The Values-Free Schumercrat Candidates Oppose Obama On Guantánamo

This is probably a bad year for a candidate to be counting on establishment endorsers. But the DC Democratic establishment hasn't figured that out yet. The wretched pro-Wall Street Schumercrats the establishment is running against progressives are all bragging about endorsements they've gotten from pathetic figures who are despised by the Americans who have heard of them. A candidate telling someone they have the endorsement of someone like a Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer (or on the other side of the aisle, Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan) is a net loser and possibly, all things being equal, toxic.

Schumer's crappy candidates are proving themselves as gutless as anyone has to be to be in bed with Schumer to begin with. The cowardly Schumercrats are all refusing to back President Obama's efforts to close the Guantánamo gulag before he leaves office. Worst of all are Pennsylvania's Katie McGinty (Schumer's silliest candidate of 2016), Tammy Duckworth (IL), who has always backed the policy but now that the heat is on refuses to comment, New Hampshire's Maggie Hassan and Ohio's Ted Strickland, both Democratic establishment favorites in key Senate races, who are refusing to support the plan, saying it doesn't do enough to keep their constituents safe.

Patrick Murphy, the overall worst Democrat running for the Senate in 2016 is studiously avoiding the topic but he generally sides with Republicans on controversial bills and opposes Obama and most House Democrats. He supported the Keystone XL pipeline; voted to condemn Obama for the exchange of American prisoner Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders held at Guantánamo; voted for a resolution seeking to rein in Obama's use of executive orders on issues like health care and immigration; consistently votes to gut financial sector consumer protections while collecting ungodly sums from Wall Street banksters; voted with the GOP to create the anti-Hillary witch-hunt Benghazi Committee; and supported a resolution seeking an investigation on whether the IRS targeted conservative groups.

Alan Grayson (D-FL) and Joe Sestak (D-PA) are both loudly supporting Obama's bid to shut down the Guantánamo gulag but Reid and Schumer are both in overdrive to sabotage both their campaigns, even calling big donors and telling them to cut the two Obama allies off from funds. The two anti-democratic party bosses are having a terrible time propping up weak candidates like Strickland, Murphy and, especially McGinty, who is widely viewed as a joke with no backing outside of the most corrupt elements of the establishment.

Katie McGinty joined the Democratic Party's primary race in Pennsylvania for U.S. Senate with the support of influential recruiters, and her fortunes in the wide-open race may ultimately be about more than her ability or her future as a candidate.

It could be a test of whether the Democratic Party's top-level donors, fundraisers, elected officials and like-minded groups can propel a candidate into the good graces of the rank-and-file.

...McGinty's chief rival in the four-way race for the Democratic nomination is Joe Sestak, whose icy relationship with some party leaders is shaping this race-- just as it shaped the 2010 race he lost by 2 percentage points to Republican Pat Toomey.

"I've never seen that lineup against one candidate in a primary not based on issue positions," said David Landau, chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Party. "I've certainly never seen anything like this based on personality and not issues."

The primary election is April 26. The fall campaign in Pennsylvania promises to be expensive and closely watched, and Republicans say Democrats cannot retake control of the U.S. Senate without beating Toomey, a potentially formidable candidate who is seeking a second term in November.

Sestak's loss to Toomey is viewed through various lenses: He deserves another chance after barely losing to Toomey during a historic year for Republicans. His feuding with party elders during the 2010 campaign-- including defeating the late Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary-- was a strong enough signal that he is not a team player. ["Team player" means fellating Chuck Schumer.]

As early as 2013, Sestak, 64, a former Navy vice admiral and two-term congressman, said he was seriously considering running again and Landau and other Sestak supporters around Pennsylvania note that he has spent the intervening years as a regular on the local party event circuit around Pennsylvania, attending hundreds of fundraisers, county dinners and other gatherings.

But doubts about Sestak propelled a search for an alternative by party leaders in Washington. After a few prospective candidates said "no," McGinty, 52, said "yes" and got into the race in August, 15 months after the long-time state and federal government official finished fourth in the 2014 gubernatorial primary.

The problem for the party's heavy hitters is that their one-sided involvement hasn't necessarily gone well for them in top-tier races in recent Pennsylvania history.

Sestak beat Specter, largely thanks to Democratic primary voters who had opposed the Republican-turned-Democrat for decades and weren't about to change.

...The list of McGinty supporters is a virtual who's who of power players in Pennsylvania Democratic Party politics, plus an assortment of U.S. senators and the Washington, D.C.-based Emily's List.

In theory, endorsements can plug candidates into fundraising networks and networks of volunteers who will hand out leaflets, knock on doors and staff phone banks. But in interviews, Rendell and other McGinty supporters tended to downplay the significance of McGinty's super-structure of support, or what a McGinty loss would say about its influence.

"We're in a different time and I would say in the past that (high-powered endorsements) would be a guarantee (of victory)," said Nancy Mills, a McGinty supporter who is the Allegheny County Democratic Party chairwoman. "I think that now people are so well informed and they do their own research and don't necessarily depend on an endorsement."

Sestak, meanwhile, embraces his differences with party leaders, while acknowledging the downside of going against party leaders who can discourage help from major campaign donors. For her part, McGinty has doubled Sestak's fundraising since she entered the race, but she remains behind in available cash and polling.

Rendell, McGinty's campaign chairman, acknowledged that endorsements are not fate-- "If they were determinative, then Donald Trump wouldn't exist," Rendell said-- and said it still remains to be seen whether McGinty and her backers can raise the millions necessary to air weeks of TV ads.

"If the answer is 'yes,'" Rendell said, "then she's in business."

Which, of course, is what politics is all about to self-serving corporate whores like Rendell. A creature of the establishment like Rendell could care less about the jaw-dropping, unqualified nature of McGinty, especially compared to Joe Sestak and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.

The Republican Wing Of The Democratic Party Rides Again

How do you know which congressional candidates-- often without records, or without easily accessible records-- you should vote for? Many people just base it on party ID. People who identify with the Democratic Party, for whatever reason, vote for Democratic candidates and people who identify with the Republican Party, vote for Republican candidates. I bet that accounts for upwards of 70% of the electorate. But on both sides of the political divide, there has been a realization dawning that not all Democrats (and, to a lesser extent, not all Republicans) are the same.

There's this thing-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, primarily conservatives grouped as New Dems and Blue Dogs-- that actual Democrats ought to not ever vote for. We write about this pretty frequently and I'm bringing it up again today because the New Dems just released their final list of 2016 endorsements-- two dozen of the worst Democrats (to use the term loosely)-- running for the House. Candidates have to submit applications proving that they are bona fide conservatives in order to get endorsed. Sure, some are worse than others, but if you're a Democrat who care about Democratic Party ideals, values and principles, and about getting progressive legislation passed, these are not candidates for you. The worst ones-- with records of how bad they are-- include Lou Correa (CA), Joe Garcia (FL), Pete Gallego (TX), Randy Perkins (FL), Colleen Hanabusa (HI), Brad Schneider (IL), Isadore Hall (CA), Monica Vernon (IA), Darren Soto (FL), Josh Gottheimer (NJ)... and from I know of them Matt Heinz (AZ) and Angie Craig (MN) don't seem as terrible as the rest.

The only reason to vote for Isadore Hall would be because you feel there aren't enough corrupt snazzy dressers in Congress

But a New Dem is a New Dem... It doesn't mean they're worse than a Republican, but it does mean they'll be dragging the Democratic Party further and further right and further and further into the corrupt clutches of Wall Street, something no Republican, no matter how bad, can do. (Also worth noting: two of the worst of the New Dems, Lou Correa and Isadore Hall, aren't running against Republicans Nov. 8, but against progressive Democrats, respectively Bao Nguyen and Nanette Barragan.)

On Tuesday Laura Reston dealt with the Senate version of the problem for the New Republic, asserting, correctly, that if Schumer's handpicked, Wall Street-friendly candidates blow this chance to take back the Senate, Democrats should stone Schumer rather than elect him Leader (except she put it more diplomatically in Will Mushy Moderates Cost the Democrats a Senate Majority?

Reston doesn't think much of former fracking lobbyist Katie McGinty, the 5th or 6th recruit Schumer finally managed to land as the not-Sestak candidate in Pennsylvania. She begins by quoting other journalists to puke on his Convention speech.

Delivered in a stilted, singsongy voice, McGinty’s string of platitudes earned a smattering of tepid applause from the crowd and a series of blistering reviews online. “McGinty sounds like she’s speaking to a kindergarten class, not a convention hall,” tweeted the National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar. Minutes later, the Guardian’s Dan Roberts added: “Katie McGinty, running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, just gave the Saturday Night Live spoof version of a plastic political stump speech.”

That’s pretty much been the story of McGinty’s campaign--one that’s borne great resemblance to the equally lackluster efforts by the party’s chosen candidates in Florida (Rep. Patrick Murphy) and Nevada (former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto). The Democrats are close to blowing the best chance they may have in years to take back the Senate: Control of the chamber has boiled down to six races where the Democratic nominees are all virtually deadlocked with their opponents. (McGinty, down by 2 percent to Toomey, according to Real Clear Politics, is lagging about five points behind Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania polls.) If they fall short, it will be because the party went out of its way to recruit and push loyal foot soldiers like McGinty, a career bureaucrat who, despite having a compelling personal narrative, has shown very little spark on the campaign trail-- and offered only one consistent message: Isn’t Donald Trump awful?

Confirming what I've long thought-- namely that McGinty has nothing to offer-- Reston asserts the only qualities she has-- the ones that lured Schumer and Tester into backing her-- other than qualities authoritarian Democrats like Schumer "value in their recruits: thoroughly inoffensive centrist politics, fundraising prowess, endorsements from Washington insiders, and a willingness to stick to Democratic talking points. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and EMILY’s List wooed her into the race. And when her defeat looked likely, the DSCC officially endorsed her in March-- and then made sure that she won the nomination. In early April, the DSCC began pouring money into McGinty’s primary, expanding its initial investment well beyond the $1.1 million cash infusion they had originally allocated to shore up her campaign. The whopping $4 million spent by the party, EMILY’s List, and labor unions was enough to put McGinty over the top." And now they're stuck with a loser who might lose to Toomey, who-- as I expect to show in a poll next week-- would have been abandoned by the NRSC by now, the way they've abandoned Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, where Schumer was unable to insert right-wing New Dem Ron Kind instead of Feingold.

The party also recruited Cortez Masto to defend Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s seat in Nevada, and Murphy to challenge Marco Rubio in Florida. The Democrats would have had another flavorless centrist challenging Republican Richard Burr in North Carolina, too, if they hadn’t been turned down by a string of them. The DSCC sat down with former Senator Kay Hagan in early 2015, just months after her bitter loss in 2014, to gauge her interest in running again. Only after she and several other establishment options refused did Democrats settle on an unconventional choice-- liberal former state ACLU chief named Deborah Ross. Ross was considered a sure loss, but she’s running close to Burr with one of the most pleasantly surprising campaigns of the cycle-- offering a vision as fresh as the party’s chosen candidates’ are stale.

What Reston doesn't know is that Brad Miller, an independent-minded progressive was high on the list of every progressive group looking for an opponent to Burr and, knowing that crooked conservative Wall Street shills like Schumer and his hand-puppet Tester would never back him, demurred.

The central distinction McGinty has drawn between herself and her opponent is simple: He belongs to the same party as Donald Trump. “Donald Trump and Pat Toomey have plenty in common,” the narrator in a recent ad from the McGinty campaign says. “Even after Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, Toomey stood by him.” Her allies have done the same. The Senate Leadership PAC recently released an ad that begins: “TOOMEY & TRUMP. Wrong for the women of Pennsylvania.”

It’s her one issue, really—and Toomey, the only senator running for reelection who hasn’t committed to supporting Trump, has made it devilishly hard for the attacks to stick. Pressed again in Monday night’s debate, he dodged again: “I don’t think my constituents care that much how one person is going to vote.” Toomey’s tactic has worked: Even as the Trump campaign was engulfed by sleaze in the weeks after his 2005 Access Hollywood tape surfaced, Toomey rose slightly in some polls, edging marginally ahead of McGinty.

Cortez Masto and Murphy have used the same playbook, repeatedly attempting to bludgeon their opponents with Trump. In an October 14 debate against Representative Joe Heck, Cortez Masto said, “When Donald Trump was making fun of the disabled, attacking Mexicans, calling them rapists and criminals, and calling women names and denigrating women-- which we know why he was, because he thinks he can sexually assault women-- Congressman Heck had high hopes Donald Trump would be president.” It didn’t quite work: In the days before that debate, Heck had disavowed the nominee altogether, helping to neutralize Cortez Masto’s prepared zingers. She had little other material to work with.

In an October 17 debate against Marco Rubio, Murphy experienced the same problem, almost comically. When Rubio attacked him for “inappropriate behavior” captured in an old photo that appears to show him groping a woman, Murphy sheepishly tried to pivot: “Let’s just talk about Donald Trump again.” It looked defensive, and furthermore, it’s hard to convince voters that a senator who famously feuded with Donald Trump in the Republican primary-- saying “Donald is not going to make America great, he’s going to make America orange”-- really stands with the Republican nominee.

After watching the recent Senate debates, Slate’s Jim Newell nailed the problem, writing that Democrats are “trapped in these races,” “adhering to the same, safe strategy of saying Trump’s name a million times, which keeps them close to their rivals but suffocates the strategies elsewhere that might reveal them as inspiring candidates in their own right, running their own races.”

Imagine, for a moment, that these candidates do pull out victories on November 8. What happens six years from now? In recent midterm elections, moderate Democrats have struggled to hang onto their seats; it’s the reason the Blue Dog caucus in Congress is down to 14 members. Kay Hagan, for example, ran a cookie-cutter Democratic campaign to take her Senate seat in 2008, hewing to the middle and touting her credentials as a corporate lawyer and bank vice president. Six years later, in a midterm election, she was defeated by almost 50,000 votes despite running what Democrats considered a “perfect”-- that is, cautious and unimaginative-- campaign. With no distinct political personality to attract North Carolinians to her, Hagen was easily cast by Republicans as an Obama puppet. And her centrist appeal was not enough to generate the kind of enthusiasm required to turn voters out in a midterm election year. As one Democratic strategist said at the time, “I don’t think a field operation can create enthusiasm.”

Even if Senator Katie McGinty has the best field operation in the country six years from now, she will need something more than pat Democratic talking points to turn out the vote. And if the Democrats keep handpicking candidates who have to rely on a rogue Republican presidential contender to manufacture enthusiasm, they will almost surely forfeit any chance at holding on to the Senate over the long haul.

If you want to see progressives win seats in Congress, not shills from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, this thermometer leads to a page that includes both House and Senate candidates, all vetted progressives-- no New Dems, no Blue Dogs, no Schumerites.

What does it mean to be a Schumercrat? Let's Look At A Pennsylvania Schumercrat, Katie McGinty

In the video above, the establishment candidate for the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nomination, Katie McGinty, is very clear that she didn't accept any money from the oil and gas industry. That's what Democrats expect from their nominees since the oil and gas industry seeks to bribe politicians with funding. Pennsylvania Democrats ended the sleazy career of pro-fracking Blue Dog Tim Holden in 2012 when progressive insurgent Matt Cartwright called him out for his ties to Big Oil. Although Holden was heavily backed by the same corrupt Pennsylvania establishment that backs McGinty, Cartwright beat him 57-43%. It's worth noting that although Holden was the dean of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation and had been in Congress for two decades starting in 1993, McGinty has never been elected to anything anywhere and her one try for elected office-- in 2014-- resulted in complete rejection by Democratic primary voters, only 7.66% backing her on election day.

Despite her claim to not be taking Oil and Gas money, it turns out her FEC disclosure shows the worst of the fracking industry has pumped over $125,000 into her Senate campaign in the last few months, not to mention thousands more from fracking industry lobbyists. This is especially ironic since McGinty has been instructed by Schumer to falsely claim that she's an environmentalist-- just as he has done with Florida Schumercrat Patrick Murphy despite Murphy's lock-step votes for the Keystone XL Pipeline and for oil drilling off Florida's pristine beaches. McGinty hates her claim on having worked as an environmental advisor to conservative administrations that always played footsie with Big Oil-- Bill Clinton's and Ed Rendell's.

A few days ago we talked about how right-wing Democrat Gene Green has been taking oil money and pushing their agenda for a very long time. He was elected in 1992, the same year as Holden. Although the Energy Sector contributes primarily to Republicans, since he's been in Congress he's taken $1,221,738 from the sector, more than any other Democrat in the House other than Majority Whip Steny Hoyer. In return, Green protects their interests from his perch on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy. He is widely considered one of the worst of the pro-pollution Democrats in Congress and consistently takes the side of special interests rather than consumers and working families in his Houston area district. Blue America has endorsed Adrian Garcia, his progressive primary opponent, and if you'd like to help his campaign, you can do so here.

As for McGinty, she has two opponents, Braddock Mayor John Fetterman and Admiral Joe Sestak. Neither is a Schumercrat and either would be preferable to McGinty. You can contribute to Fetterman's campaign here, on the page reserved for candidates who have endorsed Bernie Sanders and are running on his issues.

Obama's Endorsement Of Boss-Backed Shill, Katie McGinty, Likely To Backfire

Grubby NY ward heeler Chuck Schümer thinks he gets to decide who Pennsylvanians get as a senator

When Obama, straight off his misguided endorsement of Debbie Wasserman Schultz this week, announced he was backing Pennsylvania puppet Katie McGinty (despite-- or maybe because-- Pennsylvania Democratic voters have utterly rejected her dull, waste-of-a-Senate-seat centrism), I tweeted something about how Schumer has promised Obama Wall Street funding for his presidential library if he backs the Schumercrats Wall Streets considers essential for them to continue their jihad against the American people and their goal of "balancing" Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown and a tiny handful of senators willing to stand up to them.

Immediately after my tweet, two Beltway journalists contacted me, one demanding to know what I know about the library and one, a more polite guy, who sent me this:

Can you help me understand why the left likes Sestak? He wasn't particularly liberal when he was in the House. I get that any Dem would be better for you guys than Specter, but is he really any better than McGinty, who would probably just be a down-the-line Dem-- almost certainly more liberal than Casey? I never got the Sestak thing. He's kind of a jerk in person-- I remember him snarling at me once in the halls-- but then again if Congress didn't have any jerks in it there would be like 5 guys left on the Hill.

Let me deal with the presidential library first. I don't know a lot about it. A trusted-- never wrong-- DC operative told me a top (like top, top, top) Biden inner circle guy told him Schumer cut the deal for bankster library funding in return for getting easily controllable shills Katie McGinty and Patrick Murphy into the Senate. There will never be any confirmation or-- what was the word-- citations. Just believe it or don't.

The second question, though, is something I can answer, although I can't purport to speak for "the left," nor was I even aware that "the left" is favoring Sestak. Tomorrow will be the 10 year anniversary of the Blue America endorsement I wrote for Joe Sestak-- right to the day! We liked Joe, thought he would make a good congressman and absolutely detested the grotesquely corrupt Republican incumbent, Curt Weldon. Joe kicked his ass-- 56.4 to 43.6%-- becoming just the second Democrat to represent these particular Philly suburbs since the Civil War! And he was a decent congressman. Alan Grayson or Raul Grijalva or Donna Edwards he was never going to be-- but he was a better-than-average Democrat. We've never endorsed him again though, not when he ran his successful reelection campaign two years later, not when he ran against Toomey in 2010 and not in the current race. Blue America is pretty doctrinaire ideologically. We're looking for hard-hitting, no-nonsense progressives-- like Bernie, like Elizabeth Warren, like Alan Grayson, like Donna Edwards, like Tim Canova, Maria Chappelle-Nadal, Eric Kingson, Pramila Jayapal and Alex Law. Sestak, Chris Carney and the Pennsylvania Patrick Murphy all ran at the same time in 2006 and Blue America backed them all. Carney and Murphy had been faking when they said they were progressives and quickly joined the Blue Dogs and New Dems and started regularly crossing the aisle and voting with the GOP. We were instantly sorry we had endorsed them, particularly Carney, who had no saving graces whatsoever. We were forced to apologize to our members for ever endorsing him and eventually to spend massively to help defeat him. He was a liar, a nasty asshole and a dangerous right-wing fake. Murphy was just a conservative trying to stay in office in a red-leaning district, more a political coward than an actual bad guy. And Sestak, who never joined the Blue Dogs or New Dems, wasn't really a conservative, more a true moderate, with a decent, if not outstanding, voting record. AND never a close-minded jerk. He was-- and remains-- always open to debate and discussion. When we disagreed on policy and votes, I always felt he welcomed hearing another side. That-- and the fact that he is totally independent and will stand up to a corrupt political boss like Schumer-- is why DWT is always editorially friendly towards him and why we'd like to see him beat McGinty, even if John Fetterman is more of a Blue America type candidate ideologically-- which explains why we're helping Fetterman raise money, but not raising money for Joe.

Joe Sestak looks like he's way ahead and will probably be the nominee. Party bosses prefer McGinty because she's so malleable, but polls show that the more Pennsylvania Democrats have gotten to know her, the more turned-off they are. Her 28% polling numbers have collapsed to 17% and she's fighting it out for second place with Fetterman-- a far better candidate... and the one who will win if Pennsylvania Democrats and independents decide to buy into Bsernie's political revolution. I know Pennsylvania Democrats aren't interested in what New York ward heeler Chuck Schumer demands from them. And I doubt the Obama endorsement will mean much either. One senator, who loathes Schumer and knows his ascension to the Senate Leader position will signal a singular disaster for the Democratic Party, suggested to me yesterday that "maybe they’ll just shut down the Senate again," and sent this:

Throughout the primary election, the Obama administration and the Democratic Party campaigned heavily against Sestak, as the President, Vice President, and numerous cabinet members and Senators hosted many fundraisers and events for Specter. On September 19, 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even shut down the entire United States Senate, as he, the President, and many Senators instead flew to Philadelphia to host a prominent fundraiser for Specter. The event drew controversy because of its unconventional nature of closing federal business and how the money raised during the event would be given to Republicans and conservative PACs that asked for refunds of their contributions given prior to Specter's party switch. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, called "Organizing for America" during the off years, also led efforts against Sestak.

Judging by Sestak's letter to his supporters yesterday, he bears Obama no ill-will for the pointless McGinty endorsement which is unlikely to stop her pitiful slide in the polls or turn around her dreadful boss-driven campaign:

The President and I share many of the same battle scars that have gained my deep respect for him. I therefore thought it important in view of today’s announcement to highlight some of what we did in our service together for our nation, particularly when he first became Commander-in-Chief. In Congress, I needed to have the President’s 6 (a military term for “I’ve got your back”) because the nation needed him to have theirs:

• As a former Admiral, I wanted to ensure I had the President’s 6 with my military expertise and credibility for the proper drawdown from the war in Iraq, despite opposition from some military leadership and leaders of the Republican Party.
• With my Harvard Ph.d in Political Economy, I wanted to have the President’s 6 with the economic arguments to restore our economy through the Economic Stimulus bill, by saving the financial system and then placing safeguards on it, even though I represented a Republican congressional district.
• Because my then-four year old daughter survived brain cancer due to the military healthcare my nation provided my family, I brought with a passion that harrowing experience to having the President’s 6 for the Affordable Care Act, so all Americans could have what I had to save my daughter-- and I prized advancing Obamacare at town halls with the Tea Party and on FOX News.
• And on issues that had to do with our ideals-- from repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to the closure of Gitmo to the DREAM Act-- I stood steadfast in having the President’s 6 both as a Congressman and today because he had our nation’s.

I therefore have great respect for the President and the battles he and I fought together-- for people-- and we wear the same battle scars, with pride.

But that is also why I have never asked the President-- nor anyone else in a position of power-- to have my 6, not even by asking for their endorsement. As a leader, it is only about having the people’s 6, and because I have theirs, they will have mine.

Pennsylvania Democrats-- I used to be one when I lived in Stroudsburg a few years ago-- can make up their own minds. Hopefully they'll see there are two outstanding candidates, John Fetterman and Joe Sestak, and one puppet of the corrupt political bosses, Katie McGinty.

Is Schumer Giving Up On Murphy And Strickland Already? What A Waste!

Schumer and his pathetic Montana sock-puppet, Jon Tester, spent millions of dollars people contributed to the DSCC to defeat Democrats Joe Sestak and Alan Grayson. Early in the cycle, Schumer informed Bernie Sanders that if he interfered with Schumer's 4th rate candidates in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida he would not be a committee chair when the next Senate convened. So now the Democrats are stuck with three inferior candidates-- Katie McGinty, Patrick Murphy and Ted Strickland-- who probably can't win their races against 3 terribly flawed Republicans-- Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio and Rob Portman-- who should be easy to knock off in a presidential election year. Sestak, Grayson and Sittenfeld probably would be in the middle of spirited campaigns pitting a clash of ideas right now and there's a better than even chance all three would have beaten their weak Republican opponents. Thanks to Schumer and Tester the GOP may well keep all three seats, which will be catastrophic for the Democrats' hope to win the Senate in 2016 or-- if everything else goes their way-- a sure-fire incentive for the GOP to filibuster everything until McConnell is back in charge in 2018.

Schumer is about to be handed the Democratic leadership on a silver platter. The Senate Dems would be better off hanging him a harikari (or seppuku) tantō... pronto. Although Huffington Post polling averages shows Clinton ahead in all three states, Schumer's three disastrous Senate candidates are losing. Clinton is beating Trump in Florida 46-42%, but Rubio is beating Murphy 47-41%. Clinton is beating Trump in Ohio 43-41%, but Portman is slaughtering Strickland 46-39%. Clinton is beating Trump in Pennsylvania 46-40%, but Toomey and McGinty are in a dead-heat.

The Ohio race, as anyone who watched the primary would have predicted, is the worst mess. Strickland is like a barely animated walking corpse whose past conservatism has come back to bite him in the ass. He's a nightmare from the past Ohio voters don't want to deal with and instead of Hillary's coattails dragging him to victory, his reverse coattails could drag her down. His campaign, like the candidate, is a total mess. Seeing the futility of spending money on him, the DSCC cancelled millions of dollars in ad buys. And yesterday, Strickland's own campaign followed suit, canceling ads scheduled to have gone up in Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown over the next two weeks. Sittenfeld is the opposite of a corpse and would have been running an energetic and inspiring campaign instead of sitting around hoping for an anti-Trump tsunami. This is Chuck Schumer and his know-it-all arrogance at work.

Toomey is taking on the Trump problem head-on. As Steven Dennis explained yesterday for Bloomberg readers, "Toomey knows he has a Donald Trump problem. He’s just hoping his opponent has an even bigger Hillary Clinton problem. As the only endangered Republican incumbent yet to back or reject his party’s nominee, Toomey is campaigning as an independent voice who can be a check on whoever is president. He’s also working to tie his Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty, as closely as possible to Hillary Clinton, whose unfavorable ratings rival those of Trump."

"There is no question that Katie McGinty will never stand up to Hillary Clinton, but I will, and I’ll stand up to Donald Trump if I think he’s wrong," he said in an interview last month.

Toomey is trying to find the middle ground by motivating disgruntled Republicans and independents to vote without alienating Trump’s passionate backers. Barring a Trump comeback, his message of independence might be the best he can do in the state that has emerged as a key battleground for control of the Senate, as well as the presidency.

Pennsylvania is already the second most expensive Senate race this year by some measures, with campaigns and outside groups spending an estimated $31.8 million on advertising on the general election so far, according to data from ad-tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.

Toomey has irritated Trump fans by withholding his endorsement of the nominee and many have peppered him at events across the state for his stance. But he hasn’t gone beyond saying he won’t vote for Hillary Clinton.

The senator is reflecting where a sizable, key bloc of voters stands, particularly in the vote-rich Philadelphia suburbs-- not enamored with Clinton but not sold on Trump.

...Like Senator Marco Rubio in Florida, Toomey emphasizes he will be a check on whoever becomes president, and he dinged McGinty for failing to name a single issue where she disagreed with Clinton at a press conference last month.

"I have played that role. I have separated myself from my party when I thought it was wrong," he added. He touts his long fight against spending earmarks, which were prevalent a decade ago before being banned, and his failed bipartisan push for expanded background checks for gun purchases.

This slug-fest is going to go on and on 'til election day, with all the worst right-wing elements in American politics, like the Kochs and the NRSC, in the mud and muck with the DSCC and EMILY's List, the worst garbage on the Democratic side. If the outside groups cancel each other out, Toomey will probably rout McGinty, possibly the least qualified candidate running for Senate this year other than Patrick Murphy... which brings us to the latest election news out of Florida.

At least in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Strickland and McGinty for all their obvious flaws, are the lesser of two evils for Democratic voters. Strickland isn't as terrible as Portman and McGinty isn't as terrible as Toomey-- close but not as terrible. Murphy, on the other hand, is as terrible as Rubio.. and, man, is that terrible. This is the one race where there is, literally, no lesser evil. (If I was a Florida voter I'd cast my ballot for independent Steve Machat.) And, now that they got rid of Grayson-- who Wall Street puppet Schumer was so scared to see in the Senate that he would rather lose the chance to win the majority than have anyone as brilliant and effective as Grayson challenging him-- they're willing to cut the embarrassingly pathetic Murphy loose. Or... maybe it's just a shot over the bow of the family yacht, Miss Cocktails, and a threat for Murphy's father to pay up the other $4 million he promised the DSCC for backing his feeble son. Daddy Murphy gave Schumer and Reid's Senate Majority PAC a million dollars as a downpayment for the endorsement and now they're squeezing him for the rest. Squeezing? Well the DSCC cancelled their first week of TV ads for Florida, just like they did for Ohio.

According to a report from the Columbus Dispatch, Schumer's lackey at the DSCC, Tom Lopach, was in a private meeting with a trade association a few days ago where he went through Schumer’s top targets. On the list were Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Missouri and North Carolina. Not on the list: Ohio and Florida!

[A]ccording to a source who attended the meeting, Lopach said Strickland could only win "if a wave comes" in, a reference to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton winning by a strong margin in Ohio.

When asked why Ohio is not among the likely states for Democrats to win, Lopach reportedly replied, "Portman has run a damn fine race."

"The rest, I’ll have to tell you over a drink," Lopach added, the source said.

Blue America is backing just two candidates running for Republican-held Senate seats this year. How about helping them out with $5 or $10 each? They're both real progressive Democrats, not craven, worthless Schumercrats like Strickland, McGinty and Murphy. Please click on the thermometer below and give what you can:

Not News: Corrupt Establishment Democrats Don't Like Sestak Or Fetterman-- They Have Their Own Candidate

Yesterday, centrist/establishment Pennsylvania senator, Bob Casey, joined all the other centrist/establishment figures who are trying to destroy Joe Sestak's career. Casey endorsed the latest anyone-but-Sestak candidate, establishment's 6th choice, Katie McGinty. Let me amend that-- McGinty is the establishment's anyone-but-Sestak-except-Fetterman candidate. The establishment types-- think people like Rendell and Chris Matthews-- have been desperate to turn their sinking ship around after the latest polling seems to indicate McGinty isn't battling with Sestak for first place but with John Fetterman for second place! One prominent Pennsylvania Democrat told me today that he was "surprised it took him [Casey] this long to decide to go down with the establishment ship."

The Harper poll showed that Sestak's support has been solid and unshakeable despite all the poison Chuck Schumer has been spreading about him. (One has to wonder when Schumer has time to do anything else since attacking progressive Democratic candidates seems to be a full-time job for him.) In January, Sestak was leading with 33% and that is still where his lead is today. The big disaster was that as Democrats got to know McGinty better, her polling numbers collapsed. Widely considered an unserious puppet of Schumer and the Pennsylvania party bosses, her respectable 28% second place plummeted down to 17%, just two points ahead of Fetterman, who went from an 11% in January, when he was barely known, to a 15% today now that's more people are getting to know him. It's always good for a relatively new candidate like Fetterman to see an increase in support as he introduces himself and, conversely, it's really bad for a candidate like McGinty-- so identified as the establishment shill-- to be out introducing herself and to lose over half her support. Her campaign is basically on life-support, which is why Schumer, Brady and Rendell forced Casey to publicly make an idiot of himself this week by endorsing her.

Fetterman is doing best in the western part of the state-- where it's really a race between him and Sestak (and McGinty and the corrupt party bosses behind her aren't a real factor)-- and among the most progressive voters. Sestak continues to have the strongest image of the three candidates among likely Democratic primary voters. Image-wise, Fetterman has all the momentum., his favorables at 27% up from the 7% he had in the January poll. He's still mostly unknown to Democratic primary voters, especially outside the Pittsburgh area.

Sestak seems to have taken Casey's endorsement of McGinty in stride and has pointed out that it's no surprise that the DC establishment is fearful of an incorruptible and independent-minded senator like him (or Fettermnan, for that matter) in their midst. He wrote to his supporters that when he met with one of the Senate's Democratic Party bosses-- people are guessing Reid but this is such a Schumer-trademarked exchange that I would bet anyone (ten to one odds) that Sestak was taking about Lizardman-- the boss tried, figuratively, to mount and dominate him the way he's mangled to do with sniveling, weak Democrats like Al Franken, Martin Heinrich, Tim Kaine and Jon Tester. He wrote, "When a Senator once said, 'Sestak, whenever I tell you anything, the only answer is to be YES,' I could only think how a sailor might view me if he were ever to see me agree to such a command as his commanding officer-- and as assuredly a Pennsylvanian would shake her head, also, if I were ever to agree." Especially for some clownish party hack from New York!

With Bob Casey’s endorsement of my primary opponent today, it completes an all-inclusive rejection by Washington DC’s and Pennsylvania’s Democratic politicians of what I believe in, and stand for.

I don’t think it can just be about me (although I know I can be challenging).  Bob Casey is too nice a man for that. Nor can it be my voting record or courage in standing up for the right votes at all times, as I unhesitatingly did-- from Obamacare to the Economic Stimulus bill.

It certainly isn't my ability to work within the establishment... for it was the Democratic Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, who called me the "most productive" Congressman.

And after servicing 18,000 constituents who flooded my District office for help up to 9 p.m. seven days a week during the recession, even my Republican district voted to re-elect me by 20 points despite my having no time for any media ads.

I’ve doubted it was my refusal to "sit down" from running against Senator Specter after the Party leadership initially asked me to run against him in 2009 before he switched parties to become a Democrat. After all, that was 7 years ago.

And I’ve doubted it was my refusal to pay "street money" to the party machine or my refusal to take lobbying jobs from the consultant class. For while our newspapers are filled too often in Pennsylvania with stories of self above service, there are nice people in office, like Bob.

There aren’t many veterans in Congress, and none who served 31 years and was a flag or general officer-- except me. Perhaps that’s why… I never grew up in politics.

I grew up under the principle of being accountable for the men and women I lead-- it was always about them, above service to any officer senior to me.

So, again, a man of personal integrity and a sense of honor and ethics like Joe Sestak isn't going to roll over for a self-important, two-bit hack like Chuck Schumer, not even under threat of Schumer recruiting some sad puppet like Katie McGinty to run against him.

Now Schumer spends his time not just trying to raise money from his bankster allies for the hapless McGinty but also by personally calling Sestak's donors and demanding they stop contributing to his campaign-- just like what he's been doing against Donna Edwards and against Alan Grayson on behalf of the corrupt establishment Schumercrats in Maryland and Florida, respectively, Chris Van Hollen and Patrick Murphy.

Will Pennsylvanians Let NY Greaseball Chuck Schumer Pick Their Senator Today?

Few people remember Joe Biden's Senate record. But I'm one who does. "Corporate whore" comes rapidly to mind. Biden was a right-of-center establishment Democratic who represented Wall Street interests while painting himself as a man of the people who road Amtrack. Outside of Delaware-- where he was a sentaor from 1973 'til 2008-- no one ever bought the hype back then, though Politico, which wasn't around then, does today. Biden's presidential bids never got off the ground. Biden's innate conservatism led him to the Republican Party, although his dislike of Nixon inspired him to register as an independent. The boss of his law firm was a Democrat and eventually, in his late 20s, Biden slipped into the Delaware Democratic Party. He won his first Senate election, an upset, against GOP incumbent Caleb Boggs, by 3,162 votes, running on a progressive platform. After a short time, he pivoted away from progressive stands and towards the very establishment, very status quo positions that have kept him from ever breaking through politically. His anti-consumer bankruptcy bills on behalf of predatory credit card companies are his top legislative achievements.

Now Biden is busy working with Chuck Schumer to make the Senate more Wall street-friendly, less progressive and less open to nay form of the kind of populism he's faked for his whole political career-- basically, his whole life. He's been the establishment's happy warrior in the ugly Democratic Party campaign against independent-minded Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania. Media buffoons never stop talking about how Biden is from Scranton, which is true, but he hasn't lived there since he was 9 years old. The establishment is using his status as son of Scranton in a vicious anti-Sestak campaign in favor of the Machine's worthless puppet candidate, Katie McGinty, who was recruited by Chuck Schumer when Sestak refused to pledge personal allegience to the power-mad Schumer.

The two other right-of-center Wall Street whores Biden has gotten behind this cycle are Schumercrats Ted Strickland in Ohio and "ex"-Republican Patrick Murphy in Florida, Wall Street's #1 priority for a Senate seat for 2016. As soon as Biden had given up on running for president himself, Schumer was all over him to help him elect more conservative Democrats to the Senate.

Within weeks, incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was at the Naval Observatory for breakfast, talking over the details. Not long after, he returned with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair Jon Tester (D-Mont.) for a 90-minute briefing on their top races.

“He was a man of the Senate, cared about the Senate, and we said, ‘We really need you to be our point guy,’” Schumer said. “And he has been.”

That's meant campaigning against progressives for Schumer's weak and corrupt batch of Wall Street-backing establishment shills. Patrick Murphy may be the worst Democrat running this year-- if you count the rich, spoiled GOP brat as a Democrat at all-- but Wall Street is all in on him and Biden got dragged into it by Schumer, promising presidential library contributions from banksters and from Murphy's crooked parents. Today Pennsylvania Democrats will pick between a man they know and respect and the puppet candidate of the machine. Obama has a generic ad he's cutting for the Schumercrats like McGinty. Paul Kane, in yesterday's Washington Post seems to be one of the only Beltway journalists to have figured out the destestable Schumer is pulling all the strings from behind the curtain. Here's how he described a scene with a criminal state Senator in Philly:

Katie McGinty has never been elected to anything, and her name is not well known to Pennsylvania voters. So last week, at a bustling transit stop in West Philadelphia, the unlikely Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate was relying on a local power broker to sell her to his dubious constituents.

A friend with a bullhorn beckoned commuters as state Sen. Vincent Hughes (D) insisted that McGinty would prevail in Tuesday’s Democratic primary on the strength of endorsements from powerful party leaders, including President Obama.

“There’s a crystallization, largely in the African American community, around Katie as they see folks like myself and others come out in support of her,” Hughes said.

...In Pennsylvania, the feud is more about personality than policy: Democratic leaders despise Sestak, who never stopped campaigning for the Senate after losing narrowly to Toomey six years ago.

“I don’t think anybody would call Joe Sestak paranoid if he said the Democratic Party was out to get him,” said John Fetterman, the mayor of Braddock and the third Democrat in the race.

The dispute has turned into a roughly $10 million brawl for the nomination that is likely to leave the victor broke and in desperate need of a strategy to unify the Democratic ranks against Toomey and his $10 million campaign war chest.

Polls showed Sestak, 64, with a large early lead. Now the race is neck and neck, but no one is sure whether McGinty, 52, can marshal her momentum and financial edge to overcome the reservoir of goodwill that Sestak has established during his years-long, nonstop campaign.

...McGinty has run in just one previous race, finishing a distant fourth in the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial primary. Her commercials tend to feature others talking about her-- in one recent ad, Obama’s voice made up almost the entire audio-- rather than the candidate explaining her policy proposals in her own voice.

McGinty has been willing to throw elbows. She has accused Sestak of contemplating cuts to Social Security benefits, because he once said nice things about a bipartisan debt-reduction plan known as Bowles-Simpson. And she has twisted his 2009 vote in favor of a proposal to tax Wall Street bonuses into an allegation that he supports unlimited bonuses for bank executives.

Still, it’s a measure of their deep dislike for Sestak that party leaders are backing such an unproven candidate in such a critical race.

In addition to helping McGinty’s campaign raise money, Democratic leaders have helped build an outside coalition of support that includes the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Emily’s List, labor unions and environmental groups. All told, the outside groups have so far spent an additional $4 million on McGinty’s behalf.

“This has become a campaign that is driven by Washington, D.C.,” Sestak said in an interview with the Washington Post.

For his part, Sestak says he tried to mend fences with party leaders. He says he considered their recommendations for his new campaign manager and fundraising chief. But he says he just couldn’t take it when he was given a direct order by a senior Democrat: “Sestak, whenever I tell you anything, the only answer is yes.”

In the interview, Sestak declined to name the party boss in question, but in earlier talks with local media, he made clear that it was Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

DWT has been reporting this for over a month. What we didn't know until we read Kane's piece though is that Philly political machine bosses, like Hughes and Robert Brady, are angry at Sestak because he refused to pay the traditional "walking around money" (half a million) to their machine the last time he ran. Kane implies Schumer and Biden are planning the same kind of treatment against Grayson and on behalf of Wall Street errand boy Patrick Murphy. HuffPo seems to have noticed what Schumer is up to as well, although none of the mainstream media is reporting about the explicit and aggressive threats to Bernie from Schumer to not interfere in the Senate races. In an interview, John Fetterman, the third candidate in the Pennsylvania Senate primary-- the real progressive in the race-- told Michael McAulife, the DSCC lied to him about remaining neutral in the race and letting Pennsylvania Democrats decide on their own. Schumer and his vile sock-puppet, Jon Tester, have spent close to $2 million boosting McGinty as of last night.

“They reneged on that promise, clearly, in a big, big way,” Fetterman said. “That’s the only conversation that we’ve had in Washington with the elites or the establishment.”

Fetterman is not especially surprised. He’s the sort of outsider whose ideas about inequality and belief in the need for fundamental change have long alarmed cautious, triangulation-prone party leaders who now worry that Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is making overly bold promises that he can’t possibly deliver. But Fetterman is also exactly the sort of candidate who, if he can win, would give Sanders a better chance of passing things like a $15 minimum wage, universal health care and free public college. And right now, not only are Democratic Party leaders not helping, they’re standing in the way... “I wanted to be a true progressive option in a race of more centrist and kind of traditional Democrats,” said Fetterman, who has endorsed Sanders.

...In the context of 2016, Fetterman’s policy aspirations are not that different from those of many left-leaning Democrats. He backs a $15 minimum wage, a woman’s right to choose, immigration reform and tighter gun laws, although he’s a gun owner.

It’s the way he approaches those issues that puts him at odds with party leaders in Washington who have cast themselves as reasonable compromisers against Republicans who are unyielding obstructionists.

Fetterman believes standing in the way can have its place.

“I’m the only candidate in this race that’s proud to say I have litmus tests for any Supreme Court nominee that I would vote for, and first and foremost of those is repealing Citizens United,” he said, referring to the 2010 court decision that paved the way for unlimited corporate spending in campaigns.

He also doesn’t believe in compromise for compromise’s sake when he views the other side as entirely unreasonable.

“This idea that you can compromise with crazy or unreasonable-- that’s not compromise, that is appeasement, and that doesn’t help anybody move it a long,” Fetterman said.

“When the other side is espousing these views that have no room for compromise, and they’re absurdist-- we don’t argue about the science of the camera that’s recording me, we don’t argue about the science of our iPhones, but why are we arguing about the science of climate?” he said. “It’s just because someone’s gut says if it snowed last week, I don’t have to worry about it-- you can’t really compromise on that.”

He allows that the divide in the country is especially broad right now, as seen in the rise of both Trump and Sanders. He sees both candidates as opposite sides of the populist coin, with Trump tapping into the destructive, dark side of populism embraced by so many in the tea party.

“This tea party, angry mindset-- they’ve just become performance artists. How many more dozens of times are they going to repeal Obamacare? How many dozens of more times are they going to scream and yell about transgender [people] using bathrooms, or that the world will spin off its axis if we grant marriage equality? The only marriage that I saw fall apart after [the Supreme Court upheld marriage equality] was Josh Duggar’s,” he said.

He also takes the unpolitician-like position of not claiming to have all the answers, including how to bridge the gaping divide. But he promises to try.

“[I’m] not guaranteeing an outcome other than to say I guarantee to work hard to achieve that outcome,” Fetterman said.

He especially can’t guarantee the outcome of this election.

One of the biggest hurdles he points to is the spending in the race, which makes his chances of taking the step up especially slim. Party insiders are determined to advance McGinty, and the combined spending on her behalf by the DSCC and other outside groups exceeds $4 million. That’s on top of almost $3 million spent by her own campaign. Sestak’s campaign and a super PAC backing him have spent about $3.5 million.

Fetterman has only raised about $600,000, and state news coverage of the contest has been dominated by the battle between the better-known Sestak and the party’s choice, McGinty.

“The money in my race has had massive, massive influence,” Fetterman said. “It’s not about ideas, it’s not about experience, it’s not about debates, it’s about how much money can you bring in from outside forces and just carpet bomb the airwaves with television ads.”

In a large state like Pennsylvania, the barrage has left very little room for Fetterman, whose polling numbers have ranged from the single digits to the mid-teens.

At the same time, neither Sestak, who generally leads, nor McGinty are getting support above the mid-30 percent range in spite of all their spending.

Fetterman still sees a chance to make up the difference by Tuesday’s election, in which he may be able to count on many Sanders supporters swinging his way while Clinton backers split between McGinty and Sestak.

Blue America has been rising money for Fetterman but our real hope to stop the complete conservative takeover of the Senate Democrats is in the race in Maryland today, where Donna Edwards may be able to beat establishment shill Chris Van Hollen today, and in Florida, where Grayson is still ahead of Murphy and beating him significantly in the race for small donor money. Only 10% of Murphy's campaign money comes from small contributions. Nearly 60% of Grayson's does. Please consider contributing to our Senate candidates here:

Since The Beltway Democratic Establishment Refuses To Back Progressives Candidates, Why Should Grassroots Dems Unite Behind Their Crap Candidates?

Earlier today, we took a quick look at why Hillary isn't doing better in Florida. Last week, it was Ohio. The latest national polling of likely voters shows Hillary beating Trump 42-36% in a match-up that includes the third party candidates. Part of the reason she isn't doing better in Florida and Ohio is because the Beltway Establishment helped impose vile loser candidates locally-- Wall Street garbage like Patrick Murphy in Florida and pathetic walking corpse Ted Strickland in Ohio, neither of whom brings a single thing to the table other than a prayer that they can ride Hillary's coattails.

Meanwhile, on the generic congressional question in the same Morning Consult poll, about voting for a Democrat or a Republican, Democrats win 46% to 37%. Unfortunately many of the DCCC and DSCC recruits are far worse-- far, far worse-- than a generic Democrat and others, good, solid progressive ones, are being starved of resources by a DCCC more eager to keep progressives out of Congress than electing Democrats to Congress.

Beltway Villagers and establishment goons everywhere reached for their smelling salts when Tim Canova courageously refused to endorse Debbie Wasserman Schultz and when Grayson passed on endorsing Patrick Murphy after both were beaten in the Florida primary at the end of August. This past weekend, Elizabeth Warren had some establishment noses out of joint when she did a Senate Democrats fundraiser and very pointedly left out craven Wall Street shills-- and Schumer favorites-- Patrick Murphy (FL), Evan Bayh (IN), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ) and Patty Judge (IA).

The problem is that neither Canova, Grayson nor Warren sees themevles as mindless cogs in a well-greased party wheel that goes round and round and round. Grayson and Warren have been beyond-the-call-of-duty loyal Democrats but there's a serious question as to whether or not Patrick Murphy fits any reasonable defination of "a Democrat" and there is no serious question about which interests Murphy, Bayh, Kirkpatrick and Judge would be working for were any of them to ooze into the Senate. Each of them could only be viewed as part of the problem Warren's career is built on tackling, not part of any reasonable solution. And her list of endorsed candidates doesn't just include progressives. Aside from Russ Feingold-- a sure-fired ally-- she's raising money for moderates like Katie McGinty (PA), Maggie Hassan (NH), Jason Kander (MO), Tammy Duckworth (IL) and Catherine Cortez Mastro (NV). Murphy, Bayh, Kirkpatrick and Judge, on the other hand, have records of working for the banksters and very much against the crucial issues Warren and Grayson and other progressives are working on.

Sunday, Kevin Robillard and Gabe Debenedetti reported that Bernie is refusing the help the crap-conservative Democrat, Sue Minter, running for governor in his own state-- and that it could cost her the race. They wrote that "Sanders' unwillingness to participate in the Minter race "is starting to generate ill will" with the state's Democratic establishment, according to "a top Vermont Democrat." Before Gov. Howard Dean put a stop to it, corrupt right-leaning Vermont Democrats like Minter and others from the Democratic Party establishment used to run right-wing Democrats against Bernie. In fact, in 1988 they ran someone just like Minter-- Democratic State Rep Paul Poirier-- against Bernie, draining away enough votes from him (19%), to throw the congressional seat to Republican Peter Smith and keep Bernie out of Congress.

How popular is Bernie in Vermont? In his last reelection race in 2012 he beat Republican John MacGovern 207,848 (71.1%) to 72,898 (24.9%). On that same day, Obama was reelected with 199,259 votes (67%). Yep! This year, Bernie beat Hillary in the state primary 115,900 (85.7%) to 18,338 (13.6%). He's been spending his political capital in Vermont trying to get a big turn-out for Hillary and for progressive allies like David Zuckerman (for Lt. Governor), Tim Ashe (for state Senate) and Mari Cordes (for state House). Howard Dean told the two Politico reporters that Minter is "very much a moderate Democrat"-- a polite way for Democrats to point out someone in their own party is a corrupt conservative piece of shit-- "which is probably why Bernie is sitting aside."

Minter, a technocrat who won a three-way Democratic primary by hyping her support for gun control and her role helping the state recover from flooding after Tropical Storm Irene, is still capable of winning without Sanders' help. But some observers believe the senator's endorsement would essentially guarantee a Democratic victory.

It's unclear exactly why Sanders hasn't backed Minter. He's been holed up with a top aide writing his book, mixing in travel to campaign for Hillary Clinton and higher-profile Senate candidates like Pennsylvania's Katie McGinty. Sanders also isn't fond of Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin-- who endorsed Clinton the day Sanders announced his presidential bid and scrapped plans to implement single-payer health care in the state-- and Minter worked in Shumlin's administration.

Minter also simply has a more moderate [again, that purposefully misleading Beltway word for "corrupt right-wing piece of shit"] profile than Sanders does.

“There is always an underlying question of who Bernie will support, but it isn't of the utmost importance,” said Dottie Deans, the state Democratic Party chair. “I certainly would welcome his support for any of our Democratic candidates, but what’s clear in this state is we have three parties: the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and the Progressive Party, and that makes it a little dicey.”

Sanders has marched to his own drumbeat on endorsements this year. National party leaders asked the Vermont independent to back two lower-profile Senate candidates over the summer-- Iowa’s Patty Judge and North Carolina’s Deborah Ross-- but they are not among the candidates Sanders has personally endorsed so far.

During the presidential primary race Schumer threatened Bernie with loss of a committee chair if he endorsed Grayson in Florida, Sestak or Fetterman in Pennsylvania or Sittenfeld in Ohio, where Schumer was desperate to have his conservative handpicked pro-Wall Street candidates-- respectively Patrick Murphy, Katie McGinty and Ted Strickland-- win the primaries. Bernie went along with it and the details of that will be a chapter in my "book" one day.

For establishment monsters like Steve Israel, Rahm Emanuel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Ben Ray Lujan, Schumer, Tester, etc, "party unity" is always a one-way street. The thermometer below goes to a page that has progressive House candidates who won their primaries and have been completely and spitefully abandoned by the DCCC. All are in winnable districts, although some are very winnable and others are tougher shots. Please consider contributing to any-- or all-- of their campaigns: