Team Sport Day, Kids-- Do You Want A Blue Uniform Or A Red One?

Ro & Beto, 2 charismatic Democrats-- both refuse to give blanket endorsements to just anyone in a blue uniform... but for very different reasons

According to a CNN report last night, a Democratic Party robot in New Hampshire, Deb Nelson, the chair of the Hanover/Lyme Town Democrats, asked Beto to take the "Any Blue Will Do" pledge. That's because during his recent Senate race he probably caused the defeat of a mediocre Democratic candidate, Gina Jones, in a district , TX-23, he himself won. Beto, a middle-of-the-road, Democrat, is pals with the Republican incumbent, Will Hurd, a middle-of-the-road Republican. Jones, also a middle of the road nothing candidate, ran for Hurd's seat. There was a big to-do down in Texas because Beto was busy endorsing other Democratic candidates-- and helping them win-- but very pointedly and publicly refused to do so for Jones. And not because she was a worse candidate than the candidates Beto was helping.

Beto beat Ted Cruz in TX-23 but Hurd scraped by with a narrow 103,285 (49.2%) to 102,359 (48.7%) win. The biggest county in the district, Bexar, is Beto country. He beat Cruz there by over 100,000 votes and by 20 points. But Jones fell seriously short of what she needed to win in the super-crucial Bexar portion of the district. And although Jones won in the El Paso part of the district, the second biggest county and Beto's home (where he eviscerated Cruz 74.4% to 25.0%), it is thought that had he pumped for Jones, she would have won the extra thousand votes there and in Bexar that would have put her over Hurd.

Blue America didn't back Jones either, not because she wasn't better than Hurd-- she is-- but because she's isn't an especially good candidate. With a concerted push from the DCCC and establishment Texas Dems, Jones had beaten the progressive candidate, Rick Treviño, in a run-off primary. But Beto didn't not back her because she wasn't any good; he didn't back her because he preferred Hurd, his buddy. That's what robot Dems like Nelson are upset about-- which is understandable. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Blue Dog, who Nelson would insist Beto endorse-- and Beto would anyway-- is not just a Trump-Democrat who votes with the GOP on crucial issues, he endorses Republicans and even gives them campaign contributions! Should there be a pledge that forces Democrats to endorse someone like Cuellar? 

After she pestered him about his refusal to support Jones, he responded to Nelson that he "can't take a pledge to support every single Democrat in the country. I need to know about them first, right? Would you want me to make a blanket commitment about people I know nothing about, who I've never met?" Yes, Nelson would. Any blue will do-- whether a real Democrat with real Democratic values running on strong Democratic issues, or some fake Democrat-- a Blue Dog or a New Dem or any kind of stinking, corrupt right-wing garbage in a blue uniform.

Beto's right on this, for the wrong underlying reasons. Gina Jones would have been an unoffensive and worthless New Dem back-bencher in Congress-- pretty much, unfortunately, what Beto was. On the partisan margins, Beto was a better member than Hurd. On the partisan margins, Jones would have been too. Beto helped worse candidates than her. He more-or-less admits why he preferred Hurd over her. "Will Hurd, Gina Ortiz Jones' opponent, the incumbent member of Congress and a good friend of mine, was someone who, in my day job as a member of Congress representing El Paso, I was able to work with," he told the New Hampshire Democrats, referencing a showboat, but otherwise meaningless, bipartisan road trip the two of them took, driving together from Texas to DC on Facebook.

Nelson wasn't having any of it. "I get friendships, I do, but I think in this day and age where somebody befriends a Republican and legislation that we think is important doesn't get passed," she told reporters after he encounter with Beto. "And I think that's a concern. I know Gina Ortiz Jones was very close to winning in her district, and I know he made a decision not to endorse her, and he could be a friend and still endorse a Democrat who's an Iraq War veteran and a strong candidate. And I'm concerned about that... I think you can be friends with Republicans, I think you can be -- you can drive across the country with Republicans, but I think when it comes to actually effecting legislative change, I don't see it in this Republican Party." It's debatable whether or not being an Iraq War vet makes someone a good member of Congress-- right-wing jerks like Doug Collins (R-GA), Don Bacon (R-NE), Greg Steube (R-FL), Steve Watkins (R-KS), Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY), Duncan Hunter (R-CA and Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) are all Iraq veterans and all totally ghastly members of Congress who do not belong anywhere near Capitol Hill. And as far as Gina Jones having been a "strong candidate"... she wasn't anything more than a generic, garden variety DCCC pick.

I agree with Nelson that Republicans are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The Republican Party sucks. So do their candidates who are, one and all, confirmed Trump-enablers and ready to sell their country out-- including the Iraq War vets, apparently-- for partisan gain. Will Hurd is terrible, not as bad as some, but terrible. Directly below is a list of a dozen incumbents with their 2019 ProgressivePunch crucial vote scores. Justin Amash's score is the best of any Republican in the House, although still horrible and rated "F." But look at the scores of those directly below him:

• Justin Amash (R-MI)- 42.86%
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- 42.86%
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)- 42.86%
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 35.71%
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 35.71%
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- 35.71%
• Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)- 35.71%
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 28.57%
• John Katko (R-NY)- 21.43%
• Elise Stefanik (R-NY)- 21.43%
• Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)- 21.43%
• Will Hurd (R-TX)- 21.43%

[Neither Cheri Bustos, Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi nor anyone else involved with the DCCC would even blink when asking you to write a check to support Josh Gottheimer or to defeat Justin Amash.]

If Beto wanted to differentiate between Democrats he supports and Democrats who he refuses to support based on policy, based on records of accomplishment, based on character... he'd be a hero... like Ro Khanna, who recently wrote a thousand dollar check to the primary campaign of progressive Democrat Marie Newman. Marie is running against right-wing, crooked Blue Dog Dan Lipinski, one of Khanna's own fellow incumbents. Khanna was also the only member of Congress to endorse AOC when she was running against corrupt conservative Joe Crowley, then an almost sure-thing-winner and extremely powerful and almost guaranteed-to-be-the-next-Speaker-of-the-House. Please think about the difference between what Beto did and what Ro Khanna did. And then think about this video below that compares and contrasts two very different Democrats in real time, each of whom is currently campaigning for president: