Next Tuesday Is The Special Election To Replace Tauscher In Northern California-- We Stand Behind Anthony Woods

There's a special election a week from today up in Northern California. The objective is to replace fiscally conservative Ellen Tauscher who has been drafted into the Obama Administration by her staunch ally Rahm Emanuel. (Poor Hillary!) Early in June DWT endorsed Anthony Woods but we've been mostly sitting back and watching the race from afar since then. I watched the a credible batch of endorsements roll in for Anthony, not career pols but grassroots organizations that have first hand knowledge of his work-- like VoteVets.org, Human Rights Campaign, Victory Fund, as well as the Bay Area Reporter, a weekly I used to write for, and the Veterans Press. He's clearly the grassroots candidate, although he's up against a batch of very seasoned pols, one of whom, John Garamendi, is clearly the Establishment choice and has the biggest name recognition. But look at the ActBlue fundraising page for the election. Anthony has more donors than the other five candidates-- combined. Over 1,700 donors have given him more than $175,000. Garamendi goes to more traditional sources of income, which is, after all, the very bedrock of everything-- and I mean everything-- that is wrong with American politics.

If you wonder how it's possible that in a democracy off sorts, over 70% of the people want a public option in the new health care legislation being debated now and the entire (100%) Republican Party opposes it, look no further than the billions of dollars being spent in thinly-disguised bribes to members of Congress by the Insurance Industry and the Medical-Industrial Complex. These bribe-takers should all be in prison-- Republicans and Democrats and we certainly shouldn't be electing new ones of that ilk. So are any of the Democrats running in CA-10 taking dirty money to run their campaigns? Glad you asked. And you're not the only one who's asked. The very first question at an August 6th debate in Solano County was about who's taken money from the crooked insurance companies. Take a look.

Nice answer from Joan Buchanan... although before she gave it she took $5K from vicious health reform opponent Wellpoint, $1500 from the teabagger-financing American Insurance Association (AIA), and $5K from Anesthesia Service Medical Group. In the days since, she’s accepted another $5K from the AMA, $5K from the California Dental Association, and $1,000 from the Financial Services Roundtable. So she's not even in Congress and she's lying her ass off already. As for the claim she's gotten all her money from individual donors. That includes one really big donor-- herself, to the tune of $750,000 so far. She running, simultaneously, for the state Assembly and she's also been taking money from Merck and other bad players in the health care reform debate.

For all his show of how "the insurance companies don't like me," Garamendi has received PAC contributions from Pacific Life Insurance Company. Maybe he didn't notice the middle two words in the donation. That might not be Garamenddi's biggest weakness though. For one thing, he and the 2 other Sacramento career pols are running for 7 offices between them... simultaneously! That isn't just weird, it's unethical and very shady. The 3 of them "hold California public offices and continued to raise and spend money from their state campaign accounts after they declared themselves federal candidates."

While not illegal, the practice raises questions among watchdog organizations who say multiple campaign funds allow candidates to bolster their war chests while sidestepping the more stringent federal contribution limits.

Citizens may contribute up to $2,400 per election to a federal candidate compared with $3,600 to a state Senate or Assembly candidate or $6,000 to an individual seeking statewide office.

A Bay Area News Group analysis of the latest campaign finance reports of the three congressional candidates who had both state and federal accounts found that Lt. Gov. John Garamendi raised $20,140 for his gubernatorial and lieutenant governor's re-election bids following his April 22 entry into the congressional race.

The analysis fails to reveal, however, how much of Garamendi's combined expenses of $662,712 in his two state accounts in the first six months of 2009 were made after he became a congressional candidate.

The state does not require, and Garamendi's campaign did not report, the disclosure of the dates of expenditures. Reports of state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, include the data.

But if Garamendi loses by one vote, it's because he wasn't able to vote for himself, since he doesn't live in the district. (He lives in Dan Lungren's district but was afraid to go up against him, even though Lungren is certifiably insane.)

Meet Anthony Woods, Progressive Candidate For Congress In The Bay Area Special Election

I want to introduce you to Anthony Woods, a progressive young Democrat running to replace Ellen Tauscher in a congressional district northeast of San Francisco (CA-10), a district that has been trending decidedly Democratic (Gore won with 55%, Kerry with 56% and Obama with 65%). Anthony is one of the less likely candidates we've visited with-- and one of the most remarkable. Born on Travis Airforce Base near Fairfield, the biggest city in the district, Anthony-- raised by a single mom working as a housekeeper-- earned a congressional appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He signed up to lead a platoon in Iraq-- twice-- and earned a bronze star and then earned a Masters Degree from Harvard. He gained national fame when he discharged from the military for standing up for equality and telling his commanding officer that he is gay, a violation of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Currently he works as an economic policy advisor. He anything but a professional politician and the primary in CA-10 is swarming with them.

I liked the idea of his upstart candidacy and got him on the phone a few times over the last couple of months after I read a great interview with him at Calitics by David Dayen. He sounds like a real breath of fresh air who could help bring a new dynamic to Congress the way Donna Edwards and Alan Grayson have. I'd say one of the biggest motivating factors in his decision to run has to do with the fact that he grew up without health insurance and a desire to change that for the country. "I bore the brunt," he told me, "of a lot of the failed policy solutions we already have. I think it's time we start sending some people to Congress who have experienced these things and can bring a very, very different perspective to the debate."

I believe wholeheartedly in Obama's message of change. I worked pretty dang hard to help get him elected. I would love to go to Washington to help bring about that change. One of the things we're realizing is we've got a person, in Obama, who's going to do some very different things there but Congress hasn't changed. We keep sending the exact same types of politicians there and that's what he's up against.

I asked Anthony how he would have voted on the Supplemental Budget. He started by reminding me that when it was first voted on, on May 14th, it was basically just funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and that he didn't like the "Bush era tactic-- to use supplementals... The Bush Administration used them as a way of hiding the cost of these wars and convince people it wasn't really impacting the budget. I wouldn't vote on any supplemental funding bill that doesn't include a very clear timetable, specifically for what we're doing in Afghanistan. I want to see that we're going to set some clear, measurable goals and define the strategy that makes sense and proves we're doing the planning to be successful there... If there is no timetable with a clear end date, that to me is not supporting our troops." He says he would have voted "no" on May 14 and he says he was very disappointed to see Democrats using the "support our troops" line when they were rounding up votes last week.

I asked Anthony if he has the intestinal fortitude to stand up to someone like Rahm Emanuel, working for a president he supported and admires, who went to extraordinary lengths to "persuade" reluctant Democrats to support the larded up Supplemental last week. His answer is what helped clinch my support for his candidacy. "I think it's time we start sending people to Congress who have actually had first hand experience dealing with some of these failed policies. I'd have no problem in saying, 'Look, Administration, I've actually been in Iraq. I understand what it's like to be on the ground and be involved in a war with no clear end date and no clear strategy.' I don't think that line of attack [I had mentioned Emanuel's arm twisting, bribes and threats to him] like that would work on a person like me. I have friends who are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. How could I vote in a way that is going to endanger the classmates who I went to West Point with and the soldiers they're leading? What's important is the impact on real soldiers, not on the potential of losing some Stimulus funding or a pet project. That's not how we're supposed to be crafting solutions."

Please join us at the Firedoglake comments section (from 11am- 1pm, PT) and let's find out some more about Anthony. But watch the video first.