpist crackpot and Hanna has also announced he wouldn't be voting for her. He said he will either vote for Democrat Kim Myers or independent Martin Babinec but hasn't decided yet.

DuWayne Gregory: "My opponent continuing to stand next to Donald Trump shows once again that he is putting politics before service members. Even Republicans like Senator John McCain are denouncing Trump’s comments but Peter King hasn’t. I ask that Peter King apologize to Khriz and Ghazala Khan and denounce Trump’s comments."

NY-22... Just Doomed

Richard Hanna is an old fashioned conservative multimillionaire who hasn't served long in Congress but has had enough of it's pointless, hyper-partisan dysfunction. He's retiring and doesn't seem to regert that he won't be enmeshed with his Republican congressional colleagues in the future. He's not going to the convention and he told a local paper that "The Republican Party is not capable of nominating anyone who is electable nationally." He refused to vote for Trump, Cruz or Kasich on Tuesday, saying "I can't support a candidate who doesn't support women's health care... I think the orthodoxy of the Republican Party is really hurting the party and pushing it to the extreme. These are people I never imagined would gain national prominence, and yet here they are." He refused to rule out voting for Hillary in November.

We didn't include Trump-like Martin Babinec, a multimillionaire who started a successful online employment agency, in our survey of congressional self-funders, mostly because he's a third-party candidate with little chance to win in the race for the swing district (NY-22) the independent-minded Hanna is giving up in a weirdly disjointed district that slices New York in two, from Pulaski on Lake Ontario, through Rome and Utica and all the way down past Cortland to Binghampton and the Pennsylvania border. The district basically tied 49-49% both times Obama ran. Hanna won the district in 2010 from clueless Blue Dog Michael Arcuri. By 2014, the pathetic Democrats didn't bother running a candidate against him. There are 3 Republicans, 2 Democrats and a Libertarian in the race, as well as Babinec, who's running on the Independence Party. Babinec has given mostly to conservative Democrats, particularly just over $15,000 to Hillary Clinton and 11 contributions to Blue Dog congressman Scott Murphy amounting to around $17,000. Straight from Trump's rich-people hymnal: "I'm running for Congress as an independent, to be a voice for all the people who are forgotten, and if elected I will beholden to no one but the voters."

Republican Steven Wells, another rich businessman who founded a vending machine company, had already self-funded $100,000 when Babinec tossed his hat + a $1,000,000 check of his own, into the ring.

The other rich person looking for a congressional seat-- and remember, both the DCCC and the NRCC actively discourage candidates from middle class and aggressively recruit rich people-- is Kim Meyers, daughter of Dick Stack, founder of dick's Sporting Goods. She sounds like a typical Democratic Party weeny: "I'm running for Congress because we do things the right way here. But that's not what happens in Washington. There's too much partisanship. Common sense doesn't carry the day... The only way we're ever going to change anything is to elect good people, who have their heart in the right place, who are willing to work together to put jobs and families first, and have the experience to get things done for their community."

The other Democrat in the race, Dave Gordon, openly brags that he's a conservative and was planning to take on Hanna from the right before Hanna announced his retirement. The Oneida County Conservative Party, where he's a county legislator, gleefully ranks him as the most conservative lawmaker in the county. "The district constantly elects moderate Republicans," he said. "How about electing a Conservative Democrat?" That sounds like some race shaping up-- a lesser of 7 evils kind of contest! Which brings us to right-wing nut case, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney who has an internal poll she's pushing on the media, showing her beating ex-Broome County legislator George Phillips and Wells 48-13-9%. She's better known than anyone else because she ran a crazy teabagger campaign against Hanna last cycle-- and lost in a close call for Hanna, 54-46%. The NRCC hates her and is working to sabotage her crackpot campaign but in an anti-establishment environment, their opposition could help her. The NRCC added Phillips and Wells to their Young Guns program and very ostentatiously left out Tenney. She was, however, endorsed by the New York State Conservative Party, so even if she loses the June 28 primary, she'll be in the general election. In 2014, she spent $183,284 smearing Hanna, $112,000 from her personal bank account. The NRCC is still fuming. So far she's self funded this cycle another $50,000.

Tenner told that media that she's "the only conservative Republican running for Congress in the 22nd district with a proven record of championing our conservative principles. In Congress, I will stand up to the political class and special interests to advance commonsense reforms to create economic growth, cut taxes and spending, secure the border, rebuild our military and protect our values. Like I have done in Albany, I will fight to end the failed policies in Washington that are punishing low and middle income families in New York, and driving jobs out of our country." She has an A from the NRA and has been endorsed by far right hate groups Citizens United and the Family Research Council.

The Democratic crackpot in the race, Dave Gordon has $66 cash on hand so it isn't likely that the fortunate daughter is going to have too hard a time beating him in the Democratic primary.

Conservative Democrats Use Politics To Make Sure Their Policy Goals Aren't Threatened By Progressives

Once Rahm Emanuel got the power to fire Howard Dean as DNC chair-- the first catastrophic decision of the Obama presidency-- replacing him with 2 consecutive talentless sieves-- first Tim Kaine and then, much worse, Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- and scrapping Dean's 50-state strategy, it was apparent the Republican Party would have a free-hand in scores of districts where they could be challenged over the long term and that Washington would no longer back sensible strategies for winning back congressional seats or state legislatures.

It was an identical realignment from one I saw taking the music industry, where I had been working, into the toilet. Once the record companies abandoned "artist development" and opted for instant gratification, the industry was finished. At my own label, for example, we had worked on artists like Depeche Mode and Barenaked Ladies for many years before breakthrough albums exploded their catalogue and brought the company millions of dollars in profit. The Emanuel/DNC/DCCC/DSCC strategy is to never look past the current cycle and never develop anything. The result has been a net of nearly 70 lost congressional seats and an even more horrific result on the state legislative level.

If Wall Street and the Republican Party wanted to destroy the Democratic Party from within, they could not have found someone better to do it that Rahm Emanuel and the chimpanzees from the Wall Street-funded New Dems-- like Wasserman Schultz-- who have worked to cut the Democratic Party's now tenuous ties with the kind of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt progressivism that has always made Democratic insiders and elites uncomfortable.

Saturday night when an ABC host asked Bernie if corporate America will love a President Sanders and the candidate responded "No they won't... and Wall Street will like me even less," the Democratic base exploded with approval. The Rahm-Wasserman Schultz Wall Street wing of the party, felt justified in trying to rig the nomination for Hillary, the overwhelming establishment choice.

This dynamic plays out locally, of course, up and down the ballot. Ever since Rahm was head of the DCCC-- and Wasserman Schultz was head of the Red-to-Blue Committee (until she was caught trying to rig 3 Miami Dade congressional elections for her Republican buddies, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers and against the 3 Democratic candidates)-- the DCCC has had a monumentally failed recruitment system that disadvantages progressives and recruits Republican-lite and Republican candidates. People like Rahm, Chris Van Hollen and Steve Israel-- the 3 consecutive worst DCCC chairmen in history-- who do not believe in progressive values and principles, look for corrupt, compromised centrists like themselves and insist that only that kind of candidate can win. The record of the DCCC shows they are entirely wrong but Pelosi and the rest of the House leadership seem incapable of reading the results of elections or of understanding why there are dozens and dozens fewer Democrats in Congress now than there were a decade ago.

Last week the Kaiser Foundation released a poll that showed that most Americans, for example, favor single-payer Medicare for all, a progressive idea that hacks like Israel, Wasserman Schultz and the rest of the New Dems fight against as strongly as Republicans do. 58% of Americans-- not to mention 81% of Democrats-- are in favor, as, of course, is Bernie Sanders, the candidate the Democratic Party establishment is working feverishly to derail.

Again, once Rahm murdered Dean's 50 state strategy, there were obviously going to be no wins to the South outside of urban cores. But even in the northeast, the DCCC has utterly dropped the ball and failed to hold or win seats that should be in Democratinc hands. Lets look at two that are in the news today, NY-22 (Utica, Rome and Binghamton) and PA-06 in the suburbs and exurbs northwest of Philly. Both have relatively mainstream Republican congressmen, Richard Hanna in New York and freshman Ryan Costello in Pennsylvania, Both seats are swing districts that the Democrats must win if they are going to take back the House while writing off huge sections of the country. Obama performed well in both districts, 49-49% ties with McCain and Romney in NY-22 and a 53-46% win against McCain and a 48-51% loss against Romney in PA-06.

Weak DCCC candidates did far worse. After progressive Democrat Maurice Hinchey retired in 2012, the DCCC recruited a weak Hinchey staffer, Dan Lamb, who lost every single county in the district to Hanna-- who won 157,941 (56.4%) to 102,080 (36.4%)-- drastically underperforming Obama, and with the DCCC abandoning the race early and refusing to spend any money on Lamb's behalf. In 2014, the DCCC didn't bother recruiting a candidate and Hanna was reelected without opposition after a bitter primary fight with a teabagger.

With the retirement of long-time incumbent Jim Gerlach in 2014, PA-06 was an open seat, the perfect opportunity for a Democratic win. Instead, the DCCC re-recruited two-time loser Manan Trivedi, another uninspiring, values-free centrist, who had lost to Gerlach in 2010 42.9-57.1% and in 2012 42.9-57.1%. So why would anyone be surprised that Trivedi would lose 43.7-56.3% in 2014, especially with the DCCC spending zero dollars on the race?

Over the weekend, when Hanna announced his retirement, the clueless Beltway trade press reacted by immediately projecting a "tossup" from a "safe Republican" designation. That's because they don't take DCCC incompetence into account. The crazy teabagger who ran against Hanna in 2014, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney, had already announced she would primary him again-- so she's all in-- but Oswego County GOP Chairman Michael Backus and Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente are also interested in running. The Democrats are looking at Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi who has a superb environmental record but doesn't have a good record on guns and is way more appreciated by the NRA than most Democrats in the state legislature. He was endorsed by NARAL and has a good voting record on Choice and was endorsed by the AFL-CIO and has a good record on unions and workers, although he voted with the Republicans against raising the minimum wage in 2012.

The Pennsylvania district is more problematic. Steve Israel has been adamant about handing the nomination over to another of his "ex" Republicans, Mike Parrish, who has until very recently been contributing thousands of dollars to Republicans like Mitt Romney and Pennsylvania's hated ex-governor, Mike Corbett. But Parrish has been unable to raise any money this cycle-- just $74,517 even with DCCC help-- and Roll Call reported that the DCCC has dumped him as a candidate and is looking for someone else. (In 2014 he raised $150,318 for a quickly aborted primary against Trivedi.) Presumably there will be a time in the future-- apparently after Pelosi retires and we get a viable DCCC-- when the Democratic Party realizes that recruiting Republicans for run as Democrats is a bad idea on every level.

And, yes, yes... Hillary Clinton is better than the Republicans running for the presidency. But is this what you want to see as the Democratic nominee? You can contribute to Bernie's campaign and to the campaigns of congressional candidates who have endorsed Bernie right here on this Blue America ActBlue page. I urge you to watch this video and to share it with your friends:

Mainstream Conservative Richard Hanna (R-NY) Spills The Beans On GOP Benghazi Hypocrisy

When New York lost two House seats after the 2010 census, the 24th CD morphed into a slightly redder 22nd CD that includes not just Utica and Rome, but also Binghamton way down south, which used to be part of Maurice Hinchey's very blue district. In 2010 Republican multimillionaire Richard Hanna ran-- for a second time-- against cowardly freshman Blue Dog Richard Arcuri, who lost much of the district's progressive base by voting against the Affordable Care Act and obsessively carrying water for Wall Street. Hanna, a mainstream Republican and Lebanese-American, ran to Arcuri's left on several issues (Hanna was anti-TARP, pro-LGBT, pro-Choice) and exploited Arcuri's ugly Islamophobia. He beat Arcuri in 8 of the district's 11 counties (including populous Oneida, Herkimer and Broome counties), winning 53-47% in a district that saw 49-49% ties for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Last year Hanna beat Democrat Dan Lamb 61-39%.

Wednesday night the above sound clip from an interview Hanna has just done with WIBX radio host Bill Keeler began circulating. Eventually it will wind up as evidence in Alan Grayson's ethics complaint against Trey Gowdy and Kevin McCarthy for their roles in using taxpayer dollars to conduct a partisan witch hunt. The entire interview with Hanna is worth listening to since he;'s one of the only even remotely rational Republicans left in Congress. But the evidentiary part is towards the end of the recording (around 9:40):

Sometimes the biggest sin you can commit in D.C. is to tell the truth. This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people, an individual, Hillary Clinton... This has been the longest investigation-- longer than Watergate... you’d like to expect more from a committee that’s spent millions of dollars and tons of time.

He then went on to predict he and other mainstream Republicans would work with the Democrats to prevent GOP extremists from shutting down the government, which he called "an unmitigated crime against this country." This all infuriated Wisconsin neo-fascist Ron Johnson, a senator about to lose his seat to Russ Feingold, who immediately attacked Hanna on CNN and called his statement on the Benghazi Committee, "is opinion; I don't share that opinion. Johnson, a vicious Ayn Rand devotee, is obsessed with Hillary Clinton's e-mails and vows to keep the controversy going no matter what happens in Trey Gowdy's compromised faux-investigation.

Clinton is due to testify before this partisan witch hunt in less than a week. It's outrageous that the committee hasn't disbanded by now and apologized to the American people for wasting at least $4 million in taxpayer money. As Steve Benen, put it at the MaddowBlog, "The Benghazi Committee isn’t investigating a scandal. The Benghazi Committee is the scandal... Given the circumstances, it’s not unreasonable to think there should be an independent investigation into the Republican’s Benghazi Committee itself in order to uncover why it was formed, why its redundant work was deemed necessary, how it spent millions of taxpayer dollars, why the probe has been dragged out for so long, and whether the panel violated ethics laws by using official resources for partisan political purposes. Clinton’s testimony will no doubt receive a bright spotlight next week, but testimony from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), and other GOP leaders would probably shed more light on the ongoing controversy."

Or, in the immortal words of Kevin Drum, "Republicans have screwed the pooch on Benghazi. The press can only play along with their faux investigation as long as they maintain plausible deniability about its partisan goals. But now we have (a) Kevin McCarthy spilling the beans, (b) news reports that John Boehner wanted to use the committee to attack Hillary, (c) Richard Hanna agreeing that it was mostly a partisan witch hunt, and (d) no less than the New York Times reporting that the committee has all but given up on Benghazi in favor of holding hearings on Hillary's email server. We knew all along there was a man behind the curtain, but now he's actually been exposed. It's getting harder and harder to play along with the charade."

This 62 seconds earned Bernie Sanders almost $3 million in small contributions immediately after the debate. (It infuriated Donald Trump though, who is now busy attacking Bernie.) Americans are getting sick and tired of this GOP hyper-partisanship and irresponsible use of public funds.

Republican Civil War Isn't Just About Money… Bigotry And Racism Are Big On The Right As Well

Matt Bevin, the radical right's McConnell slayer?

Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks Animation, is probably the most prodigious Democratic bundler in California. It was huge news when he backed Obama instead of Hillary in 2008. Today's news was that he's back on board with the Clintons. In the last 2 cycles, plus this year, he's personally donated over $3.5 million to Democratic organizations and candidates, particularly Priorities USA Action. Between 1990 and 2008, he wrote checks for $1.3 million. Jeffrey Katzenberg doesn't contribute to outfits like Blue America; he gives to the DCCC, DNC, DSCC and to Democratic Party organizations in states. And those organizations guard their big donors like ravenous wolves. When a Florida local elected official agreed to contribute to Blue America, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz went ballistic and threatened to "cut him off." I'm certain (really, I am) that this is just a coincidence, but he was found dead a few weeks later.

Another of L.A.'s biggest donors had been trying to get me to join the board of one of her companies and I had explained I didn't have the time or space. She's a smart cookie and she offered to throw a fundraiser at her Beverly Hills mansion for one of the Blue America candidates. I agreed to meet her to talk about what I'd have to do on the board. That evening, she entered the room, saying, "Oh, Howie, I just got off the phone with Steve [Israel] and he said your candidate has no chance and won't even wind up running in the end." That candidate, as it turned out, nearly did win, coming closer to beating the longtime incumbent since the district was first created! He lost because Steve Israel sabotaged his campaign with easily-manipulated Democratic contributors who don't know they're being played for fools by the Israels and Wasserman Schultzes.

And the Republican versions of Steve Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, it was reported by Jeremy Peters in the NY Times this morning, are working hard to de-fund the grassroots GOP organizations on the right. Same boss-like mentality from the Beltway Establishment careerists who seek to control the political life of the country. Of course, with their crackpot candidates, the Republican Establishment at least has a legitimate reason to undermine their own extreme right wing. Israel, Hoyer, Crowley and Wasserman Schultz don't. They just have that ole lust for power and control.

One of the biggest challenges for Republican leaders in the 2014 midterm elections will be how to hang on to the Tea Party support that has been so instrumental to the party’s growth, while winning back voters alienated by hard-right candidates. These conflicting goals were evident last week as Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio shelved plans to tackle immigration reform in the House, bowing to pressure from conservatives.

“We’re not picking a fight with the basis for the Tea Party,” said Scott Reed, the senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who noted that most Republicans were sympathetic to the free-market, small-government philosophy that inspired the movement. “But some have hijacked the Tea Party model and taken it to an extreme level.”

The chamber has become one of the establishment’s most powerful forces this year by taking the highly aggressive step of working in primaries to defeat Republicans who are seen as unelectable and damaging to the national party.

“Let’s not screw around eating our own,” Mr. Reed said. “Let’s win a seat.”

Tea Party groups and other conservatives who are challenging the traditional party leadership say the pushback this year is as hostile as it has ever been.

“I’ve been told by a number of donors to our ‘super PAC’ that they’ve received calls from senior Republican senators,” said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, which is supporting challengers to Republican incumbents across the country. The message from these donors was blunt: “I can’t give to you because I’ve been told I won’t have access to Republican leadership,” Mr. Kibbe said. “So they’re playing hardball.”

Few have fought rougher than Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, who is facing a primary challenger at home and Tea Party angst in Washington.

Under his direction, the National Republican Senatorial Committee cut ties with a prominent Republican advertising firm and pressed individual senators to do so as well because of its work with a group that targets incumbent Senate Republicans, the Senate Conservatives Fund. That group has accused the McConnell campaign of pressuring its bookkeeper into resigning because she feared that she would never get work from Republican candidates again.

“He’s essentially joined the I.R.S. in targeting conservative groups,” said Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund. “It’s all meant to intimidate.” Aides to Mr. McConnell had no comment.

In other races, the party’s mainstream elements have been pushing back quickly, albeit with less brute force.

In Alaska, Joe Miller, the Sarah Palin-backed candidate who in 2010 tried to unseat Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican, is running again this year and faces a crowded Republican primary. But when he sat down with the staff of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to gauge its support, members came armed with polling data and warned him that he was too unpopular to win.

In West Virginia, the Chamber of Commerce is working to neutralize opposition to Shelley Moore Capito, the leading Republican candidate. They have already claimed one casualty: A former State House member, Pat McGeehan, who claims to hold the record for the most “no” votes cast. He dropped out.

“Pat is a little bit on the ...” said Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, trying to find diplomatic words. “I’m just going to say he has a little bit of an ideological edge to him. We certainly let it be known by running our ads and so forth that Shelley would be a better candidate.”

In South Dakota, Senator John Thune, a member of the Republican leadership, has thrown his support behind Mike Rounds in the race for the seat being vacated by Senator Tim Johnson, a Democrat. Mr. Rounds, a former governor, is being opposed in the primary by several candidates, including one, Stace Nelson, who was banned from the Republican caucus in the State House after being too combative with other members.

Ground zero in the establishment-strikes-back fight may be the House race in Idaho between Representative Mike Simpson, an eight-term member, and Bryan Smith, a lawyer who has the backing of the anti-tax, anti-spending group the Club for Growth. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has started running ads depicting Mr. Simpson as the true conservative, rebutting Mr. Smith’s claim that he is a “RINO”-- Republican in name only.

Mr. Smith said he had anticipated the pushback, but was seeing encouraging support locally. “I always knew that a 15-year incumbent who’s a close ally of John Boehner’s was going to outraise me,” he said before ticking off some recent triumphs. “We’ve raised over half a million dollars. Last week I got two more endorsements from the Republican Party on the county level.”

Mr. Reed, of the chamber, said he had it on good authority that his message to the more recalcitrant Republicans was sinking in.

“Boehner has told me that in the House caucus meetings there are a lot more guys sitting up straight,” he said. “They aren’t sitting in the back with their feet up on the chairs hurling spitballs.”

Mr. Black, the Virginia state senator, said he bore no ill will toward the friends who endorsed his opponent. But he does question what kind of shape his party is in if its leaders go on attacking the movement that is the source of so much grass-roots energy. “So many of the big-money interests are very antagonistic toward the base,” he said, “and I’m not sure where the Republican Party is headed.”

And, of course, on the GOP side, it isn't only about the loot, like it mostly is on the Democratic side. Jim DeMint's proto-fascist operation, Heritage Action, is viciously trying to undermine the Chamber of Commerce passed on ideology. Republican grassroots groups can let their racist hair down more freely than the Establishment groups, who need to persuade independents and moderates they're not exactly the same thing as Nazis (they are), care to. Earlier today DeMint's stooge, Michael Needleman, claimed that the comprehensive immigration bill passed by the Senate last year with some Republican support-- Lamar Alexander, Kelly Ayotte, Susan Collins, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch, Dean Heller, John Hoeven, Mark Kirk, John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, and Marco Rubio (FL)-- is the result of "corporate cronyism" and was "written behind closed doors by the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce."

This morning the Tampa Bay Times confirmed the rumor that former Florida state Rep. Ana Rivas Logan had left the Republican party and is re-registering as a Democrat. "The GOP of today is not the party I joined," said Rivas Logan, who also served on the Miami-Dade School Board. "It's not the party of my parents. It's a party that has been radicalized and held hostage by a group of extremists." She pointed out that the Republican Party "a party that attacks women and minorities-- and one that asked me, and my former Hispanic Republican colleagues in the Florida legislature, to turn on their own people by supporting extreme anti-immigrant policies." I wonder how she'll define being a Democrat.

Another right-wing PAC, FRC, ran this radio ad against mainstream conservative Republican Richard Hanna (NY) who teabaggers deride for being insufficiently extreme. Obama tied both McCain and Romney in Hanna's R+3 upstate New York district (Utica, Rome, Binghamton) and this one could easily fall to a Democrat if… oh, never mind… Steve Israel neglected to recruit a Democrat gainst one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the Northeast.

Listen.

Moderate Republicans? Has Anyone Spotted A Live One In Congress Since Sherry Boehlert?

No friends of Darrell Issa's, the American Association of Letter Carriers endorsed Richard Hanna for reelection

Yes… Mark Pocan, the intensely progressive freshman from Wisconsin insists he knows a genuine moderate Republican. Richard Hanna (R-NY) defeated disappointing conservative Mike Arcuri in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010 to win back Boehlert's old upstate New York seat (Utica, Rome, Binghamton). The district-- now NY-22-- has a PVI of R+3 but was a 49-49% tie in the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. Last year Hanna was reelected 61-39% and won all 8 counties in the district including blue Broome County. This year Hanna's 15.79 ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is far worse than even the 3 most right-wing Democrats, John Barrow (20.87), Jim Matheson (24.35) and Ron Barber (25.00).

So what makes him a "moderate?" Well, he's one of only 6 Republicans in the House who refused to sign Grover Norquist's shrink the government and drown it pledge and he's a major supporter-- financially-- of Planned Parenthood… and voted against the GOP attempt to defund it. He also voted against their crazy attempt to defund NPR. At the same time, he's pretty bad on a wide range of issues that moderate cherish, like economic fairness and preserving the environment in a way that makes the planet habitable by humans.

Still he endorsed Jon Huntsman for president, was one iof only two Republicans to vote against shutting down the government over Obamacare (which he opposes) and he's voted against GOP attempts to gut abortion laws. He's also one of only two Republicans to back same sex marriage-- and the other one, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has one of the country's biggest LGBT communities in her district. He doesn't. And he joined the House LGBT Equality Caucus.

And that brings us to why Mark Pocan claims Hanna is a rare member of the nearly extinct breed of Republican moderates. Pocan and his husband got married in Toronto. Wisconsin doesn't recognize same-sex marriages. Mark sees him as an overall decent and caring guy. That counts for something. But when Hanna found out about how Mark's Canadian nuptials wouldn't be recognized in Wisconsin, he offered to have Mark and his husband, Philip, fly to New York where he could officiate over a wedding. OK, that doesn't sound like any of the Republicans I've gotten used to seeing parading across the TV spreading dissension and hatred. Still, to me, he sounds like a decent, mainstream conservative, not a reactionary, which is what most Republicans in Congress are today. Listen to these two clips, the first from 2 years ago and the second from a month ago: