Do Blue Dogs Do More Harm Or More Good To The Democratic Party? Meet Abigail Spanberger

Spanberger won her seat without Republican votes but now she caters almost exclusively to GOP voters

Virginia elected two freshmen from red districts, Elaine Luria, who replaced Scott Taylor in VA-02 (primarily Virginia Beach, York County and part of Norfolk plus Hampton) and Abigail Spanberger, who replaced Dave Brat in VA-07, a much redder district that includes 10 counties, the largest of them being Chesterfield, Henrico, Spotsylvania and Culpepper. Luria's district has a PVI of R+3 and Spanberger's is a much more challenging R+6. Obama lost both districts both times he ran. Trump won VA-02 48.8% to 45.4% and VA-07 50.5% to 44.0%. These were the congressional results:

In both cases, the Democrats outspent their GOP rivals-- in Spanberger's case by about double-- and both were tough, hard-fought races. Today, both districts are being heavily targeted by the NRCC for blue to red flips. They are trying to get Taylor to challenge Luria to a rematch and there are half a dozen Republican candidates lining up to challenge Spanberger, three of whom are very credible, a state senator and two state delegates, all military vets like Spanberger.

Although both freshmen have earned "F" ratings from ProgressivePunch, neither has a Democratic primary opponent, at least not so far. There are 5 very conservative Democrats tied for the 193rd among 235 Dems in the House. Each has a rotten score of 64.29%-- besides Luria and Spanberger, Angie Craig (New Dem-MN), Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY) and Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ). Despite Cheri Bustos' bullshit about "protecting freshmen" with her ugly anti-primary rule, none of these particularly bad freshmen has a primary opponent.

Back to Luria and Spanberger, both seem to have made the decision that it's more important to protect their careers than to embrace Democratic values and ideals. Aside from their crappy voting records, neither has co-sponsored Pramila Jayapal's Medicare-For-All Act, AOC's Green New Deal Resolution, nor John Larson's Social Security 2100 Act (which is sponsored by 206 Democrats so far). Do Luria and Spanberger think their constituents don't want to see Social Security protected? Republicans aren't going to vote for either of them in 2020. Their paths to reelection are all about encouraging a big Democratic turnout and appealing to independent voters (not Republican voters). Their time in Congress so far will deflate Democratic base turnout, not inflate it.

Not everyone agrees. In a p.r.-agency-generated paean to Spanberger, Her Party Is Liberal. Her District Is Conservative. Moderate Democrat Fights To Survive In The Middle, the Washington Post's Jenna Portnoy, came up with every excuse in the book for protecting a faux-Democrat from the Republican-wing of the party, despite her atrocious record. Within her first week in Congress, Spanberger has already "informed the leadership that demonizing the border wall was not the way to keep control of the House. 'Listen, in my district I am hearing, Build a wall! In my district we are losing the messaging that Democrats can be strong on borders,' said the 39-year-old from the Richmond, Va. suburbs, according to the congresswoman and others who were there. It was a critical moment for Spanberger, one of dozens of new Democratic lawmakers from red districts who helped their party seize control of the House last year. These members will have to win reelection if the party is to hold the chamber in 2020."

"These members will have to win reelection if the party is to hold the chamber in 2020." Never These members will have to persuade voters in their districts that building a wall is bad policy and there's a better way to achieve what they want. That's always too difficult for the Democratic Party to articulate these days. Instead we get this canned, subversive drivel:

They face a double challenge: Not only do they have to strike a balance between loyalty to the Democratic Party and fidelity to their more conservative districts, but they also have to fight the leftward tug of progressives who want universal health care, impeachment of President Trump and a Green New Deal.

Spanberger and the other moderates must find ways to separate themselves from a freshman class defined by lawmakers such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), proud members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

“It’s a tough tightrope act [Spanberger] has to perform,” said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Public Policy and Government at George Mason University. “She has to stay politically centered as much as possible, given the nature of her district, while at the same time work effectively with her party leadership who are pushing a more progressive agenda.”

Yes, "politically centered." Who defines that? Who determines which policy prescriptions are part of the "center?" Trump and McTurtle? The financiers who own and operate the GOP, the Blue Dogs, the New Dems and No Labels/Problem Solvers? Certainly, never the timid, self-loathing, geriatric Democratic Party leaders. Count on that. "As she fights the pull of the progressives," continued Portoy, "and learns her way around Congress, Spanberger already faces a Republican opponent -- Tina Ramirez, a Hispanic single mother and activist in the cause of religious freedom." There's another term a hack journalist is happy to throw around without thought in the world about what it means-- "religious freedom?" Freedom to what? Discriminate against gays? Is that what it comes down to today?

That puts Spanberger on an immediate campaign footing, just six months after she beat Rep. Dave Brat (R) in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District by emphasizing her national security background, independence and civility.

In her first weeks in office, she visited the White House with Democratic and Republican members of the Problem Solvers Caucus to discuss ending the government shutdown that had begun in December. She signed on to letters and legislation spearheaded by Republicans. She voted against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA), whom Brat and other Republicans frequently invoked during the 2018 campaign as embodying a liberal elite.

Still, some Republican voters remain wary.

Who the fuck cares about Republicans being wary? Her path to reelection is through independents not Republicans. Is that too hard a concept to grasp? No Democrat, no matter how far to the right ever satisfies Republicans. They will label her Spanberger a socialist no matter what she does. Needless to say, the idiot reporter interviewed hard core Republicans. Paul Johnson voted for Brat. Does someone expect him to switch to Spanberger now? He told Portnoy that Spanberger "portrayed herself as somewhat independent-- I don’t have the impression she is exactly what she has sold herself as. He was pissed off that she voted for H.R. 1, "legislation containing measures including restricting partisan gerrymandering, creating automatic voter registration, making Election Day a federal holiday and requiring super PACs to disclose donors." Johnson asserts that that means she was "siding with Nancy Pelosi, taking some of these extreme positions, taking rights away from the states." If Spanberger wants his votes, there's exactly one way to get it-- jump the fence like so many Blue Dogs have done in the past, and join the GOP. Another superfluous Brat supporter Portnoy dug up said "he would consider voting for Spanberger if she upheld 'Virginia conservative values.'" She has done exactly that, but Republicans will still spend immense amounts of money telling Republican voters that she's a socialist and in a lesbian/Muslim relationship with Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

At times, she has supported Republican-led amendments, to the chagrin of Democrats, as when she and 26 other moderate [ah... that word hack DC journos love to use to describe the far right of the Democratic Party] Democrats helped Republicans amend a bill to expand federal background checks for gun purchases. They added a provision that says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must be notified when an undocumented immigrant seeks to purchase a firearm.

“It’s incumbent on all of us to give her the room she needs to do the art of the possible for her district,” Rep. Don Beyer (New Dem-VA) said.

Loosely quoting Pelosi, he said, “We didn’t take back the House winning blue seats.”

Spanberger wants to position herself as a pragmatist, compromising to effect change gradually.

“If we are just driven by ideology, we will achieve nothing for the people who actually need it,” she said during an interview interrupted by well-wishers at a coffee shop in her district.

She pointed to Brat, the Republican she defeated, noting his membership in the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which she said repeatedly sabotaged efforts at compromise when Republicans controlled the House.

Brat’s hard-line approach, combined with his cool relations with supporters of former House majority leader Eric Cantor, whom he defeated in a nasty 2014 GOP primary, made his last term rocky. His relationships with Democrats were toxic, especially after he complained that “the women are in my grill no matter where I go” in part because he refused to hold town halls after Trump’s election. When he finally relented, he faced angry crowds.

Spanberger, on the other hand, has held five subdued town halls in her first four months.

During the campaign, she bonded with other first-time candidates with similar national security backgrounds. The nine new lawmakers with security backgrounds coordinated their choices in the office lottery so that they work near one another.

The women in the group are particularly close and text one another often. They are Democratic Reps. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), who worked at the CIA; Chrissy Houlahan (PA), an Air Force veteran; Elaine Luria (Va.), a retired Navy commander; and Mikie Sherrill (NJ), a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor. They all flipped red seats to blue and understand the delicate politics of swing districts.

Call them what you like, they may have been war heroes (or not), to me they are political cowards unwilling to stand up for the progressive values that differentiate the Democratic Party from the Republican Party. "We come from places where different ideologies live side by side," Houlahan said, "and we have a real responsibility to legislate that way. I feel like the narrative is that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by the left." And, yes, yes, of course Houlahan has also earned an "F" from ProgressivePunch for her putrid voting record. The House Democratic Party leadership wanted exactly this when they went out and recruited women who were conservative-leaning military vets.

To Spanberger, the liberal goal of transforming the complicated health-care system into a single government-financed program simply is not realistic. She cited the Affordable Care Act, still the subject of GOP ire a decade after it became law, as evidence that muscling legislation through can backfire.

Instead, she thinks small steps can make health care more affordable: Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, insist on transparency from pharmacy benefit managers, and ease the passage of generic drugs into the market. She is one of nine co-sponsors of the House version of Medicare-X, a plan from Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine (VA) and Michael F. Bennet (CO) that would allow all Americans to buy into public health insurance.

Spanberger also opposes the Green New Deal, a broad set of goals to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. “What’s really challenging is it’s been presented to the American people as if it’s policy,” she said. “There are literally people who think if we were to vote on this tomorrow, we could save our planet.”

Spanberger, who leads the House agriculture subcommittee on conservation and forestry-- a rare honor for a freshman and in a field she said remains a mystery to her-- is studying how climate change affects farmers.

Environmental activists in her district seem unfazed by her opposition to the Green New Deal.

Lee Francis, deputy director at the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, said he appreciates her opposition to offshore drilling and her desire that the United States rejoin the Paris climate agreement. (Spanberger also announced that she recently had solar panels installed on her home.)

“Democracy is slow,” Francis said. “That’s just the nature of the beast.”

Spanberger had not seriously considered running for public office until a friend and former CIA colleague, Charlotte McWilliams, sent her a link to Emerge America, a program that trains female candidates.

The experts encouraged her to run for school board, but Spanberger followed her instinct to aim higher.

In a recommendation letter that McWilliams wrote to Emerge about Spanberger, she said their CIA training was “designed to be a pressure cooker” and that “Abby never lost her cool.”

Spanberger served undercover for her entire career in the CIA, where she worked on counterterrorism and nuclear proliferation. She and McWilliams each had three children in their CIA years.

...She said she’s also working to gain the trust of Republicans in Congress, using some of the skills that she honed at the CIA.

First, she looks for a connection. She’ll sometimes enter the House floor through the GOP section, which allows her to stop and chat with members of the other party. If they’re from rural communities, she tries to connect over common issues, such as the scarcity of broadband Internet service.

But for every Republican she wins over, more hope to unseat her.

In addition to Ramirez, GOP observers name state lawmakers Nicholas J. Freitas (Culpeper), John McGuire (Henrico) and Bryce E. Reeves (Spotsylvania) as potential challengers.

National Republican groups are painting Spanberger as no different from Ocasio-Cortez.

“She’ll find out the hard way that there are two teams,” Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist and former executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, said of Spanberger. “There aren’t three teams. Even voting with her team 90 percent of the time may not be good enough to get reelected.”

Children In Cages

Reporting for The Hill the week, JulieGrace Brufke-- whose byline I've never seen before so maybe she's new and about to learn something valuable-- made a grievous error in the opening two words of an important story, Democrats in swing districts advised to avoid talking about immigration. The error she made-- common inside the Beltway where people don't know shit from shinola-- was in referring to Third Way, the far right of the Democratic Party and the far right of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party that works assiduously against progressives and progressive ideas, as "left-leaning." How about "right-leaning," a far more accurate description of the Wall Street-funded group? That said, let's take a look at what JulieGrace was reporting.

Basically the Republican wing of the Democratic Party avoids an issue that resonates with millions of actual Democrats: Trump's inhumane, racist, xenophobic immigration agenda. Doug Pagitt, the pastor and executive director of Vote Common Good in the video up top, just reminded me that "One of Jesus most famous quotes from Matthew 19 is 'what God has brought together no one should ever separate.'" Keeping families together goes beyond politics for tens of millions of American families. But when it does come to politics, Alan Grayson reminded me of something else, something darker: "The Democrats in charge," he warned me yesterday, "want other Democrats to run not as Democrats, but rather as not-Republicans. To do that, however, you have to be able to explain why you are not a Republican. And now our party leaders don’t want that, either. The issue-phobia that afflicts the party is now chronic, pervasive, and possibly fatal."

ICE, ICE by Nancy Ohanian

Melissa Byrne, a progressive organizer and strategist, is an old friend. She was incensed by the Third Way memo to candidates. She told me that "Third Way has a record of losing and being beholden to the Wall Streeters. They shouldn't be invited to anything within the Democratic sphere. We don't need them. We don't want them. Bravery wins and throwing immigrants under the bus is how we lose morally and at the ballot box. Shame on the Third Way." Another old friend, Murshed Zaheed, was no less incensed: "Folks in the establishment are perfectly comfortable with status quo and maintaining their little fiefdoms within the current parameters of white supremacy. Sorry, I am done being polite on this stuff after seeing what Schumer and the Congressional Democratic leadership has done the last few years... There are Democrats working pretty hard at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory... Notice that Third Way's VP of Policy [co-founder Jim Kessler] was formerly Schumer's legislative director. These people will stumble over themselves for good photo ops-- and show up at 'marches'-- but when it comes times for action-- they show their true colors."

The kinds of Democraps the Third Way memo appeals to are Blue Dogs like former CIA spy Abigail Spanberger who's running against immigration-hardliner and extremist arch-villain Dave Brat (R-VA). Spanberger is an Eisenhower-era Republican-- maybe slightly to the right of that, not an actual Democrat. She put out an ad distancing herself from the progressives and from mainstream Democratic Party ideas. She has fully embraced the DCCC's one strategy: "sure we suck but we don't suck as bad as the Republicans. WE ARE THE LESSER EVIL, so you suck that up, bitches!" It's why the Democrats have done nothing but lose, lose, lose for the last decade and why there is no Blue Wave, just an anti-red wave. Spanberger-- one of the most repulsive candidates the DCCC recruited this cycle-- and that is saying a lot-- referred to immigrants in her ad as "criminals" and "gangs." So how is she different from Trump and Brat? She is every bit as vile and detestable as they are... but with a "D" next to her name. Just imagine what that monster is going to be like in Congress!

Mike Lux is another old pal but you may remember him from an incredible book, The Progressive Revolution, that we covered here frequently. Before writing that, Mike worked in Nebraska and Iowa politics, and then in the Clinton White House, and has been an advisor to candidates like Elizabeth Warren. This morning I asked him about the Third Way memo. This is what he told me and said it was OK to share at DWT:

For many years, the conventional wisdom among the DC Democratic Party establishment has been to avoid tough issues in swing states and districts at all costs. That’s why Al Gore chose to never talk about gun issues in 2000, and two decades later why Democrats avoid talking about immigration and other racially charged issues in working class white areas today. The problem with this approach is that those same issues are the ones that Republicans talk about non-stop everywhere they go. The result is that their side builds the framing of the question at hand and defines the terms of the debate. So Gore lost his home state of Tennessee and the state of West Virginia, which has always gone for Democrats before that time, because the NRA said Gore would take folks’ hunting rifles away, and Gore never answered, so people assumed the NRA was right. Today, (while the same right wing drumbeat on guns is going on) Trump says immigrants are rapists and killers, coming to steal our jobs. If we fail to answer, if we fail to take the argument to the voters and make our case, we will lose those blue-collar voters once again.

Watch a right-of-center Third Way asshole, a real elitist piece of crap, arguing with Bernie campaign manager Jeff Weaver. Too bad Debbie Wasserman Schultz wasn't on stage to explain how she and her team at the DNC were able to rig primary after primary for her centrist candidate. These are exactly the people who refuse to understand that by refusing to draw a strong contrast on immigration and against white supremacist policy they manage to send the message to communities of color that Democrats won’t make meaningful progress on those issues.



Now watch the one below, when they get into specific policy and somehow Steven Rattner missed this little factoid in the graphic. The Third Way, No Labels and so-called "Problem Solvers" wolves in sheep's clothing folks from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party always do seem to, don't they? Meanwhile, today Pramila Jayapal told me she's working on the new version of the Medicare for All bill and including dental and eye care, an idea that will appeal to pretty much all normal Americans, if not Republicans and the Third Way establishment.

The GOP 2018 Congressional Campaign: The Stench Of Desperation

When politicians don't have anything to say about issues that will appeal to voters they go negative in the hope that they will disgust voters enough to discourage election day participation. That's what the GOP is doing now. They read the same polls the rest of us do and they know the only way to win is to keep Democrats and independents away from the voting booth next month. Even Politico noted that the ads they're running are ugly distortions of reality. They're not meant to change any minds... just to create confusion, apprehension and disgust so that people don't want to vote. Paul Ryan's SuperPAC alone has poured an unbelievable $3 million into a smear campaign against Randy Bryce in Wisconsin hoping to persuade workers and women not to vote.

Earlier this morning Randy Bryce reminded us that Bernie and his policy agenda are extremely popular in his corner of Wisconsin. "He won 71 out of 72 precincts in the 2016 primary election. Both events he did with me packed the venues to capacity on opposite sides of the district. Having been endorsed early by Senator Sanders has been a huge help. Republicans think that the progressive ideals both of us fight to advance are 'radical.' If making sure people can see a doctor is radical or, if promising not to make cuts to Social Security is 'far left' I’ll take that title. It just shows how out of touch these extremist Republicans really are." And that's a good description of how the Republicans are trying to turn the world topsy-turvy. Paul Ryan disparages Medicare-For-All supporters as off the rails, counting on voters not remembering that he has-- for a decade-- tried to dissolve Medicaid and Medicare and whittle away at Social Security. Ryan, using the talking points all Republican have been using, blasted Democrats this week: "Democrats propose to abolish our health-care system as we know it. And it is the best representation of how far today’s Democratic Party has gone off the rails... Everyone-- no matter how much you like your plan-- would have their plan taken away. The only way to control costs would be to ration care, and restrict access to doctors and treatments. All of these decisions would be made in Washington."

None of that is true, but it doesn't stop GOP robots-- from Bruce Poliquin in Maine to Cathy McMorris Rodgers in Washington state-- from parroting the same frightening-sounding bullshit in their ads. Here's how Poliquin's progressive Democratic challenger, Jared Golden, threw Poliquin's lies right back in his face. And, by the way, the healthcare lie is far from the only way the Republicans are bullshitting the voters. 

Democratic House candidate Jason Crow received a Bronze Star for heroism in Iraq and a “lawyer of the year” award for his veterans advocacy. But according to his GOP adversaries, he has “neglected” Colorado veterans.

Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger spent nearly a decade fighting terrorists as an undercover CIA officer. But to hear Republicans tell it, she harbors terrorist sympathies.

Attacks ads have always been a staple of campaign season. But Republicans have twisted facts in some ads to an extraordinary degree as they fight to save their House majority, weaving narratives about Democratic candidates that are misleading at best-- or blatantly false at worst.

In several ads, military vets-- who count as some of Democrats' best recruits to defeat sitting Republicans this year-- have had their patriotism called into question. One spot insinuates that Spanberger, who is challenging Rep. Dave Brat’s (R-VA), has ties to extremists because she taught at a Saudi Arabian-funded Muslim school where two infamous terrorists once attended. The CIA not only knew about the job, but later hired Spanberger and employed her for eight years.

Democrats say the spots, aired mostly by the outside GOP super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund and the National Republican Congressional Committee, smack of desperation. In some cases, local Republicans, religious leaders and newspaper editorial boards have have denounced the attacks.

The aggressive tactics highlight a party grappling to save its majority. Many of the Democrats who've come under attack have short or nonexistent records in political office, leaving Republicans to pick over their personal lives for any scraps to use against them.

“Republicans are having a heck of a time right now, and they’re just looking to attack anywhere they think they might be able to.... throwing whatever they have at the wall to see what sticks,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) told reporters at a Bloomberg breakfast last week, calling the attacks “smears.”

Targets of the ads have called for them to be taken down, and spent time and resources trying to rebut the claims. Republicans involved in making the ads say that's exactly their intention: to keep Democrats on the defensive.

They also argue that Democrats would be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed.

"The mere fact that Democrats are complaining about CLF ads speaks to the effectiveness of the ads and the degree to which it’s taken Democratic candidates in key races off their message," CLF spokeswoman Courtney Alexander said.

Democrats argue that the charges have backfired and helped Democratic candidates raise money and gain ground on their Republican rivals. Spanberger’s campaign is now in a dead heat with Brat, according to a Sept. 24 internal poll, and raised more money after the terrorist ad launched than she did in the entire first quarter of 2017. Among likely voters, she's up 5 points, her campaigns says.

But Republicans say their Terror High ad actually helped reverse Brat's fortunes: They say he now has a narrow lead after being tied with Spanberger in August, according to their polling.

realistic polling by Monmouth

Both parties, of course, always spend heavily on opposition research to sniff out their opponents’ weaknesses and flash them before voters. But it’s one thing to highlight flaws in a candidate’s record, like Republicans have done with Wisconsin Democrat Randy Bryce’s drunk driving arrest. It’s another to connect dots that aren’t there.

CLF’s recent attack on Ohio Democrat Aftab Pureval, for instance, accuses the Indian-Tibetan, first-generation American of aiding his former employer in making “millions” by “helping Libyans reduce payments owed to families of Americans killed by Libyan terrorism.”

But Pureval wasn’t working for the Washington law firm that reached the restitution agreement when it was initially struck. When he did join the firm, Pureval worked on anti-trust litigation, not payments to the families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie terrorist attack.

Not mentioned in the ad was the fact that former President George W. Bush backed the settlement negotiation with Libya-- and that Rep. Steve Chabot, Pureval’s GOP opponent, did not object when it was approved in the House.

Local media called the attack "misleading." And one American family who lost their father in the Libyan attack was so outraged by the video that they reached out to donate to Pureval’s campaign.

“My response to the CLF ad involved words that are best not repeated here,” Scott Rosen wrote in a letter to Pureval’s campaign. He was 5 years old when his father, Saul Mark Rosen, was killed in the Lockerbie bombing, leaving his mom to raise two children. “The attempt to connect you to the murder of my father was utterly beyond the pale."

CLF says the ad has helped Chabot stretch his lead over Pureval, according to their internal polling.

But they haven't seen the same results in other races-- particularly in Colorado, where many Republicans believe Rep. Mike Coffman is going to lose. There, CLF portrayed Crow as a willing bystander to the massive Veterans Affairs Department backlog scandal. (The group recently pulled its ads from the district.)

Crow sat on the local department’s board from 2009 to 2014, and Republicans have highlighted his absence from more than a dozen board meetings to say he’s at fault.

“While veterans suffered from the VA scandal, Crow didn’t show up for work,” one ad said. “Jason Crow neglected Colorado veterans.”

Crow’s campaign said his wife was either on bed rest due to pregnancy complications or that they’d had a new baby at the time of the missed meetings.

Backlash was swift. Local veterans who know Crow showed up at Coffman's office to protest. Crow’s campaign highlighted the thousands of pro-bono hours he’d dedicated to helping veterans with substance abuse issues, as well as the “lawyer of the year” award he received in 2010 from the Denver Bar Association for his veterans advocacy.

In Spanberger's case, CLF ran a commercial calling attention to her onetime position as a substitute teacher at the Saudi school. Spanberger never worked with the two would-be terrorists, having left the school before it came under congressional scrutiny. She later received a top-secret clearance with the CIA.

“So dangerous, even Chuck Schumer called for the school to be shut down,” the ad nonetheless warns. “But Abigail Spanberger cashed her paychecks like nothing was wrong.”

Some Republican candidates have launched similar attacks impugning the motives or patriotism of their opponents. West Virginia Republican candidate Carol Miller ran a clip of her Democratic rival, Richard Ojeda, saying “the United States of America is not the greatest country.” One vet in the spot accuses Ojeda, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, of “stepping on the graves of every dead soldier.”

What Ojeda actually said is that U.S. isn't the greatest country because homelessness is rampant, the health care system is lacking and the opioid epidemic has been allowed to fester. Ojeda issued his own ad in response, talking about the names of fallen soldiers tattooed his back.

“My military record and my love of country has come under fire … by Carol Miller,” an angry Ojeda said in the video filmed before a veterans memorial. “How dare she! A millionaire, who has enjoyed a life of privilege under the very freedoms that I have fought for.”



In New York, Republicans have accused Democratic hopeful Antonio Delgado of “attacking our democracy” because the former rapper once sung about finding peace in the Middle East. In the years-old anti-war jam, Delgado, who went on to graduate from Harvard Law School and become a Rhodes Scholar, says “God bless America, God bless Iraq, God bless us all.”

But an NRCC ad highlights only the “God bless Iraq” line. Delgado is running against vulnerable GOP Rep. John Faso.

The party has also hit Delgado for being a “big city rapper” and not “like us,” depicting the lawyer wearing a dark hoodie and playing his old rap songs that reference sex and drugs and use of the “N” word.

Nearly 20 local clergy members denounced the attacks for their racial undertones; Delgado is African-American. A local radio station said it recently pulled an ad sponsored by CLF for their “inaccuracy.” (CLF disputes that the ad was removed, arguing that PAC officials took it down of their own accord.) Even the district’s former Republican congressman, Chris Gibson, has expressed discomfort.

“Shame on you!” the religious leaders wrote to Faso, asking him to denounce the ads, which he has not done. “This tactic should be called out for what it is, a thinly veiled, racist attack for the purpose of insinuating fear in the voters in our district.”

to count the number of exclamation points, click on the image

Above is an ugly Republican Party Facebook entry from a typical GOP official-- well, not really that typical, 'cause most of them are smart enough not to do it so publicly. This was was created by a Republican precinct committeeman, Michael Kalny from Shawnee. He was stupid enough to send it to Anne Pritchett, president of the Johnson County Democratic Women’s Club. Supporters of Kevin Yoder are weepy because the Paul Ryan just tossed the Yoder campaign overboard as a lost cause. Democrat Sharice Davids is way ahead in polling.

The Congressional Map Keeps Expanding For Democrats-- Take Dave Brat's Central Virginia District

On Sunday, DWT went out on a limb-- not just making a random prediction about how many seats would flip red to blue but doing what so few pundits ever do-- predicting which seats would flip. It's the most optimistic view you've ever seen, partially because we follow the races on a granular level and partially because we picked up earlier than most that the determining issue for voters when they cast their ballots in a month would be what George Mason University's School of Policy and Government poll found this week as their #1 issue: Trump.

The strength of Trump as a determinant-- at least in 69 seats the pollsters foresee as battleground districts-- isn't reflected in the poll, just that he's more important to a plurality of voters than the economy, the Supreme Court, health care, immigration, Putin-Gate, gun violence, tariffs or anything else. Why is this very bad for the GOP? Trump's job approval/disapproval among likely voters this weekend was a daunting 40/53%. And among Independents it is 38/53%. That's a GOP doomsday scenario.

First thing Monday, Reuters sent out a piece by James Oliphant, State Of Play: Republicans fear Democratic 'blue wave' spreading to once-safe districts. The district he focused in on is in central Virginia-- Dave Brat's sprawling 7th district. Most of the voters live in the Richmond area, which doesn't seem very swingy at all. The PVI is R+6 and Trump beat Hillary there 50.5% to 44.0%. (It's worth noting that Hillary did about the same as Obama but that Trump did significantly worse than both McCain and Romney.) This cycle, Brat is being challenged by conservative Democrat and an ex-CIA agent Abigail Spanberger. As you see, the 538 Forecaster gives her just a 1 in 3 shot (32.3% chance) of ousting Brat. That's a very, very conservative view of the unfolding race.

As of the June 30 FEC reporting deadline they had both raised about the same amount of money-- $1,347,694 for Spanberger and $1,319,825 for Brat. It barely matters in a wave election and in an election where most voters will have Trump on their minds when they cast their ballots.

Oliphant picked up on the Trumpiness of the election. He starts by talking about two local women, one a Republican and one brainless enough to have not bothered to even vote in 2016. This time they both agree on one thing: "Donald Trump. They don’t like the president, and they weren’t about to vote for anyone, like Brat, who supports him."

Voters such as Sneed and Lesser are a significant reason why Democrats now believe that in the Nov. 6 congressional midterm elections, the party can win more than the 23 seats they need to seize control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Some predict Democrats could take as many as 40 seats by flipping districts like Brat’s in Virginia.

Earlier this year, Brat’s seat was considered safe. But if a so-called “blue wave” materializes, it would roll through a district like his, which includes pockets of suburban voters who increasingly have been turning away from Republicans.

“Republicans are playing defense in more and more places,” said Doug Heye, a former official at the Republican National Committee. “The Democrats’ map continues to get bigger. The Republicans’ map continues to get smaller. That’s a real problem.”

Democrats have poured resources not only into Brat’s district, but others that have come onto their battleground list, in places such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Southern California and other parts of Virginia such as the district currently represented by Republican Scott Taylor.

...The firestorm over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault while in high school, came at a perilous moment for Brat, given his already difficult reputation with some women voters.

Trump has played a part. Both Sneed and Lesser were angry that he chose to attack Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, at a rally last week.

“It was disgusting,” Lesser said.

...A 39-year-old former officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, Spanberger looks like she could be the face of the Resistance, the woman-driven protest movement against Trump.

But she has been careful to not alienate the independent and moderate voters she needs to win the district. At the Spotsylvania event, she didn’t mention Trump, Brat or Kavanaugh, focusing on domestic-policy issues such as healthcare and education.

Asked for her position on Kavanaugh’s nomination, her campaign declined to comment.

Instead, Spanberger touched on the thing that attracted voters such as Meg Sneed to her: turning down the volume in the civic discourse.

“We’ve reached a place where we need to restore a level of civility to our conversations,” she told the crowd.

Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Virginia, said it remains Brat’s race to win, and that Kavanaugh may be the issue that pulls him over the finish line.

“It’s still a southern district,” Davis said. “There’s nothing like a good fight to keep your base in line.”

Spanberger is counting on her base to stick with her because they hate Trump and Trump rubber-stamps like Brat. She's offering them nothing much at all and couldn't even come out against Kavanaugh. If the ant-red wave is big enough, garbage like Brat will be swept out and garbage like Spanberger will be swept in. If she wins she'll be a waste of a congressional seat-- something you'd expect from some idiot campaigning on "turning down the volume"-- and will be defeated in the anti-blue wave of 2022. Thanks for nothing, DCCC. And forget any of this stuff... The Dems will be the Scrooge Party of PAYGO.

UPDATE: More Democrats Running

Over the weekend, Ballot Access News reported that Democrats have a candidate in 87.9% of the legislative contests. This is a big increase for the Democratic Party. In 2016, it had candidates in 79.4% of the races... The Republican Party also has more candidates up for legislative seats this year than in 2016. This year, Republican are in 79.2%. In 2016, 78.8%... Only four state units of the major parties have candidates in fewer than half the districts: the Republican Parties of Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island; and the Democratic Party of Wyoming. If you don't show up, you can't win, no matter what happens.

The End Of The Road For Dave Brat?

The Democratic establishment was happy, happy in far right extremist Dave Brat's 7th congressional district in Virginia. There was a fairly evenly matched race between two moderates-- at DWT, when we use the word "moderate," we mean moderate, not conservative the way the Beltway media uses it. Both Democrats, ex-CIA agent Abigail Spanberger and marine Daniel Ward, raised around $900,000, just as Brat had. Not counting very small policy nuances most voters would never pick up on, the main difference between Spanberger and Ward was gender. Both had worked in the Obama administration. And the woman CIA officer beat the male marine. Neither looked like a Randy Bryce or Alexandria Ocasio to me. On the other hand, neither is a Jeff Van Drew or Kyrsten Sinema either. Like I said, both are moderates. Spanberger knocked Ward out solidly-- 33,198 (72.65%) to 12,495 (27.35%).

The district, which has an R+6 PVI, stretches from the Culpeper area through Orange County and most of Spotsylvania County down to Nottoway County, with big populations of voters in Chesterfield and Henrico counties in the Richmond suburbs. Trump beat Hillary there 50.5% to 44.0%. McCain and Romney both did better than Trump and Obama did about the same as Hillary.

In the 2014 Republican primary, Brat came out of nowhere-- actually came out of a cohesive, well-organized grassroots effort that shocked the establishment-- to beat Eric Cantor 36,110 (55.5%) to 28,898 (44.5%). Democrat Jack Trammell took Brat on in the general-- and was destroyed-- 60.8% to 36.9%. Democrat Eileen Bedell did better in 2016-- taking 42.2% to Brat's 57.5%. November, though, may be the time for the Democrats to flip the seat. Though Brat, reported the Chesterfield Observer 2 weeks ago, "still stands a good chance of winning the Republican leaning 7th, political analysts say the district is in play like never before. And as national politics continue to dominate the headlines, Democrats hope to pin some of President Donald Trump’s more unpopular policies to the congressman’s back."

Democrats aren’t alone in their belief that Brat can be toppled in November. Geoffrey Skelley, a political analyst with the University of Virginia, says that while the 7th still leans Republican, it’s lost its deep red tint over the years. The GOP’s shrinking margin of victory in recent elections seems to reflect this.

In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won the district by a comfortable 16 points; in 2016, Brat defeated Democratic challenger Eileen Bedell by 15 points, and Trump won by 8 points. In last year’s gubernatorial race, Republican Ed Gillespie beat Democrat Ralph Northam by 4 points in the 7th District.

With so many of the Trump administration’s actions dominating the headlines – such as the recent revelation that the Department of Homeland Security is separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border and holding them in mass detention centers-- Skelley says the race may be a referendum on the president and his party.

“The 7th District could be a very competitive district in the fall,” he says.

...Skelley says Brat may no longer be a good fit for the district. While portions of the 7th remain rural and heavily red, the voter-rich suburbs of Chesterfield and Henrico are more moderate, and Brat simply may be too conservative for them. On the issues, Skelley says the economy ranks No. 1 with most voters. The economy is currently strong, but Skelley says there’s mixed information about how much a good economy helps an incumbent candidate like Brat. The next biggest issue is health care, on which Brat and Spanberger are starkly opposed: Spanberger wants to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare; Brat wants it repealed. Immigration-- another issue Brat has been vocal about-- could also play into the election.

Corey Stewart’s nomination as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate could also have a big impact on the 7th. Stewart, chair of Prince William County’s Board of Supervisors, has already come out swinging, saying he wants to “kick Tim Kaine’s teeth in.” Kaine has criticized Stewart for having both praised and been endorsed by individuals who espouse white nationalism. Skelley says the Republican leadership isn’t happy about the choice of Stewart, and that he may pull voters away from other GOP candidates.

“If Tim Kaine wins handily, that will influence turnout to some degree,” Skelley says. “If it’s looking really bad for Stewart, that could have ramifications for Brat as well.”

Recently, the 7th didn’t seem too keen on Stewart. His primary opponent, Del. Nick Freitas, beat Stewart by 27 points in the district.

...Spanberger, she believes that Stewart’s campaign for Senate will help her at the polls.

“I think that the voters of the 7th will overwhelmingly … reject a lot of his really divisive, angry rhetoric,” Spanberger says.

Brat has nothing to say except that Spanberger "is a radical progressive." She isn't, although Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan could be called radical progressives compared to Brat, part of the neo-fascist wing of the GOP. He's trying to claim she's Nancy Pelosi. She isn't that either... and not nearly as much as Brat is indistinguishable from Trump and his toxic agenda. Yesterday, Cook Report's David Wasserman moved Brat's district from lean Republican to toss up. Wasserman is so overly cautious that "toss up" practically means Spanberger has it in the bag and can go on vacation if she wants. She doesn't want; what she wants is to win with as big a margin as possible, wave or no wave. Wasserman noted that KKK and neo-Nazi-sympathizer Corey Stewart on the top of the ticket will hurt down-ticket Republicans like Brat. Between Stewart-- who not even the RNSC will back-- and Trump (who is strongly backing Stewart), the toxicity is tangible. "Brat," he wrote, "who has shied away from questions about Stewart, has never had to run in a competitive general election before. He's mended fences with GOP leadership and is running with the NRCC's active help... Ironically, the white collar Republicans in the West End Richmond suburbs who long supported Cantor could be the swing voters in this race."

Meanwhile, if you're looking for an Alexandria Ocasio, look elsewhere. Spanberger would rather talk about civility in Congress than what she's going to do for people in VA-07. Watch how skillfully she creates a big fat nothing burger when she has a chance to say something substantive. Presumably her consultants tell her that's how she can get those "white collar Republicans in the West End Richmond suburbs" to swing her way-- while Trump's toxicity keeps the Democratic base voters interested in getting out and voting for anyone who's not a Trump enabler.