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.”

Who Thinks Congress' Function Is To Write Señor Trumpanzee A Series Of Blank Checks?

Monday morning, NPR and Marist released a new poll that looked into some questions beyond just Señor Trumpanzee's cascading disapproval numbers. For example, 61% of voters don't trust the Trumpanzee Regime, 68% don't trust the Republican-led Congress and a full 70% say that since Trumoanzee somehow managed to get into the White House, "the overall tone and level of civility in Washington between Republicans and Democrats has gotten worse." Now you know.

A new week begins! Let's look at two responses to the Regime's and Congress' determination-- some believe suicidal determination-- to strip over 20 million Americans of healthcare so they can give billions of dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. First from a "respected" Republican senator, Trump-critic and GOP agenda supporter Ben Sasse of Nebraska and then one of the hack Fox News commentators, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery (or, if you used to listen to Nirvana and Depeche Mode on KROQ back in the day, just... Kennedy). Sunday, Sasse was on CNN's State of the Union. He's the guy who seems to have persuaded Trumpanzee to do an about face on his insistence for "repeal and replace" and go back to the original GOP plan of just "repeal" and see what can be done sometime down the road in never-never land. Sounds like a real right-wing jackass, right? He is-- always has been too. BUT... Sasse is known nationally, thanks to our media geniuses, for serially being offending by Trump's manners and speaking out against his crudeness, even as he pushes Trump's murderous agenda forward on every front.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said Sunday that he is troubled by President Donald Trump's latest attacks on the news media because he is concerned about the danger of "weaponizing distrust," which can harm the freedoms that define a democracy.

"There's an important distinction to draw between bad stories or crappy coverage and the right that citizens have to argue about that and complain about that and trying to weaponize distrust," Sasse said in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union. "The First Amendment is the beating heart of the American experiment, and you don't get to separate the freedoms that are in there."

The Republican freshman senator's remarks come after Trump spent the past week relentlessly attacking the news media-- including CNN, MSNBC, CBS and the Washington Post-- in a barrage of tweets and at event honoring veterans Saturday night at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

"The fake media is trying to silence us, but we will not let them," Trump said, without offering any evidence that journalists-- who cover every public remark made by the President-- have attempted to silence him.

"The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House," Trump said. "But I'm President and they're not."

Sasse added that while "(t)here are a whole bunch of particular journalists who should be called out for particular stories that aren't good enough," it is "not helpful to call the press the enemy of the American people"-- a direct reference to language used by the President to describe journalists.

Trump has referred to the media as "the enemy of the people" several times since taking office, telling the annual Conservative Political Action Conference last winter, "A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are-- they are the enemy of the people."

Trump used the same language in February, tweeting, "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!"

Sasse said that while he agrees with Trump "that there's a lot of crappy journalism out there," if Americans are not open to hearing differing views, it's "going to be possible for people to surround themselves only with echo chambers and silos of people that already believe, only believe what they believe."

"We differ about really big and important things in this country and then we come together around the First Amendment, which is an affirmation of the fact that people are free before government," he added. "I mean, this is the Fourth of July weekend. The Declaration of Independence is pretty dang clear about this-- that we think government is just our shared tool to secure those rights."

The morally outraged and sagacious Señor Sasse has a ZERO ProgressivePunch crucial vote score for the entire 6 months since Trump got into the White House. He hasn't voted against a single Trump nominee nor has he been at variance with a single Trump initiative. (Like Sasse, most Senate Republicans just serve as rubber stamps for every single thing Trump wants. Only 16 Republicans have voted at least once-- and most of them, only once-- against something-- anything-- Trump-related.)

I don't know where Fox News is on my TV-- and I haven't heard Kennedy's voice since she was a KROQ dj but Think Progress reported a couple days ago that she was on-air excusing her party's decision to take healthcare away from over 20 million Americans-- thinning the herd-- as "progressive hysteria" that didn't really matter since "we're all," in her very, very, very GOP words, "going to die" anyway. "We’re all going to die. And they can’t predict--  there’s no way unless they are absolutely psychic and have a party line to heaven, they don’t know who’s going to die or when or how many people." Fox is so amazing. There wouldn't be a Trump-- couldn't be a Trump-- without it. Thanks, Bill Clinton for giving that to America, your most enduring legacy. How'd that deal work out for you?

Unless you live in the Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Virginia Beach area, you probably never heard of Scott Taylor, another hapless Paul Ryan rubber stamp and unaccomplished backbencher, basically a waste of a congressional seat in a district Obama won twice but that the DCCC just keeps botching up. Last year Hillary lost to Trump there 48.8-45.4%. Taylor is a freshman, who last year defeated Democrat Shaun Brown, 61.3% to 38.5% in what everyone would agree is a swing district. Why that big disparity? Was it the DCCC's fault? Yeah. Brown raised $27,892 to Taylor's $839,485 for the open seat race. The DCCC spent zero on her race, hating her because she's a strong advocate of progressive policies and, worse in their eyes, a former Bernie delegate. It looks like she'll be running against Taylor again this year. Yesterday Taylor, who has voted in lockstep with Trump 100% of the time, was on CNN. When Alisyn Camerota asked him about Trump, his response was "I did not come on here to defend the president." No he's out on the media circuit to help push the idea that loyal Republicans have to give Trump a blank check... on everything. His vote score is ZERO, rare in a swing district. His ProgressivePunch voting record summary is pretty breathtaking:

Who thinks we need a more competent, better-led DCCC?

If Peace Is A Paramount Issue To You, Could You Find Yourself Voting For Republicans In Some Races?

Not afraid to speak truth to power

Igor Volsky and Judd Legum of Think Progress are trying to keep track of who's for bombing Syria and who's opposing it in Congress. And while they're getting a few specifics wrong here and there, theirs is one of the better "whip counts" available to the public right now. "Republicans," they pointed out, "were far more likely to oppose military action in Syria, while Democrats were more likely to support it. The numbers are a contrast to 2002, when Democrats in the House provided 'the bulk of the opposition' to President George W. Bush’s Iraq war resolution... Only six House Republicans voted against the Iraq war in 2002."

As we've pointed out, in 2002 a clear and unambiguous majority of House Democrats (126-81) followed Pelosi to vote against the Iraq War, although many top Democratic leaders, from Dick Gephardt and Steny Hoyer to Steve Israel and Joe Crowley, were very much part of Bush's War Party (which also included tools like Jane Harman, Al Wynn, Tim Holden, Ron Kind, Adam Schiff, Harold Ford, Adam Smith, Eliot Engel, Jim Matheson, most of whom are shrill pro-war voices again today). Soon after the war vote, House Democrats picked Pelosi to replace Gephardt, conspicuously ignoring Steny Hoyer's bid for leadership. Today, with Pelosi on the verge of retirement and already announcing she doesn't want to be Speaker again, House Democrats need to once again realign their leadership with the values of the party's grassroots. ALL the current leaders favor starting a war in Syria.

This could be a catastrophe for Democrats in the midterms if anti-war Republicans face off against pro-war Democrats. Last year a conservative shithead, Steve Pestka (D), was defeated by anti-war stalwart Justin Amash (R) in Michigan's 3rd district (Grand Rapids/Battle Creek), 53-44%. In 2008 Obama had beaten McCain in that traditionally Republican district 50-49%. Amash won 4 of the district's 5 counties, including massive Kent County. A Republican-leaning swing district, MI-03 is never going to vote for a Republican-lite Democrat like Pestka against Amash. But Republican-lite Democrats like Pestka are the only kind of Democrats that DCCC chairman Steve Israel recruits.

New Jersey is an overwhelmingly blue state and no one think right-wing Republican Steve Lonegan has any chance in the Senate race over Cory Booker, a Wall Street-backed conservative celebrity running as a Democrat. Booker, the Paris Hilton of New Jersey politics, has been confused and indecisive on going to war in Syria. First he was against it and almost immediately he changed his mind and was then for it-- or at least for letting President Obama do whatever he wants. New Jersey's senior Senator, Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is as much a reflexive warmonger as McCain and Graham, even if he keeps it quieter than they do.

Booker remained noncommittal as to whether he supports or opposes military intervention, and did not say how he would vote on the issue as senator, unlike his Republican rival Steve Lonegan, who said Saturday afternoon in a statement that he would cast a vote against the measure.

And that brings us to Rand Paul, the leader of the anti-war Republicans in the Senate. He announced this week that he will be bringing real star power to New Jersey by campaigning for Lonegan. Booker has a massive 28 point lead over Lonegan, who the media has managed to paint as a joke candidate. No one thinks Rand Paul could change the dynamic so drastically that Booker could lose. But what if anti-war Republicans like Paul and Amash start campaigning for Republicans in much tighter races where anti-war Republicans are facing pro-war Democrats, like, for example, in VA-02, where Scott Rigell faces a conservative militarist Steve Israel dug up, Suzanne Patrick? This could be a very interesting new dynamic-- both inside Congress and among American voters. Could on DWT to report on it while other sources are still scratching their heads.

Steve Israel Is Serving Up Some Very Unappetizing Mystery Meat

Wikipedia defines "mystery meat" as "a disparaging term for meat products, typically ground or otherwise processed, such as chicken nuggets, Spam, Salisbury steaks, sausages, or hot dogs, that have an unidentifiable source. Most often the term is used in reference to food served in institutional cafeterias, such as prison food or an American public school lunch." They suggest also looking up Pink Slime. I'd suggest also looking up Steve Israel, the congressman from Princesses: Long Island, who, unfortunately for the Democrats, was reappointed chairman of the DCCC by Nancy Pelosi after she had already decided she didn't want to be Speaker again. With Israel in charge of electing Democrats, Pelosi will never have a problem with that wish coming true.

The DCCC has long urged its candidates to obscure policy differences with Republicans by, among other things, not taking public stands on important issues, especially not on campaign websites. You can always tell a DCCC candidate's website because there will never been anything of substance on it. Israel has taken this even further, recruiting candidates with no records. So instead of looking for outstanding state legislators, for example, who have made valuable contributions by their work on the state level, Israel prefers shadowy "businessmen" on whom nothing can be pinned. Best of all, of course, is when he's able to recruit a Republican to run as a Democrat. It gives him goosebumps.

Israel's latest ugly duckling candidate is Suzanne Patrick who appears to be a former Republican and is now running against mainstream conservative Scott Rigell in Virginia's second congressional district, a district Obama won both against McCain and Romney. Although last year's DCCC candidate, Paul Hirschbiel, managed to win, albeit narrowly, in 3 counties, Hampton, Norfolk and Northampton, Rigell crushed him in massive Virginia Beach as well as in Newport News, and sealed his reelection.

In 2008 Glenn Nye ousted GOP incumbent Thelma Drake, 52-48%, winning all 5 counties. Unfortunately he turned out to be a Blue Dog who voted with the GOP on crucial issues and Democrats were not incentivized to turn out in 2010-- so they didn't and Nye lost to Rigell. So now Steve Israel thinks another conservative Democrat, who will disappoint much of the base, is the way to go.

Patrick isn't saying much about where she stands on anything so far. Her website brags about how she worked for Ronald Reagan and the George W. Bush, who appointed her a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for industrial policy. The only thing she's told the press about herself so far is that she's not a progressive and that she opposes military cuts. The only political contribution that I could track down that she's ever made was $500 in 2011 to Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. She's not going to beat Rigell but I'm certain that in Israel's fevered mind if she did, she'd be exactly like another "ex"-Republican he managed to help get elected-- Patrick Murphy-- who has voted with Boehner and Cantor on crucial role calls more than almost any other Democratic freshman.

Compare Suzanne Patrick's contentless website with the website of Blue America's newest candidate, Paul Clements, who has the kind of "issues page" that makes Steve Israel sad. Paul's page goes into where the candidate stands on 9 issues voters in Michigan care about: the environment, education, health care, manufacturing, technology, foreign policy, preserving our democracy and banks. Banks was his last topic. What he had to say is nothing like anything you will ever hear from any Steve Israel mystery meat candidates. But isn't it what voters need to hear in order to make an informed choice? Paul:

"In the economic crisis of 2008 American taxpayers bailed out several failing banks because they were too big to fail. If they had failed, the recession could have turned into a second Great Depression. But in saving the economy we taught the banks that they need not suffer the consequences of bad decisions. The federal government, however, did not learn its lesson. Today once again we have several banks too big to fail, partly because of the banks’ influence on Congress and the administration. At the same time, many community banks are struggling to stay afloat. In our democracy, banks and other large corporations sometimes tilt the economic playing field by helping to write its rules, but for our economy and democracy we need vibrant small businesses. We should have no bank too big to fail, and we should adjust banking regulations and lending rules to support community banks."

That's why we need more candidates like Paul Clements and fewer like Suzanne Patrick. You can help Paul and the other grassroots candidates Blue America is supporting here. Or you can sit back and watch Steve Israel and his mystery meat candidates lay the House Democrats low again like he did last year while Obama and the Senate Democrats racked up much, much more difficult victories.

Republican: Kyrsten Sinema "Participated In Pagan Rituals, Singing And Spiraling"

Reactionary Arizona New Dem, Kyrsten Sinema is one of the half dozen most conservative Democrats in Congress. Her voting record on crucial roll calls is worse than even Blue Dogs Mike McIntyre's and Jim Matheson's, who both represent deep red districts (unlike her own). She votes more frequently with the GOP than even fellow Arizona ConservaDems Ann Kirkpatrick and Ron Barber. Unquestionably, she deserves to lose her seat next year. But, instead of attacking her as a Wall Street shill undermining the best interests of her constituents, her crazy extremist opponent, well-known neo-Nazi sociopath Vernon Parker, is running an ad (above) against her that calls her a "radical left wing activist."

That was a guise she once wore to woo progressive voters-- a guise she's long discarded. If Parker wants to win, he'd be better off running ads that describe what a lousy congresswoman Sinema has been and how her agenda is antithetical to the interests of working families in Arizona's 9th CD. Of course, since he's even worse than her on every single issue, that could be tough for him. So I guess he's sticking to the ridiculous hippie-dancing accusations.

The DCCC seems to have found another useless conservative shill like Sinema-- after all, that's what DCCC chairman Steve Israel specializes in-- to run against vulnerable Republican Scott Rigell in Virginia's 2nd district. The PVI is a winnable R+2 and Obama won against both McCain and Romney there. Rigell is a mainstream conservative, not a teabagger and he beat the Democratic incumbent, conservative Blue Dog Glenn Nye as part of the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010. Nye's right-leaning record kept Democratic voters at home, allowing Rigell to win. So, of course, the DCCC found another right-leaning Democrat-- if she even is a Democrat at all-- Suzanne Patrick, to run for the seat next year. Patrick was appointed Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for industrial policy by George W. Bush. Karl Rove went over all those appointments and.. well, he didn't specialize in allowing Democrats into the Administration. She's calling herself a "centrist Democrat" which is how people say "right-wing conservative Democrat who will vote with the GOP on most important issues."

I think we can be sure that at least Patrick has never participated in any pagan rituals, spiraled or sung (outside of church). Like any DCCC recruit, her website says nothing about any contentious issues. In the first paragraph of her announcement she touts her employment by Reagan and Bush but says nothing about being a Democrat and never mentions a single Democratic value or principle. The only political contribution she's ever made was $500 to Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman in 2011. She isn't offering anything that Rigell isn't already offering... so she will lose and the DCCC will flush a load of money down the toilet in the process. Steve Israel is the worst catastrophe that has ever befallen the DCCC. Until he is removed, the Democrats will continue with a strategy that fails and fails and fails.

Republican Party Recruitment Disaster In Virginia

Glenn Nye, much safer with a fourth rate GOP opponent

The GOP had high hopes that state Senator Ken Stolle would challenge Blue Dog freshman Glenn Nye for his Norfolk, VA-based congressional seat. Nye beat freshman right-winger Thelma Drake soon after Drake took over for another Republican wingnut, Ed Schrock, a viciously anti-gay sociopath who was caught soliciting young men on a phone sex line in 2004. But Stolle analyzed the situation and told the NRCC "thanks but no thanks," sticking them with a wealthy 4th rate used car salesman, Scott Rigell, who is widely viewed as having no realistic chance to win the seat, even though he plans to waste a tremendous amount of money trying.

Although the local GOP establishment, led by Drake, to whom Rigell, has donated enormous sums of money, are behind him, he'll have to get by a motley array of 4th and 5th tier candidates for the Republican nomination before facing Nye. A bunch of retired military vets-- Chuck Smith, Bert Mizusawa, Ben Loyola and Ed Maulbeck-- are probable entrants and a Virginia Beach Republican Party operative, Kenny Golden, also wants to run.

Rigell had been a major financial supporter of Ed Schrock's but he's widely viewed as a sleazy opportunist who spread his money around to anyone he thought might help him. Last year he gave to Mitt Romney, John McCain and Barack Obama. The local party just wants the cash and they know there's no realistic shot at defeating Nye anyway. Candidate Chuck Smith, who is being opposed by most local Republican Party officials because of his race, has a good analysis of the likely outcome of a GOP bloodletting in VA-02:



Another Republican Party Recruitment Disaster In The Making-- Illinois

D-Day has the story about how the reactionaries in the Illinois congressional delegation denied mainstream conservative Mark Kirk their backing, throwing the nomination to unelectable wingnut Andy McKenna.