Big Election In Nebraska Tuesday

Many outsiders tend to think of Nebraska as another hopeless red ink state. But it's not. The Omaha-based 2nd district is a nice normal all-American swing district. In 2012 Obama won narrowly; in 2012 Romney won narrowly and in 2016 Trump beat Hillary 48.2 to 46.0%. The PVI is R+4. The current congressman is Republican Don Bacon, who beat Blue Dog Democrat (an "ex"-Republican himself) Brad Ashford, in 2016. Ashford was unable to motivate the Democratic base, primarily because he tended to vote with the Republicans most of the time. Bacon beat him 141,066 (48.9%) to 137,602 (47.7%). Ashford spent $2,515,416 on the race to Bacon's $1,576,183. The DCCC wasted $2,688,673 and Pelosi's PAC spent another $741,041 on Ashford while the NRCC spent $2,773,264 for Bacon while Ryan's PAC kicked in another $1,243,330.

This coming Tuesday (May 15) is primary day and the DCCC and the Blue Dogs and New Dems are all pushing heavily for Ashford again. As of the April 25 reporting deadline he had spent $397,194 while the progressive he's running against, Kara Eastman, had spent $284,880. Blue America endorsed Kara, as have Climate Hawks Vote, the Working Families Party, the PCCC, Justice Democrats and VoteProChoice. The rotgut insider hellhole, EMILY's List, making nice with the DCCC, has refused to endorse her. By the way, it's totally crunch time for Kara's grassroots campaign now-- which will win or lose based on their field operation in 4 days. If you want to help out, just click on the 2018 ActBlue congressional thermometer on the right.

This week, reporting for Rewire News, Ally Boguhn wrote about how the DCCC is screwing up the race by pushing for the proven reactionary Blue Dog against Kara. She told Boguhn that "What we continuously hear in the district is, 'Oh, it takes either a Republican to be in the seat or a conservative Democrat.' So we run conservative Democrats and they lose. What we need right now and what is exciting the base is a real Democrat." She was discussing Omaha but it's true from coast to coast-- and the corrupt conservatives who run the DCCC don't want to hear it.

Eastman said her campaign has knocked on more than 40,000 doors and is listening to voters about the issues they care about. Those include, she said, health care, education, and the environment.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the arm of the party that works to elect members to the U.S. House of Representatives, has lined up behind her primary rival, Brad Ashford-- a former Republican, state legislator, and U.S. congressperson-- adding him to their high-profile “red to blue” campaign.

That support comes despite Ashford’s record on reproductive rights. Ashford has claimed he has “always & will continue to support women’s right to choose.” But while in the state legislature he voted in favor of bills that would have restricted access to abortion care based on false premises including a 20-week abortion ban, which was signed into law. Speaking at that time on the state house floor, Ashford reportedly falsely claimed that “the line is 20 weeks” for abortion because “there is no question that there is fetal pain.” This is a myth parroted by conservatives to advocate for later abortion bans, despite the fact that medical experts agree a fetus cannot feel pain until later in pregnancy.

Ashford voted for a so-called informed consent measure later signed into law; it’s an unnecessary legislative intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship that forces doctors to offer an ultrasound to patients seeking abortion care. That bill was co-sponsored by Heath Mello, a Democrat who last spring sparked debate within the Democratic Party about its values when news broke that a high-ranking member of the Democratic National Committee would speak alongside him at a rally despite Mello’s anti-choice record in the state legislature. Weeks later, Mello lost his mayoral bid and suggested the controversy was at least partly responsible for his loss. Omaha, where Mello hoped to win office, is a part of Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District.

Ashford was later elected to U.S. Congress, representing the same district he is running for now, before being unseated by now-incumbent Rep. Don Bacon (R). During his time in the U.S. House of Representatives, Ashford voted against anti-choice legislation, earning him a 100 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America in a 2015 legislative scorecard.

Though his website doesn’t include a section on his platform, Ashford has suggested that he “doesn’t think a single-payer system is politically feasible, but he does support some changes such as allowing those 50 and older to buy into Medicare,” according to the Omaha World-Herald. During a recent debate, he reportedly elaborated on his position, saying that he instead supports repairing the Affordable Care Act.

Ashford’s campaign did not respond to requests for an interview.

DCCC Chairperson Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) has maintained that abortion rights would not be used as a litmus test for candidates receiving its help.

Eastman told Rewire.News she was “surprised” when the DCCC got involved in the race. “I had been talking to them as well and they had told me that they would not be getting involved,” she said. “But the party doesn’t choose the candidate, the voters do.”

...“What we’re finding is that voters are engaged and excited,” Eastman continued. “And this is absolutely winnable, but we have to be speaking about the values of the people of the district and actually be willing to go out and talk, and more importantly listen to the voters.”

Kara Beat The Conservative In The Primary-- Now It's On To The Conservative In The General

Last Tuesday, one of the biggest victories for progressives was Kara Eastman's win in the Nebraska Democratic primary. She beat Blue Dog and DCCC endorsee Brad Ashford 20,239 (51.43%) to 19,113 (48.57%). It was another case of local Democrats slapping down the DCCC for their pig-headed interference in a local primary, where they tried to tell a district that voted for Bernie in 2016 that they needed to nominate a proven reactionary and an "ex"-Republican instead of a woman running on many of the same issues that made Bernie so attractive to the local Democrats.

As of the April 25 FEC filing deadline, Ashford had raised, with the help of the DCCC, $558,946 and spent $397,194, while Kara had raised $355,887 and spent $284,880. Ashford was endorsed by anyone the DCCC could round up from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, not just the Blue Dogs but the New Dems, Gabby Giffords, the labor unions that do whatever the DCCC tells them to and, of course ambitious Blue Dog/New Dem Adam Schiff, who has been traveling around the country using his new-found celebrity to help right-of-center candidates like himself beat progressive candidates like Kara. 

Kara had the support of Blue America and of other progressive forces independent of the Democratic Party establishment, from the Nebraska Unity PAC and Nebraska Grassroots Progressives and the Working Families Party to Climate Hawks Vote, the PCCC, VoteProChoice, local independent-minded uinions like the Plasterers and Cement Masons, the Insulators and the Sheet Metal Air Rail and Transportation union, as well as local political leaders like state Senators Tony Vargas and Justin Wayne and Omaha City Council president Ben Gray.

As soon as Kara's victory over Ashford was official, the DCCC removed him from their Red-to-Blue page. But instead of replacing him with Kara, they took NE-02 entirely off their radar. One of the country's most flippable districts, suddenly no longer existed! What happened to Pelosi's spiel about unity? Is it only the unity of progressives backing successful conservative Democrats but not unity when progressives win? Is that unity? And what happened to Pelosi's spiel about how we all win when women win? Instead we hear Pelosi thundering about how the DCCC won't help party nominees unless the conservative establishment backed them.

The DCCC candidate was Brad Ashford who, as a Republican state Senator in 1994, had run for the congressional seat in the Republican primary and was defeated. Eventually he decided to run for Congress again, this time as a fake Democrat. More recently, Ashford, the most right-wing Blue Dog in Congress for his one miserable term, served as a Hillary super-delegate to the Democratic National Convention, despite his district having gone for Bernie. In the primary his website had no issues page because he knew the voters would never back him on the issues. After he lost a debate with Kara, he canceled all debates. An anti-healthcare Blue Dog, he didn't want to be compared with Kara who was running on Medicare-for-all. "It’s time for our country to acknowledge that quality healthcare and access to health insurance is an American right," her website states clearly. "Families deserve to be able to get the medical treatment and medications they need, when they need them, without breaking the bank. We must ensure that no mother ever weighs the costs before taking her children to the emergency room when they are in the need of immediate care. No father should ever forgo life-saving medication because he is afraid of being unable to pay the medical bills. No family should ever need to claim bankruptcy because they had the audacity to live after an accident or illness. Our country should move toward the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act. We need to force big business and the pharmaceutical industry to offer more competitive prices."

When we endorsed her campaign last February, she told us that "over the last decade, Nebraska’s second Congressional district is one of the two most competitive in the nation. So why can’t Democrats consistently win here? They don’t ignite the base, and they don’t go out and talk to voters. I'm the first serious progressive candidate to run in Nebraska’s second district. I’m pro-choice, I support common-sense gun safety regulation, I’m passionate about health and environmental protection, and I’ve opposed the Keystone XL pipeline. I will fight for a Medicare for All system because healthcare is a right. I also will fight for debt-free education, because I’m tired of seeing students, even at Metro Community College where I serve on the Board of Governors, drowning in student loans. The U.S. has to compete in a global market by investing in green and healthy housing. Climate change is the number one moral and national security threat to our children, and we need to address it now."

Now Kara needs our help to beat a tougher candidate in November, Republican incumbent Don Bacon, a Trump rubber stamp very much out of touch with voters in the Omaha Metro. With the DCCC already signaling they'd rather let Bacon stay in his seat then help a progressive win it, Kara is going to need our help more than ever. She's a fighter and winner. Please contribute what you can by clicking on the Blue America 2018 congressional thermometer above.

Whose Side Is The DCCC On? Bustos Moves Against Progressive Candidates Kara Eastman, Dana Balter And Mike Siegel

All My Sons And Daughters by Alejandro Cartagina

Rachel Cohen and Ryan Grim have been keeping an eye on reactionary anti-democracy Blue Dog— and DCCC chair— Cheri Bustos. Bustos is working overtime to disadvantage the progressive movement… but not effective pushback from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which didn’t even bother to run a candidate against her when she moved— successfully— to grab the DCCC chair. She is already proving herself the worst DCCC chair in modern history and has turned herself into the most hated Democrat among party activists, something that took Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rahm Emanuel many years to accomplish when they held that title. The Republicans aren’t running anyone against her— why should they? She votes very conservatively and having someone as incompetent as she is head up the DCCC is a dream come true for them. The 50 seats the Democrats could take in 2020 will likely turn into a couple of dozen— at best— under Bustos’ guidance. (Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but Bustos isn’t running anyone against her Republican counterpart, Tom Emmer (R-MN), the incompetent head of the NRCC.

The Grim and Cohen post at The Intercept yesterday, shows, politely, how Bustos is working to doing whatever she can to undermine the efforts of progressives who have built two-cycle campaigns to win districts with Republican incumbents. Bustos’ targets are Kara Eastman (NE), Dana Balter (NY) and Mike Siegel (TX). Before we get into it, please take a look at these three results:

Grim and Cohen, apparently hoping to maintain a cordial, professional relationship with Bustos and the DCCC call their sabotage of the 3 candidates, “a hands-off approach.” They make the point that the DCCC’s refusal to spend money on the 3 progressives who Bustos hates on ideological grounds— she vehemently and savagely opposes everything they’re running own— is a departure from DCCC policies in the past. After several candidates lost races that the DCCC didn’t think were winnable, the committee then backed them when they tried again and they won the second time. They use Larry Kissell (NC) and Dan Maffei (NY) as the examples. Maybe Cohen and Grim should have mentioned that Kissell was a Blue Dog and Maffei a New Dem… and neither ever likely to support anything more progressive than the kind of pablum Pelosi and Hoyer tend to push.

Last year, the DCCC wanted a Blue Dog, creepy-crawly already rejected Brad Ashford, for the Omaha seat, but Kara beat him in the primary. So the DCCC did whatever they could to make sure she lost, primarily by telling institutional contributors not to donate to her campaign against Republican Don Bacon. Balter had a similar situation after she beat the DCCC recruit in a primary. They basically just gave up on a very winnable district (with a D+3 PVI, that Obama won twice and where even Hillary managed to beat Trump (49% to 45%). Down in Texas, it ws a somewhat different situation. They refused to back Siegel because they said the district was “too red” and as he made significant headway, instead of helping him, they told unions not to waste their money on him. Like I said, the NRCC isn;’t running anyone against Bustos. There’s no way the DCCC could find them anyone worse. One more thing: that thermometer on the right is so you can contribute to progressive running for Congress, in this case, progressives who have to contend not just with Republicans, but with a hostile and rotten-to-the-core Cheri Bustos and her vile DCCC.

In 2018, the DCCC… deemed a handful of races unwinnable, yet the candidates nearly won anyway. In Omaha, Nebraska, the party walked away from Kara Eastman, but she came within 2 percentage points of flipping that House seat. Again in Syracuse, the DCCC wrote off Dana Balter, spending just $300,000, but she fell just 5 percentage points short on Election Day. In Texas’ 10th district, Mike Siegel ran an aggressive race against Michael McCaul, the Republican currently serving in Tom DeLay’s former seat. The national party didn’t have the race on its radar, but Siegel, who put together a strong grassroots network and ran as an outspoken progressive, gave McCaul a scare, losing by a margin of 4 percentage points.

Unlike in 2008, the last presidential cycle to follow a Blue Wave, the DCCC seems to have little interest in 2020 in revisiting its assessment of candidates who fell just short. In Texas, the DCCC is courting a corporate lawyer with big-money backing to challenge Siegel in a primary. In Omaha, Eastman is running again, but the DCCC, whose recruit lost to her in 2018, has its eye on several other potential candidates. And in Syracuse, there’s been no shift in the DCCC’s distant posture toward Balter, who is running again, so far without the support of the party committee.

A DCCC spokesperson acknowledged that the party committee is not rallying behind candidates who fell just short in 2018 but said that they are not opposing them, either. [A blatant and typical DCCC lie, as you will soon see.]

Eastman’s race in particular was a progressive flashpoint in 2018, because in the primary, the DCCC supported former Rep. Brad Ashford, who was broadly conservative and had a record as an anti-choice state legislator. The committee did spend some $300,000 on Eastman’s general election race, after opposing her during the primary, but that was far less than it invested in a typical race, and down the stretch, the party committee declined to help push Eastman over the top.

One potential candidate the DCCC is courting in lieu of Eastman is Gladys Harrison, the general manager of a beloved Omaha restaurant, Big Mama’s Kitchen. Harrison, who has never run for office before, has not yet formally announced but told The Intercept in late May that she was considering entering the race. Reached again last week about running, Harrison said “at this time I am not ready to comment.”

Local party officials, who closely monitor political developments in the district, said the DCCC was working to recruit Harrison into the race. “I know they’ve been reaching out to her, and they’re considering supporting her for Congress,” said Ben Gray, president of the Omaha City Council.

A spokesperson for the DCCC said they would “not confirm or deny” whether they have worked to recruit her.

Sam Barrett, who managed Ashford’s 2016 campaign, is now working for the DCCC. Ashford lost his primary bid to Eastman in 2018, and his wife, Ann Ashford, is now competing against her for Congress. (On Wednesday, Ann Ashford announced on Facebook that she had been endorsed by six former elected officials, including her husband.)

The DCCC also spoke with another potential candidate, Denise Blaya Powell, according to an active member of the local Democratic Party. Powell started a local organization called Women Who Run, but she is an Eastman supporter who donated to her campaign in March.

Crystal Rhoades, an Eastman supporter and the chair of the Douglas County Democratic Party, told The Intercept that she spoke directly with the DCCC about their efforts to recruit other candidates about a month ago. “The DCCC told me, ‘Well, we can’t win on Medicare for All; Omaha is an insurance town,’” she said. “And I said, ‘I know corporations are people now, but insurance companies don’t actually vote.’” Rhoades added that in a district like hers, the challenge is not peeling off Republican voters but boosting Democratic turnout.

Despite the $300,000 the DCCC spent on the general election, Rhoades said she felt the party committee did not really support Eastman. “The DCCC didn’t support Kara last time, even in the general, and anyone who says differently is lying because they did not,” said Rhoades. “Most support from the DCCC and those other national organizations comes in the form of independent expenditures, and they did nothing for Kara, and yet she still came in with less than 2 points as a first-time candidate for federal office in a district as tough as ours. That she did that with zero help from the DCCC is really a testament to her candidacy.”

Meanwhile in Texas, after his near loss, Mike Siegel started earlier this time, announcing his bid in January 2019. Knowing how important the D.C.-based party committee considers early fundraising numbers, he came out of the gate strong, raising $150,000 to start. It didn’t matter. Instead, the DCCC has had its eyes on Shannon Hutcheson.

Hutcheson had a more direct route into the good graces of the DCCC than a mere show of strength. Her finance chair, Aimee Boone Cunningham, a Container Store heiress, gave $35,500 to the committee on February 20. Not long after the donation, Hutcheson traveled to Washington to meet with DCCC officials, a meeting confirmed by a DCCC spokesperson. On March 4, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi headlined a signature Democratic Party fundraising dinner in Travis County, Texas, which included a VIP reception honoring Cunningham as a “philanthropist & activist.” Cunningham, a major Democratic donor, is chair of the board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and previously served on the board of Emily’s List and its Texas version, Annie’s List.

Hutcheson has a long career as a corporate attorney, and in 2010, a critical year for Democrats, voted in the Republican primary. (It may seem odd, but that profile— a corporate lawyer who was recently a Republican— is attractive to the DCCC, which sees in it money and bipartisan appeal.)

The DCCC has not publicly endorsed Hutcheson yet, but the message is clear. Four of the first followers of Hutcheson’s new campaign Twitter account are DCCC officials. Within just two days of entering the race, she announced having raised $165,000. She did not boast of it coming from small donors, which suggests she had lined up commitments from the ultra-wealthy ahead of the announcement.

Siegel said that he’s frustrated the party appears to be taking sides against its own electoral interests. “In 2018, we stepped up and ran our campaign the right way in a district that the state and national party had left for dead,” he said. “We campaigned in all nine counties, had 1,000 volunteers. We put this district in play. We made up 15 percentage points against an incumbent considered to be unbeatable. We put this in play. Running a top-down campaign attempting to buy a district is what McCaul did [to win the primary to succeed DeLay], that’s not what we need here.”

Siegel is confident he can win the race with the DCCC’s support or its neutrality, but it becomes dicier if he has to battle not just the GOP but his own party too. “What my campaign brings is, we’ve made tens of thousands of voter contacts, won the loyalty of grassroots groups, and can combine that with a traditional red-to-blue campaign,” he said. “I can do that with the DCCC’s support, and I can also do it if the DCCC remains neutral. But if they actively work against me, they’re sabotaging what is probably our best chance to win this seat.”

In some cases, it may make sense for the DCCC to stay out, as it gives other candidates a chance to come forward and compete. In Texas’ 24th District, Jan McDowell fell by just 3 percentage points to incumbent Rep. Kenny Marchant and is running again in 2020. Money isn’t everything, but McDowell raised just $108,000 over the entire cycle, the mark of a campaign that never truly caught on, either with big donors or with a grassroots network. And in context, her 3-point loss is less impressive than it looks: Beto O’Rourke carried the district during his Senate run, and state Senate and House candidates also flipped seats.

This cycle, Candace Valenzuela, a local school board member whose launch video of her time spent homeless as a child went viral, is also getting in the race. “I’m never going to be a favored establishment candidate,” she told The Intercept. “I don’t have a rich aunt Jill to call and ask, can you send me $2,800? And get all your friends from— I don’t know what rich aunt Jills do— your manicure circle, and tell them to send me money too?”



Also jumping into TX-24 is Kim Olson, a retired Air Force colonel. In her own viral ad, she boasts of playing a leading role in the Kosovo air war, which she called “the largest bombing campaign since World War II,” and “a battle we won without a single loss of life.” If the more than 500 people killed by that bombing campaign could hear her make that claim, they’d surely be surprised. (She presumably means that no Americans were killed.)

Later in her ad, she alludes to war profiteering she engaged in, which ended her military career when she accepted a fine and a reprimand to avoid a court martial. “Pentagon investigators allege that while on active duty as one of the most powerful figures in Iraq, Olson established a U.S. branch of a South African security firm after helping it win more than $3 million in contracts to provide protection for senior U.S. and British officials, as well as for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co.,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 2006. There’s no evidence that the DCCC recruited or is supporting Olson, or that it’s otherwise gotten involved in the district.

The DCCC, however, does know how to consolidate around a candidate they’d previously overlooked. Gina Ortiz Jones lost a nail-biter in Texas’ 23rd District in 2018. The DCCC had preferred her opponent in the primary, but after the party’s recruit didn’t even make the runoff, the committee got behind Ortiz Jones and remains supportive of her for 2020, even if there hasn’t been an official endorsement.

Jones is a New Dem, so she passes Bustos’ smell test since she will never vote for programs Bustos is trying to stop, like the Green New Deal and Medicare-For-All. That she isn't the best candidate in a 70+ percent Latino district-- she's a Filipina-- is something the Republicans are over-the-moon about. I guess Will Hurd will be safe again. I wonder if he sends a cake or something to Bustos as a thank you gesture. Back to Mike Siegel for a moment-- an interview David Feldman did with him 8 months ago.

Red To Poo

After the odious Debbie Wasserman Schultz chaired the DCCC's Red-to-Blue program in 2008-- while endorsing 3 Republicans in seats neighboring on her own-- the program lost all credibility and the name faded. It's back to its former glory, acting as an arm of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party as it pushes Blue Dogs, New Dems, "ex"-Republicans, EMILY's Listers and assorted other garbage candidates. The DCCC likes to loudly proclaim that it doesn't interfere in primaries, but the Red to Blue program does nothing but interfere in primaries. On Wednesday it announced it was endorsing 7 more shitty candidates, most of them in competitive primaries. There are 18 now. Not one is an anti-Establishment reformer or a progressive. Basically, all 18 are corporate shills from the Republican wing the party, embodiments of why the best anyone can say about the House Democrats is that they're the lesser of two evils. The 7 new ones:

• FL-26- Debbie Mucarsel-Powell
• MN-03- Dean Phillips
• NE-02- Brad Ashford
• NC-13- Kathy Manning
• NJ-11- Mikie Sherrill
• NY-11- Max Rose
• UT-04- Ben McAdams

Worst on the list, as we've discussed before, is "ex"-Republican, ex-Congressman, Blue Dog Brad Ashford who managed to accrue the most Republican voting record of any Democrat in Congress before his constituents kicked him out. After being fired from his next job he decided to try for Congress again-- what's to lose, since the DCCC will finance the whole thing for him. NE-02 is Douglas County (Omaha and its suburbs) plus rural Sarpy County to the west. In 2016 Bernie won both. The DCCC response to that is to back the most reactionary, anti-progressive guy they could find-- and against a grassroots progressive, Kara Eastman. That's why the DCCC has become a serial losing machine. When I called Kara yesterday and asked her about Red-to-Blue endorsing Ashford, she didn't seem overly-concerned. She told me its just "another example of the outside establishment getting involved in Nebraska politics. I am not in this to win over the party, but to win for Nebraskans. Our grassroots campaign is strong, and our positive message is resonating with voters in the second CD. We have knocked over 14,000 doors and have more than 1,000 individual donors. This shows the strength and vitality of our campaign, which is different from previous congressional runs in Nebraska. I’m proud to say that real working- and middle-class Nebraskans are supporting Eastman for Congress and not our conservative opponent who lost the 2016 election."

Each Red-to-Blue endorsement is different but they all have establishment conservatism in common. All their candidates suck and any one of them who is swept into power in the wave cycle, will help make the House Democraps a worse organization. They're all a bunch of hackish Hillary-backers even in districts that were won by Bernie. For example, virtually all the voters in UT-04 live in Salt Lake (southern Salt Lake City and its suburbs) and Utah counties (Provo's suburbs). Bernie won Salt Lake County with 78.8% and Bernie won Utah County with 85.3%. Does that tell you something about how the Democratic base feels about status quo establishment candidates? It doesn't tell the DCCC a damned thing; they picked the most status quo, establishment candidate they could find, Ben McAdams, who had loudly endorsed Hillary in 2016, completely out of touch with Utahns. He's just another DCCC corporate confection with no issues page on his website. Utah Republicans are already referring to him as "Utah’s version of Hillary Clinton." 4 other Democrats are campaigning in the race for the nomination to oppose GOP incumbent Mia Love but the DCCC couldn't lay off and let Utahns decide; they had to big-foot in on behalf of Utah’s version of Hillary Clinton.

Down in South Florida progressive Democrat Steve Machat is running for the nomination to take on Carlos Curbelo. But so is the Debbie Wasserman Schultz candidate, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who lost a state Senate race in 2016. She's also been endorsed by EMILY's List, always a bad sign if you're looking for a progressive. She has a cookie cutter website that promises to protect Obamacare but doesn't mention Medicare-for-all or single payer. Steve Machat is one of the 4 Democrats running for the nomination in FL-26. He told me yesterday that the DCCC has "picked a candidate that will obey the order that runs the Democrat Party. An order that has lost the soul of the people,  this is not FDR’ s party nor Kennedy's either. These DCCC run by Pelosi believe they know the answers. To cure a disease of disservice they became the disease. I am running to represent the people. I will protect and defend the people from the few who have served in office way to long. So long they forgot they got into politics to serve. Not be served. I will win the primary. I will beat Curbelo."

The Hill reported that "the Red to Blue program, from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's (DCCC), program will provide the candidates with fundraising and organizational support. The total number of Democrats backed by the program comes to 18. Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to take back control of the House." That's not interfering?

Progressive Primary Winners Abandoned By The DCCC

Normally, I don't buy into "lesser-of-two-evils" politics. If Democrats nominate a corrupt reactionary Blue Dog, I'm at least as incensed as I am over a Republican. That's not going to change either. And, I'm still saying that "normally" no longer applies, not with Trump and his Congress-ful of enablers and rubber stamps. I'm telling friends and relatives-- my sister lives in Jeff Van Drew's district-- to just hold their noses and vote for anyone with a "D" next to their name. As Digby has been saying since Trump moved into the White House, we're in existential territory here. Boxing in Trump is more important than anything.

That said, there's no need to stop reminding the establishment Democratic Party that we need them to stop turning off the base with their Blue Dog/New Dem agenda and their uncontrollable hatred for the Democratic grassroots, for progressives and for the kind of reform that will shut down the spigots of money and power that motivates the careerism of the Hoyers, Wasserman Schultzes, Crowleys (buh bye) and the mirror image candidates the DCCC keeps recruiting to run for Congress.

The DCCC is now whining how progressives have to get on board the unity train and pull together to elect a Democratic Congress to stop the boogie man in the White House. I agree. They're correct.

What they're not correct about is that that's a one-way street. Let me give you an example. The DCCC drew up a list of the most crucial districts that they absolutely had to prioritize to flip in November. One is the Omaha swing district, NE-02. The DCCC went out and recruited a Blue Dog, Ben Ashford, who the voters in the district had rejected in 2016 after he served a term in Congress and voted pretty consistently with the GOP. Democratic voters refused to reelect him and now there's a Republican, Don Bacon, in the seat. The DCCC's strategy, which is regularly proven wrong, is that if a conservative Democrat votes with the GOP, "moderate" Republicans will eschew their own candidate and vote for the conservative Democrat. When will the DCCC learn that just doesn't work and all they do is turn off base Democratic voters?

In Omaha, a progressive Democrat, Kara Eastman, ran a grassroots campaign on issues that voters wanted to hear about. And she won, despite massive DCCC fingers-on-the-scale help for Ashford. The voters picked her-- 20,239 (51.43%) to 19,113 (48.57%). So how did the DCCC respond? They wrote NE-02-- their "must win" district-- out of their 2018 strategy and refused to back Kara. No Democratic Party institutional money is flowing in her direction. The Democratic establishment and the DCCC just flat out refuses to back her and the DCCC refused to add her to their Red-to-Blue page.

The same thing is happening with progressive primary winners all over the country-- including in must-win swing districts! Blue America has a page for that: Abandoned By The DCCC. There are men and women-- mostly women-- on this list who won their primary races and who the DCCC is refusing to recognize while they're asking progressives to support wretched Blue Dogs and New Dems because... TRUMP!

I spoke to one of those candidates this morning, J.D. Scholten. He was in a 3-way primary race to see which Democrat would take on the odious Steve King. J.D. outraised King in each of the last two FEC reporting quarters. Each time, he called the DCCC to tell them and urge them to work with him to beat King. And each time, the DCCC refused to take his call or to call him back. Then came the primary. Scholten beat the establishment fave, an ex-lobbyst with a Blue Dog agenda, Leann Jacobsen, and another candidate, John Paschen-- and it wasn't close.

• J.D. Scholten- 14,514 (51.27%)
• Leann Jacobsen- 9,055 (31.99%)
• John Paschen- 4,741 (16.75%)

So, J.D. called the DCCC to tell them about his win and ask for their help against King. Do you want to guess what happened? That's right... no return call. J.D. is campaigning full-time, not by sitting and calling donors and PACs and corporations begging for money, although he's still raising enough grassroots money to be ahead of King-- $195,348 cash on hand for J.D. and $87,250 cash on hand for King-- but by driving his RV into every town and hamlet in the sprawling 4th district and meeting the voters, talking with them about what they expect from Congress and telling them about the progressive solutions he espouses. The DCCC doesn't recognize that as valuable.

Please consider contributing to the candidates who have won their primaries and are up against Republicans while the DCCC ignores them. These are important races, not the "easy" ones the DCCC regularly screws up. Maybe these candidates are lucky not to have DCCC interference in their campaigns. But they do need some money to compete effectively.

More On The Importance Of Primaries In Wave Election Cycles

This whole PPP Twitter thread on recent polling is interesting for folks who enjoy following elections on a congressional level. In almost every case they polled Republican incumbents against "generic Democrats," in other words, whomever wins the primary. In wave elections, even a dullard with nothing to say and no qualifications-- or even worse-- can be swept into office. In fact, the only time among the pieces of the thread I used where PPP didn't use "generic Democrat," were when they instead used extremely conservative Democrats endorsed by the Blue Dogs and being pushed by the DCCC, Anthony Brindisi in New York and "ex"-Republican shithead Brad Ashford. So Ashford has proven himself unfit for office and Omaha voters noticed it and defeated him last year after one really terrible term that found him consistently backing his Republican colleagues. He was, at all times, one of the worst Democrats in the House. But the DCCC loves corrupt right-wing conservatives like Ashford. They look at him and it feels like they're looking in the mirror. Besides, they hate the alternative, an outspoken progressive woman, Kara Eastman, a real reformer and exactly what Ben Ray Lujan does not want in the Democratic House caucus.

So what about Brindisi, a New York assemblyman? His website's issues page is carefully designed to say pretty much nothing about issues. It's vintage DCCC. Take healthcare for example:

I believe that everyone should have access to good health care. That’s why I strongly opposed the heartless bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), raise premiums and take coverage away from more than 20 million Americans. This bill strips protections for people suffering from pre-existing conditions and reduces vital funding to protect older adults, children, women and people suffering from opioid addiction.

We need to stop the special interests attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and fix the real problems with the ACA by tackling the problem of higher premiums by controlling health care costs. Some ways we can do that are by lowering the costs of prescription drugs and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

Sounds like a moderate Republican-- and, of course, no mention of single-payer or Medicare-for-All. The DCCC urges all their candidates to keep it uncontroversial and as meaningless as possible. His campaign is all about empty slogans. And wouldn't you know-- last year the NRA rated him 100%. Brindisi's two primary opponents, Patrick Madden and Heath Phillips, have both dropped out of the race. So... one more Blue Dog looks like he's on his way to Congress-- unless he falls victim to the #MeToo movement.

Let's look at the half dozen California races included, Republican-held seats: CA-10 (Jeff Denham), CA-39 (Ed Royce), CA-45 (Mimi Walters), CA-25 (Steve Knight), CA-48 (Dana Rohrabacher) and CA-49 (Darrell Issa). If reports about a wave are true-- and I'm certain they are-- these 6 seats are all flipping red to blue, as are at least one or two other California districts. But... in some instances there are really good Democratic candidates in primary battles with really bad Democratic candidates. In these 6 seats there are a grand total of 32 candidates. And those are just the candidates who have raised enough money to trigger an FEC report last quarter; there are even more.

So how do you know who to vote for? I don't think any of the candidates have records as state legislators. That makes it much harder to guess what they'd probably be like in Congress. Ted Lieu (D-CA) was a great state Senator and he turned out to be a great congressman. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) were awesome state legislators and guess what... they have the highest ProgressivePunch scores (along with Adriano Espaillat) of any House freshmen. It usually works that way, but how can you tell among people without voting records? Civic engagement in their communities is one way, though sometimes hard to investigate. Another way is to look at endorsements from trusted (or distrusted) organizations. Example: if the Blue Dogs or New Dems-- who are very thorough in their endorsement process and only endorse corruptible conservatives who will oppose progressive initiatives-- back someone, you know to look elsewhere. And, sure enough, they have endorsed several candidates in these races, namely Hans Keirstead (CA-49), Harley Rouda (CA-49) and Dave Min (CA-45). On the other hand, Elizabeth Warren has worked with and has endorsed Katie Porter (CA-45). An Elizabeth Warren endorsement for a House candidate-- unlike a Senate candidate, where she might be a little less discriminating-- means something; in fact, it means a lot.

This California congressional ActBlue thermometer on the right will tell you which candidates Blue America feels good about. Some districts, like CA-45 and CA-48, include more than one candidate, generally because there are two good candidates in the crowded primaries. In CA-45-- the district carpetbagger and Trump rubber-stamp Mimi Walters is still hanging onto-- there are two exceptionally great candidates, both of whom Blue America has interviewed extensively and over a long period of time and found very well-qualified: Katie Porter and Kia Hamadanchy. And since I mentioned that Porter was endorsed by Elizabeth Warren, I should mention that Hamdanchy has been endorsed by Sherrod Brown and Tom Harkin. Below is a graph from CNN that shows the generic congressional preference poll advantage for Democrats going into the midterms. Enthusiasm among those who feel there must be a check on Trump and among those who feel the Republican congressional leadership has failed is high and growing. The 18 point edge for a preference for congressional Democrats is bolstered by a huge swing among independents away from the GOP. Among independent voters there is now a 51-35% preference for Democrats. It is absolutely essential that Democrats nominate progressives in the primaries and not Republican-lite corporate shills from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party (Blue Dogs and New Dems).

How Cynical Is the Democratic Party's Support for Identity Politics? (Plus a Note on the Ocasio-Crowley Contest)

Albright: "Younger women, Hillary Clinton will always be there for you" ... plus that other thing she said.

by Gaius Publius

How cynical is the Democratic Party's support for identity politics? To this observer, it seems impossible not to notice that those in control of the Democratic Party care about "identity politics" — about supporting more women, more people of color, more LGBTQ candidates, etc. — only when it suits them. Which means, if you take this view, that their vocal support for the underlying principles of "identity politics" is both cynical and insincere.

As I said, this has been apparent for some time. I've never seen it documented so well in one place, however, until this recent piece by Glenn Greenwald.

For example, Hillary Clinton supporters in 2016 not only encouraged a vote for Clinton because men and women had a duty to support her as a woman, yet they attacked support for Sanders as specifically misogynist:

The 2016 presidential election was the peak, at least thus far, for the tactics of identity politics in U.S. elections. In the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton’s potential status as the first female candidate was frequently used not only to inspire her supporters but also to shame and malign those who supported other candidates, particularly Bernie Sanders.

In February 2016 — at the height of the Clinton-Sanders battle — former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright introduced Hillary Clinton at a New Hampshire rally by predicting a grim afterlife for female supporters of Sanders, while Clinton and Cory Booker cheered: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” she announced.

Though Albright apologized in the New York Times for her insensitive phrasing after a backlash ensued, she did reaffirm her central point: “When women are empowered to make decisions, society benefits. They will raise issues, pass bills and put money into projects that men might overlook or oppose.”

At roughly the same time, Clinton supporter Gloria Steinem said female supporters of Sanders were motivated by a primitive impulse to follow “the boys,” who, she claimed, were behind Sanders. Just this week, the Clinton loyalist and Salon writer Amanda Marcotte said Trump won “because some dudes had mommy issues,” then clarified that she was referring to left-wing misogynists who did not support Clinton: “I also have those moments where I’m like, ‘Maybe we need to run Bland White Guy 2020 to appease the fake socialists and jackass mansplainers.'”

Greenwald notes in passing that no one was making the case for supporting Sanders because he would be the first Jewish president, and he doesn't expect that case to be made in 2020 should Sanders run again.

He concludes from this that "despite the inconsistencies, one of the dominant themes that emerged in Democratic Party discourse from the 2016 election is that it is critically important to support female candidates and candidates of color, and that a failure or refusal to support such candidates when they present a credible campaign is suggestive evidence of underlying bigotry."

The Past as Prologue: Cynthia Nixon

Apparently, however, Democratic Party interest in electing strong progressive women (Hillary Clinton includes herself on that list) has dissipated in the smoke of the last election. As Greenwald notes, "Over and over, establishment Democrats and key party structures have united behind straight, white male candidates (including ones tainted by corruption), working to defeat their credible and progressive Democratic opponents who are women, LGBT people, and/or people of color. Clinton herself has led the way."

The article is replete with examples, from the Brad Ashford–Kara Eastman battle in Nebraska, to the Bob Menendez–Michael Starr Hopkins–Lisa McCormick three-way contest in New Jersey,  to the Ben Cardin–Chelsea Manning primary in Maryland. In all cases, the Party backed the white male candidate (or in Menendez's case, the whiter male candidate) against the woman, the person of color, and the LGBTQ candidate. Not even the smoke of 2016's identity fire remains.

Which brings us to the 2018 candidacies of Cynthia Nixon and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

Let's start with Cynthia Nixon, running against corrupt, anti-progressive NY Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo sides with Republicans to defeat progressive measures, rules with an iron hand, is white and male. Yet he's also supported and endorsed by almost every national Democrat who matters:

In New York state, Cynthia Nixon is attempting to become the first female governor, as well as the first openly LGBT governor, in the state’s history. She’s running against a dynastic politician-incumbent, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom the New York Times denounced this year for being “tainted” by multiple corruption scandals.

But virtually the entire Democratic establishment has united behind the white male dynastic prince, Cuomo, over his female, LGBT challenger. That includes Clinton herself, who enthusiastically endorsed Cuomo last month, as well as Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who — despite starting a political action committee with the explicit purpose of supporting women running for office — also endorsed Cuomo over Nixon in March. [emphasis mine]

To make the main point again: How cynical and insincere is the Democratic Party's support for identity politics? Very.

A Local Race with National Consequences: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vs. Joe Crowley

This cynical drama is also playing out in the race between corrupt Joe Crowley, the likely next Democratic leader of the House (if he survives this election) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The same dynamic is now driving the Democratic Party primary campaign in New York’s 14th Congressional District, a district that is composed of 70 percent nonwhite voters. The nine-term Democratic incumbent, Joe Crowley, is a classic dynastic machine politician. His challenger, a 28-year-old Latina woman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has generated nationwide excitement for her campaign after her inspiring introduction video went viral. At a fundraising event, Crowley accused his opponent of playing identity politics, saying she was trying to make the campaign “about race.”

Despite all that, virtually the entire Democratic establishment has united behind the white male incumbent, and virtually none is supporting the woman of color who is challenging him. Yesterday, the very same Gillibrand who has a PAC to support female candidates and who endorsed Cuomo over Nixon announced that she was supporting Crowley over Ocasio-Cortez. [emphasis added]

Note that these are not low-profile, low-consequence races. Both are positions of enormous power — in Nixon's case, due to the office; in Crowley's case, due to his position as the Dauphin to Nancy Pelosi's soon-to-step-down monarch.

These are races with exponentially greater consequences than usuals. And where is the Democratic Party in this? With the (corrupt) white male and against the woman, as always these days.

"Identity Politics" Is Not a Cookie-Cutter Solution to Electoral Choices

I'd like to make two additional points. First, by any intelligent standard, candidates "identities" should only be one factor only in considering support for them. Only the right wing and 2016 Clinton advocates like Madeleine Albright, quoted above, make the most simplistic argument about "identity" support — and even then, the simplistic argument seemed to apply only to support for Clinton herself and never to other women.

For example, would even Clinton supporters have supported Carly Fiorina against a male Democrat for president? Obviously not. And Clinton herself, a former New York senator, did not support Zephyr Teachout in 2014 when Teachout ran against Andrew Cuomo for governor. Nor did then-Democratic primary candidate Hillary Clinton campaign for Zephyr Teachout in her 2016 race for the the  NY-19 House seat.

Ideological concerns also drive decisions like these, as in fact they should. Fiorina would likely be too far right for Clinton to support, and Teachout too far left. This is a fair basis on which to decide. It was also a fair basis on which to decide support for Clinton as well.

The Ocasio-Crowley Battle Is a Very High-Leverage Fight

A second point: I recently wrote about the importance of progressives involving themselves heavily in high-leverage races — like the Bernie Sanders 2016 race, for example — where the payoff would have been huge relative to the effort. (You can read that piece and its argument here: "Supporting Aggressive Progressives for Very High-Leverage Offices".)

The Ocasio-Crowley contest is similarly high-leverage — first, because he's perceived as vulnerable and acting like he agrees, and second because it would, to use a chess metaphor, eliminate one of the most powerful (and corrupt) anti-progressive players from House leadership in a single move.

Again, Crowley is widely seen as the next Democratic Speaker of the House. He would be worse by far than Nancy Pelosi, and he's dangerous. He has blackmailed, as I see it, almost all of his colleagues into supporting him by the implicit threat of, as Speaker, denying them committee assignments and delaying or thwarting their legislation. He also controls funding as Speaker via the leadership PAC and the DCCC. Even Mark Pocan, co-chair of the CPC and normally a reliable progressive voice and vote, is reportedly whipping support for Crowley among his colleagues.

Crowley plays for keeps. Taking him off the board entirely, removing him from the House for the next two years, would produce a benefit to progressives far in excess of the effort involved.

Progressives, were they truly smart, would have nationalized this race from the beginning and worked tirelessly to win it. The payoff from a win like this is huge.

GP
 

Imagine How Brilliant The DCCC Would Be If It Could Learn From Its Mistakes!

With Trump failing so completely and so stupendously as a "president," Inside-the-Beltway imbeciles are wondering if the Democratic Party establishment should manufacture it's own billionaire outsider as a 2020 candidate. One of the politics trade publications, the Washington Post, suggested yesterday that "there is a real opportunity for an outsider to take over the party and challenge Trump, the first American to be elected president without political or military service, on his own terms. The problem has been finding the right person to do it, particularly in a party whose voter base is more inclined to favor government experience. The potential 2020 field already includes about two dozen traditional politicians, from mayors to governors to senators." They then suggest Disney chief Bob Iger, mega-mogul Oprah Winfrey, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg. Don't forget-- or please do forget the coffee guy from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

I had a really pleasant Sunday, playing the part of auctioneer at an event for the Blue Momentum PAC, Ted Lieu's leader PAC. All the money collected goes to 2018 Democratic candidates. Ted was very eloquent in explaining the state the nation and his own role. And a good time was had by all. His events are always fun. (I think the next one is at the end off July and I heard that a mega super-star is performing at it. Whether that's true or not, if you're in the L.A. area, you should try to make it to a Ted Lieu event. One of the bidders who won a Nancy Ohanian drawing I was auctioning, "Active Shooter," was Paula Poundstone (below). When Politico mentioned yesterday that the Democratic Establishment, lost and confused, is turning to Hollywood for messaging help, I knew it would be too much to ask that by "Hollywood" they meant the congressman from thereabouts, Ted Lieu. They didn't. And if it's the group of naïfs I think it is, they literally do not know the difference between a progressive and a Blue Dog-- literally. I know them. Nice people but... oy veh!

Of course what everyone waits for at these events is an opportunity to ask their congressman questions-- and Ted loves that part too. One of the first questions came from a constituent wanting to know if the DCCC has any plans for an overarching, cohesive message so that voters, especially younger voters-- you know, the kinds who weren't alive when FDR was president-- will have any solid idea what the Democratic Party stands for.

That's a tough one. How does such a big tent party-- so big that's it's become a circus tent-- have a message that doesn't offend some of those inside the tent? The DCCC, for example, has been busy recruiting A+ NRA allies like Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ) and Anthony Brindisi (NY) to add to their list of current Blue Dog NRA allies, so how do you come out strongly against assault weapons? If the "party" does, it leaves these candidates outside the tent.

The most powerful congressional cohort inside the party used to be the Progressive Caucus. Now it's the Wall Street owned-and-operated New Dems. The DCCC and party leadership, in fact, is now, as Pelosi's grip has loosened, an arm of the New Dems. The party is now increasingly hostile to populist ideas and progressive policies. The establishment wing of the party now openly embraces a lesser-of-two evils case for itself in elections... literally. This came from the DCCC, not the DWT art director:

On Monday, the AP's Bill Barrow reported that Democrats are testing liberal messages in midterm House elections. Ted could have told his questioner that "Weeks [it's actually months] into the primary season, Democrats’ midterm class is shaping up to test what liberal messages the party can sell to the moderate and GOP-leaning voters who will help determine control of the House after the November election." Interesting, when the Democrats need to turn out their base with huge enthusiasm to have even a chance to win, along with independents who are sick of Trump and his Republican enablers. "Moderate" Republicans? A waste of time.

Straight from the DCCC press office, Barrow wrote that "Democratic voters typically aren’t tapping the most liberal choices in targeted districts. But, taken together, the crop of nominees is trending more liberal than many of the 'Blue Dog' Democrats swept away in Republicans’ 2010 midterm romp." I guess they didn't tell Barrow about how stalwart progressive Kara Eastman beat the DCCC's heavily backed Blue Dog, Ben Ashford in Omaha. Or how much-touted (and funded) DCCC Blue Dogs like Jay Hulings (TX), J.D. Huffstetler (VA) and Jim Grey (KY) were defeated by more progressive candidates. Last Tuesday in Orange County, an Elizabeth Warren backed progressive, Katie Porter, beat a Schumer-backed New Dem, Dave Min. The DCCC covers it's ears and yells 'na-na-na" if anyone tries discussing those races. They have no ability whatsoever to learn from their mistakes, only an ability to twist reality for gullible members of the media. Why not dig up one of the architects of DCCC failure and one of the personifications of why Paul Ryan is Speaker? Maybe Rahm was too smart to volunteer for the task, so...

[V]oters now represented by a Republican will be asked to consider some or all of the mainstream Democratic priorities that may have been considered “too liberal” in the past: more government involvement in health insurance, tighter gun laws, a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally, reversing parts of the GOP tax law, support for LGBTQ rights.

“You have ballpark 60 districts as diverse as Kansas and Staten Island. One bumper-sticker message will be self-defeating,” said former congressman Steve Israel of New York, who led Democrats’ national House campaign in 2012.

The question is whether that path results in Democrats gaining the 23 new seats they need for a majority.

Israel disputes that the current slate represents an overall leftward shift, and national party leaders have still angered liberals with some of their recruitment choices.

Still, resistance leaders are confident of their influence. “We are seeing grassroots action and organizing in a meaningful way,” said Maria Urbina, national political director of Indivisible, founded after Trump’s 2016 election. “We see the party apparatus coming in behind some of this action on the ground.”

To be clear, not every surviving candidate is a carbon copy of Bernie Sanders, the 2016 presidential candidate whose insurgent campaign emboldened the left with his calls for universal health insurance, a $15-hour minimum wage and tuition-free college. But the influence of Sanders’ inspired base is palpable, as winning nominees have adopted pieces, if not the whole, of an agenda that has become more typical within the party since it lost the House majority eight years ago.

At least to date, it’s staved off a Democratic version of the 2010 tea party rise, when GOP leaders, even as they marched in lockstep opposition to then-President Barack Obama, watched archconservative outsiders defeat incumbent Republicans and fundamentally reshape the party’s identity on Capitol Hill. The Democratic path seems to be more incremental evolution.

And now for the outright lie from the DCCC's propaganda shop-- which quickly moves to erase evidence of their failures, which superficial reporters always fall for. "Would the DCCC lie to me? I can trust what they tell me, right?" No, wrong.

A key indicator is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program, the party’s top candidates for flipping Republican seats. Twenty candidates with that designation have faced primaries already; only one of them-- among the party’s most conservative choices-- has lost. (About two dozen more Red to Blue candidates have upcoming primaries, and the DCCC could add to its list.)

And Mike Levin, who the DCCC is touting as "an environmental lawyer," eagerly picked up by saps like Barrow, is actually someone who worked as an attorney getting rich by fighting against environmentalists. Twisting messaging is a DCCC speciality. Just wait 'til they role out Jason Crow, the attorney for pay day lenders in Colorado, who the DCCC calls a fighter for the underprivileged.

And how does Barrow prove his independence after shilling for the DCCC so unashamedly for so many un-fact-checked paragraphs? Don't worry, it isn't by firing up a brain cell. His closing sentence: "Wacky, far-left positions," said Courtney Alexander of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC aligned with Speaker Paul Ryan, "aren’t going to fly in suburban swing districts this fall." Take that! No DCCC shill I.

"...Supporting The Same Kind Of Candidates Long Favored By The Political Establishment And Financial Elite"

Kirkpatrick and Ashford-- the worst of the DCCC recruits

This quote from Bernie is taking on a life of its own online "We cannot defeat Trump and the Republican Party with the same playbook, or by supporting the same kind of candidates long favored by the political establishment and financial elite. That is how we got to where we are today." I'd bet that even DCCC staffers have seen it by now, even if they can't make heads nor tales of it. One thing the DCCC has no interest in-- negative interest in-- is helping elect a House-ful of game changers. There are very few independent thinkers in the House-- men and women with ideas and basic competence. That's why it's feasible to talk about electing a jovial nothing like Joe Crowley as leader and even Speaker. Game changers are dangerous; maintaining the status quo is what the Democratic Party establishment is all about. Or the status quo ante. Moving forward? No way, José.

But let's go back to Bernie's quote, the party about failing by "supporting the same kind of candidates long favored by the political establishment and financial elite." And, for the sake of argument, let me acknowledge that even the very worst of the DCCC's crap candidates-- sacks of garbage pretending to be leaders like Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Gretchen Driskell (MI), Jason Crow (CO), Paul Davis (KS), Gil Cisneros (CA), Dan McCready (NC), Brendan Kelly (IL), Elissa Slotkin (MI)-- can argue, albeit implausibly, that "same kind of candidates" does not apply to them. The DCCC goes even further. They just leave out the whole "same kind of" and go right to "the same."

Two of the worst candidates they're backing this cycle were recently members of Congressman are no longer members of Congress because the voters rejected them after seeing them in action. The voters rejected them because the voters were smart enough to sense they were absolutely terrible. Yes, I'm talking about Arizona New Dem and NRA ally Ann Kirkpatrick and Nebraska Blue Dog and "ex"-Republican Brad Ashford. Both have long and dreadful records predictive of exactly what they'll do if a blue wave sweeps them back into Congress in November. There are literally no candidates who are worse. They've already shown how bad they are and the voters have already judged them. But the DCCC re-recruited them and the DCCC is working with great vigor-- and great vigor is not something one normally associates with the DCCC-- to undermine the campaigns of inspiring primary opponents for each, Kara Eastman in Omaha and Mary Matiella in Tucson.

When Bernie said that "We cannot defeat Trump and the Republican Party with the same playbook, or by supporting the same kind of candidates long favored by the political establishment and financial elite," I'm going to bet he was talking about political detritus like people who have shown how bad they are in other positions-- like Jeff Van Drew, the worst member of the New Jersey state legislature; Paul Davis a failed minority leader in the Kansas state House; or a pack of robots from the national security state who the DCCC has recruited and is desperately trying to pass of as "leaders" instead of the drones they are; or Gil Cisneros, a compulsive serial liar who worked for the McCain campaign and has proven himself utterly incompetent on the campaign trail; or "socialite" and candidate of the "casino owners" (a respectable way of saying she's backed by the Mob), Susie Lee, in Nevada who already spent $674,805 of her own in a 2016 congressional bid and came in a distant third in the primary.

Pelosi and he DCCC do not want game changers, do not want thinkers, do not want leaders. They want more drones who suck up to rich special interests and build up campaign war chests. Candidates with original ideas? GOD FORBID! That explains why the DCCC primarily supports New Dems and fights against progressives. These are the New Dems running for Congress this cycle, by the way. Institutionally they are the very personification of what Bernie was talking about:

• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
• Greg Stanton (AZ)
• Dave Min (CA)
• Joshua Harder (CA)
• Katie Hill (CA)
• Hans Keirstead (CA)
• Harley Rouda (CA)
• Josh Butner (CA)
• Jason Crow (CO)
• Lauren Baer (FL)
• Nancy Soderberg (FL)
• Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL)
• Mel Hall (IN)
• Sean Casten (IL)
• Brendan Kelly (IL)
• Paul Davis (KS)
• Elissa Slotkin (MI)
• Angie Craig (MN)
• Dean Phillips (MN)
• Dan McCready (NC)
• Kathy Manning (NC)
• Brad Ashford (NE)
• Mikie Sherrill (NJ)
• Jeff Van Drew (NJ)
• Tom Malinowski (NJ)
• Max Rose (NY)
• Anthony Brindisi (NY)
• Susie Lee (NV)
• Chrissy Houlahan (PA)
• Archie Parnell (SC)
• Jana Lynne Sanchez (TX)
• Lizzie Fletcher (TX)
• Ben McAdams (UT)
• Elaine Luria (VA)
• Abigail Spanberger (VA)
• Dan Kohl (WI)

Lesser of two evils? Maybe. You'll have to decide that for yourself. During the primaries? In November? Never? Put me in the "Never" camp and let me quote a chunk of Gideon Resnick's essay from yesterday's Daily Beast about a New Dem stalwart Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The frustrations Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 2016 presidential campaign had with the tenure of former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) are well documented.

But in a new book written by the man who ran the insurgent Senator’s 2016 run, it is revealed that Hillary Clinton’s team shared many of those frustrations, especially as the 2016 primary was drawing to a close.

In his book, How Bernie Won: Inside the Revolution That's Taking Back Our Country-and Where We Go from Here, Jeff Weaver details a meeting the Sanders and Clinton teams held prior to the Democratic convention, in which aides to the former Secretary of State detailed how “exasperated” they were with Wasserman Schultz.

“I knew that there was no love between the Clinton campaign and the chairwoman. Nor was there any in the White House. Or among large numbers of the DNC’s top leaders. When Bernie was on his way to meet President Obama on June 9, Senator Reid had made a point of calling Bernie during the car ride to remind him to ask the president to dump Wasserman Schultz,” Weaver writes, referencing a meeting Sanders had at the White House in the summer of 2016.

“Every time I had raised the issue of Wasserman Schultz with the Clinton campaign, they had blamed her continued tenure on the White House,” Weaver continues. “Whenever I raised the issue with the president’s people, they blamed the Clinton campaign. From my calls with them, I knew that the Clinton people were exasperated with Wasserman Schultz. But I could never tell whether it was because she had put her fingers on the scale in such an incompetent way.

Regardless, it just always seemed the case that no one wanted to expend the political capital necessary to push her out, especially as her term would be ending soon anyway.”

Weaver’s recollections stand in contrast to the conventional wisdom of many Sanders’ supporters: that Wasserman Schultz’s presence at the DNC thrilled the Clinton campaign because she was, during the course of the primary, putting her thumb on the scales for Clinton. Weaver recounts that during a meeting between the two camps, Clinton ultimately elected not to force Wasserman Schultz’s exit but not out of a feeling of gratitude or patronage.

“At our meeting at the Hilton, Hillary Clinton balked at forcing her out,” Weaver writes. “My suspicion was that the Clinton campaign did not want to do anything that would impugn the legitimacy of her victory. Forcing out Debbie Wasserman Schultz would be an acknowledgment that the DNC chairwoman had stacked the deck in Clinton’s favor. That was not our point, however. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, as chair of the Democratic Party during a vigorously contested primary, was supposed to be neutral. She clearly was not. This action item would resolve itself at the Democratic National Convention, when the chairwoman was pushed out after DNC emails were released proving how the organization had worked against our campaign.”

So much for your lesser of two evils. In fact... Wasserman Schultz has long been the greater of any number of evils. In closing, a few words from Alan Grayson today: "Both parties have been captured by the Dark Money Side... and gorge on corporate PAC money and bribes from Wall Street bankers. Check out the 'Finance Committees' of Team Red and Team Blue. You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."