Cheri Bustos Has Got To Go

I'm not sure how much of this is bravado, but almost all the progressives challenging reactionary Democratic incumbents for congressional seats this cycle, have been telling me Bustos' new DCCC anti-primary policy has actually been helping them! One told me that dislike for the policy and for the DCCC in general has sparked grassroots fundraising. Yesterday I had a long talk with Georgia progressive, Michael Owens, who is announcing his primary against corrupt Blue Dog David Scott in the morning. The former chairman of the Cobb County Democratic Party, scoffed and referred to the Bustos rule as "the Michael Owens Rule" and told us that the consultants and vendors haven't stopped calling and offering to work for his campaign.

"In a district like ours," he told me, "this isn't going to have much impact. Voters here have been learning to not trust the DC establishment and I wasn't expecting any support from the DCCC in my primary anyway."

Now Bustos herself has drawn a primary-- as have Democratic leaders Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi. Recently, the Quad Cities Times-- where Bustos one worked as a journalist-- published a letter from one of her constituents on the fundamental damage she's doing to the Democratic Party.

U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, blacklisted any consultants or vendors who work for primary challengers even in secure blue districts.

It is a policy meant to deter any new voices in the Democratic Party. Bustos should support fair competition rather than blacklist candidates that have energized young voters and brought integral issues like climate change to the forefront.

Young Democrats at 40 college campuses (led by the Harvard College Democrats) have announced a boycott of the DCCC. Bustos scoffed in reply, stating they had pulled in a record of $32 million last cycle. But that money didn’t come from individual voters who support her; the majority came from health care lobbyists that oppose health care reform.

The old guard failed to beat Donald Trump and they continue to vote like 1980’s Republicans (which tells you just how far to the right current Republicans have gone today).

The DCCC doesn’t recognize that independent voters want change, even if it comes in the form of a grifter like Trump. Bustos thinks she won the 17th District because she’s a centrist, but Lane Evans was one of the most liberal members of Congress and was elected 12 times.

If the DCCC thinks voters will turn-out simply based on their hatred of Trump, they are sorely mistaken. They will simply stay home or vote third-party.

One can only imagine what Bustos (and Pelosi) will be saying about Ro Khanna tomorrow. This afternoon, he wrote a note to his own supporters explaining that "If the DCCC will blacklist candidates like Marie Newman in an attempt to stop them from running against anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ candidates like Dan Lipinski, then congressional progressives like me must have her back. He gave her campaign $1,000 as well and made sure his own supporters understand what is at stake here. "Don't let the DCCC push Marie Newman out of this critical race... This is a question of what the Democratic party stands for:

• Do we believe that a woman's right to choose is a fundamental human right?
• Do we believe in stopping discrimination against LGBTQ people?
• Do we believe in affordable and quality healthcare for all?

"Marie Newman and I both believe these are all core principles of the Democratic party. Dan Lipinski," continued Khanna, "has voted on the wrong side of all of these issues and sadly many more. Now, not only does the DCCC insist on protecting Dan Lipinski, they’re using their blacklist policy to keep quality staff and consultants from working for Marie Newman’s campaign."

There are 50 Republican-held seats that are ready to flip in 2020. Bustos' obsession with putting virtually all the DCCC's energy into protecting Republican-lite Blue Dogs like herself from progressive challengers will cede more than half of those contests to the GOP before a single shot is fired. The DCCC has had a string of really disastrous DCCC chairs-- Rahm Emanuel, Steve Israel, Ben Ray Luján, but Bustos is already proving herself to be the worst of any of them. Please click on the Primary A Blue Dog thermometer on the right and help one-- or all-- of the progressives on the list defeat the corrupt right-of-center incumbents Bustos is trying to prop up with her anti-democratic rule. The fundamental change America desperately needs now will never get off the ground while Congress is lousy with Blue Dogs like Bustos and her preferred corporate shills-- Dan Lipinski (IL), David Scott (GA) and Tom O'Halleran (AZ)... to name just a few. Bustos' reactionary mind-set is muddying the Democratic Party brand. She and her claque are ruining the party and have to be stopped.