Monday, February 24, 2020

The Democratic Establishment Freak-Out

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That depends on what you mean by "Democrats"

That there is a Stop Bernie movement among the Democratic Party leaders instead of a Stop Republican Oligarch Michael Bloomberg Movement tells you all you will ever need to know about the Democratic Establishment. As a cohort, they are less than worthless. Joe Biden was their anointed Jeb Bush for the 2020 election cycle. And now they are reduced to whining that Tom Steyer's money in South Carolina is obliterating a firewall among elderly rural African-American voters and putting the final nail into Biden's political coffin. Maybe they should have realized that, politically speaking, Biden has been a zombie/corpse for decades.



With Mayo Pete demonstrating the hollowness of his flimsy support outside of wine cellars, their new best hope is the free-spending-- on them-- Republican oligarch. This is the lowest the party establishment has ever sunk. Believe me, none of them were happy yesterday when they woke up to Matt Viser's Washington Post delineation of the massiveness of Bernie's win in Nevada the night before. Let's hope Bernie smashes the party establishment to smithereens on the day after the convention and breathes new life into a wearing, geriatric Democratic Party.

The next Stop Bernie attack will be that if he's on the top of the ticket, incumbents in red and purple districts could lose. The most Republican-voting assholes among Democrats in Congress, Blue Dogs Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Ben McAdams (UT), have both said they won't vote for Bernie. Neither, however, votes for virtually anything that's important to Democratic voters. So why should anyone care if they lose their seats? It's arguable that the Democratic Party will be much better off without members in Congress like Brindisi and McAdams, especially if they can pick up actual Democrats in other GOP-held districts, like, for example, Kara Eastman in Nebraska, Mike Siegel in Texas, Jon Hoadley in Michigan,  Jennifer Christie in Indiana, Tom Winter in Montana, Chris Armitage in Washington, Liam O'Mara in California, J.D. Scholten in Iowa...

Progressives in the House tell me that Brindisi is the worst Democrat in Congress and they all actually hope he's defeated just so that they won't gave to hear him constantly whining about how anything they try to do for the American people will cause him to lose his re-election battle. One senior Democrat told me he had never hoped for a colleague to lose before, but "I'd rather see a Republican in that seat than Brindisi. He's the worst lily-livered excuse for a Democrat I've ever seen." Meanwhile McAdams openly boasted that if Bernie or Elizabeth Warren wins the nomination he would distance himself from them. "My ideas are different than theirs," he said. "So as long as people understand that I’m going to be independent of any candidate and really be true to my district, I think that’s most important." But he isn't true to his district-- not at all. There are 4 counties or parts of counties that make up his district (UT-04). Salt Lake County has 5 times the number of voters than the other 3 combined. Here's how they voted in the 2016 Democratic caucuses, when Bernie was up against the status quo conservative Democrat McAdams backed:
Salt Lake- Bernie 78.8%
Utah- 85.3%
Sanpete- Bernie 84.9%
Juab- Bernie 77.5%
Yeah, so... so much for this lying sack of excrement being true to his constituents or his district, unless he's talking about the Republicans in his district. His district wants change and Biden is the no-change candidate. In 2016, they voted so overwhelmingly for Bernie because Bernie was-- and still is-- the change candidate. McAdams is a liar, trying to justify being so outrageously out of step with Democrats and independents in Utah.




OK, back to that report from Mike Debonis and Michael Scherer in The Post about the establishment's newest gambit to derail the working class champion. (If you don't want to read it, just approach Joy Reid if you dare; she's got a sickening version of it on infinite replay.) Debonis and Scherer wrote that "many Democratic House and Senate candidates are approaching a dramatic shift in their campaigns, as they recalibrate to include praise of capitalism and distance themselves from the national party. Top campaign strategists from both parties view Sanders’s success as a potentially tectonic event, which could narrow the party’s already slim hopes of retaking the Senate majority and fuel GOP dreams of reclaiming the House, which it lost amid a Democratic romp in 2018."

The most obvious people to go to to bolster this talking point would be representatives of Team Hillary and-- where that differs at all-- to the Republican wing of the party, like Rahm Emanuel. They went to one of Rahm's would-be clones. "I can tell you that there are a lot of down-ballot jitters based on my conversations with my former colleagues," said Steve Israel," who led the DCCC through some of its biggest losses in contemporary party history. He was kind enough to validate some GOP propaganda for them: "Trump is going to offer the American people this choice: Do you want to continue building the economy or do you want to lurch toward socialism? And that is a real powerful argument in the Democratic districts that Trump won in 2016."
Internal polling and analytics completed last week by former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg’s campaign projected that Sanders may be the only presidential candidate to win delegates in every state and district on March 3, delivering him a lead of 350 to 400 out of 1,357 delegates set to be awarded unless race dynamics change, according to a person familiar with the data who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.

Because of Democratic rules that give no delegates to candidates who scores less than 15 percent of the vote in a state or congressional district, Sanders could build a delegate lead far greater than his advantage in the popular vote.

If Democrats are awakening to a recognition that Sanders could pull away from the rest of the field, there is far less consensus about whether his nomination will help President Trump win reelection. Sanders’s power to turn out young and blue-collar voters or suburbanites is not fully tested, the ceiling of Trump’s support is poorly defined in a two-way race and the senator from Vermont has not yet been subjected to a negative paid advertising effort.

“Our data shows that all of our potential nominees, including Sanders, have a pathway to victory, but it isn’t guaranteed,” said Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC that has polled heavily in the key presidential swing states. “This election will be close regardless of who we nominate.”

But there is far less flexibility for candidates in smaller districts. That has prompted Republicans to celebrate as they look to reclaim ground they lost in 2018 when largely affluent suburbs rebelled against the GOP in a protest of Trump.

“The Democrats’ embrace of socialism is going to cost them their majority-- I mean, it’s as simple as that,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Bernie is about as good a contrast as we could have ever hoped for.”
Bear in mind that Tom Emmer-- and the economic royalists inside the Democratic Party-- are repeating, virtually word for word, what the conservatives said about FDR, who they also-- unflinchingly and 4 two decades-- labeled a Socialist!!!!! I might remind you that, in every possible way, Michael Bloomberg is the perfect antithesis of Franklin Roosevelt. This is what happened when the conservatives, in some cases of both parties, went to the voters with the Socialism!!!! message against FDR and the Democratic Party:
1932

Presidential popular vote- FDR wins 22,821,277 (57.4%) to 15,761,254 (39.7%)
electoral vote 472 to 59 (GOP carried 6 states)
Senate- 58-37 (GOP lost 11 seats)
House- 313-117 (GOP lost 101 seats)

1936

Presidential popular vote- FDR wins 27,747,636 (60.8%) to 16,679,543 (36.5%)
electoral vote 523 to 8 (GOP carried 2 states)
Senate- 74-17 (GOP lost 5 seats)
House- 334-88 (GOP lost 15 seats)

1940-- when the VP nominee was an actual Socialist

Presidential popular vote- FDR wins 27,313,945 (54.7%) to 22,347,744 (44.8%)
electoral vote 449 to 82 (GOP carried 10 states)
Senate- 66-27 (Dems lost 2 seats)
House- 267-162 (GOP lost 7 seats)

1944

Presidential popular vote- FDR wins 25,612,916 (53.4%) to 22,017,929 (45.9%)
electoral vote 432 to 99 (GOP carried 12 states)
Senate- 58-37 (no net change)
House- 242-191 (GOP lost 18 seats)
Alan Grayson (D-FL) is taking a time-out from Congress. I spoke with him yesterday and he told me that "In every election cycle for many years now, the GOP tries to play mind games with Democrats to turn them against their own leaders, whom the GOP says are never 'moderate' enough to win-- except when they do. And whenever those Democratic leaders actually are progressive, the GOP finds willing co-conspirators in that mind-game among right-wing Democrats. The term 'unelectable' is simply a weapon that right-wing Democrats deploy against progressives, time after time after time. You could make a good argument that Trump actually is further to the right than Bernie is to the left. Where, oh where, are the 'moderate' GOP politicos, wringing their hands over that? Why is it that when Bernie says something lefty, he’s called a socialist, and when Trump does something racist or crazy or just stupid, he’s 'motivating his base?'"





I asked a few members of Congress and some candidates for Congress how they see this dynamic themselves. I started with Los Angeles' liberal lion, Ted Lieu, who endorsed Kamala Harris with whom he had worked closely on several of his legislative priorities both in Sacramento and in Washington. He hasn't endorsed anyone since she withdrew and told me that he will support whoever wins the Democratic nomination. He added that he also noted "that the conventional wisdom of Washington insiders was wrong about Obama, wrong about Trump and currently contradicted by the actual voter data when it comes to Sanders. For 5 years the polls have shown Sanders beats Trump in head to head matchups. And in a recent Emerson poll this month, it shows Sanders was the only Democratic candidate to beat Trump in a head to head matchup. The notion that in November a voter will turn out and vote for Sanders and then somehow vote for the down ballot GOP congressional candidate is simply not supported by the data."

Tom Suozzi is a New Dem from Long Island, a serious legislator with serious ideas about how to serve his constituents. We don't agree on issues as much as Ted Lieu and I do but we do agree about the whole party coming together after Bernie is the nominee. Tom endorsed one of the other presidential candidates but told me yesterday that "A big problem in America today is that too many people view their fellow Americans with contempt. It is ok to disagree and disagree strongly, but contempt will destroy us. Just because you don’t agree with someone in their choice of candidate or their position on a particular issue, it does not mean it is ok to view them with contempt. If we are to defeat Donald Trump, we need everyone from Bernie and AOC, all the way to Bloomberg and Biden and everyone in between. If we can’t hold that coalition together, we lose. Campaigns are tough, and candidates and their surrogates play to win, but everyone must recognize that when the dust settles, we need to unite behind the winner, even if it wasn’t your first choice. If we don’t, then Trump wins again." I have no doubt that Tom Suozzi will be enthusiastically introducing Bernie to his constituents when Bernie visits Huntington and Hicksville next fall.

Tomas Ramos, a Bronx-based Berniecrat who is campaigning for an open congressional seat on the same set of issues Bernie is campaigning on, told me last night that "The notion that if Bernie is at the top of the ticket we lose Congress is simply not true. Bernie created a movement the first time around and now the movement has only gotten bigger, with young and old people alike. When I’m out door knocking I ask my voters who are they supporting for president, the common answer is Bernie. People are more excited for Bernie than ever before. The voters in my district know that we need to beat Trump and they know that Bernie is the guy to do so."

Goal ThermometerLiam O'Mara, a history professor taking on Trumpist Rep. Ken Calvert in Riverside County, California, pointed out that "Democrats have struggled to hold onto congressional majorities, but one key reason for that is their tepid stances on the issues, their frequent preference for right-wing economics, and their refusal to push for policies which are broadly popular. Congress often has an approval rating in the single digits. The drift to the right since the late 1980s has been a demonstrable failure. We have lost most statehouses and most presidential elections, and struggled to hold onto either chamber of Congress. Something has to give. The way forward for Democrats is to embrace progressivism. This isn't the 1970s-- the country has caught up with the progressive agenda on a wide range of issues. Most Americans oppose corporate money's control of our elections. Most Americans support single-payer health care. Most Americans oppose our interventionist foreign policy and our many wars. Most Americans accept the consensus on global warming and want serious action. Most Americans distrust the bankers who keep crashing our economy, and the neoliberal trade deals that have undermined workers, and want better oversight. The list goes on and on. Sanders is doing well because people are tired of the same old message. He is bringing new people into the political process, talking about issues that affect most of our lives, and he's been winning over independents and even conservatives. If Democrats really want to control Congress and the White House, there is a path to both available. I can tell you that in my own race, running a respectful campaign which will talk to anyone and focusses on policy rather than partisanship has been resonating. It is something we should see more of in this country, not less.

Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba, running for the Oregon seat held by Blue Dog Kurt Schrader, who agrees with Republicans on crucial issues more than with Democrats. " Look, people get all caught up in a variety of complicated theories about what some candidate will or won't do to down ticket races," Gamba told me yesterday. "I think it's much more simple than that. The vast majority of the American people have been getting screwed by neo-liberal, profits first, policies enacted by both Republicans and 'centerist' Democrats for over 40 years. For simplicity's sake, let's call that the status-quo. In 2016 they were desperate for that to change. They still are. Trump has proven himself to be even more blatant about screwing everyone but the 1%. The way we bring out an excited electorate is to offer them real solutions to their problems-- Sanders offers that. So do about 100 people running tough races against incumbent members of the status-quo all over America. What the talking heads are truly frightened of, is Sanders AND an army of like-minded people getting elected and enacting real change that supports the 99%, taxes the bloody rich for a change, stops climate chaos and reduces the constant misery for a few hundred million Americans. So we will continue to see all kinds of half assed theories telling us why electing Sanders will doom us all. Never forget that the talking heads and the media conglomerates they work for are all part of the 1%.


Kim Williams is the Central Valley progressive running for the seat occupied by Blue Dog Jim Costa. "Since last summer," she explained, "I’ve knocked on thousands of doors. I’ve heard people’s stories, shook their hands, and listened to their dreams for their children. None of these conversations align with the establishment’s understanding of America. One hundred and forty million Americans have been left behind. They don’t see themselves in the booming economy and they don’t see themselves in the national news. Sanders is the only candidate that acknowledges the very real challenges people face and actually offers solutions. It’s absurd to keep attacking him on his electability when he keeps winning, and it’s ridiculous to suggest that he’s never really been attacked when the media has been unrelenting in their negative coverage. But while pundits panic over the presidential election, we see something very different on the ground. Being a progressive candidate with a policy platform that aligns with Sanders has been a tremendous asset, not a burden. In fact, if someone wanted to coin a phrase for down-ballot races, I think referring to candidates as “Bernie Democrats” would actually be quite powerful. It immediately conveys policy positions and lets normally disenfranchised voters know you’re on their side. This might shake the establishment, but it energizes the majority. And they will ultimately decide who represents them."

Arizona workers rights champion and progressive candidate for Congress, Eva Putzova, was a Bernie delegate to last cycle's DNC. Today she's running on an Arizona version of that platform. "The assertion that a Sanders nomination wlll result in Democrats losing congressional seats is ridiculous. The opposite is the case," she said. "In my district, the momentum generated by Sanders campaign is already firing up the base of the party-- youth, people of color, women, workers and climate activists, and even moderates who are starting to realize that Sanders is fighting to make their lives better and more secure. From my perspective, and that of my campaign, if Sanders wins the nomination it increases my chances to win the primary in August and the general election in November. I share Rep. Lieu's assessment that voters who turn out for Sanders will not vote for GOP candidates down-ballot. All Democrats, particularly progressive Democrats, will benefit if Sanders is at the top of the ticket."

"In NY-25, the issues that comprise Bernie Sanders’s platform are the ones that most enthuse our Democratic base," said Rochester progressive Robin Wilt. "As I go door-to-door, Bernie’s platform resonates with the voters whom I engage. I want to clarify that when I mention the Democratic base, I’m not talking about the elite Democratic establishment that comprise fewer than 1% of our Democratic electorate. We recently had occasion to histogram the age of the Democratic Committee in the jurisdiction of Brighton, NY, where I serve in town government. Both the mean and the average age were…wait for it… 62 years of age. The Democratic elite are not representative of the registered base of Democrats. They never have been, and they never will be. When we continue to ignore the voice of the overwhelming majority of the electorate, in favor of amplifying the voices of the establishment that increasingly does not resemble the registered base, we risk mistaking the will of party operatives with the will of the people. I was at the rally at Queensbridge Park. I have been canvassing my Congressional District. The masses believe in the future promised by Bernie Sanders, not the cynicism expressed by an increasingly detached party elite."


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Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The DCCC Is Hiding NRA-Democrats Jeff Van Drew, Ann Kirkpatrick, Anthony Brindisi And Elaine Luria

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I've reported this here before but bear with me a moment; there's a reason I'm repeating it now. The week Andrew Janz declared he was running for Congress and eager to take on Devin Nunes in the Central Valley district (CA-22) that stretches from Clovis and the neighborhoods and suburbs north and east of Fresno through Dinuba and Visalia and down beyond Tulare, he called to ask about a Blue America endorsement. He was a brand new candidate without the consultants who teach new candidates what to say and not say. He has them now. But then he was still speaking from the heart, raw and unfiltered. I asked if I could run him through some of the questions we talk about with candidates. He agreed immediately. And we ran into problems right off the bat. He didn't know what single payer or Medicare for All meant. He grew exasperated and asked if he could just tell me his motivations for running. I said sure. He said the death penalty and the Second Amendment. I was confused and asked him to explain. He said he wanted to see the death penalty more widely used and that Congress needed to protect the Second Amendment. I asked him if he was a Democrat. He laughed and said Democrats in the Central Valley are different from Democrats on the coast.

Janz isn't on the DCCC's Red to Blue list yet but he's clearly being supported by the establishment and the DCCC's stalking horse, the scam known as End Citizens United has endorsed him. His issues page was written by his consultants and it's a garden variety Democratic position page across the board, nothing innovative, no passion... just standard issue D for Democrat; no mention of the death penalty he told me was motivating him to run and his gun position-- while saying nothing about banning the manufacture and sale of automatic weapons-- is also standard DCCC fare for candidates, albeit nothing like what he told me less than a year ago:
I am in a unique position to tackle gun safety issues with credibility in Congress. As a prosecutor, I deal with violent crimes daily, and as a gun owner, I support an individual's right to bear arms. I am committed to enacting universal background checks, and closing gun show and private sale loopholes. Additionally, I believe that no one who commits a violent crime or who is mentally ill should have access to guns. Specifically, I support a measure banning those who are convicted of committing domestic violence from owning a gun. I also strongly support the no-fly no buy list. My opponent Devin Nunes has an A rating from the NRA and has accepted over $20,000 in contributions from them. I will never take a dime from the NRA or any organization that opposes common-sense gun safety legislation that will save lives and end the epidemic of mass shootings in America. 
Many politicians whose views are aligned with the NRA have moved swiftly to distance themselves from the group. Very few Democrats still take bribes from the gun makers and their lobbyists. Only a few hard core gun nuts among the Blue Dogs and New Dems-- 4 to be precise-- still do: like Collin Peterson (MN), Henry Cuellar (TX), Sanford Bishop (GA), and Ron Kind (WI). So far no non-incumbent candidates have taken any money for their congressional races from the NRA. But several have very extreme NRA records, particularly gun-fanatics with clear records they can't run away from, DCCC recruits as bad as any Republican gun nut and day of any week: Anthony Brindisi (NY), Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ) and Elaine Luria (VA). The vast majority of DCCC endorsed candidates are either Blue Dogs or New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. There's virtually no chance that Brindisi, Van Drew, Kirkpatrick and Luria are the only NRA Democrats among them; they're just the ones who haven't been able to obscure their records, the way Janz has.

The DCCC recruited Jeff Van Drew to run in an open New Jersey House seat

One of the slimiest of the former DCCC chairmen, Steve Israel, a former Blue Dog who was forced to leave Congress to avoid legal prosecution, penned an OpEd for The Hill on Monday: The 'Teen Party' can change Congress like the Tea Party. The DCCC, incapable of creating its own energy, is desperate to capture and exploit the energy being created by the March for Our Lives activists. There is nothing they want more than to pin the gun deaths on the Republican Party and paper over the fact that they have been RECRUITING, not just endorsing, NRA allies to run for Congress. "[I]ntangible energy in the environment," wrote Israel about elections, "the charge in the air. It makes everything mechanical and methodical almost irrelevant. It’s like an electromagnetic pulse that can render sophisticated technology useless. We saw that energy gather in Saturday’s 'March For Our Lives' in Washington and in 800 sibling marches against gun violence held in 390 of 435 congressional districts, according to organizers at supportive national organizations. And it very well may work at changing the majority in Congress and changing the laws."

Keep in mind, the DCCC adamantly refuses to disassociate itself from the NRA-Democrats or to kick like the likes of Van Drew, Luria, Kirkpatrick or Brindisi off their Red to Blue list. If you contribute to the DCCC-- or to DCCC fronts like End Citizens United-- your money will go to the blood-soaked campaign coffers of gun fanatics, of that you can be certain. Steve Israel is hoping the DCCC can trick the Match for Our Lives activists into being foot-soldiers for their partisan objectives, a DCCC equivalent of the Tea Party.
The energy transmitted almost instantly, echoing and amplifying across kitchen tables, in diners and coffee shops, in workplaces, and at rallies, protests and boisterous congressional town halls. The Tea Party disabled the precise engineering devised by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to protect its House majority. It swept over its canvassers, drowned out its paid advertising, claimed 63 Democratic seats and toppled its majority (aided and abetted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which opened the floodgates of money for Republicans).

Now, we see it again, only in hard reverse. Not a Tea Party, but a Teen Party. Not in the diatribe of pundits, but in 11-year-old Naomi Wadler’s captivation of her audience at a rally on Saturday. In the thousands of voters drawn to rallies by the energy of children too young to vote. In the hand-drawn signs and the spontaneous chants of “vote them out” that I heard at a rally in Huntington, Long Island, that attracted more than 1,000 people. I used to represent that community in Congress, and getting 100 people to show up for a political event was almost impossible.

Something powerful is in the air when a discussion of “midterms” at the kitchen table isn’t about school exams but about elections. Of course, the energy isn’t spent efficiently across the map. In blue districts, it won’t make a difference between a member of Congress who is servile to the gun lobby and one who isn’t. In unwinnable bright red districts, it may depress turnout, but in the absence of a criminal indictment or the incumbent representative being caught in bed with a copy of President Obama’s autobiography, it won’t change the outcome.

But in the 48 or so districts that are competitive, in suburbs and exurbs, that mysterious energy tosses the toss-up districts. If the Teen Party, like the Tea Party, ramps up town hall meetings, channels their energy and masses in districts that matter, vulnerable Republicans will find themselves in a perilous place-- on the wrong side of energy, and maybe of history as well.
If the DCCC is serious about supporting "the Teen Party," they should immediately dump NRA-Dems and vow to not spend another dime trying to elect Kirkpatrick, Brindisi, Van Drew, Luria or any other NRA allies they have endorsed. They should get their resumes ready. This is NOT the position of the Blue Dogs, the New Dems, the DCCC or the Democratic Party:
Politicians-- either represent the people or get out;
The people demand a law banning the sale of assault weapons;
The people people demand we prohibit the sale of high capacity magazines;
The people people demand universal background checks.
Stand for us or beware: the voters are coming


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Friday, January 20, 2017

It's Trumpanzee Inauguration Day And God Is Crying Cold Tears

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Yesterday, Alan Grayson e-mailed his supporters to ask them to support John Lewis-- which you can do here, at the Resist ActBlue page. When he was in Congress, Grayson always spoke reverentially about Lewis. In his e-mail he reminded his supporters why Lewis feels Trump is an illegitimate president and why he's boycotting his Inauguration today. "I don't see this President-Elect as a legitimate president," said Lewis on Meet The Press. "I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton."

Before Lewis' interview, only a small handful of congressmembers had heeded Luis Gutierrez's call to boycott the inauguration. We may never know how many members skip it, but so far over 70 have made public statements about why they are staying away-- and most of them mentioned John Lewis and the way Trump responded to him. Back to Grayson:
The Tweeter-in-Chief responded as follows:

"Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime-infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk-- no action or results. Sad!"

I don’t know what’s worse about President-Elect Trump, his thin skin or his thick skull.

Make Donald Trump even more angry-- show your support for John Lewis.

John Lewis was one of the original 13 Freedom Riders, who challenged racial segregation on the buses in the South.  He also was the Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

In 1961 and 1962, Lewis was arrested. Twenty-four times.

In Anniston, Alabama, Klan members deflated the tires of a bus that Lewis and the other Freedom Riders had boarded.  Then they firebombed it.

In Birmingham, Lewis was beaten.

In Rock Hill, South Carolina, two white men punched Lewis in the face, and kicked him in the ribs.

In Montgomery, a mob met the bus, took Lewis off the bus, knocked him over the head with a wooden crate, and left him unconscious on the bus station floor.

On one day in 1965, a day known as “Bloody Sunday,” Alabama state troopers in Selma hit civil rights demonstrators with tear gas, charged into them, and beat them with clubs. They broke John Lewis’s skull.

I’ve seen the scars on his head.

Somehow, all of that . . . pain . . . forged an outstanding Congressman. A champion on universal healthcare.  A forceful proponent of gay rights and gun safety.  An apostle of peace.

Let me sum it up this way.  Whatever John Lewis has done, he has done for others. And whatever Donald Trump has done, he has done for himself-- bigly.

I’m glad that there are people like John Lewis in public life.
So are these 71 Democrats, all of whom have explicitly confirmed that they're skipping the Trump inauguration today:
Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)
Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Ted Lieu (D-CA)
Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA)
Judy Chu (D-CA)
Mark Takano (D-CA)
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)
Grace Napolitano (D-CA)
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Jared Huffman (D-CA)
Alan Lowenthal (D-CA)
Karen Bass (D-CA)
Jerry McNerney (D-CA)
Raul Ruiz (D-CA)
Tony Cardenas (New Dem-CA)
Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA)
Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-DC)
Frederica Wilson (D-FL)
Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
Darren Soto (New Dem-FL)
John Lewis (D-GA)
Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)
Bobby Rush (D-IL)
Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Mike Quigley (New Dem-IL)
Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)
Pete Visclosky (D-IN)
John Yarmuth (D-KY)
Katherine Clark (D-MA)
Mike Capuano (D-MA)
Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Anthony Brown (D-MD)
Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
John Conyers (D-MI)
Keith Ellison (D-MN)
William Lacy Clay (D-MO)
Bennie Thompson (D-MS)
Alma Adams (D-NC)
G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
Bonnie Watson-Coleman (D-NJ)
Donald Payne (D-NJ)
Albio Sires (D-NJ)
Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
Adriano Espaillat (D-NY)
Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
Jose Serrano (D-NY)
Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
Grace Meng (D-NY)
Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)
Pete DeFazio (D-OR)
Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
Dwight Evans (D-PA)
Mike Doyle (D-PA)
Brendan Boyle (D-PA)
Bob Brady (D-PA)
Steve Cohen (D-TN)
Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
Al Green (D-TX)
Joaquin Castro (New Dem-TX)
Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX)
Donald McEachin (D-VA)
Don Beyer (New Dem-VA)
Gerry Connolly (New Dem-VA)
Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)
Adam Smith (New Dem-WA)
Mark Pocan (D-WI)
Like Grayson, Steve Israel is no longer a member of Congress. However, unlike Grayson, I haven't seen Israel, a former Blue Dog and a lobbyist-loving corruptionist, have anything to say about John Lewis' service. His dismally failed messaging talents have been so catastrophic for the Democrats that he was just hired by the corporately owned and operated Third Way organization to bring his "his decades of experience... to help Democrats reconnect with middle class voters and offer a compelling alternative to bring Democrats out of the wilderness." Here's some Fake News from Third Way:
“Democrats are on the cusp of becoming a regional party. We are winning only in the more comfortable and elite coastal areas and losing badly virtually everywhere else. We are thrilled that Steve Israel will be joining our organization and serving as a leader in our New Blue campaign. Steve’s tremendous expertise will be an integral part of devising the economic strategy and messaging that will restore the Democratic Party nationwide,” said Jonathan Cowan, President of Third Way.

Mr. Israel said in a statement, “I am eager to join Third Way’s work on this vital task. I came to rely heavily on Third Way’s insights in my own swing district and as DCCC Chair. They are the smartest think tank in Washington when it comes to innovative policies with broad appeal. And, as I saw first-hand in evenly-matched areas around the nation, we need a vision for the Democratic Party that constructively taps into the unique convergence of anxieties gripping middle class and working families. The New Blue campaign is precisely what our party needs as we rebuild in message, mobilization, and values.”
Blue America is looking forward, not backward to the failed era of Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Blue Dogs, the New Dems and Third Way but towards young leaders of working families like California Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, who is running in the special election to replace Xavier Beccera in Congress from a district that Steve Israel and his allies from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party might want to characterize as one of the "elite coastal areas" (like Old Westbury, Great Neck, Oyster Bay, Manhasset, Roslyn, Mill Neck and Woodbury-- all among the richest towns in America and all formerly represented by Israel), although the district Gomez is running in is a fast-growing and vibrant but an area that is ranked as one of the dozen poorest congressional districts in America. That's Third Way's and Steve Israel's idea of an "elite coastal" area. Oh, yeah-- Steve Israel doing messaging for the Republican wing of the Democratic Party... what could possibly go wrong?

Writing on his Facebook page yesterday, Robert Reich referred to today's freakshow as "a sickening event in the history of the United States, a tragedy for America and the world, and a victory for hatefulness, racism, misogyny, and authoritarianism."
[W]e say farewell to the first African-American President-- a man of decency, integrity, and dignity-- and turn the national reigns over to a thin-skinned, vindictive, impulsive, sociopath. Trump is a conman and bully who is ignorant about democracy and disdainful of its basic institutions. He lies constantly. He has cheated his customers, investors, and contractors. His countless tweets and stream-of-consciousness statements at his rallies reveal a nasty, greedy, mendacious, bigoted human being, with a level of egotism and narcissism rare even among politicians and celebrities.

Trump fueled his campaign with the sense of dispossession and anxiety found among millions of voters-- most of them white-- many of whom voted for him because they thought he would carry their resentments and fury to the nation’s capital, and make our political economic system work for them instead of the privileged few. Some say Trump rose on racism. But racism has been with us since the founding of the nation. Trump rose on downward mobility and economic fears, which allowed him to exploit racism and as well as fears of foreigners and Mexican immigrants, Islamophobia, and the rest of his hateful arsenal.

Trump is the ultimate price our political establishment pays for doing almost nothing to improve the plight of the bottom 60 percent of Americans for over thirty years.

As David Remnick has written, the most hopeful way to look at this grievous event is that it and its consequences in coming years “will be a test of the strength, or the fragility, of American institutions. It will be a test of our seriousness and resolve.”

Every decent American-- regardless of political party, or wealth, or race-- must now commit herself or himself to combating Trump’s authoritarianism, calling out his lies, protecting the weak and vulnerable among us, keeping hope alive, and preserving what we can of what is best about America.



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Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Steve Israel-- Still Lying To Himself That Something Went Wrong In The Congressional Races

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Monday, Susan Page, sitting in for Diane Rehm on her radio show, interviewed several people about what the next steps are for the defeated Democratic Party. She included-- the perfect contrast: Thomas Frank, one of the most perceptive voices anywhere on what ails the party, and Steve Israel, literally the embodiment of what ails the party. Page remarked that Frank's book, Listen Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?, predicted what we saw happen in this election-- "Trump getting support from the kind of white working class voters that Democrats used to count on." Frank:
Well, this is a culmination of a long term process and I trace this sort of process in Listen Liberal and it begins quite a while ago. But the-- basically, what we're talking about here is the Democratic party walking away from working class people and working class issues over the years and understanding themselves, thinking of themselves as a party of the professional class. And they have all these different ways of talking about the professionals class, but, you know, the creative class, this kind of thing.

But that's really who they are these days. But then, there is also a long term political process that's been going on here and this is what I would call the wages of centrism, that we have, you know, people who are on the left, like me, have, you know, been told as centrist Democrats sell us out again and again and again and you have all of these different, you know, issues where centrist Democrats have harvested sort of disaster, you know, whether you're talking about NAFTA or bank deregulation or the bank bailouts or the Iraq war, but it's always on the grounds-- we accept it on the grounds that these guys win elections.

Right? That centrism, it's, you know, they do these terrible things and they sell you out at every turn. And people, by the way, will come to this, I'm sure, are still extremely bitter about NAFTA and, you know, all the trade deals passed during the Clinton administration. But at least these centrists, we're told, will win elections for you. Well, that is now over.
A few minutes later she asked Steve Israel what went wrong. FYI-- the former spectacularly failed head of the DCCC, who oversaw the loss of dozens and dozens of Democratic seats as he tried turning the House Democrats into a reflection of what Frank has warned the party about, was the head of the DCCC's failed messaging efforts for 2016. There are few people as responsible for the woes of the House Democrats as Blue Dog and racist Steve Israel. "People," he babbled, "are facing a unique convergence of economic anxieties, economies changing radically in front of their very eyes, a historic breakdown of faith in all institutions, not just government but the church and sports and Wall Street, unprecedented sense of threat at home and abroad and finally the sense that democracy has sold out, that if you don't have a lobbyist and a Super-PAC, you don't matter. You take those four convergences, put them all together, nobody should be surprised that Donald Trump won this election, at least in the electoral college, and the Democratic Party needs to realign itself and be able to communicate effectively and empathetically with those voters and win elections on different fronts."

She followed up by asking him if he wants to be head of the DNC, which would probably be the final nail in the party's coffin. Israel:
(laugh) You know, I chaired, as you said, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for four years, two cycles, in one good cycle, one bad cycle. I have to be honest with you, my scalp has no more room for one more gray hair. (laugh) I gave up-- I gave all those gray hairs in service to my party several years ago. So, you know, I'm not sure that that's something that I would want to do at this time.

I can tell you that although I am retiring from Congress as a Democrat, I am not retiring from the Democratic Party. And I intend to be very active and push very hard to make sure that our party is tapping into those concerns, those anxieties, and we're not writing off entire segments of the electorate. We just can't afford to do that anymore.

And finally, you know, when I was a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, you know, I argued that we won all of the blue districts we can win, you've got to start pushing into red districts. It's not enough to win in New York and California. You've got to win in Scranton. You've got to win in Youngstown. You've got to win in districts that are red and turning redder. And we need a strategy to do just that.
Let's start with Youngstown. It's part of OH-13, a solid blue district where populist Democrat Tim Ryan was just reelected 203,430 (67.6%) to 109,455 (29.9%). Youngstown is the county seat of Mahoning County, which Clinton won over Trump, 56,188 (49.8%) to 52,808 (46.8%). Scranton is part of PA-17 and progressive Democrat Matt Cartwright was reelected 155,766 (53.8%) to 133,719 (46.2%). Scranton is the 6th largest city in Pennsylvania and the county seat of Lackawanna County, which had voted for Obama in 2012-- 61,309 to 34,730 and this year went for Clinton 51,593 to 48,102. Democrats are still holding on but, because of the reasons Frank has laid out-- and hacks like Israel can't understand-- just barely and with more difficultty.

As for Israel's claim that while he was DCCC chair "we won all of the blue districts we can win," that's just the lie that he and Pelosi repeat endlessly to their sheepish caucus and to a lazy and brain-dead media. These are the blue districts Israel lost while he was calling the shots at the DCCC:
CA-10- Jeff Denham
CA-21- David Valadao
CA-25- Steve Knight
CO-06- Mike Coffman
FL-13- David Jolly
FL-26- Carlos Curbelo
FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
IA-01- Rod Blum
IA-03- David Young
ME-02- Bruce Poliquin
MN-02- John Kline
NV-04- Cresent Hardy
NH-01- Frank Guinta
NJ-02- Frank LoBiondo
NJ-03- Tom MacArthur
NY-02- Peter King
NY-19- Chris Gibson
NY-21- Elise Stefanik
NY-24- John Katko
PA-06- Jim Gerlach/Ryan Costello
PA-07- Patrick Meehan
PA-08- Michael Fitzpatrick
TX-23- Will Hurd
WA-08- Dave Reichert
So that's two dozen blue seats off the top of my head-- there are plenty more-- that Israel was responsible for losing at least once. You think he forgot? Or was he just-- as he and Pelosi always do-- lying to the media and lying to himself? If you refuse to admit there's a problem, you can never even begin trying to figure out how to fix the problem-- which is why the Democrats should gently retire Pelosi and Hoyer from leadership tomorrow. But they won't-- ever.

In a parliamentary democracy they would resign or be fired immediately

The Nile May Be A River In Egypt, But It's A State Of Mind Among Beltway Democrats

Today, Ben Ray Luján, Israel's DCCC sock puppet congratulated himself-- in true Israel style-- on a job well done in his post-election assessment to the Democratic members of Congress. He bragged they only lost one member, which winning 9 Republican-held seats and threw out some meaningless stats he must have thought made him look heroic despite his dismal failure. He blamed Hillary's under-performance, Comey, expensive media markets and gerrymandering. In a bon mot to his mentor Israel he claimed that "successful DCCC messaging driven by district-specific strategies... helped win districts like FL-07 (Mica), NV-04 (Hardy) and IL-10 (Dold), [as well as ] AZ-01 (Open-Kirkpatrick), CA-07 (Bera), NJ-05 (Garrett)," making districts they lost competitive by attacking Trump. He claimed there is "no question that FBI Director Comey's letters stalled Democrats' momentum and contributed to races moving away from us, particularly in CA-25 (Knight), CO-06 (Coffman), ME-02 (Poliquin), MI-01 (Open-Benishek), NE-02 (Ashford), NY-01 (Zeldin), TX-23 (Hurd), and VA-10 (Comstock)" and even offered a case study (which fails to prove his point:
Virginia's 10th District: In a district that Barack Obama won handily and Hillary Clinton likely won narrowly, the DCCC successfully moved persuadable voters to LuAnn Bennett who were turned off by Barbara Comstock's shared positions with Donald Trump, particularly on women's health. The data was clear: a localized message on Metro Silver Line funding or government shutdown would not resonate with voters who were making their election decisions through the prism of Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton. LuAnn Bennett ultimately lost by 5 points, which is a dramatic improvement to Comstock's 2014 challenger, who lost by 16.2 points.
He must've forgotten to mention that in 2014, the DCCC and the House Majority PAC spent $1.4 million against Comstock to help John Foust. This year they spent over $6 million to help the way more conservative insider, Luann Bennett. Luján attempted to drive his audience into a frenzy of excitement with his closing:
We certainly must take the time to listen, learn and reflect on these 2016 outcomes, but it's imperative to do so with an eye toward our 2018 strategy. While history was ultimately against us in 2016, the opposite will be true in 2018, with the President's party often losing seats in the first midterm. While many Republicans spent 2016 trying to run away from Donald Trump, whose favorability is underwater in nearly all House battlefield districts, these same Republicans will now officially share a policy agenda and voting record with him. We must do our job to hold Donald Trump and House Republicans accountable and further our efforts to tie them together. We must continue our fight on behalf of the American people, to protect our values, freedoms and progress over the next two years.
Not a word about policy or having anything to offer Democratic voters, not something Israel will have told Luján matters.

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Tuesday, November 08, 2016

What's Happening With Those Crazy Congressional Races Today?

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Let me start by saying it's not a conspiracy. It's just that all the Beltway types live in the same bubble. So when, for example, Cook does their House ratings, they don't look further than the districts the DCCC and NRCC have identified as battlegrounds. Media follows along happily and a kind of a prophecy starts becoming self-fulfilling. Today, Cook showed 3 Republican seats likely to fall to the Democrats-- FL-13 (from Jolly to Crist), NV-04 (from Hardy to Kihuen) and NH-01 (from Guinta to Shea-Porter) and one Democratic seat likely to fall to the GOP, Murphy's red-leaning FL-18 where the self-funding conservaDem, Randy Perkins is feeling about now that he just wasted $7,827,029 of his own money, just to see Brian Mast beat him. And they identify 18 toss-ups-- 2 blue ones (Nolan's MN-08 and Blue Dog Brad Ashford's NE-02)-- and 16 red ones.
CA-10- Denham vs Eggman
CA-25- Knight vs Caforio
CA-49- Issa vs Applegate
CO-06- Coffman vs Carroll
FL-07- Mica vs Murphy
FL-26- Curbelo vs Garcia
IL-10- Dold vs Schneider
IA-01- Blum vs Vernon
ME-02- Poliquin vs Cain
MN-02 (open)- Lewis vs Craig
NV-03 (open)- Tarkanian vs Rosen
NJ-05- Garrett vs Gottheimer
NY-19 (open)- Faso vs Teachout
PA-08 (open)- Fitzpatrick vs Santarsiero
TX-23- Hurd vs Gallego
VA-10- Comstock vs Bennett
That's the playing field. It's certainly where the bulk of the money is being spent, although there are 14 other Republican-held seats (+ the red Florida Panhandle seat Blue Dog Gwen Graham abandoned in fear) where there is an acknowledgement of a contest-- and where the DCCC and NRCC are spending some money. But when you look at districts that the DCCC (or, presumably, the NRCC) lets it be known that "nothing's happening"-- like in PA-07, NY-02, TX-21, NJ-07 as examples-- operations like Cook as well as Beltway media, doesn't even look.

The DCCC, for example, signaled that Anna Throne-Holst, a Steve Israel recruit (in more ways than one) had a hot race against Lee Zeldin on the eastern end of Long Island. She's not even a Democrat-- switched parties a few days before the deadline-- but had a thing with Israel so he pushed her. She's losing by a ridiculous landslide-- although Pelosi's House Majority PAC wasted $1,069,507 on the race (and EMILY's List threw in another $881,886). Next door, in NY-02, the South Shore district represented by Israel crony Peter King, which includes a chunk of Nassau and a bigger, bluer chunk of Suffolk, Israel was determined to keep the DCCC away. (The Democratic candidate, DuWayne Gregory, the progressive Presiding Officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, is the best shot the Democrats have ever had to win the seat, but Israel is adamantly opposed to black people representing majority-white districts and he blackballed Gregory.) Today Gregory is likely to fair better than Throne Holst and a case can be made that if even half the nearly two million dollars wasted on her hopeless, silly race was spent in NY-02, Peter King would be looking for a job on K Street tomorrow.

We've talked about how the DCCC, infuriated that Mary Ellen Balchunis beat their piss-poor conservative primary candidate-- 74-26%-- and withdrew from one of the best Democratic take-over districts in the whole country... partially out of spite and partially out of pique. Yes, yes, this is Pelsoi's corrupt, vile, money-wasting DCCC. Hillary will probably win PA-07 by 20 points today. She, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren all campaigned with Mary Ellen, but the DCCC wouldn't spend a dime, told institutional donors not to waste their money and warned the media off the district. Cook doesn't even mention it, even though by their own ratings, it's far closer to being able to be flipped than other districts the DCCC is pushing for their Blue Dog and New Dem candidates.

More of a stretch is TX-21, Austin to San Antonio, plus the Hill Country. When Berniecrat Tom Wakely beat his conservative opponent, the DCCC literally refused it even take any of his calls. That's what a bunch of muthafuckers they are. The incumbent, clueless, venal and doddering reactionary Lamar Smith is a powerful committee chair, which, instead of inspiring the DCCC, makes them shy away. With Hillary looking like she could win the district-- up in Travis, Bexar and Hays counties-- the DCCC should be going to bat for Wakely. Instead, all their Texas money is going to a grotesquely corrupt Blue Dog, Pete Gallego, who was in Congress from 2013 to 2015, voting consistently with the GOP to the point where Democrats didn't even bother coming out to vote for him in 2014. That's how a 70.8% Latino district came to be represented by a non-Latino right-wing Republican kook.



Blue America has been working to help Wakely with a revolutionary phone-banking system and with the mobile billboard above. Now if we had just been able to spend the $3,092,425 the DCCC and the $2,209,274 the House Majority PAC wasted on the Gallego race...

Meanwhile, the only acknowledgement that there's even a race at all in TX-21, came from Lisa Rein at the Washington Post yesterday morning,in a piece about climate change: House science chairman gets heat in Texas race for being a global warming skeptic. "In the race for the White House," she wrote, "the climate change debate has been more or less missing in action. In the race for a central Texas House seat, the Democrat hoping to topple 30-year incumbent Republican Lamar Smith has made global warming his top campaign issue. Democrat Tom Wakely is campaigning as a champion of climate science in a year when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump-- and most other candidates for Congress, for that matter-- have barely touched on the issue, in what is shaping up to be the hottest year on record."
Wakely has seized on a theme that has defined Smith’s run in Washington as chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology: He’s a climate change skeptic.

Smith, 68, an attorney from San Antonio who’s represented the area northwest of the city since 1987, rejects the scientific consensus that man-made pollution is behind global warming. He’s used his perch as committee chairman to subpoena federal climate scientists to discredit their research, issuing a record number of legal summonses this Congress and turning a panel that was once a sleepy backwater into an aggressive attack dog.

This has made Smith a polarizing figure in Washington, beloved by oil and gas interests who give generously to his campaigns and vilified by those fighting to reduce global warming pollution.

Now his attacks on scientists are percolating back home in a district buffeted in recent years by drought and water shortages. And while Smith does not often highlight his views on climate change on the campaign trail, Wakely, a little-known Democratic activist, saw an opening this year to pounce.

“Lamar Smith is the major impediment to anything being done on climate change in Congress and absolutely nobody is talking about it,” said the 63-year-old Air Force veteran and former union organizer who supported Bernie Sanders. “People in this district are slowly getting the message that climate change is not a far left wing conspiracy.”

Wakely has little shot at unseating Smith, who is running for a 16th term in a safely red district.

But his campaign isn’t the only sign that Smith’s stance on global warming is raising some eyebrows back home.

Smith has long won the support of local newspapers. But this year, his hometown paper, the San Antonio Express-News, refused to endorse him for reelection, citing his “bullying tactics” on climate change.

“We’ve argued that Smith’s undeniably conservative credentials have been a good fit for the 21st congressional District,” the editorial board wrote on Oct. 17. “However, Smith’s actions have developed more transparently this term into an issue that goes beyond the boundaries of his district. A particular issue is his abuse of his position as chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Specifically, it is his bullying on the issue of climate change that should concern all Americans.” The Express-News is one of Texas’s largest newspapers.

...Smith was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump and has stood by the nominee, who is favored to win central Texas. Like Trump, he says the U.S. has not done enough to secure the border with Mexico and is co-sponsoring legislation to keep out Syrian refugees.

This Congress, Smith has shown a willingness to go beyond the boundaries of the science committee’s traditional jurisdiction, subpoenaing attorneys general and environmental groups investigating whether oil giant ExxonMobil covered up what it knew of the dangers of climate change and launching an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. He has also demanded records from the Environmental Protection Agency to undermine President Obama’s regulations to reduce emissions from power plants.

“As Chairman, I have an obligation to conduct vigorous oversight of agencies and programs within my jurisdiction,” Smith said in a statement to the Post. “Under that umbrella, I work to ensure that federal agencies base their regulations and policy decisions on the best available science and not on partisan politics.”




Wakely runs a private hospice care home for veterans and other patients. He served early in his career on a school board in southern Wisconsin. He says he was motivated to make climate change a core issue because his granddaughter has asthma and he worries about pollution. He argues that global warming is keenly felt by voters in the district, who have been faced in recent years with long droughts and severe water shortages.

“We’re talking about water,” Wakely said. “That resonates with everybody. It’s part of the changing climate.”

In a district with a large military presence, Wakely also says he will fight for faster benefits and better health care for veterans.

Smith did not face a Democratic opponent two years ago. He has always won reelection with at least 60 percent of the vote. While the district is now 28 percent Latino, a demographic trend that could favor a Democrat, a smaller percentage of these residents are registered to vote.

While the economy of the Lone Star state is heavily reliant on the fossil fuel industry, energy companies are not a huge presence in the 21st district. Still, Smith calls climate science an economic threat to his constituents.

“The Obama administration along with climate alarmists have long pursued climate policies that would cost Americans billions of dollars and put hard working people in my district out of a job,” he said.

Smith has raised $1.4 million this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, while Wakely has brought in $64,400, much of it in small contributions. ClimateHawksVote, a political action committee that endorses candidates who fight global warming, has identified Wakely as its top “message” candidate this year.

A 2014 estimate by the nonprofit Yale Program on Climate Change Communication of attitudes toward the issue found that 65 percent of people in Texas’s 21st district believe global warming is happening, similar to 63 percent nationwide. The estimate, based on a statistical model using national surveys, also said 49 percent believe that global warming is caused mostly by human activities, while 33 percent think it is caused by natural environmental changes. Those numbers roughly mirror national data.

Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said he doubts climate change is a top voter concern in the district. “I think it’s driven from within for Smith, more by his personal beliefs,” Jones said.

Texas is one of ten states that allow straight ticket voting, where general election voters can choose every candidate in a political party who is on the ballot. With Trump favored to win the 21st district, this makes Wakely’s challenge tougher.

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