Will The DCCC Kill Medicare-For-All By Recruiting Enough Blue Dogs Who Oppose It?

The new PPP survey released yesterday, asked respondents if they would vote for various Democrats or Trump in 2020. All the Democrats-- even corporate shill Cory Booker-- beats Trump:

• Joe Biden- 54-39%
• Bernie Sanders- 52-39%
• Elizabeth Warren- 49-42%
• Cory Booker- 45-40%
• Kamala Harris- 41-40%

And when asked if they would vote for a Democrat or a Republican in their own congressional district in 2018, this was the result:

On top of that, 57% of respondents said they disapprove of how Speaker Paul Ryan is doing his job and 58% said they disapproved of how Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is doing his job. So is everything coming up roses for the Democrats? Maybe not. Last month a top Democratic congressional operative was widely-- and sympathetically-- quoted after saying that "We no longer have a party caucus capable of riding this wave. We have 80-year-old leaders and 90-year-old ranking members. This isn't a party. It's a giant assisted living center. Complete with field trips, gym, dining room and attendants." When I was a country dj in San Francisco --way back when Pelosi was my congressmember-- I used to play a few songs from a West Virginia band based in Austin-- Asleep at the Wheel. This song was one of 'em-- a Pelosi-era song in my mind... by a band whose name perfectly describes her and her entire failed leadership team.

Yesterday we started the day by exposing the DCCC's intention to restock the House Democratic Caucus with the failed and widely loathed Blue Dogs and other candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Pelosi, like Wasserman Schultz, thinks the biggest possible tent is all that matters. "Come one, come all... yes, even you anti-Choice, fanatics... and especially all you corrupt Wall Street whores; the Democratic Party should be your home-- and we'll even run you for office. A few minutes later AP ran with a feature by Stev Peoples and Bill Barrow, With 2018 Looming, Demicrats Divided On Their Core Message. Yes, that's what happens when the tent gets too big-- the brand turns to shit and the party-- in this case the great party of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt-- ceases to have any cohesive, coherent message. I'm glad we elected the first woman Speaker in 2006. Her political expiration date has passed and it;s time for her-- and her whole horrible team-- to move along and let real Democrats take over. Under Pelosi and Hoyer and Wasserman Schultz the only thing the Democratic Party is really about is... their careers. And that's not enough, especially not with Bernie and Elizabeth Warren-- not to mention younger members like Pramila Jayapal, Ted Lieu, Jamie Raskin, Katherine Clark and Ro Khanna-- talking about the real issues that motivate and inspire real Democrats.

Pelosi, Hoyer, Crowley and Ben Ray Lujan may be hunting for Blue Dogs and New Dems to slip into Congress by riding the anti-Trump wave, but Democrats on the grassroots level are being activated and inspired by candidates like Randy Bryce (WI), Jim Thompson (KS), Sam Jammal (CA), Katie Hill (CA) and Jenny Marshall (NC), not by the nameless, faceless, self-funding GOP-lite shits the DCCC is recruiting.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley hesitated when asked about his party’s core message to voters.

“That message is being worked on,” the New York congressman said in an interview this past week. “We’re doing everything we can to simplify it, but at the same time provide the meat behind it as well. So that’s coming together now.”

The admission from the No. 4 House Democrat-- that his party lacks a clear, core message even amid Republican disarray-- highlights the Democrats’ dilemma eight months after President Donald Trump and the GOP dominated last fall’s elections, in part, because Democrats lacked a consistent message.

The soul-searching comes as Democrats look to flip at least 24 GOP-held seats necessary for a House majority and cut into Republican advantages in U.S. statehouses in the 2018 midterm elections. Yet with a Russia scandal engulfing the White House, a historically unpopular health-care plan wrenching Capitol Hill and no major GOP legislative achievement, Democrats are still struggling to tell voters what their party stands for.

Some want to rally behind calls to impeach the Republican president as new evidence indicates possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. Democratic leaders are reluctant to pursue that approach as it only energizes the GOP base. Others want Democrats to focus on the GOP’s plans to strip health insurance from millions of Americans. And still others say those arguments can be fashioned into a simplified brand.

As Democratic officials debate their party’s message, so do voters across America.

Just 37 percent of adults believe the Democratic Party “stands for something,” according to a Washington Post-ABC poll released on Monday. Another 52 percent said the party “just stands against Trump.”

For now, at least, Democrats are waging a tug-of-war largely between the Russia investigation and the GOP’s attempts to gut the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Several liberal groups that had been laser-focused on health care have intensified calls for impeachment in recent weeks, including MoveOn.org, Indivisible and UltraViolet.

“We need to be talking about impeachment constantly,” said Scott Dworkin, co-founder of the recently formed Democratic Coalition Against Trump. He warned on Twitter, “If you’re an elected Dem & you’re not talking impeachment or 25th amendment then find a new party.”

Yet one of the left’s favorites, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, is focusing almost exclusively on health care.

And Bernie isn't the only one. Of the 188 Democrats in the House, 152 have signed on to John Conyers' Medicare-For-All act. Who hasn't? Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DCCC chairman Ben Ray Lujan, DCCC Recruitment Committee chair Denny Heck, and most of the New Dems and Blue Dogs. And guess what kind of Democrats Pelosi, Hoyer, Wasserman Schultz, Lujan and Heck are recruiting as candidates-- self-described "moderates" like Dave Min in Orange County, Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (IL-13), Amanda Howland (IL-06) and Drew McGinty and Elizabeth Moro (PA-07), the latter an actual "ex"-Republican, who refuse to back Medicare-for-All. We've fought too long and too hard to let the DCCC slip this kind of garbage into Congress as part of an anti-Trump wave built not by the House Democratic leadership or the DCCC but by the grassroots base of the party!

Many Democrats outside Washington insist they must go beyond opposing Trump and his policies if they expect to make major gains in 2018 and beyond.

“Democrats would make a mistake if we thought pounding Trump and not having an authentic message of our own is a winning strategy,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper. “The message of Democrats has to be about issues that matter to people at their kitchen table.”

In South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Democrats don’t have to retreat from their opposition to Trump, including talking about Russia, but they must tie it all together with a consistent theme that goes beyond day-to-day news cycles.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “We exist to help people go about their lives, to protect their rights and freedoms and opportunities.”

...Meanwhile, Crowley said voters may have to wait a few more months before they hear national Democrats’ new message.
“We’re all working on that,” Crowley said. “We’re hoping to have this up and running and out by this fall.”