Who Will Dominate The Conservative Lane In The 2020 Democratic Primary?

Yashar Ali is a talented, Illinois-born, gay political journalist who seems to always back corporate Democrats-- Steve Westly. Gavin Newsom, Hillary Clinton. He has a new newsletter and yesterday he wrote about one of his friends who wants to run for president, Clintonite hustler Terry McAuliffe. DWT readers will recall we covered him before as one of our Worst Democraps Who Want to Be President, but that probably isn't how Ali sees him.

Conventional wisdom has held there will be one corporate whore running in the conservative lane of the 2020 primary and that McAuliffe's only shot to be that corporate whore would be for Biden to not run. But Biden is going to run and McAuliffe could get stuck with boxes filled with McAuliffe 2020 t-shirts, mugs, oven-mitts and baseball caps.

Ali wrote that a month ago when he brought up the prospect of a McAuliffe presidential campaign with a source, "that person told me McAuliffe had made it clear he wasn’t going to run if former Vice President Joe Biden entered the race. I had heard differently; another source told me that McAuliffe was building a campaign apparatus." He has been-- complete with SuperPAC and a concerted effort to corral financial commitments from wealthy right-of-center Democrats. "I learned this week," wrote Ali, "that not only has McAuliffe been working to marshal support (something he has now confirmed publicly), but he has told friends and supporters that he sees a major weakness in Biden."

According to a source familiar with a conversation McAuliffe had with an influential Democratic figure, McAuliffe said he believes that Biden is “tanking” after multiple women said he made them uncomfortable when he touched them without consent.

Biden’s response to the accusations was to say in a video that he will be more “mindful” in the future of how he interacts with people, and he recognizes that “social norms have begun to change … they’ve shifted.” But he hasn’t apologized.

Last Friday, he made what was seen by some as a critical error by making several jokes about the controversy while speaking at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference. In one instance, after hugging IBEW president Lonnie Stephenson, Biden said, “I just want you to know I had permission to hug Lonnie.” The audience, filled mostly with men, reacted by laughing and applauding.

But others thought this was another example of a gaffe-prone Biden, the same man who ran for president twice and never made it to the nomination. While Biden is leading all the national polls, much of that is based on name recognition. A campaign that hasn’t started in earnest isn’t an accurate barometer for the true state of the race.

So why does McAuliffe believe that Biden’s loss is his victory? McAuliffe was said to have told a source that he could be the “white Irishman” in the race with Biden out.

In a recent hourlong interview, conservative radio host John Fredericks asked McAuliffe, “If you get into this race, are you going to run an apology tour and apologize, Governor McAuliffe, for being a successful white male?”

“No,” McAuliffe replied. “If I do run, it will be the funnest campaign. It will be a happy tour.”

McAuliffe believes he is the natural replacement for Biden because of the old fiscally moderate and socially progressive construct. In his interview with Fredericks, he spoke of his business record and work to attract businesses to Virginia while he was governor. He also touched on how he restored voting rights to felons and vetoed anti-choice and anti-LGBT bills.

McAuliffe is likely counting on all the racism in Biden's past to do him in among the black voters who are bolstering his polling numbers now because of his association with Obama and because they are unaware that his early career was built on virulent racism. Still... the most recent Morning Consult poll-- which includes 18 Democratic primary contenders-- shows McAuliffe dead last, with zero percent, behind the 8 one-percenters:

The Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President: Terry McAuliffe, Part V

Reports have it that Trump wants Jim Webb as Defense Secretary. He might even make a good Defense Secretary (or a lousy one; I don't know) but I think the two prima donnas deserve each other. Webb was a dickwad senator and in 2014 he decided to run for president (as a Democrat for some reason I'll never figure out) only to withdraw from the race while whining that he was "unhappy" and "not comfortable" with the policies Democratic grassroots voters seemed to favor. He had garnered virtually no support except from the same kind of inside the Beltway assholes who always claimed Biden would be a shoo-in every time he ran one of his single-digit campaigns for president. Webb said he might run as an independent and then, thankfully, more or less disappeared from the national stage... til Trump found him this week. (Remember, in 2016, "Democrat" Webb had said he would never vote for Hillary and that he might vote for Trump.) Lesson: all kinds of shit floats briefly to the surface in the lead up to a presidential election-- and then, thankfully, disappears.

I didn't think Terry McAuliffe, another creepy Virginia right-of-center faux-Dem like Webb, was even worth a chapter of our series The Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President... but while I was writing this post, I changed my mind. McAuliffe was a career bankster and he entire life has been built around one shady insider business deal after another. Those deals define who he is and who has always been and will always be-- someone who has been at war with ethics for a lifetime. Like Trump, he got rich by manipulating sleazy real estate opportunities. He was a master of raising immense amounts of money for the Clintons and making sure he would benefit from all sides of every transaction. In 1999 he admitted to the NY Times that the success of his grubby business dealings stemmed from his relationship with Bill Clinton, as well as other Democrats who played fast and loose with ethical considerations, particularly Rahm Emanuel role model Tony Coehlo and Missouri sleaze bag Dick Gephardt. "I've met all of my business contacts through politics. It's all interrelated."

And speaking of the vile Gephardt, currently a lobbyist who might have been re-sworn in as Speaker Thursday instead of Pelosi had he not thrown his lot in with Bush when it came to the attack on Iraq-- which is how Pelosi pushed him out of Congress just before the Dems won it back and made her Speaker. Off the point, but the only time I ever met McAuliffe, a character I had always avoided, was through Gephardt, then a candidate for president. The back story is long and stupid but, at the time, I was listed-- mistakenly-- as a $50,000 donor to a Clinton-related Committee. So every Democratic presidential candidate would call me to schmooze me and try to get me to write them a big check too. I met some nice ones that way. But one day Gephardt called me and wouldn't take no for an answer. He whined so pathetically the I actually felt sorry for him and agreed to meet him. When I agreed to meet Howard Dean around that same time, I was happy to invite Deanover to my home. Gephardt... I agreed to meet him in a public hotel lobby. When I got there though, he insisted I come up to his suite. I knew I shouldn't, but I did-- and what was waiting for me at the door? "Howard Klein, allow me to introduce you to [and by this time we're shaking hands] "Terry McAuliffe." Instinctively, I reacted as though I was shaking a rattlesnake and grabbed my hand away. McAuliffe headed for the exit and... well the rest is a boring story about me telling Gephardt why I thought he would make a terrible president and why I was supporting Howard Dean.

Yesterday I got an e-mail-- spam-- from McAuliffe, trying to build up his mailing list for a presidential run. "Hi there," his fundraiser pretending to be him wrote, "I want to take a moment to share my latest op-ed with you, which was published this morning by the Washington Post. I hope you'll take a look! — Terry McAuliffe."

Dull crap about Trump being a bad, bad man. But then came the last paragraph (in the e-mail): "Voters are now looking for a more realistic alternative. Leading up to 2020, Democrats must maintain our credibility with a pledge of results that are honest and achievable. We can expand the Affordable Care Act and take on pharmaceutical companies' cartel pricing, pass comprehensive climate change legislation and substantially raise incomes through minimum-wage increases and tax fairness. And that's just the start." So that was it... except for a link to click on that brought the reader to the Washington Post article itself. Those who didn't click, probably more than half, likely more than 90%, didn't see what came next, a veiled attack on progressives (i.e., Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, the 3 top candidates with vision) from the transactional scumbag dying to follow Trump into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and steal whatever Trump left over. Here's what came next:

These changes would be revolutionary for average families. Americans are asking us to focus on improving their lives, not to make unrealistic ideological promises.

For example, some senators have started to discuss a “federal jobs guarantee”-- a promise that, in certain formulations, means that anyone who wants could have a government job paying $15 an hour with great benefits. Sound too good to be true? It is. Proponents of a jobs guarantee are smart people with good motives, but they surely recognize that it is not a realistic policy.

[Note: he didn't include this video:]

Similarly, a promise of universal free college has an appealing ring, but it’s not a progressive prioritization of the educational needs of struggling families. We need to provide access to higher education, job training and student debt relief to families who need it. Spending limited taxpayer money on a free college education for the children of rich parents badly misses the mark for most families.

[Note: he didn't include this video:]



He kept going: "When the stakes are another four years of Trump degrading our country, do we really want to use the 2020 campaign as a first-time experiment on idealistic but unrealistic policies?" Unrealistic? Ah... yes, the old conservative trope. If you read DWT with any regularity you know what else conservative have always claimed was "unrealistic" or "pie-in-the-sky."

• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

Yeah, like Bloomberg, McAuliffe is another crooked political hack who can't imagine anything great ever, since he himself could never be great and he realizes that to the core of his being. "As we approach 2020," the pompous jackass droned on, sounding more and more like Claire McCaskill, "we should look at the candidates who won in swing districts in 2018. They are an energetic, diverse group who ran on realistic goals of lowering the cost of health care, improving education and raising wages. These are credible promises that Democrats have a proven record of addressing. We are the party that created the Affordable Care Act, raised the minimum wage, invested in education and even balanced the budget... Resisting dishonest populism is not just a policy imperative for serious Democrats but also a political imperative for 2020. Across the country, voters just sent a powerful message that they are tired of the broken promises of this administration, especially on health care and taxes." As soon as you see this corporate marketing tool on an e-mail, delete at once:

Two New Presidential Candidates Today-- One Great And One Scraped Off The Bottom Of The Toilet... Let's Stick With Elizabeth Warren Though

I expect dozens of politicians for the 2020 election cycle (for Congress as well as president) to start officially announcing later in the week, or maybe next week. Kara Eastman (NE-02) and Elizabeth Warren (President) beat them to it. Kara announced she's running for Congress again-- Blue America's first endorsed candidate for the 2020 cycle-- a week or so ago and Elizabeth Warren announced that she's formed a presidential exploratory committee a few hours ago. Please watch Senator Warren's excellent announcement video up top.

Earlier this morning I thought I would take some time and do the research for another in the DWT series, Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President, to welcome corporate ambititron Terry McAuliffe into the fray. His SuperPAC sent out an e-mail this morning: "We need Terry's voice in the arena and our PAC has already raised his profile in key early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina through early ad buys." How insider and full of crap is that? It's all about me, me, me. And the image... I wonder how much they made the consultant who came up with it; for their sake, I hope not too much:

I'll hold off on McAuliffe for the day. I like this frame from Elizabeth Warren's video so much better:

Her brand new website doesn't have much verbiage yet-- almost none at all, in fact. But this biographical paragraph, all there is, is useful if you want to understand who she is and why she's running: "Elizabeth grew up on the ragged edge of the middle class in Oklahoma and became a teacher, a law professor, and a US Senator because America invested in kids like her. She’s spent her career taking on powerful interests and fighting to give every kid the same chance to succeed." Her video shows what we should all know already, unlike Claire McCaskill, Warren is one senator who is very much in touch with the zeitgeist. As you probably may know, I'm a Bernie supporter. But I'm a Warren supporter too. I wish they were running as a ticket.

Associated Press pointed out this morning that "Now, as a likely presidential contender, she is making an appeal to the party’s base. Her video notes the economic challenges facing people of color along with images of a women’s march and Warren’s participation at an LGBT event."

Warren has the benefit of higher name recognition than many others in the Democratic mix for 2020, thanks to her years as a prominent critic of Wall Street who originally conceived of what became the government’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

She now faces an arduous battle to raise money and capture Democratic primary voters’ attention before Iowa casts its first vote in more than a year. She has an advantage in the $12.5 million left over from her 2018 re-election campaign that she could use for a presidential run.

Warren’s campaign is likely to revolve around the same theme she’s woven into speeches and policy proposals in recent years: battling special interests, paying mind to the nexus between racial and economic inequities.

“America’s middle class is under attack,” Warren said in the video. “How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie. And they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice.”

I fell in love with Warren in 2014 when I read one of her books, A Fighting Chance. I was so thrilled that there was someone with her intelligence and elegance fighting on our side. In the prologue, she wrote "Today the game is rigged-- rigged to work for those who have money and power. Big corporations hire armies of lobbyists to get billion-dollar loopholes into the tax system and persuade their friends in Congress to support laws that keep the playing field tilted in their favor. Meanwhile, hardworking families are told that they’ll just have to live with smaller dreams for their children. Over the past generation, America’s determination to give every kid access to affordable college or technical training has faded. The basic infrastructure that helps us build thriving businesses and jobs-- the roads, bridges, and power grids-- has crumbled. The scientific and medical research that has sparked miraculous cures and inventions from the Internet to nanotechnology is starved for funding, and the research pipeline is shrinking. The optimism that defines us as a people has been beaten and bruised. It doesn’t have to be this way. I am determined-- fiercely determined-- to do everything I can to help us once again be the America that creates opportunities for anyone who works hard and plays by the rules. An America of accountability and fair play. An America that builds a future for not just some of our children but for all of our children. An America where everyone gets what I got: a fighting chance."

I've been an Elizabeth Warren partisan ever since, although a year earlier I had noted with enthusiasm that she led a fight against Obama's putrid deal with Republicans (and through them, Wall Street) on the student loan debacle, a bill-- likely masterminded by Biden-- which benefitted some students in the short term and crucified all students over time-- a really ugly, shameful "compromise." The deal on student loan interest rates was an unacceptable plan to sell out and profit off the backs of students. It jeopardized the long term well being of students, their families, and the country’s economy by making a college level education inaccessible for many, while locking those who do go to college into even more years of debt. Warren was one of the senators then willing-- enthusiastically willing-- to stand up to Obama, Biden and Wall Street and say that we needed legislation that protects students and promotes education and entrepreneurship, not a plan that raises rates and puts students at the mercy of the market. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, Ed Markey, Jack Reed had the guts to go after their own misguided president. Remember, this was 2013. Bernie spoke out: "The White House is being disingenuous and is trying to sweep under the rug big increases in interest rates for students and parents in the near future. Because college costs are out of control and interest rates are rising, students are leaving college deep in debt or in some cases choosing not to continue their education because they cannot afford it."

The Amendment offered by Warren and Reed failed 46-53 in the Senate, corrupt conservative Democrats Tom Carper (DE), Joe Donnelly (IN), Tim Kaine (VA), Mark Pryor (AR) killing it-- along with Angus King (I-ME) and Tom Harkin (IA-- don't ask me what kind of fucking bee got in her bonnet that day) by voting with every single Senate Republican; Claire McCaskill (MO) coincidentally got locked into the lady's room and didn't have to vote.

After the roll call, Senator Warren sent out this brief statement, while Obama and his Wall Street pals celebrated: "Today's vote is over, but our fight to make college more affordable and a better deal for our students continues. I'm in this fight for the long haul-- we must invest in our kids, bring down the skyrocketing costs of college and tackle the more than trillion dollars in student loan debt that is crushing middle class families and threatening our economy. I am eager to work with the President and my colleagues to attack these problems head-on and find solutions that will provide a real shot at an education for all of our children."

Elizabeth Warren by Nancy Ohanian

Who You Going To Trust On The TPP?

Terry McAuliffe is a long time crooked operator from the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party. Don't ask how I put myself in this awkward position, but Dick Gephardt once tricked me into shaking hands with him. But, of course, of course, of course, he's the lesser evil than whatever horrid diarrhea Satan crapped out in the form of a Republican opponent-- much lesser evil. So now he's the governor of Virginia and he gets to name the senator who will replace corporatist Time Kaine if Clinton/Kaine beats greater evil Trump/Pence. Appointed senators are routinely defeated for reelection so what;s in vogue now is to appoint a placeholder who pledges to not run. That way-- in this case-- McAuliffe can run. Feh!

when McAuliffe let the cat out of the bag Tuesday that his wing of the party need not worry because his very, very close personal friend Hillary will be back on the TPP side as soon as she and TPP fanatic Tim win the election, he really stepped in it and flipped out the Clinton Team who are working so hard to reinvent her as a quasi-progressive on trade. This is all about the lame duck session when Obama, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell will make their big TPP push. Clinton hasn't agreed to oppose that. Why not? That's the real battle over fair trade now.

Annie Karni broke the McAuliffe part in this story Tuesday night at Politico. "I worry that if we don’t do TPP, at some point China’s going to break the rules-- but Hillary understands this,” he told her candidadly, all pumped up after his dumb, empty speech about how personally close he is to the Clintons at the convention. “Once the election’s over, and we sit down on trade, people understand a couple things we want to fix on it but going forward we got to build a global economy." When Karni pressed him on whether Hillary would turn around and support the trade deal she opposed during the heat of the primary fight against Bernie Sanders, McAuliffe said: "Yes. Listen, she was in support of it. There were specific things in it she wants fixed." Not what Team Deceit Clinton wants out there... yet.

Later, McAuliffe’s spokesman sought to clarify the governor’s remarks after this story published, saying he was simply expressing what he wants Clinton to do if she is elected president. “While Governor McAuliffe is a supporter of the TPP, he has no expectation Secretary Clinton would change her position on the legislation and she has never told him anything to that effect.”

A top Clinton campaign official said the Democratic nominee never told McAuliffe she would be open to changing her position on TPP-- and campaign chairman John Podesta confirmed to Politico she never said anything like that to her longtime ally. “Love Gov. McAuliffe, but he got this one flat wrong,” Podesta tweeted. “Hillary opposes TPP BEFORE and AFTER the election. Period. Full stop.”

But Trump’s campaign immediately seized on the comments. “This should surprise nobody!” tweeted Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The battle over TPP was one of the most notable to erupt on the floor of the convention Monday, as Sanders delegates protested the fact that language opposing the trade deal was excluded from the party platform.

Sanders delegates started a cheer, “No TPP!” as Rep. Elijah Cummings was speaking and hoisted a banner that read “Economic Justice, Climate Justice, Trade Justice.”

And McAuliffe’s comments played directly into the image of Clinton that infuriates Sanders' delegates-- especially after her selection of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate, who vocally supports the Obama-backed trade deal. "I have no confidence she's against TPP," said Christine Pellegrino, a Sanders delegate from New York. "I haven't made up my mind about what options exist at the convention.”

McAuliffe said he feels confident Democrats will win back the Senate and even win back 30 seats in the House and be able to pass a tweaked version of the trade deal supported by President Obama. “If we get enough things done, enough opportunities to change TPP, I’m optimistic going forward,” he said. "We cannot let China write these rules for 11 other countries.”

Even as protesters headed for the exits of the Wells Fargo Center after the roll call made Clinton's nomination official, McAuliffe insisted the party was still on the road to unity.

"Sen. Sanders was a true champion," McAuliffe said. "He sent out texts, his speech last night said we have to come together. He's done everything we've asked him to do. This is a hard business, it just takes time. I think this convention made a lot of progress."

Just over a year ago, 158 House Democrats said no to Obama, Wall Street, Paul Ryan and the GOP on TPP. Only 28 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans, allowing fast track legislation to pass by 10 votes. These were the culprits:

• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Don Beyer (New Dem-VA)
• Earl Blumenauer (OR))
• Suzanne Bonamici (OR)
• Gerry Connolly (New Dem-VA)
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Susan Davis (New Dem-CA)
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)
• Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)
• Sam Farr (CA)
• Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)
• Rubén Hinojosa (TX)
• Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX)
• Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)
• Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)
• Rick Larsen (New Dem-WA)
• Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY)
• Beto O'Rourke (New Dem-TX)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Jared Polis (New Dem-CO)
• Mike Quigley (New Dem-IL)
• Kathleen Rice (New Dem-NY)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL)

Over in the Senate, it wasn't just Kaine who joined with the GOP to pass the fast track legislation for TPP. Almost all of the worst of the garbage Democrats-- Manchin is good on this issue, so he gets a pass-- were right there with Kaine and McConnell, from Rachel Maddow's favorite fake Democrat, loudmouthed reactionary Claire McCaskill (MO) to the richest slimeball in the whole Senate, Mark Warner. These, along with McAuliffe and the institutional Republican Party-- as opposed to the Trumpist crazy operation-- are pushing for a lame duck vote on TPP. Yes, these assholes, all on one lovely dartboard:

What Do Rich People Want In Return For Their Campaign Contributions?

Environmental champion Tom Steyer elected Terry McAuliffe governor of Virginia-- so why the glum face?

Tom Steyer is a San Francisco billionaire and a dedicated environmental activist. Last year, he spent $11 million helping elect one of the most corrupt corporate whores in American politics, Virginia's new governor, Terry McAuliffe. A few days ago, the Washington Post reported that Governor McAuliffe has joined a coalition of right-wing, anti-environment governors pushing for off-shore drilling. Steyer may be delighted he helped keep Ken Cucchinelli out of office but his boy McAuliffe joined up with Climate Change deniers Pat McCrory (R-NC), Robert Bentley (R-AL), and Phil Bryant (R-MS) to demand that the Interior Department allow Big Oil and Gas companies to drill, baby, drill off the coasts of their states.

McCrory heads the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, a group of mostly Republican governors pushing to expand offshore oil drilling. McAuliffe told the Washington Post he would join the coalition-- the first Democrat to do so-- as he sped out of the meeting  Monday.

…[B]efore drilling or exploration can commence, states will have to consider objections from environmentalists, who are concerned about the impact on wildlife.

Steyer plans to spend a lot more than $11 on electoral politics this cycle. He's ponied up $50 million of his own and is raising another $50 million from rich friends concerned about the environment. Hopefully, they'll chose better candidates than Terry McAuliffe… but there is no reason to believe that will be the case. They take their advise from corrupt corporate Democrats just like McAuliffe. In today's NY Times Nick Confessore has a fascinating piece on how the big money donors-- primarily Republicans-- are demanding a bigger say over party strategy.

The Republican donors who have financed the party’s vast outside-spending machine are turning against the consultants and political strategists they once lavished with hundreds of millions of dollars.

In recent months, they have begun holding back checks from Republican “super PACs” like American Crossroads, unsatisfied with the groups’ explanations for their failure to unseat President Obama or win back the Senate. Others, less willing than in the past to defer to the party elders and former congressional staff members who control the biggest groups, are demanding a bigger voice in creating strategy in exchange for their continued support.

Donors like Paul Singer, the billionaire Republican investor, have expanded their in-house political shops, building teams of loyal advisers and researchers to guide and coordinate their giving. And some of the biggest contributors to Republican outside groups in 2012 are now gravitating toward the more donor-centric political and philanthropic network overseen by Charles and David Koch, who have wooed them in part by promising more accountability over how money is spent.

…The quiet revolt signals a broader shift in the world of big money. Clubs of elite donors in both parties are taking a more central role in shaping policy and campaigns, displacing party leaders and the outside-spending organizations they helped create after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010. And the sheer scale of their spending is almost certain to rewrite the playbook for political campaigns this year, as candidates reckon with the strongly held views of some of the world’s wealthiest people… “The Karl Rove thing is out,” said one donor, who asked for anonymity because he did not want to offend Mr. Rove. “The Koch thing is in.”

Good luck working with a bunch of ego-centric divas, folks-- and I know. In the music business I worked with some highly successful divas with… let's say "minds of their own"-- like Madonna, Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell, Chaka Khan, Rickie Lee Jones, Cher. They all earned a right to make decisions-- right or wrong-- and they were very aware of it. Yasha Levin, writing for Pando Daily this week, covered the cash-rich attempt of Ro Khanna to unseat progressive icon Mike Honda in CA-17, the Silicon Valley. "Ro’s appeal," he writes, "to the inflated egos of Silicon Valley billionaires-- and their delusional belief in the transformative and utopian power of tech-- is a bit nauseating. But it’s not surprising, given the candidate’s shameless embrace of tech culture and money. I mean, this is the same guy who told the New York Times that he considers himself a 'tech groupie.'"

Ro’s campaign contribution list reads like an unofficial Silicon Valley social register: Peter Thiel, Sean Parker, Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer, Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway,  Mark Pincus, rainmaker/venture capitalist John Doerr and hundreds of other lesser-known tech titans and financiers.

Most of these donors (as well as their husbands and wives) have maxed out their $2,600 federal individual contribution limit. Many of Ro’s big name supporters are so sure he’ll succeed in his primary challenge that they’ve maxed out their contributions to both his primary and general election campaigns.

Ro is running as a Democrat. But as you can see from the list of names, moneyed support for Ro is a multi/post-partisan affair. It’s a big tent party that includes hardcore libertarians, Tea Party backers, Mitt Romney supporters, wealthy techno-Democrats, entertainment industry has beens like M.C. Hammer and new age quacks like Deepak Chopra. Hell, even anti-government venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, a Senator Ted Cruz supporter who praised the recent government shutdown because it finally prevented D.C. pols from messing with the economy, is excited about electing Ro as Silicon Valley’s next Congressman.

New York Magazine’s Kevin Roose hung out with Ro and some of his backers, and came away stunned by the messianic fervor the candidate inspires among the normally politically agnostic Silicon Valley elite:

“In the past few months, I’ve heard maybe a dozen members of Silicon Valley’s investor class tell me, in rapturous tones, how Khanna just gets it. He gets that tech’s political influence can be much bigger than changing a few immigration laws, and he gets how much the Valley could do for the country if given strong leadership and a common platform to rally behind.”

Which brings us to Ro’s “strong” common platform. What exactly is it?

Ro’s supporters didn’t offer many specifics when interviewed by the Times or New York magazine. Rather, they describe his appeal in cultural, almost transcendental terms. Ro is a politician like few others-- someone who understands that Silicon Valley is undergoing a political awakening-- a coming of age. He just “gets it” and “identifies with us.”

The only thing Ro’s backers can agree on is that, if he wins, he’ll be a reliable warrior for their interests.

“The tech community is looking for advocates who will be be really, really outspoken for tech, and Ro fits that mold… I’m hoping it’s a wave of the future that continues, because it’s crucial for the tech community to have a really active voice in Washington,” Ron Conway, an early investor in Google and PayPal, told the New York Times.

At a $2,600-a-head fundraiser in May 2013, Napster/Facebook billionaire Sean Parker introduced Ro Khanna to a room full of other tech millionaires and billionaires as a man who can take their vision to D.C.

“Silicon Valley hasn’t been properly represented at the federal level. We haven’t had the kind of young, hard-driving candidate that really understands the unique issues facing Silicon Valley at a moment in time when, you know, they actually are at a series of, uhm, important political milestones and political turning points. And to a certain extent, I think we’re starting to come to a realization of our own power and of our own capability, not just as innovators and technology pioneers, but also, uhm, but also in a political sense.”

Taking the mic from Sean Parker, Ro told this room of ultra-wealthy donors that he wanted to use the values and culture of tech-- their values and culture-- to change the world.

“The premise of this campaign is quite simple. We’ve had quite brilliant people…use technology to change the world. And it’s time that we actually change politics, that Silicon Valley has the potential to do this. … It’s not just about having a tech agenda. This is about something much deeper-- our values, and our ability to use those values to change Washington and the world.”

[W]hile sucking up to Silicon Valley’s inflated sense of their new power has done wonders for Ro’s campaign coffers, it’s hard to see how he wins against Rep Mike Honda solely on the strength of his spiritual connection to Silicon Valley’s investor and executive class.

He needs something big, because it’s shaping up to be tough battle. To enter the general election, Ro will need place at least second in California’s newfangled “open primary” race this summer. Called a “jungle primary,” it’ll pit all candidates from all parties against one-another in a single race and then put the top two candidates on the general election ballot.

Current polls show Ro coming in in close third. So he’s got three months to convince enough voters that he’s a better Democrat than Rep. Honda. And that’s no easy feat, given that the incumbent is well-liked, has the protection of the powerful House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and has been endorsed by President Barack Obama, Howard Dean, labor groups and a long list of other Democratic Party power players.

So what’s Ro’s plan? How is going to convince voters that he’s radically different and better than Mike Honda?

Ro’s campaign literature offers an uninspiring and cautious mix of progressive, New Democrat and Centrist Republican policies-- most of them long supported by Rep. Honda. The only substantive difference seems to be in the realm of education, with Ro favoring anti-teachers’ union measures like performance pay. But even there the wording is guarded and generic…

If you read his book Entrepreneurial Nation, Ro comes off as a boringly moderate Republican-- someone who tisk-tisks hardline Austrian economists, Randroids and Koch groups for going over the edge in their hate of government, but praises business-minded pragmatists like President Ronald Reagan for understanding that “ideology must never trump national interests, and that our nation has a stake in helping our businesses.”

Centrism? That’s not the type of stuff you’d expect from a insurgent politician facing a tough race with bad odds.

I wanted answers, specifics. So earlier this week, I went to a Ro Khanna campaign event to ask the candidate exactly what he stands for. What I discovered was shocking: he doesn’t seem to know either.

…For all the talk of him being an aggressive disrupter, Ro is a big let down. His political vision is bland, cautious and overly conservative.

This isn’t Kansas or Arizona, and Ro isn’t running for Ron Paul’s old congressional seat in Texas. This is the heart of the Bay Area, which has been solidly liberal and Democratic for decades. Out here, Ro comes off as a squishy moderate Republican.

None of his proposals to are controversial, nor are they even minimally progressive by Bay Area standards. And they are completely in line with the views of Silicon Valley’s investor and executive class.

…I wanted to believe that Ro’s tech politics transcended Honda’s tired old world ideas, but I didn’t see any evidence that they existed.

So I came up to Ro after speech and asked him directly: Is there anything specific that he thinks Rep. Honda has done wrong? Any legislation, policies and/or votes?

Honda’s got a decade of legislative history to choose from, so I figured Ro would at least find a couple of things he disagreed with.

I was wrong.

Ro couldn’t name anything-- not a single vote nor a single piece of legislation that he took issue with.

I asked Ro again and tried pressing him for something-- anything-- concrete. But he just kept talking vaguely about Honda’s “lack of leadership” and “initiative,” and that today’s political challenge requires a “different skill set and expertise on the economy”…

The only specific criticism he could come up with: Mike Honda for accepting PAC money and taking campaign contributions from lobbyists-- which was a strange fault to pick at, considering that Ro raised the vast majority of his campaign funds from the creme de la creme of Silicon Valley’s money class.

If he doesn’t have a problem with the way Mike Honda’s voted, then why aggressively unseat a fellow Democrat? Why go through the trouble if there’s no concrete reason to do so?

It could be that Ro has plenty of things he’d do differently than Mike Honda, but doesn’t want stick his neck out too far and possibly alienate voters with unfavorable positions so early in the race.

Earlier this month, Ro got creamed by a negative New York Times article after he bragged to a reporter that main difference between him and Rep. Honda is that “I wear tech groupie as a badge of honor.” He then followed that up by telling the NYT that he favored changing America’s tax code to allow tech companies to repatriate their profits without being taxed. It’s a position that would go over well with lots of tech companies, including Apple, which currently has over $100 billion in profits stashed away offshore because it doesn’t want to pay taxes. Even Republican Senator John McCain called the practice “egregious and outrageous.”

And maybe that’s why Ro inspires such political fervor among the Silicon Valley elite: their political vision is so degraded and limited that they view a boring centrist like Ro as nothing less than Jesus, just because he wants to let them pocket their fat profits without getting taxed?

The Gays Won

Someone's got to have the best voting record in Congress, might as well be Mark!

Wednesday I got an e-mail from the Gay And Lesbian Victory Fund with the subject line "What a Night!" And what a night it was for them! They had helped 56 candidates from the LGBT community win their races, including 2 crucial women in Texas, Annise Parker, who won a third term as mayor of Houston, America's fourth largest city, and Celia Israel, who advanced to a run-off in North Austin to replace our old pal Mark Strama, giving voters the chance to elect a second LGBT voice in the state House.

They celebrated these two wonderful candidates with the same enthusiasm they expressed for the new mayor of Seattle. "Ed Murray," they wrote, "will become the next mayor of Seattle, defeating a well-funded incumbent and shattering a historic barrier." Down with the bad guy and up with the good! Right? Well, no, not exactly. As Paul Constant explained in The Stranger, Murray was very upfront about running as the anti-progressive. "I am not running," he boasted, "to be a progressive mayor of Seattle." Constant wrote that he was "disappointed that Murray would use the words progressive and liberal like they're pejoratives" in his victory speech.

Last night, in his halting, stiff victory speech at the Crocodile, Ed Murray said two things that I found to be very troubling. First, he announced that to make Seattle work, "we need to bring liberals and moderates together." Second, his speech's big money shot was this line: "I am not running to be a gay mayor of Seattle. I am not running to be a progressive mayor of Seattle. I am running to be an effective mayor of Seattle." I want to be perfectly clear, right up front, that what I'm about to write has nothing to do with Mike McGinn. This post is about the fact that I feel that Murray's speech profoundly misjudged the character of Seattle politics. And that speech made me feel disappointed in Ed Murray.

Seattle is the liberal heart of a state that last year led the nation by voting to legalize marijuana and legalize same sex marriage. Could anyone seriously tell me that those are not progressive causes? Last night, roughly a third of all primary voters decided to send a socialist to the general election vote for city council. Let me ask you again, in a slightly different way: Do you really think that this is a moderate city?

We don't live in Old Seattle anymore; this is not a city for NPR tote-bag liberals who put the Clinton/Gore bumper stickers on their cars and then quietly vote down every property tax that crosses their ballots. This is not a city that can continue to wait patiently for conservatives to come around to our way of thinking on transit. Seattle is—Seattle wants to be—the progressive testing ground for the rest of this country. We're sick of kowtowing to moderates, the craven imbeciles who tell us to wait on gay marriage until the national mood deigns to approve of it. We want to lead the way, and force the national mood to change. We start debates on the minimum wage and fast food workers' rights here in Seattle that inspire conversations around the rest of the country. We are the bluest of blues, and we're not likely to change any time soon. We're tired of having to wait for the dumbest kid in the class to catch up to us so that we can move on to the next lesson. We want to write our own goddamned lesson plans. We want to make our own world. And to do that, we need a mayor who doesn't shy away from the word "progressive," and we definitely don't need a mayor who insists that liberals have to capitulate to "moderates" in order to get stuff done. That may have been Seattle fifteen years ago. It's not Seattle now. It's not the city that Seattle's going to be.

I follow politics carefully and by 2008 I and already met Barack Obama several times and knew exactly what he was, economically a neoliberal and ideologically a moderate. I voted for him anyway, primarily for two reasons: better of two evils and for the symbolism and inspiration of electing an African-American president. (That's why I also would have voted for the equally-- if not even worse-- Hillary Clinton: the symbolism and inspiration of electing a woman president. In 2012 there was no chance I would have voted for Obama again. And a lot would have to happen-- none of which I expect-- before I would consider casting a ballot for Hillary Clinton.

On the ProgressivePunch page that shows the relative lifetime voting records of every Member of Congress, the #1 most progressive is Mark Pocan, a gay man from Madison, Wisconsin. Gays can feel proud of that if they want to. But if you surf down the the bottom of the Democrats, to the place where conservative Democrats and even worse Republicans compete for rankings, you find the Democrat with the worst voting record. It isn't homophobic reactionary Blue Dogs Pete Gallego (TX), John Barrow (GA) or Mike McIntyre (NC). Nope, the worst Democrat in Congress has a perfect progressive record on LGBT issues. He's just atrocious on everything else, especially economic justice. And that's Sean Patrick Maloney, a gay man. The third-worst is a self-described bisexual, Kyrsten Sinema. She has a great record on LGBT issues too (and women's issues). But on all the other issues that separate the progressives from the conservatives, Sinema, like Maloney is an embarrassment.

In his first book, Crashing the Gate, Markos Moulitsas warned of the danger of narrow identity politics. It took me a few years to fully, viscerally, understand what he was talking about. When E.J. Dionne looked at the results of Tuesday's election and wrote America Shifts Left, it wasn't to celebrate identity group politics. It was to celebrate the election of politicians who stand for progressive values and principles. We need more Mark Pocans and fewer Sean Patrick Maloneys and Kyrsten Sinemas. Evana corrupt corporate hack and machine politics bagman like Terry McAuliffe has a place in that shift.

Terry McAuliffe may have won in Virginia as a middle-of-the-road, business-friendly champion of “jobs.” But he was also firmly liberal on gay marriage and abortion, and cast Ken Cuccinelli, his opponent, as a social troglodyte.

More than that: McAuliffe was outspoken against the National Rifle Association and in favor of a variety of gun-safety measures, including background checks. McAuliffe did not shrink from his F-rating from the NRA. He boasted about it.

His outspokenness was rewarded. He won the suburbs outside of Washington, D.C., overwhelmingly and built a large margin among women. The power of the gun-control issue should not be lost in the sometimes foggy talk about centrism. This should embolden supporters of sane gun laws.

…Republicans would be wiser to pay attention to the fact that McAuliffe recreated the coalition which twice elected Obama. When Democrats lost Virginia in 2009, Obama supporters stayed home in large numbers. This time, the electorate was significantly more Democratic, and the African-American share of the vote rose sharply. In next year’s midterms, Republicans cannot count on the sort of Democratic demobilization that was so helpful to them in 2010.

To say that this election nudged the nation leftward is not to claim a sudden mandate for liberalism. But it is to insist that the center ground in American politics is a long way from where it was three years ago-- and that if there is a new populism in the country, it is now speaking with a decidedly progressive accent.

Tonight's Election Results

The race most people were most interested in today was the lesser-of-two evils gubernatorial election in Virginia. As expected, the lesser of two evils, Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe, won. The exit polls looked bad for conservatives in Virginia even before voting was finished. Democrats were voting in greater numbers than expected and Republicans were voting in smaller numbers. Pro-Choice voters vastly outnumbered anti-Choice voters, a sure death knell for Cuccinelli and his crackpot War on Women team. The good news: far right extremist Ken Cuccinelli has been thoroughly rejected by Virginia voters. The bad news: Virginia voters just saddled themselves with a corrupt hack as their next governor, likely to not be much of an improvement over the departing corrupt hack-- other than on social issues. At least the war against women, war against immigrants and the anti-gay hysteria won't have a friend in Richmond's Executive Mansion any longer. McAuliffe won a narrow victory 47.9% to 45.5% (with Libertarian Robert Sarvis taking 6.6%). Democratic state Senator Ralph Northam beat far right lunatic E.W. Jackson to become Lieutenant Governor by about 11 points. Cuccinelli had never stopped claiming that the election was a referendum on ObamaCare but it was probably more a referendum on the GOP government shutdown and the Tea Party. Democrats also picked up 2 House seats in the legislature, a disappointment and, an even bigger disappointment very narrowly lost the Attorney General race. Mark Obenshain, a fringe nut is up 1,095,565 over Mark Herring at 1,094,787. There are still some absentees and a few votes to count in blue precincts. This should be argued over for a few days.

Tragically, professional Democrats abandoned their best candidate for anything-- New Jersey state Senator Barbara Buono-- in her quixotic run against political machine hack Chris Christie. New Jersey has definitely been going for entertainment and celebrity over substance lately. At least New Jersey voters passed the new minimum wage increase sy a substantial margin. And, as expected, Bill de Blasio became the first Democratic mayor of New York City in 2 decades, and by a landslide, something over 70% of the votes. The first big Democratic win tonight, though was in St. Petersburg, Florida where progressive Democrat Rick Kriseman beat Republican Bill Foster by 12 points. (Six months ago Foster led in the polls 49-12%.) St. Pete also elected a nicely progressive city council while they were at it. This is all great news for FL-13 Democratic special election candidate Alex Sink.

But it was Rachel Maddow, in her on-going coverage of the Republican Party civil war (above), who explained my favorite contest today. It was in, of all places, southwestern Alabama, including Mobile and the whole of Alabama's coast. It's a hopelessly red district with a PVI of R+15. Last year, President Obama scored 37% against Romney, his best result among Alabama's 6 white congressional districts, most of the state's African-Americans having been gerrymandered into one mostly black district (AL-07), which gave Obama a 73-27% victory against Romney. Back to AL-01; longtime incumbent, Jo Bonner, decided to retire. He had no general election opponent last time he ran for reelection-- nor the time before that and the time before that. A Boehner puppet, tea baggers have tried, unsuccessfully, to beat him in primaries, including teabagger Dean Young. This was their chance-- and Young's chance-- to win the seat. By there's no prize for almost.

Former Democrat and former state Senator Bradley Byrne was the Boehner/Cantor candidate and was endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and by Bonner. Byrne has raised close to $700,000, mostly in special interest money, and came in first in the crowded primary, with 34.57% of the vote to runner-up Dean Young's 22.95%. Like I said, Young is the Tea Party candidate and he's raised about a third of what Byrne did. Young wants to go to Washington to impeach President Obama, wage war against gays, immigrants and women and vote against Boehner for Speaker. The last poll before today showed him leading Byrne 43.2-40.2%. Young is batshitcrazy and described his supporters as "pitchfork people." Today the pitchfork people were overwhelmed by the city slickers in Mobile, who pushed the contest decisively in Byrne's direction, much to the relief of Boehner and Cantor. Until the Mobile precincts started coming in, Young was in the lead all night. With almost all precincts counted, Byrne had 52.5% to Young's 47.5%. The sigh of relief from the House Republican leadership could be heard coast-to-coast.

I'll update this post in the morning with final results, including how the northern Colorado secession movement fared and how the minimum wage vote in Washington went; it's currently ahead. Seattle did elect its first openly gay mayor, Ed Murray over progressive incumbent Mike McGinn. Here's the final, somewhat misleading Bradley Byrne ad:

UPDATES

In Virginia the attorney general’s race between state Senator Mark Herring (D) and GOP crackpot Mark Obenshain is still far from determined but as more votes come in, it keeps looking better. Technically, it's still a dead heat and will certainly go for a recount. Herring has a 541-vote lead over the psychopath with over 2.2 million ballots cast.

6 of the 11 counties asking their citizens about seceding from Colorado and trying to start a right-wing state voted yes. The only county with more people than cattle, Weld County, voted no, taking the steam out of the whole project. In Weld County, which had more voters against it than all the other counties combined had voting in both directions combined, it failed 57.1% to 42.8%. The worst county-- which Colorado should expel-- was Yuma, where 57 people voted to secede (81.4%). Yuma voted 77% for Romney last year and 84% for crackpot right-wing congressman, Cory Gardner.

Portland, Maine voters overwhelmingly approved Question 1 (70%), allowing for marijuana possession.

My pick for Election Night is Brahms, but I guess we ought to at least try to focus a little

Vice President Biden appears to be arguing forcefully that the pathetic homeless guy next to him shouldn't lose his food stamps. Oh wait, on closer examination the guy turns out to be Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. Well, if he's entitled to food stamps, he shouldn't lose them either, should he?

by Ken

I usually try to keep myself occupied on Election Night, since the likelihood is usually pretty strong that most of what happens is going to be upsetting. Tonight I've got the first couple of hours covered with a concert of the Brahms Second and Third Piano Quartets, music I love a lot, and if I take the bus (or rather buses) home that'll lop off another big chunk of time, and then . . . well, I was nodding off during this week's Boardwalk Empire episode, so I really should watch that again.

Nevertheless, it is Election Night, and I feel as if I ought to be contributing something electionesque. It's hard to get terribly worked up, even though there are important races and issues on many ballots. But most of those contests are pretty well decided. Still, I guess there will be people poring over the results, if only because they're genetically wired, or perhaps paid to do so, or (for the lucky few) both, and even I have a few results I'm curious about. But I think our best bet here in trying to care is to seek help from the pros.

For example, Washingtonpost.com's Sean Sullivan offers us "five biggest things to watch":

1. Will Virginia Democrats make history with a sweep?
2. The business vs. tea party showdown in Alabama.
3. Chris Christie’s margin of victory.
4. Detroit is poised to elect its first white mayor in four decades.
5. Ballot measures in Colorado, Washington state and New Jersey.

Some thoughts:

(1) I started out writing a lot about the Virginia governor's race, when it looked as if Virginia Republicans were going to hold their noses and vote for their current nutjob-slimebag attorney general, "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli. For a while the Cuckoo Man did make some modest efforts to try to sound vaguely sane, but his heart clearly wasn't in it (or maybe sounding vaguely sane just isn't within his range of capabilities), and despite the hideous awfulness of his Democratic opponent, Terry "The Bagman" McAuliffe, which you would think would have incentivized GOP voters to trudge to the polls and do what they had to, there were mounting signs of revulsion and outright revolt. Apparently you can push those folks only so far. And then the polls started to get away from Cuckoo Ken and his even nuttier running mate, E. W. Jackson (possibly the only candidate the party could have come up with who can make Cuckoo Ken look, if the light is really bad and you squint hard enough, almost sane).

The Virginia sweep of which Sean speaks would have not just Cuckoo Ken and even-cuckoo-er E.J. succumbing to their Democratic opponents, Terry the Bagman and State Sen. Ralph Northam, but also the race to succeed Cuckoo Ken as state AG going the Dems' way. This race is still up for grabs, and while the possibility is strong that large numbers of Virginia Republican and independent voters may simply sit this election out (and who could blame them?), I'm thinking that the very impossibility of the other GOP statewide candidates may actually win the race for Republican Mark Obenshain over Democrat Mark Herring. We're hearing a lot of talk about ticket-splitting on Obenshain's behalf, and I can't help thinking that there are a lot of Virginia Republicans desperate for someon they can vote for, and in 2013, Obenshain is about all there is.

It's true that a lot of Virginia Republicans may well sit this election out, and who could blame them? Large numbers of highly visible state Republicans have already made clear publicly that asking them to vote for Cuckoo Ken is simply asking too much. If I'm wrong, though, and Herring wins along with Terry the Bagman and Ralph Northam, "it will," says Sean, "mark the first Democratic statewide sweep in Virginia in 24 years and the first time in 44 years the party has controlled all five statewide offices." (He points out the both of the states U.S. senators are Democrats. They're pretty useless Democrats, even by the low standard set by Terry the Bagman, but presumably Harry Reid will vouch for their party affiliation.)

(2) The Alabama jamboree has a certain comic charm. It's Teabaggers vs. Economic Predators for the soul of the Republican Party, "the first big test pitting business vs. the tea party since the two sides found themselves on opposite sides in the government shutdown showdown."

The Chamber of Commerce has spent at least $199,000 to try to help Bradley Byrne win the Republican nomination in Alabama’s 1st district special election. Companies like Aflac, AT&T and Home Depot have given Byrne thousands more. Still, he’s no shoo-in to win the GOP runoff Tuesday. That’s because of Dean Young’s insurgent campaign. A controversial Christian conservative aligned with the tea party, Young has lacked resources and help from national Republican groups. But he’s tapped into a palpable anger with Washington in the Mobile-based district, and he just might spring an upset. If Byrne wins, it will embolden business-minded Republicans in other races on the map. If Young wins, it will be a big victory for tea party grass-roots activists. The GOP nominee is expected to cruise to victory in the Dec. 17 general election.

From where I sit, although you could view this clash of the titan-surrogates as win-win, since either way some horrible people will receive a well-deserved slap in the face, it seems to me more like lose-lose. After all, either way a notably horrible person will win, and the even more horrible people behind him will be celebrating.

(3) As for the NJ gov race, I find it hard to get wrapped up in "margin of victory" nailbiting -- too many factors go into determining it in a race that has been decided as long as this one has, which is to say from the get-go. We have a race kind of like this here in NYC, where Republican Joe Lhota is so far behind progressive Democrat Bill de Blasio that a potentially large number of potential de Blasio voters may simply have seen no reason to trouble themselves with voting. (The NYT's "Afternoon Update" e-mail included: "New York Sees Light Turnout After Lopsided Mayoral Polls.")

Hey, I wish as much as anyone that the reality were different with that big blowhard Chris Christie, but his political instincts at present look better than just about anybody's in the country, and you can hardly blame New Jersey voters for feeling more secure with him than with anything that comes out of the state's Democratic Party off its woeful performance these last four years. I don't mean that as a knock on the actual Dem candidate, Barbara Buono, who seems to me quite praiseworthy, but you can't call her a "good candidate" since not a soul in the state has any idea who she is, except the Democrat running against their trusted Fat Man.

In any case, we know the Fat Man is going to win big, and we know that he has to think about the 2016 presidential situation. But does anyone really believe that his margin of victory is going to make a major difference? (Unless it's, say, only 5 or 6 percent, but does anyone see that happening?) To scared-shitless Republicans, Governor Chris is already their hope of salvation; to the Republicans who control the presidential nomination, however, he will remain about as acceptable a candidate as Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.

(4) Sean clearly has a bug about the racial angle in Detroit, which featured prominently in the piece he directs us back to from August, before the mayoral primary, "5 Reaaons you should care about the Detroit mayor's race." Three of the reasons why we should care were: "2. A field of 16 (!)," "4. Duggan? Dugeon?" (a confusion, quite likely deliberate, between the names of two write-in candidates), and "5. This one could take a while," because of the need to produce usable totals for the write-in votes. Now these are all facts about the primary race, but it's hard to see how any of them are reasons why we should care.

The other two reasons why we should care were "1. Detroit’s bankruptcy" and "3. First white mayor since 1974?" The first is of course a huge deal, but Sean himself wrote, "The next mayor will be under under a statewide and even national spotlight, given the backdrop against they will enter office. And it remains to be seen what, if anything, they will be able to accomplish." Again, then, kind of hard to pinpoint our reason for caring. And as for why we should care about Detroit having its first white mayor since 1974, well, apparently that was thought to be self-evident, because all we were told about was the electoral challenges between former Detroit Medical Center CEO Mike Duggan and the state house. I'm not suggesting that race isn't part of Detroit's struggles, but I would have thought that those struggles are monumental enough that they don't need to be compounded with an automatic race angle.

(5) As to those ballot measures in Colorado, Washington state and New Jersey:

As our friends over at GovBeat noted Monday, voters in six states are weighing in Tuesday on initiatives and referenda. On the line in Colorado is a marijuana tax package and an income tax hike worth about $1 billion together. Two other notable measures: A amendment to the New Jersey state constitution to raise the minimum wage that is likely to pass, and a vote in Washington state over whether genetically modified food must be labeled.

Fair enough, but I won't be losing sleep over this. Tell me tomorrow how it all turned out.

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Do VA Dems grasp now why they needed a decent gubernatorial candidate to go up against "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli?

No, this isn't a recent photo. This is back in May that dreadful Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was smiling that, er, creepy smile.

by Ken

The last time I wrote derisively about the appalling Terry "The Bagman" McAuliffe as the best Virginia Democrats could come up with to succeed downward-spiraling Gov. Bob McDonnell, a commenter noted that McAuliffe in fact has a good chance of winning. Even if I believed that, my point would be, "So what?" Yes, better that he should be elected than the unspeakable right-wing-crazed Cuckoo Ken, but that's the only standard by which there's anything positive to say about Terry M. After all, principal, if not only, qualification for electoral politics is his experience shoving enormous sums of cash through the Democratic electoral pipes -- hence the nickname.

So to recap:

* The worst outcome of the race is that Cuckoo Ken becomes governor of Virginia.

* The second-worst outcome is that Terry the Bagman becomes governor.

I suppose I should be concentrating on figuring out the exact difference between the worst and second-worst outcomes, to try to figure out how much to care, or worry, about the outcome.

Only now, as you may have heard, Complications Have Arisen. It seems the Bagman is under investigation by the SEC. As the Washngton Post's Tom Hamburger rehashed it in a follow-up story, "McAuliffe says he didn’t know SEC was investigating his former company": "The documents [concerning the investigation into McAuliffe's former company, GreenTech Automotive] show that the SEC is examining the way in which the car company and a sister firm, Gulf Coast Funds Management, solicited the participation of foreign investors, mostly Chinese citizens seeking to enter the United States."

So what, you're asking, does the candidate have to say about the investigation story? Here's the opening of Tom Hamburger's report:

Terry McAuliffe, the Virginia gubernatorial candidate, issued a statement Saturday saying he had no prior knowledge of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of his former company, GreenTech Automotive — and he criticized a Republican senator who has focused on the firm.

The statement is the first formal comment directly from McAuliffe about the inquiry since The Washington Post learned of it last week while reviewing hundreds of documents obtained by congressional investigators.

Want more? Here's our Terry:

“I left GreenTech in early December of 2012 to focus full time on running for Governor,” McAuliffe said. “The first I learned of this investigation was earlier this week when the Washington Post reached out to my campaign.”

And then there's this. (What you need to know here: "GreenTech has sought overseas investors through the federal EB-5 Visa Program, which allows foreign nationals to enter the United States if they agree to invest at least $500,000 to create jobs." The program has had strong bipartisan support for two decades, but "in recent years, the SEC and other government agencies have stepped up oversight of the investment for visas plan.")

I find it unfortunate that a Republican Senator from Iowa -- who has a long history of support for the EB-5 program -- selectively released information for the purpose of partisan attacks instead of getting facts.

The senator from Iowa is Chuck Grassley, who mumbles about "whistleblowers," having suddenly become a great fan of whistleblowers, provided they're blowing the whistle on behalf of right-wing or right-wing-compatible crusades. You can read about the details for yourself.

Let me stress that I'm making no attempt to judge the rights and wrongs here. I'm just saying that Virginia Dems are stuck with a candidate whose principal professional credential is financial finagling. What on God's green earth did they expect this campaign to be like?

Meanwhile, Cuckoo Ken still has his wee gift-acceptance problem to swat down, but that's going to be a lot easier than it was before. What's more, Cuckoo Ken, a former prosecutor, is up on all sorts of state issues that I doubt the Bagman knows anything about. I take for granted that down the line Cuckoo Ken's take is cracked. But he may not sound so cracked, especially measured against an opponent who is being successfully made to look crooked.

As of today, I'm measuring that difference between the worst and second-worst election outcomes at 12. I don't know 12 what?. Just 12.

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