Draining The Swamp In North Carolina Yields The Head Of The State Republican Party, The Party's Top Donor And 3 Others, Including A Far Right Member Of Congress

About a decade ago, mostly back in 2006 and 2008, we used to write a lot about a North Carolina multimillionaire congressman named Robin Hayes. The district he represented, NC-08, is now mostly NC-09, the one where a Trumpist candidate was caught rigging the ballots last year, causing the election to be voided. The district has no representative in Congress now and a new election is in the works. (Tangent: Hayes was defeated by Larry Kissel, who ran as a progressive and then joined the Blue Dogs and voted like a Republican, totally alienating his base, which, naturally enough, didn't lure Republican voters, just caused Democrats to not vote for him. He lost his seat in 2012.)

Hayes was a freak. One of the reasons he lost so badly to Kissel in 2008 was because he accused then candidate Barack Obama of "inciting class warfare" and claiming that "liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God." That brought him a lot of attention and he not only denied that he ever said it, he also accused the media reporting his remarks "irresponsible journalism." Unfortunately for Rep. Hayes, someone made a tape. When that was released Hayes simple denied that he denied the statement. Kissel beat him by ten points.

Instead of just letting him quietly slip away into obscurity, the North Carolina elected him chairman of the state party, a two year term. They elected him again in 2016. Today Hayes was in court, having been indicted by a federal grand jury on a variety of charges for funneling bribe money to the re-election campaign of North Carolina Insurance commissioner Mike Causey. (Yesterday, he said his health had determined that he wouldn't be seeking another term as state Republican Chairman.)

It was actually wealthy entrepreneur and Republican Party mega-donor Greg Lindberg who was being investigated when the FBI stumbled upon Hayes. Lindberg would write $40 checks to the DCCC on the same day he wrote $500,000 checks to the Republican Party of North Carolina. He's contributed million of dollars to the GOP in recent years and was the state party's biggest single donor and is the money-bags behind the state's crooked Lt. Govenor, Dan Forest, who is running for governor next year.

Four people-- Hayes, Lindberg, John D. Gray and John V. Palermo-- were charged in the case, and all four made their first appearances in court Tuesday, the same day the indictment was unsealed. They’re charged with conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud (a charge generally associated with the behavior of public officials) as well as bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds and aiding and abetting.

Each of the four pleaded not guilty. The indictment says Causey contacted federal law enforcement officials in January 2018 and has cooperated with the ongoing FBI investigation.

The indictment mentions another person in contact with Lindberg and Causey-- “Public Official A”-- but doesn’t name them or mention charges. Politico reported Tuesday afternoon that the official is Republican Congressman Mark Walker. Politico identified Walker using the indictment and records from the Federal Election Commission, the outlet reported.

The four are alleged to have devised a scheme to defraud North Carolina citizens through attempts to bribe commissioner Causey, according to the grand jury’s indictment. The four offered campaign donations in exchange for “specific official action favorable” to a company Lindberg owns, as well as staffing changes at the Department of Insurance, the indictment says.

Each of the four was released on $100,000 bond, on the condition that they turn in their passports and report any travel to federal probation officials.

Hayes, 73, represented North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District from 1999 to 2009. He appeared in federal court Tuesday using a walker. His lawyers told federal magistrate David Kessler that he had surgery in February and that his mobility is limited.


One of Hayes’ attorneys told the judge that he is eager to “clear his name.”

The NC GOP has been cooperating with the federal investigation for months but didn’t learn about the indictments until early Tuesday, party legal counsel Josh Howard said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.


”Early this morning, the North Carolina Republican Party was made aware of several indictments surrounding the conduct of a major donor to both major political parties and two of his associates,” Howard said in the statement.

“The Party has been cooperating with the investigation for several months, including staff members providing statements and responding to various document requests,” he said. “The Party, which has its day to day operations managed by professional staff under the direction of the NCGOP Central Committee, remains fully operational and focused on its mission at hand.”

Lindberg owns Durham-based Eli Global, LLC, an investment company, as well as Global Bankers Insurance Group, a managing company for several insurance and reinsurance companies. Gray is a consultant for Lindberg and Palermo is vice president of special projects for Eli Global.

At Lindberg’s direction, Palermo set up two entities to form a committee that would provide campaign funds to Causey, the indictment alleges. Lindberg then put $1.5 million into the companies, it says. Lindberg and Gray then instructed Hayes to transfer $250,000 to Causey’s campaign from the NC GOP campaign committee, according to the indictment.

Causey previously rejected a $10,000 campaign donation from Lindberg. That was in 2017, according to indictment. In August 2017, the indictment says Hayes texted Causey and suggested “I think u should consider a face to face (with Lindberg).”

In November 2017, Gray told Causey that Lindberg had contributed $500,000 to the NC GOP and earmarked $110,000 for Causey’s campaign, according to the indictment. Federal campaign finance laws prohibit state organizations from earmarking general donations for specific candidates, as McClatchy previously reported in a story about Hayes.


Later, in February 2018, Causey met with Palermo at a restaurant in Chapel Hill, according to the indictment. There, Palermo suggested that Causey hire him for the NC Department of Insurance staff. In a March 5 meeting in Statesville, Causey then confirmed his ability to hire Palermo. During that meeting, Lindberg told Causey that he’d support him with up to $2 million in campaign contributions, according to the indictment.

In March 2018, Causey told Lindberg that he didn’t think it would be a good idea to hire Palermo since Lindberg’s company was “liable to end up in the newspaper,” the indictment says. Lindberg agreed, the indictment says, and suggested an alternative move of transferring one of Causey’s senior deputies to a different division.

Around June 19, 2018, Gray told Causey that the political committee had been funded with $1.5 million, the indictment says. However, about 10 days later, Lindberg told Palermo that he was “shutting down donations until we see some improvement in the NC DOI staff,” the indictment says.

In July 2018, Palermo told Lindberg he had lunch with “Public Official A” and talked to him about the issues in the insurance department, the indictment says. Palermo then quoted “Public Official A,” saying that Causey “needs to man-up and do what he agreed to.” The indictment says the public official then contacted Causey and said Lindberg, Gray and Palermo “seemed anxious to find out” if Causey had made staffing changes.


The indictment also contends that Hayes repeatedly lied to FBI agents.

Hayes, for instance, wrongly told FBI agents he’d never spoken to the insurance commissioner about Lindberg or about personnel problems at the insurance department, the indictment states. In fact, Hayes had spoken to the commissioner about contributions from Lindberg being funneled through the state Republican Party to the commissioner-- and about Lindberg’s request that the commissioner move certain personnel within the department, according to the indictment.

The indictment states that Hayes lied about a $500,000 contribution that Lindberg made to the state Republican Party, claiming he never talked with Lindberg about where he expected that money to go. In reality, the indictment alleges, Lindberg and one of his consultants had directed Hayes to transfer $250,000 to the commissioner’s campaign.

The indictment says FBI agents interviewed Hayes in August 2018 and specifically asked whether Hayes was aware of “expectations” Lindberg might have had for a $500,000 donation he made to the party. “Absolutely not,” Hayes responded, according to the indictment.

In a news release Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski referred to the group’s alleged actions as “a brazen bribery scheme in which Greg Lindberg and his coconspirators allegedly offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for official action that would benefit Lindberg’s business interests.”

Benczkowski added: “The Criminal Division will use all the tools at our disposal-- including the assistance of law-abiding public officials-- to relentlessly investigate and prosecute corruption wherever we find it.”

Walker (r) is a big-time Trump enabler

Walker hasn't been indicted yet but Politico reported today that "text and emails released by the Justice Department said Walker was part of Lindberg's scheme to pressure Causey over the personnel move. 'Just between the 3 of us... [Public Official A] has already made two calls on our behalf and is trying to help us move the ball forward,' one of Lindberg’s associates said in a February 2018 email to Lindberg, according to the indictment. 'I was also told that the $150,000 will be going to [Public Official A].' FEC records show Lindberg donated to the Mark Walker Victory Committee on Feb. 17, 2018. Lindberg was the first donor to contribute to the committee, which was created only four days before his donation was recorded... Earlier, Lindberg donated more than $78,000 to a different Walker-affiliated joint fundraising committee, according to FEC records."

Walker and the rest of the crooks are all claiming to be innocent. It is likely they will all turn on each other and blame each other. Walker, a former pastor, now serves as vice-chairman of the House Republican Conference. Lindberg has also been busy bribing then-Governor, now-Senator Rick Scott (to the tune of $400,000). If millionaires and billionaires paid their fair share of taxes, they wouldn't have this kind of money to throw around as bribes to crook politicians-- of both parties-- and that is exactly why crooked politicians of both parties have kept tax rates for the very rich so low. I wish I could say Pelosi is part of the solution-- but she isn't; she's part of the problem. You know who will be, though?

Trade, Traitors And Accountability Within The Democratic Party Establishment

A couple weeks ago-- before rubber stamp incumbent Robin Hayes (R-NC) self-destructed ala his ideological sister Michele Bachmann and before the latest polling showed Larry Kissell beating him next Tuesday-- a Democratic Party higher up contacted me in my role as treasurer of the Blue America PAC. "We see," he said, "that your PAC has been raising money for Larry Kissell longer than anyone and that you've been pushing him since 2006. Can you help him now? Hayes is pouring money into negative TV spots and we're getting clobbered."

I offered him a deal. Since the terrible, job-killing trade policies of Bush, the GOP and the reactionary and Blue Dog Democrats is the most important issue in the district, I agreed to go to the Blue America Board if he could persuade Rahm Emanuel-- whose lack of support in 2006 cost Larry the seat-- to admit it was his fault and apologize for his incompetence and agree to never bother Congressman Kissell about voting for any of the kinds of corporate trade legislation he is always shoving down Democrats' throats.

The big shot Democratic insider got back to me in less than 24 hours and said that he could get Emanuel to admit and apologize but that he would never agree to say anything negative about the trade policies he shoves down Democrats' throats. I said "No deal then" and hung up. I did call Jane and Digby and John (the rest of the Board) and we all decided to fund around 3,000 trade policy ads for the last week of the election, all over cable TV and on ABC-TV for the NASCAR races this weekend. Here's the ad:



Interestingly, yesterday's CongressDaily carried a story called Dems' Ads In Tight Races Tap Into Anti-Trade Sentiment by Peter Cohn in which he claimed that so-called "free trade" advocates could face a lonely 111th Congress "if the Democrats' campaign rhetoric is any indication. References to 'job-killing trade deals,' outsourcing and anti-China sentiment abound, with more than 100 trade-related advertisements and counting. If the party makes a clean sweep, 2008 could be similar to two years ago, when 37 House and Senate Democrats opposed to expanding trade pacts like the North American and Central America free-trade agreements won their races, observers say."

This year the DSCC and the DCCC are spending lots of money on ads attacking unfair Republican trade policies but he never actually mentions that the unfair Republican trade policies are also the trade policies of cynical corporate Democrats like Emanuel, Hoyer and their reactionary claque.

"Two years ago [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles] Schumer [of New York] and [then-Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman] Rahm [Emanuel of Illinois] were staying as far as they could away from these issues," said Andy Gussert, national director of Citizens Trade Campaign, a coalition of groups advocating trade reforms.

I don't know if I would describe it as stayed as far away as they could. Emanuel made a point to undercut progressive candidates who disagreed with his trade policies-- like Larry Kissell.

The DSCC charged in an ad opposing Senate Minority Leader McConnell that Kentucky has lost automotive jobs to Mexico and apparel jobs to Honduras as a result of NAFTA and CAFTA, as well as 33,000 jobs to China. "He created jobs all right. Just not here," says the narrator. His opponent's campaign this week accused McConnell of being "a friend of Communist China" based on votes for permanent normal trade relations with that country and other measures. In another DSCC-financed ad, a man refers to Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., as "the senator from China." A DSCC spot promoting former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who is challenging GOP Sen. Roger Wicker, says the Democrat opposes the trade deals as "job-killers" and will "fight to keep Mississippi jobs in Mississippi." And a DSCC ad for Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley, running against GOP Sen. Gordon Smith, argues Oregon has paid "a very heavy price" for free trade, "with nearly 70,000 jobs shipped overseas."

Trade has also emerged as an issue in roughly 30 House races considered "competitive" by the nonpartisan Cook Political ReportHayes of North Carolina, Tim Walberg of Michigan and Steve Chabot of Ohio on their trade records. "Michigan lost 319,000 jobs due to unfair trade alone," says the latest ad running in Walberg's district. It charges that Walberg "even voted for more unfair trade with South America," noting his vote last year in favor of the Peru Free Trade Agreement, and a vote this year to allow debate on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

And now for the kicker. The Emanuel wing, which is, on trade, essentially identical to the GOP, had an anonymous spokesperson tell Cohn that they are "hopeful incoming lawmakers will moderate their positions after the election." In their universe "moderate" means buckle under to the special interests and leave working families dying on the side of the road. Emanuel and Hoyer maintain their absolute power inside the caucus because of their ability to raise huge sums of tainted cash from The Bad Guys and then to dole it out to other Democrats.

And the above is why it is so important for grassroots Democrats to never cede the party to insider hacks with personal career agendas-- the Rahm Emanuels and Steny Hoyers. This week The Hill explained how progressive activists are getting together to challenge Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who consistently act in bad faith, nominal Democrats like Dan Boren, John Barrow, Emanuel, etc. This will be, in great part, what the next two years will be about for activists watching closely what the Democrats do with the power being investing in them on Tuesday.

The Daily Blue America Report-- #5

If you want a government crippled by the obstructionism of ideological extremists, you'll be happy to know that with their dying breath the collapsing Republican Party has just borrowed $5 million-- not quite enough for a new plane for the McCains but more than the cost of a couple pair of Cindy's earrings-- to try to save some of the incumbent senators on the verge of being turned out by their constituents. The GOP has given up entirely on the open red seats in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado but they're still hoping to salvage their ability to block Obama's program by re-electing reactionaries in some combination of North Carolina, Oregon, Minnesota, Kentucky, Alaska, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Maine, etc. Thwart them here. Our friends and allies at People For the American Way are running a series of ads to try to counter the GOP effort. Here's one they did that puts the lie to Susan Collins' deceptive image of her as an "independent" and "moderate."



I've been complaining how the DCCC is spending the vast bulk of the contributions they get on reactionary candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- even anti-choice fanatics-- but I was heartened to hear that they're distributing some small amount of help to more progressives this week. Mind you, not the huge million dollar TV campaigns for the Rahm Emanuel Caucus slimebags, but we saw they had gone up with a couple of TV spots against Mean Jean Schmidt in OH-02 and that they're going to finally donate some much-needed cash to Annette Taddeo in Miami-Dade and they're running this negative ad against Ric Keller in Orlando.

Last night we saw how the Austin Statesman was encouraged that Mike "Low-Hanging Fruit" McCaul could lose his seat next week. Today the drumbeat in Texas got louder as a panic-stricken McCaul sent an SOS out to all his wealthy supporters asking them to do some door-knocking. That would be a funny sight to see!

Republican rubber stamps like Susan Collins, Gordon Smith, Chris Shays can put one over on constituents who don't pay close enough attention and make the case-- much the way McCain does-- that they haven't followed Bush entirely. But if it's untrue for Collins, Smith and Shays, it's the lie-of-the-year for Michael McCaul, one of the half dozen members of Congress with the greatest percentage of ironclad Bush votes. An apt illustration in the dictionary for the term "rubber stamp," would be a photo of Michael McCaul. And today's Houston Chronicle reports that he sat before a roomful of Chronicle editors with a straight face claiming to be "an independent congressman." It was a startling assertion.

"I've been an independent voice up there, and that's important to me," said McCaul, explaining that he voted against President Bush by opposing the finance industry rescue plan and an attempt to cut Medicare payment rates to doctors and hospitals.

Doherty retorted: "Michael may cast himself as an independent voice, but the record shows he has voted 94 percent of the time with the Republican agenda. That is not representation, it is misrepresentation."

Further, McCaul did not respond to Doherty's charge that the congressman voted to cut Medicare reimbursements, then switched his vote when he saw it would make no difference to the outcome of the legislation.

It was the only face-to-face encounter McCaul has agreed to, knowing full well that he's no match for Larry Joe Dohert in any kind of public debate. He claims "scheduling conflicts" when called on his unwillingness to participate in one of the most fundamental aspects of democracy, a free an open public debate on the issues. Of course, when you look at McCaul's appalling and indefensible voting record of those issues, it is easy to see why he doesn't want to defend it and just spends his father-in-law's fortune on negative ads.

McCaul told the editorial writers he opposed the Democratic version of a bill to expand the Children's Health Insurance Program because, he said, it would have expanded such benefits to adults and illegal immigrants.

Doherty said citizens of the district already pay indirectly for emergency care for illegal immigrants-- services funded largely through local property taxes. Health costs, he said, are high partly because profit drives decisions made by medical insurance companies. He said the solution is a "single payer," government-sponsored healthcare system.

McCaul said nations that use such a system must ration health care and make patients wait for services. Doherty said many of those countries rank significantly higher than the United States in life expectancy rates and do better in preventing infant deaths.

The candidates' disagreements also applied to the rate of the federal tax on investment income.

McCaul said lowering the capital gains tax would free up money that can be invested in ways that would help restore the U.S. economy.

"What we should do is what worked very well under Presidents Kennedy and Reagan," he said. "What better way to unleash that capital than to reduce the capital gains tax rate?"

Doherty countered that cutting taxes on investment income "is a cynical suggestion for the wealthy to get wealthier."

After their only scheduled meeting of the campaign, Doherty told McCaul he hoped they'd cross paths again before the Nov. 4 election. McCaul said he hoped they could get together when the election's over.

Apparently McCain has made Palin change her "mind" and she too is now demanding that convicted Republican felon Ted Stevens resign from the office he disgraced. If he resigns, she gets to appoint his replacement-- at least until January, when Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is likely to become senator. Stevens claims he's innocent and that he will win re-election and win his appeal. There are dark rumors swirling that he has the goods on Palin and if she opens her yap again about him resigning, he knows how to get them to the press. Let's hope!

McClatchy reported today that in the aftermath of Robin Hayes hate-filled attack on liberals, his polling numbers have tanked and that he now trails Blue America-endorsed Larry Kissel, 51-46%. Gee, I guess we can just call the nearly three thousand Blue America ads running on Charlotte and Raleigh cable and then all the broadcast spots on ABC-TV's NASCAR show will just be some extra insurance. An internal Republican memo terms Hayes as "likely gone."

This morning we started the day with the cheery news that NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg had given Dennis Shulman a hearty, rousing endorsement for the congressional seat in northern New Jersey currently in the hands of right-wing extremist Scott Garrett. So let's end the day with more good news from New Jersey: Democracy For America just endorsed Dennis as well and their executive director announced a huge door-to-door get out the vote effort on Dennis' behalf.

Keith Olbermann Has A New Worst Person: Robin Hayes (R-NC)

Robin Hayes can't ever seem to get his stories straight

Olbermann is never kind to extremist lunatics. It's taken him a while but he's finally gotten around to Robin "Weepy" Hayes, a kind of feudal type who represents a sprawling district that stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville (NC-08). Apparently he had either just lost control of himself or he was trying to compete with Michele Bachmann for the GOP crazee du jour, when he introduced John McCain to an audience in North Carolina by saying "Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and believe in God." Forgetting that we're in a different kind of media age, where things are easy recorded and checked, he flatly denied saying it.

The next day witnesses came forward to say they heard him. He denied it some more. Then someone released a recording and he was caught like a rat. He first claimed he didn't remember saying it and then claimed he didn't mean to say it and later claimed he never really denied it-- and blamed the whole thing on... liberal bloggers. The funny thing is, North Carolina voters have even better reasons to get rid of Robin Hayes than just his erratic grappling with Truth and Reality.

If any member of Congress personifies a willingness to sell out his constituents' economic interests for the sake of special interests, it is Robin Hayes. Few districts anywhere have been as hard hit by unfair trade policies as NC-08. And yet Hayes was the deciding vote-- twice-- on trade agreements his party was pushing that he himself said he knew was bad for North Carolina! Once he actually voted NO and then, weeping like a little girl, changed his vote to YES when Tom Delay threatened him on the floor of the House.

Hayes' opponent, Larry Kissell, is one of the best candidates running for Congress anywhere. A laid off mill worker, Larry became a social studies teacher and later came within 325 votes of ousting Hayes from Congress in 2006. This year polls say he will complete the job. Blue America has endorsed him and I'm very nervous about this race because Hayes and his corporate allies are flooding the district with negative campaign ads-- and Larry's pretty much out of money. According to Open Secrets, on September 30 Hayes still had $1,113,272 left to spend and Larry was down to $250,134. The most recent polling shows Larry at 49% and Hayes at 41% but the NRCC is blasting away with $882,000 in television smears.

Larry deserves our support-- and not just because Hayes has been such an egregious rubber stamp for the entire Bush agenda. Larry is a committed progressive who will stand up to special interests across the board-- the kind represented by Bush Republicans and the kind, just as venal, represented by corrupt Democrats like Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel, the Tom Delay doppelganger in the Democratic caucus, favors the exact same unfair trade policies that Bush and Delay were pushing. I'd LOVE to see the little twerp try to persuade Larry Kissell to change his vote and support that kind of crap! This is what Larry told me when I asked him about Hayes' latest episode:

Unfortunately this dishonesty that my opponent has continued to show this week is part of a pattern of deceit that goes all the way back to his betrayal of our district and his last minute vote switches on fast track authority for Bush and CAFTA.

There are two ways to help Larry win this seat now. One is by donating directly to his campaign via ActBlue. Even $5 and $10 donations help. The other is to place your own ad buy in the Charlotte cable market through SaysMe.tv. Just pick which ad you want to run, which network you want to run it on and what time of the day. An ad on MSNBC in the late afternoon, for example, costs $60, while a late night ad on MTV or the SciFi channel costs $31; ESPN 2 charges $60 for a spot late night or early morning. It's fun. Meanwhile, watch Keith giving Hayes his due:

Robin Hayes Asks North Carolina Voters To Decide If He's Delusional Or Just A Garden Variety Liar

Robin Hayes-- liar? loon? both?

Yesterday we talked about how Robin Hayes (R-NC) was following lunatic fringe GOP incumbents like Michele Bachmann, Bill Sali, Dana Rohrabacher and Mean Jean Schmidt off the cliff into outright insanity. He had stood up onstage at a McCain rally and accused Obama of “inciting class warfare” and said that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

As the report started circulating and people in his district started hearing about it, Hayes flatly denied he had ever said it! Caught like a rat, he claimed it was the liberal media distorting his words. Hayes' campaign is now lashing out at reporters who are writing about his episode. Unfortunately for the delusional congressman, there's a recording of him and it's very clear.

That leaves us with these questions:

Is Hayes a liar?

Is Hayes delusional?

Will Hayes apologize immediately or let this drag on and on?

Will Hayes cry like a little girl again when he finally does apologize?

Hayes' opponent is Larry Kissell, one of the best Democrats running for Congress... anywhere. You can donate here or you can run your own SaysMe.TV ads in his district by clicking here. I had some hesitation about asking people to donate to Bachmann's opponent because he's a Blue Dog himself. I have no hesitation about Larry Kissell. He'll make one of the best members of Congress-- for North Carolina and for the whole country.



UPDATE: CAUGHT LIKE A RAT, HAYES SAYS HE DIDN'T MEAN IT

As far as we know Robin Weepy Hayes didn't cry when he was confronted with the taped evidence proving his denials were a blatant lie. Now he claims he didn't remember saying it, that he was just trying to work up the partisan crowd of what McCain has referred to as "the nuts" and that he didn't really mean it. No wonder ex-mill worker/high school teacher Larry Kissell is beating him in all the polls!

Robin Hayes Follows Michele Bachmann Off The Rails

The pressure must be getting to some of these right-wing Republican incumbents as they see their polling numbers, their careers and their increasingly delegitimized political party heading into the toilet. Joe Garcia (FL-25) has completely closed the gap on fringe crackpot Mario Diaz-Balart and it's putting so much pressure on the entrenched extremist that Diaz-Balart seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown... or worse. Watch his bizarre, erratic behavior at a rally a couple days ago:



And as we discussed earlier, the Republican brand is so tarnished nationally, that even in deeply red districts in The South, voters are turning away from the hatred and divisiveness the GOP represents to embrace the Democratic message of change and of shared prosperity for working families. Nowhere is that more obvious than in North Carolina's 8th CD, where progressive Larry Kissell is successfully challenging Bush rubber stamp Robin Hayes to a rematch. Hayes is best known in the district for crying like a little girl when Tom DeLay forced him to change his no vote on CAFTA, an unfair trade bill that helped to devastate North Carolina industry. Other than that rather embarrassing and humiliating episode, the multimillionaire out-of-touch congressman has kept his emotions to himself. Today's NY Observer, however, reveals another side of Robin Hayes: the Michele Bachmann side.

McCain called on two of the most dependable GOP rubber stamps in the North Carolina congressional delegation to work the crowd up at a rally in Concord, NC on Friday-- hyperbolic closet queen Patrick McHenry and the generally more cautious Hayes. But Hayes had a little... episode. After McHenry riled up the audience-- not very hard when you consider the kinds of little fascist animals who go to Republican rallies these days-- Hayes, at least at first, tried to calm it down so it would resemble a political rally instead of a KKK cross burning.

“It’s like black and white,” someone in the crowd at the Cabarrus Arena & Events Center yelled out, laughing. McHenry let the remark pass and finished his speech. He yielded the microphone to Representative Robin Hayes, who prefaced his comments by saying it was important to “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.” Republicans, he reminded the crowd, were kind people. Plus, he added, the liberal media had shown itself eager to distort such remarks. With the crowd duly chastened and put on best behavior, he accused Obama of “inciting class warfare” and said that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

What is it with these lunatic fringe Republicans, who have failed our country so badly in office, trying to claim Democrats and liberals aren't "real Americans?" This weekend we saw McCain's chief spokesperson saying that northern Virginia isn't "real Virginia," which, she claimed, is more "southern." Palin routinely refers to areas where Republicans dominate as "real America." What is wrong with these divisive, ignorant people? McCain and his despicable crew would rather destroy the American compact than lose an election. Are they trying to foment another Civil War?

Larry is leading Hayes in the polling right now, but Hayes and his corporate allies are pouring money into the district. As of September 30 Hayes had $1,113,272 in his campaign bank account and Larry has only $250,134. Hayes is blanketing the district with negative smear attacks and Larry isn't up on broadcast TV. Two ways to go here-- donate directly to Larry's campaign at his Blue America page or go to our SaysMe.tv site, pick one of the two approved Kissell and run your own campaign on whatever stations you want. Prime time ads on MSNBC are $57 and on CNN late nights they're $29. We have a 30 second version of this great spot:

Polls In Red States

This morning when asked why Obama is gaining momentum everywhere in the country while his own polling numbers are tumbling, McCain sputtered and groused to his buddies at Fox that "life is unfair." With support from voters solidifying around Obama's calm, measured approach-- and rejecting the McCain campaign's erratic and hysterical reactions to everything-- the battlegrounds for November have been shifting into "safe" Republican states like North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia and Florida. In fact, Florida Republicans are panicking. So are congressional candidates tied to McCain.

Recall that McCain has an unbroken record this year when it comes to coattails: three contested special elections (all in heavily Republican districts, "safe" seats in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi) were won by Democrats when McCain's efforts on behalf of Republicans backfired badly. Polling news from around the country is looking gloomier and gloomier for the Republicans, even in areas they thought were safe for them. The NRSC has given up on races in New Mexico and Virginia where they once thought they could hold onto seats of retiring Republicans. This morning's Washington Post declared that the GOP's gradual decline in Virginia has turned into a free fall (And, by the way, this isn't just happening in the DC suburbs, as this Kos diarist-- click on the link-- makes clear when he explains the importance of bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley's endorsement of Obama.)

Long-serving members of Congress and the state legislatures are not only leaving office but also blasting their party on the way out. Just a few years after running his party's national congressional campaign effort, Rep. Tom Davis of Fairfax County is leaving Congress embittered by the Republicans' hard-right positions and frustrated that there appears to be no home for moderates who might appeal to suburban voters.

Virginia's GOP "gave me the middle finger," Davis said after party leaders maneuvered to hand its nomination for the retiring John Warner's U.S. Senate seat to former governor Jim Gilmore, rather than allow a primary between the hard-right Gilmore and the moderate Davis. "Anybody who compromises, you go back to your party base and you're an apostate. You're squishy. You're weak."

Two of Virginia's longest-serving GOP leaders, Sen. John Chichester of Stafford County and Del. Vince Callahan of Fairfax, left the legislature this year with harsh words for their party-- and both have endorsed Democrat Mark Warner in this fall's Senate race.

"I'm extremely distressed by the path it's taking," Callahan told me of the GOP in Virginia. "It could end up being a minority debating society. We can't be a party about immigrant-bashing or gay-bashing or any other bashing. We should be a party of fiscal responsibility, which is how I got into it."

Even worse was some of the startling congressional polling news that came in from around the country. Maybe they're hoping Mooselini will turn this around for them tonight, but it looks like the Republican brand is as toxic as astute prognosticators have been saying it was. Let's start in Texas, where Blue America-endorsee Larry Joe Doherty has been in an under the radar struggle with another lockstep, rubber stamp Bush millionaire, Michael McCaul, whose father-in-law, the Clear Channel CEO, bought him the seat after DeLay had the district gerrymandered to be safe for a garden variety Republican. That same district is no longer viewed as safe. New polling data shows him rapidly closing the gap with McCaul. Yes, Texas.

And look at North Carolina. In fact, more specifically, look at NC-08 in the south-central part of the state that became near and dear to many activists from all over America in 2006 when a stalwart working families supporter, Larry Kissell, came within 324 votes of dislodging weak and useless Bush rubber stamp Robin Hayes. New polling suggests that this year will not be close. A new Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner poll conducted September 28-29 shows Larry Kissell leading Representative Robin Hayes by 11 points, 54- 43%. Obama is also ahead of McCain by roughly the same margin in NC-08 and Democratic Senate Candidate Kay Hagan is leading Elizabeth Dole by 14 points (55%-41%). 8th District voters believe that Larry will do a better job on the economy than Hayes, who supported the job-destroying CAFTA bill, and that Kissell is more likely to stand up for North Carolina's workers.

Even in red, red Idaho, the Democratic house candidate Walt Minnick has pulled ahead of Republican far right extremist Bill Sali, 44-38%! And one of the sweetest polls of all came out of southern Ohio this morning where Vic Wulsin's momentum has caught up with rubber stamp incumbent Mean Jean Schmidt in OH-02. Momentum Analysis calls the race a dead heat with 16% of the voters still undecided. Vic's spokesperson, Kevin Franck, points out that the poll found that 85% of voters are worried that the economic crisis on Wall Street puts their families at risk.

"The economy is by far the most important issue on the minds of families in Southern Ohio and Jean Schmidt supports the same failed economic policies that have gotten us into this mess. Jean Schmidt has been a part of the problem in Washington; Vic Wulsin will be a part of the solution.
 
“Congresswoman Schmidt opposed tighter restrictions and oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of whom failed and have already gotten billion dollar taxpayer bailouts, she voted against limiting high-cost mortgages for those who could not afford them and when she was in Columbus, she raised taxes on Ohio families just about every chance she got. Vic Wulsin thinks it’s time to make government in Washington accountable to the people again.”

Earlier today Congressional Quarterly changed its rating on two Michigan races from "leans Republican" to toss-up. Blue America candidates Gary Peters and Mark Schauer are now seen as winners against Republican right-wingers Joe Knollenberg and Tim Walberg. The fact that McCain has read the writing on the wall and decided to pull his faltering campaign out of Michigan entirely probably dooms the both of them.

The AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka explains why Obama isn't winning by double digits and why he should be and could and will be. Please watch this passionate, powerful beautiful speech:

Electoral Ramifications Of The Bailout Bill

McCain strutted out of the debate thinking he had won. Giuliani and the other lobbyists in his entourage assured him he was the champ. Today's Gallup poll confirmed what every single focus group and every snap poll had found: that despite the on-the-payroll media-for-McCain contingent at Fox, etc, people were viscerally turned off by McCain's nastiness and condescending behavior and by his loser body language. It wasn't close. 46% of viewers though Obama bested McCain. Only 34% thought McCain did better. "Obama scored even better-- 52%- 35%-- when debate-watchers were asked which candidate offered the best proposals for change to solve the country's problems."

McCain may be praying the next episode of Palin Livin', Bristol Palin's shotgun wedding just before the election, will save his rapidly sinking campaign, but the sleazy lobbyists driving the Double Talk Express are by no means putting all their eggs into that unpredictable basket. Although Newt Gingrich is urging vulnerable Republicans in Congress-- and is there one more vulnerable than McCain?-- to vote NO on the bailout and ride that vote to victory in November, McCain has decided, incongruously but predictably, to claim credit for the bailout. Is he crazy? Is Gingrich wrong?

Yesterday's Gallup poll showed that "Americans overwhelmingly favor Congress' passing a plan that would help fix the current Wall Street economic crisis." They don't like Paulson's plan, of course, but McCain and the congressional leadership and the establishment media will now work hard to prove that the garbage plan they agreed on is not Paulson's plan.

Previewing a McCain campaign message for the days ahead, top strategist Steve Schmidt claimed Sunday that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is partly responsible for the tentative agreement on a mortgage bailout that congressional leaders announced shortly after midnight.

Schmidt was appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s chief strategist, who ridiculed the McCain claim as “a little bit of fiction.”

...Schmidt argued: “Earlier in the week, when Senator McCain came back to Washington, there had been no deal reached. … What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all the parties to the table, including the House Republicans.”

Axelrod responded: “When this crisis emerged, Senator McCain's first reaction was to say the economy is fundamentally strong. The next day, he suggested a commission to study this. And by eight days later, he said it was such a crisis that he was going to suspend his campaign. He showed up a day later in Washington.

“It isn't clear what his role was. So it’s a little bit of fiction to now claim credit for it. That's not the important thing, though. The important thing is that the principles that Senator Obama outlined originally are now embraced and taxpayers will be protected.”

This morning's Times delineates some of what is emerging from the Inside the Beltway negotiations.

The bill includes pay limits for some executives whose firms seek help, aides said. And it requires the government to use its new role as owner of distressed mortgage-backed securities to make more aggressive efforts to prevent home foreclosures.

In some cases, the government would receive an equity stake in companies that seek aid, allowing taxpayers to profit should the rescue plan work and the private firms flourish in the months and years ahead.

The White House also agreed to strict oversight of the program by a Congressional panel and conflict-of-interest rules for firms hired by the Treasury to help run the program.

Democratic candidates for Congress are watching carefully. Annette Taddeo in Miami is not alone when she says she's waiting to see the kind of homeowner protections Dick Durbin is able to force Paulson and Bush to put into the bill before she can weigh whether the bill is worth supporting or not. Half a dozen candidates for Congress told me almost exactly the same thing. Like the voters, they know this bill stinks and like the voters they know something has to be done-- but they want to make sure taxpeyers and homeowners get as fair a shake as possible. Mark Schauer, who's running against Republican extremist Tim Walberg in economically hard-hit southern Michigan took a similar tact: "Let's be clear, we're in this mess because of George Bush and Tim Walberg's failed economic policies. While I am encouraged by the bipartisan negotiations taking place in Washington this weekend, any rescue plan must first prevent people from losing their homes, help small business, and bring jobs and economic development to our communities. We must also protect the interests of taxpayers with adequate oversight and no blank checks for Wall Street. It remains to be seen whether or not this package meets those standards."

What concerns me is that while the Democratic leadership is busy rounding up votes to give Bush what he wants, Republicans are carefully plotting campaign strategy. Radical right incumbents like Mike Pence (R-IN), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), John Culberson (R-TX) will all attempt to use their no votes on this one issue as proof that they are not Bush rubber stamps and that they stand with the middle class-- regardless of their years of voting records. My advice to progressive challengers: come out loud and clear against the bailout and talk about the inherent rigging of the financial system to help the rich and powerful at the expense of the rest of us. Jerome a Paris has a brilliant explanation is today's European Tribune. He writes, for example, that "the financial world cannot behave responsibly, if left to its own devices and thus should not be left to its own devices" and that "the main argument to give financial markets a free hand-- that they have created so much growth and prosperity-- needs to be called for what it is: a lie."

We contacted someone who has been talking with us about this mess for years and advocating real reform, Larry Kissell, the Democratic opponent to Republican rubber stamp Robin Hayes. There's no telling if Hayes will vote with Bush as he normally does, or go along with Gingrich's siren call that he'll have a chance to win re-election by breaking with Bush. In the past when Hayes wanted to break with the GOP leadership-- like when CAFTA was threatening thousands of jobs in North Carolina-- the Republican leadership yelled at him, made him weep and he always went along with them. With Bush's approval rating hovering below 20%, even Hayes may have the courage to oppose him on something. But that doesn't matter one way or the other to Larry. Here's what he told us this morning:

"I have been saying for nearly 3 years now that my district was the canary in the coal mine. We have seen the devastation of the failed Bush policies firsthand for years now that have just hit Wall Street and Middle America. Had my opponent and the Bush Administration taken notice when record numbers of people were losing their jobs, when homes were going into foreclosure, and small businesses were facing the credit crunch we wouldn't be here today debating a bailout for Wall Street and trying to avoid not just a recession but another Great Depression. The time for politics has passed and we must have leadership."

This is entirely consistent with what Larry was saying about the bailout on Friday: "Republicans and Democrats alike-- including my opponent, Robin Hayes-- helped create this crisis by voting for the massive deregulation contained in the 1999 Financial Services Act. I call on Congressman Hayes to urge his fellow Republicans to come back to the table and stay there until a solution is negotiated.  American taxpayers are about to be put on the hook for a bailout of upwards of three-quarters of a trillion dollars. The least politicians in Washington can do is to set aside their partisan differences for a day or two and work together to make sure that money is spent responsibly. If I were in Washington today I'd agree to sit down with anyone, at anytime to get a solution. NC can't afford anymore economic devastation. After years of job losses, plant closings and rising gas prices, we need all the relief we can get and we need it now."

As for McCain's role in all this... John Kerry summed it up best: "He said he was going to interrupt his campaign to come down and save the negotiations. Most people believe is that what he did was interrupt the negotiations to come down and save his campaign." Watch:

Globalization Craze Petering Out

Tomorrow's NY Times features a piece by Larry Rohter about the collapse of Globalization. International capital, cheer-led by Thomas Friedman, in a quest for cheap labor, avoidance of social norms (like environmental standards), and higher margins, seems to have goofed up big time and, as the Times puts it, "globalization may be losing some of the inexorable economic power it had for much of the past quarter-century, even as it faces fresh challenges as a political ideology."

Cheap oil, the lubricant of quick, inexpensive transportation links across the world, may not return anytime soon, upsetting the logic of diffuse global supply chains that treat geography as a footnote in the pursuit of lower wages. Rising concern about global warming, the reaction against lost jobs in rich countries, worries about food safety and security, and the collapse of world trade talks in Geneva last week also signal that political and environmental concerns may make the calculus of globalization far more complex.

“If we think about the Wal-Mart model, it is incredibly fuel-intensive at every stage, and at every one of those stages we are now seeing an inflation of the costs for boats, trucks, cars,” said Naomi Klein, the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

“That is necessarily leading to a rethinking of this emissions-intensive model, whether the increased interest in growing foods locally, producing locally or shopping locally, and I think that’s great.”

...To avoid having to ship all its products from abroad, the Swedish furniture manufacturer Ikea opened its first factory in the United States in May. Some electronics companies that left Mexico in recent years for the lower wages in China are now returning to Mexico, because they can lower costs by trucking their output overland to American consumers.

When Bush first stole the election in 2000, the cost of shipping a standard 40-foot container from Shanghai to Long Beach was $3,000. Now that the Bush Economic Miracle has begun to kick in, the cost is around $8,000... and rising-- and slower, as the ships cut their speed to save money on fuel. And ocean freighters aren't the only problem. Friday, the price of a barrel of oil closed at $125.10. Let's say it falls all the way back down to $107 a barrel for the rest of 2008. In that case, the aviation industry would merely lose $2.3 billion for the year. A more likely scenario is that oil averages $135/barrel for the rest of the year... in which case the industry loses $6.1 billion. That's the end of that industry.

Shotgun marriage: Robin Hayes and Tom DeLay

Four more years of Bush economics-- aka- a McCain administration-- and we'll probably be bringing back three-masted China Trade clippers that are even older than John McCain is. "The industries most likely to be affected by the sharp rise in transportation costs are those producing heavy or bulky goods that are particularly expensive to ship relative to their sale price. Steel is an example. China’s steel exports to the United States are now tumbling by more than 20 percent on a year-over-year basis, their worst performance in a decade, while American steel production has been rising after years of decline. Motors and machinery of all types, car parts, industrial presses, refrigerators, television sets and other home appliances could also be affected." The U.S. may have to actually rebuild a manufacturing sector. Post-Bush, North Carolina, for example, may be actually gaining good jobs instead of losing them. This is what Larry Kissell has been bashing Bush rubber stamp incumbent Robin Hayes over the head with for almost 4 years!

Until recently, standard practice in the furniture industry was to ship American timber from ports like Norfolk, Baltimore and Charleston to China, where oak and cherry would be milled into sofas, beds, tables, cabinets and chairs, which were then shipped back to the United States.

But with transport costs rising, more wood is now going to traditional domestic furniture-making centers in North Carolina and Virginia, where the industry had all but been wiped out. While the opening of the American Ikea plant, in Danville, Va., a traditional furniture-producing center hit hard by the outsourcing of production to Asia, is perhaps most emblematic of such changes, other manufacturers are also shifting some production back to the United States.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm reading Robert Wexler's book, Fire Breathing Liberal and I just recalled a part I read a few days ago that has former Mississippi Congressman Ronnie Shows remembering how viciously the "free trader" traitors insisted on shoving their failed orthodoxy down everyone's throat. Although no one is worse on this than Democratic leader Rahm Emanuel, Shows' remembrance involves Tom DeLay (the GOP version of Emanuel) and the aforementioned North Carolina Republican rubber stamp Robin Hayes. Shows is recalling a vote on renewing some horrible trade arrangement with China "that had devastated the textile and furniture industries in North Carolina."

The Republicans wanted this legislation to pass-- but a Republican congressman from North Carolina [Hayes] intended to vote against it. It was a terrible bill for his district. As Shows recalls, "After this member voted against the bill, I watched DeLay walk up to him on the floor and force him to change his vote. The man literally was crying as he cast his vote. DeLay stood right behind him until he changed his vote."

Robin Hayes is a weak, spineless rubber stamp who won't even stand up for his own manhood, let alone for his constituents livelihoods. It's why he nearly lost in 2006-- 60,926 to Larry Kissell's 60,597-- and why Larry is expected to beat him handily in November.

Larry Kissell: It's Time To Elect One Of Us

John Edwards lends Larry Kissell a hand

"This election in 2008 is not about Democrats and Republicans. It's about putting the interests of the common people, the regular people, the working people ahead of the special interests of corporate America that is controlling this country."

-Larry Kissell (D-NC)

In 2006 the Inside the Beltway careerist establishment took a look at Larry Kissell and his populist, pro-working families platform-- and promptly moved on to corporate stooge Heath Shuler in another North Carolina district. Rahm Emanuel, the DCCC chairman whose misguided, antidemocratic policies kept Democratic victories to a minimum sensed Kissell was too-independent-minded and too committed to the agenda of working families in his district-- rather than to power politics, personal agendas and cash-laden corporate special interests-- to invest in. The DCCC ignored his grassroots campaign. (Blue America raised around $11,000 for him, part of $178,000 that came in through the netroots, and he came within 329 votes of beating reactionary rubber stamp Robin Hayes.)



Instead Emanuel invested in Heath Shuler, who won-- and has been voting like a Republican ever since. Shuler has the 6th most Republican voting record among House Democrats and when it comes to substantive matters, he scores a 39.61 on the ProgressivePunch Chips Are Down ranking, out of 100. Emanuel and Hoyer have been able to count on him as one of their most mindless puppets whenever they needed a reactionary vote to thwart the will of the will of the majority of the Democratic caucus-- as happened last week when Shuler dutifully joined Emanuel and Hoyer in making sure the Iraq war would keep going full bore and that Bush would be able to read all our e-mails and listen in on all our telephone calls with a court warrant. That's not the kind of congressman Larry Kissell will be. Not by a long shot.

Larry's multimillionaire opponent, Robin Hayes, spent $2,475,169 to Larry's $779,341. (With DCCC help Shuler spent $1,804,365.) This year Emanuel has been kicked upstairs and the new chairman, Chris Van Hollen, immediately made Larry a top DCCC priority.

So what kind of congressman will Larry Kissell be? Take a look at this short film he sent us today and see if you can't get a good idea.



And if you want to help Larry raise much needed funds to get that kind of populist message out, our Blue America page is open for business.

BLUE AMERICAN WELCOMES BACK OUR OLD FRIEND LARRY KISSELL

Larry campaigning with John Edwards

Larry Kissell was a big fave around Blue America in 2006 and he came closer to winning than any of our candidates who didn't actually displace a Republican incumbent. You might want to go back and read the archive of his first visit to FDL in June, 2006. This year he's far better known in his district-- and the Republican brand has turned to... well, you know.

Yesterday, Larry's campaign manager, Leanne Powell, told me that Bush will be visiting the district. We asked her if she could get Larry to take some time out of his campaign and update us a bit on his campaign. So... this evening at 6pm (est) we're welcoming Larry Kissell back to Firedoglake. I hope you can come over and talk to him about what's on your mind. He sent us this:

Tomorrow, George Bush will be in my District at Fort Bragg in a last ditch effort to sell his failed Iraq policy and save his favorite rubber stamp in Congress, my opponent Robin Hayes. With your help, we're going to send them both a Reality Check. I'm thrilled to be kicking off our 24-hour Rally for Reality here with my Blue America friends on Fire Dog Lake, and look forward to hearing your concerns and answering your questions. From the very beginning, you've stood with this campaign, and that's why it will be my honor and privilege to stand up for you in Congress and finally replace the man that said this on CNN:

"Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11," Rep. Robin Hayes said. Told no investigation had ever found evidence to link Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, "I'm sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places." (CNN, June 29, 2005)

The reality is that Robin Hayes and people like him are very much involved in our failing economy, environment, healthcare system, education system and foreign policy. Facts are stubborn things, and no friend to Robin Hayes and George Bush. I want to make real Representation a reality once again.

I can't wait to find out if Robin Hayes will dare appear on TV with George Bush. If you'd like to help Larry overcome the avalanche of corporate donations that have been flowing into Hayes' campaign, please consider visiting our Blue America ActBlue page.


UPDATE: TODAY'S THE DAY BUSH VISITS FT BRAGG

Larry addresses Bush's visit to the barracks of the 82nd Airborne Division. I wonder if Bush will bring a plunger and fix the facilities. And I wonder if he'll bring GOP stooge Robin Hayes.

LARRY KISSELL-- TIME TO SEND A NORTH CAROLINA CIVICS TEACHER TO CONGRESS

The Republican Party is heading towards a fate they have worked very, very hard to achieve for themselves-- that of a ghettoized regional party with dominance in the rump of the Old Confederacy. I hope you've had a chance to read Thomas Schaller's brilliant analysis, Whistling Past Dixie-- How the Democrats Can Win Without the South because the exception we're seeing in NC-08 is even more startling in that light. Larry Kissell has joined us here before and 667 of us responded with contributions to his 2006 campaign with nearly $11,000. He came closer to beating an incumbent Republican than any other Democrat in the country who didn't win. After a recount only 329 votes separated Larry from rubber stamp Republican Robin Hayes. "That's darn close," Larry told me on the phone a few days ago... "to have come from nowhere. I give the people of this district all the credit. I just stood up; I gave them something and they chose to listen."

Last Saturday they were still listening-- only more so-- when Larry and a mutual friend, Ambassador Joe Wilson, spoke at an Elect Kissell rally in Charlotte. John over at Crooks & Liars has a note Joe sent Blue America after the rally:

"I had the privilege and honor to address North Carolina democrats supporting Larry Kissell for Congress in Charlotte, NC, last Saturday night. It was an easy sell. Larry, a teacher and former textile worker, is passionate for change and has a detailed command of the issues... It should be a piece of cake, but we all know that every election is hard fought and that the Republicans will do everything they can to hold on to power. Even as I was flying into Charlotte, the NRCC was again peddling the lies about me, and I'm not even running. Does anybody still believe that the President was not misleading the country about the justification for the invasion of Iraq? The Republican propaganda machine is still pushing the big lie even though it is so last year. They take the American people to be fools, and will continue to do so until we defeat them decisively. Larry is our man to do that in this race in North Carolina.

This morning is a much-welcomed return visit from an old friend and you might want to take a look at our last session with Larry. He joked with me on the phone that "to say that I was unknown is an injustice to the word 'unknown.'" You can't say that about him any longer and Insider prognosticators rate Larry's race the #1 best shot for a Democrat to beat an incumbent wingnut anywhere in the country.

In 2006 Rahm Emanuel didn't believe in anti-war, grassroots candidates and Larry's race was, tragically, ignored by the DCCC. "We never did get any financial help from the D Triple C. We had some very good friends up there who were saying, 'Give this campaign $100,000 and let them answer that one last set of ads and you'll be guaranteed a victory. But they had their numbers and they were looking at certain things-- which they tell us now, were wrong... They did send out an e-mail for us after we won their National Volunteer Day poll."

"Eventually, when we were down to $31 in the bank they put us on their Red to Blue website... At one time, at the end of the 3rd quarter before the election and we were down to $88 dollars in the bank and my opponent put out a press release saying we weren't serious. How could we be taken seriously with no money, they asserted. We responded that our bank account looks a lot more like the bank accounts of the people of this district than theirs. And the money started rolling in. People started sending $88 checks and $8.88 checks. Someone sent an $888 check. It was amazing how people responded... Over 10,000 individual people donated and many of those were contributing to a political campaign for the first time."

In the end Larry spent $779,341. The Hayes campaign, claiming he wasn't a "serious" candidate, spent $2,475,169 or $40.62 per vote, as opposed to Larry's $12.86 per vote. Imagine if Chris Van Hollen, who is heavily behind Larry's campaign this year, had been DCCC chair in 2006 instead of Emanuel! But Emanuel heard Larry Kissell yelling "Bring the troops home" in February of 2006 and he went south... (and west, to back quasi-Democrat Heath Shuler who won and has been voting more like a Republican than like a progressive).

Thinking back on those early days, Larry holds no grudges against any Democrats. That's not the kind of guy he is. Instead he's recalling how he and others were asking for the war to end then. "I thought we should start phasing the troops out then and now we're in the fall of 2007 and still fighting the same battle. My opponent went on CNN and claimed he had 'proof' that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11... He never questioned the administration's tactics; he never questioned the strategy; he was just 100% behind the war. You know we support the troops and we support the veterans and he will wave the flag but then lets our fighting men and women come home to horrible conditions in situations like Walter Reed. To me, if you're going to support the troops, you ask the tough questions. You don't just support your political party. You support the troops. He's just echoed whatever little theme they've come up with, like 'Defeatocrats.' He's just gone along; he's never scrutinized a thing; it's all just been 'rah! rah! rah!' We need someone in the game, not someone who's just on the sidelines cheering and not looking at what's going on."

"'Support the troops' means a lot more than just supporting blindly what a president says to do. I fully intend to support the troops in all regards; they're putting their lives on the line for us. And the best thing for our nation and the best thing for the troops is for them not to be involved with that war, which is clearly a civil war. As I said in February 2006, it's time to start phasing our troops out. We have a threat. Let's fight that threat in intelligent ways. We have to reassess our relationships around the world. Like a recent National Intelligence Estimate said, we're creating enemies around the world and we're creating more terrorists. There's a way to stop that and a way to start working more intelligently towards our goals.

"I feel that if I had been in Washington, and if more people like myself had been elected... the House leadership would have been offered a stronger dialogue and that they wouldn't have offered the wrong bills on Iraq. The key is cutting out the sanction for the war in a straight up or down vote and de-authorize the war... whatever we need to do to start bringing the troops home [in a safe and orderly fashion]. There should be a straight up or down vote on continuing or ending this war and then let everyone in Congress go home and face their constituents at election time. I would vote to bring the troops home. I've been saying that for 2 years now and that hasn't changed whatsoever. The Democratic leadership put the wrong bill on the floor; they need to fashion a bill-- straight up/straight down-- that is a congressional referendum on the war. We need to have the moral courage to get them out of there, not leave them there in harm's way."

That's someone speaking who is running for Congress from a North Carolina district which includes Fort Bragg and includes thousands of military families. And he's very proud that so many military families are supporting his campaign. They're his people. He takes the plight of his friends and neighbors very seriously. That too, if you remember from last time he visited with us, is the kind of guy Larry Kissell is.

"After the campaign when I went back to teaching, some of my fellow social studies teachers asked me what was my one lasting impression of what I'd been through and I said that North Carolina has some really good congressmen trying to do the right things for the right reasons, supporting Democratic values as I have learned them through my life." Larry and I talked about Brad Miller, Mel Watt, David Price and G.K. Butterfield. "That's the type of congressman I want to be... with Democrats who support the working person." No one mentioned the reactionary North Carolina members from both sides of the aisle who are plumb loco, not just Hayes, but other out and out extremist kooks like Republicans Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry as well as 3 of the worst Democrats in the country, Bob Etheridge, Mike McIntyre and Rahm's boy Shuler. One thing I can tell you about Larry; he'll be his own man-- one grounded in strongly-held progressive and democratic values who will make up his own mind for his constituents.

2008 is shaping up to be a good Democratic year in North Carolina. Local races will help bring out lots of Democratic voters in the highest performing district for Democrats in the South without a congressman representing them. Let's help change that. This is our last Blue America session of this quarter. It's no coincidence that I asked Larry to join us here today to field questions from the community. If you like what you hear, Larry's Blue America box is open.

Here's a little 30 second cable TV spot that we can help Larry put up all over NC-08. It costs $44 per run. If $44 is steep, remember $5.00 and $10.00 donations are every bit as valued. The strength of Blue America is our action as a community that puts all those $44 donations and $5 donations together and helps grassroots candidates stand up to the well-financed insiders.

TWO DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES IN NORTH CAROLINA-- LARRY KISSELL AND HEATH SHULER

North Carolina has 13 congressmen. Six are Democrats and they all seem pretty safe bets for re-election in November. All 7 Republicans have Democratic challengers but two are already poised to defeat powerfully entrenched GOP incumbents. What these two races have in common is that their opponents are both far right loons and Bush rubber-stamps. Let's take a quick look at each of them and the districts.

Robin Hayes represents the 8th CD, the south-central part of the state including Cabarrus County at the tip of the old textile corridor-- devastated by Bush's "free trade" policies-- and east to Fayetteville with parts of Charlotte, kind of a swing district, although Bush scored 54% in 2000 and 2004, about what Hayes has been getting since he was first elected in 1998 Hayes is most famous for breaking down and weeping like a 9 year old girl after DeLay, Blunt and other Republicans forced him, on the floor of the House, to vote against his constituents interests to break a 214-214 tie for some hideous trade policies that wreaked further havoc and despair on North Carolina's textile industry. He is generally a posterboy for weak-charactered rubber stamp irresponsibility. His voting record is positively abysmal; he ties for the absolute worst congressmen on every single issue facing corporate subsidies, education, human rights and civil liberties, and everything concerned criminal and civil justice. No one in the entire House is worse than Hayes on these issues. He gets a flat zero on his votes on all of these-- and doesn't have a decent voting record on any other issues either.

Charlie Taylor's voting record is about the same. Where he stands out, however, is in the corruption department. This is his 8th term representing the 11th CD, the extreme western end of the state, the heart of the Great Smokey Mountains. It's a rural district, overwhelmingly white, somewhat poorer and more Republican than Hayes' district. The only city is Asheville. Kerry did considerably better than Gore had 4 years earlier. Taylor's weakest point is that he is widely considered to be the most corrupt politician in contemporary North Carolina. A member of Jerry Lewis' criminal Appropriations Committee, he is a major self-server and has been caught up in scandal after scandal, far beyond his involvements with taking tainted money from DeLay and Abramoff. Two counties in his district threatened to garnish his congressional salary because he refused to pay his property taxes and he owns a bank that loans cronies money that never gets paid back and gets written off (after portions are kicked back to the slippery congressman).

The two men opposing these two weak and disgraceful Republicans are as different as night and day from each other. One, Heath Shuler is a flashy favorite son being lavishly pushed by the DCCC. He fits their model perfectly: down the center moderate and totally uncontroversial. He's best known-- and was recruited by DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel because-- he is a former NFL quarterback (for the Washington Redskins). His website could have been put together by Emanuel himself: slick and very light on issues beyond studied support for mom and for apple pie. His positions are standard Democratic Party fare, much of it pabulum. Although you can quickly see he's a gun supporter, you'd be hard-pressed to find out that there's a war in Iraq, let alone how he feels about it (although he honors our veterans). I hope he wins because there is no comparison between him and Taylor. If you live in the district, please vote for Heath Shuler. If you have some spare change you're willing to contribute to a campaign for someone who will work positively to make North Carolina and America a better place to live... go to the next paragraph.

Larry Kissell was not the DCCC candidate. He's a genuine grassroots candidate with an independent mind of his own. He doesn't plan to go to Congress to take orders from an authoritarian nitwit like Rahm Emanuel or anyone else. The DCCC candidate withdrew from the primary and the district rallied behind Kissell, who's very different from Robin Hayes-- and far better suited for the 8th CD. A 27-year veteran of the textile industry and an educator and a deacon of the First Baptist Church, Kissell's website leaves nothing for guess work on how he feels-- and what he wants to do about-- all the major issues facing North Carolina citizens. When Kissell talks about "values," it isn't empty rhetoric crafted to hoodwink strangers into voting for him. Kissell's Main Street values (not Wall Street values) are what informs and drives his desire to help his neighbors and his nation to do better.

This is not some right of center Democrat who will go to Washington and cause progressives to tear their hair out ala Lieberman or Zell Miller or Henry Cuellar. On the other hand, Inside-the-Beltway elitists like Emanuel are already tearing out their hair, reading stuff like "We staged our way into Iraq in one year, there is no reason we can't stage our way out in one year. My position is out of Iraq by the end of 2006." Reading Kissell's detailed, straight-forward essays on why he's running and what he plans to do in Washington make you feel this is truly a good man-- not an ambitious politician-- and one who you know you could trust to make the right decisions for his neighbors and for us all. You don't have to vote for Larry Kissell just because he's better than the Republican; you can vote for him because he'll make a great legislator imbued with compassion, strength, humility and wisdom.

I suspect any assistance the DCCC plans to put into North Carolina between now and November will go entirely to Heath Shuler. That leaves Larry Kissell to depend on plain citizens who believe in the promise of a better society. If you live in the district you can volunteer here. If you want to be part of a coast to coast movement of people contributing $5 and $10 and $20 increments to buy into an American dream of the "ordinary people" who are the backbone of this nation putting their collective foot down to Bush and his rubber stamp congressmen (and to Democrats cut from the same cloth), please click here on the DWT ACT BLUE Page.