Serial Loser And Fence-Jumper Artur Davis Is Looking For Another Political Comeback

Yesterday we pointed out how unabashed progressive Democrat Cyndi Munson beat a right-wing Republican kook, who had the full backing of the Oklahoma state GOP establishment, for a state legislative seat. Cyndi isn't the kind of GOP-lite Democrat-- neither a Blue Dog nor a New Dem-- that old-school conservative Democratic insiders like Chuck Schumer, Steve Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz insist is the only kind of Democrat who can win in red states and districts. That said, a favorite of Schumer/Israel/Wasserman Schultz Democratic insiders, Artur Davis, is back in the Democratic Party and back in Alabama-- and running for office again.

Why would Democrats take him back? Oh, right, the Beltway insiders love him. In fact he first won his D+17/67.1% black congressional district in Alabama by being the AIPAC patsy in their vicious attack on civil rights activist and incumbent Earl Hilliard, after he voted against a bill to increase already-bloated military spending to Israel. After Davis won the seat, he joined the right-of-center, corporately owned New Dems. He became co-chair of the odious organization and built a conservative record, often voting with Republicans against LGBT equality and against health care reform. He was one of the few Democrats to vote against the Affordable Care Act, another of many examples of how he put a premium on his own sick careerism at the expense of his constituents. 

Davis was always wanting to run for something statewide, and in 2010 he ran for governor. He was thoroughly beaten in the Democratic primary by populist Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks. Sparks beat him 62.4-37.6%, something that made complete sense to everyone but the Beltway insider elites. Even the Democratic voters in his own congressional district backed Sparks against him, with majorities in 10 of the 12 counties that make up AL-07.

Davis then moved to Virginia and joined the Republican Party, which used him to savagely attack Obama, dangling a congressional nomination under his nose. He was on Romney's Black Leadership Council along with political sociopaths Allen West (a war criminal), black teabagger Tim Scott and Rick Scott's lieutenant governor, Jennifer Carroll (until she was thrown overboard after a scheme she masterminded for stealing from veterans was exposed). 

Anyway, the Virginia Republicans just played Davis for a fool, and didn't coddle him the way the DCCC and DNC always did, and he soon moved back to Alabama with his tail between his legs and ran for mayor of Montgomery against incumbent Todd Strange. Davis claimed he had a poll showing the two Republicans would have a runoff, but Strange took 57% in the first round (to Davis' meager 27%) and was elected to a third term outright. (Davis spent the last few days of the race explaining why his credit card was found on the Ashley Madison dating website.) Davis' entire record of political contributions:

After losing, Davis immediately declared he would run for mayor again in four years. But why wait? He switched back to the Democratic Party and now wants to run for a seat on the Montgomery County Commission. The primary against incumbent Dan Harris would be in March. Davis says he'll buy a house in the district.

Artur Davis may be returning to Alabama politics quicker than anticipated, this time in a run for a seat on the Montgomery County Commission.

Former mayoral opponent Dan Harris’ seat, to be exact.

Davis confirmed Tuesday he has done everything but commit to running for Commission Vice Chairman Harris’ District 1 seat.

The former Democratic U.S. representative also confirmed a return to the Democratic Party after switching to the Republican side in 2012.

“I have received a great deal of encouragement from my supporters in the mayor’s race to not only stay involved politically but to run for County Commission in District 1 in the March primary,” Davis said.

...One person interested in Davis’ political switch is District 1 incumbent Harris.

“That’d be interesting to see him return to the Democratic Party,” Harris said. “That’s a feat within itself. If you’re a Republican, how are you going to run as a Democrat?”

Harris also said he has no problem with Davis running for his seat-- a seat Harris intends to keep.

“It’s a free country,” Harris said. “Everybody is entitled to run. Everybody who can qualify. I do intend to qualify and seek re-election.”

The primary obstacle Davis faces to qualify is residency.

Davis said he has lived in Montgomery for 20 years, but in order to qualify, he must live in District 1 for one year ending on the date he would take office-- November 2016-- if elected.

With Davis buying a house in District 1 this month, all signs point to him officially announcing his candidacy soon.

AL-07, Davis' former district, is incredibly gerrymandered to try to squeeze as many African-Americans into one district as is geographically possible. And western and southern Montgomery are part of it. The current rep is another conservative New Dem, Terri Sewell, who isn't great, but isn't nearly as horrible as Davis. This Davis:

When Will Artur Davis Officially Join The Republican Party?

DLC, GOP... same corporate crap

I once met a woman on a plane flying out of Atlanta who told me how then-Congressman Artur Davis was one of the great hopes for African-Americans in Alabama. A Harvard graduate, he was viewed as a squeaky clean reformer when he took on longtime incumbent Earl Hillard in this overwhelmingly Democratic "Black Belt" area of Alabama in 2000 and 2002. Davis, she was certain, had a very bright future. He was the first Member of Congress outside of Illinois to endorse Obama. He was soon followed by Ben Nelson and John Barrow, two of the most reactionary Democrats in Congress. My flying companion didn't know that Davis was "pro-corporate" or that Hillard had been targeted for defeat by AIPAC to teach African-American congressmen a lesson. She was nonplused-- if not hostile-- when I told her that one of the South's bluest districts could elect a far more progressive Member than Davis.

A couple of years later I wrote about Davis' crushing defeat in a Democratic primary for governor.

Last night it wasn't only conservative corporate hacks like former-Blue Dog-turned-Republican Parker Griffith (who was slaughtered in the GOP primary, not even making it to a runoff against some nutcase teabagger) and Palin-backed Angela McGlowan (who came in a distant third in the GOP primary in Mississippi) who had terrible nights. Artur Davis has always been thought of as a Democrat with a bright future, until last night. He spent the last year and a half moving profoundly right: He went from a moderate 70.82 ProgressivePunch lifetime voting score to a dismal and reactionary 31.58 since Obama became President and, more importantly, since he started campaigning to be governor of Alabama. His vote against the health care reform bill was probably the last straw for his congressional constituents, who gave Ron Sparks majorities in 10 of the 12 counties that make up AL-07, Davis' own congressional district! Statewide, Sparks took 199,190 votes (62.4%) to Davis' 119,908 votes (37.6%). Davis' strategy-- one long encouraged by Rahm Emanuel and the DCCC (see Ken's perceptive stinky cheese story from yesterday)-- to move to the political right backfired... very badly. It's a losing strategy; when conservatives vote, they tend to prefer to vote for real conservatives, not Democrats playing the role.

Will the Democrats learn anything from Davis' disaster last night? Not. A. Chance. And especially not know-it-all powermongers like Emanuel and his female doppelganger Debbie Wasserman Schultz. They will continue hunting out reactionary candidates who apologize for being Democrats and, when they can slip into office, vote with the GOP.

Apparently, Davis' rejection by Alabama Democrats, didn't teach him a lesson either-- unless that lesson is to move dramatically even further right-- quite the feat for someone who is already anti-Choice, virulently anti-gay, pro-Big Oil and pro-corporate through and through and a big backer of restrictions against civil liberties. His old district only gave Bush 33% of the vote in 2000, and Obama won there with 72%. Statewide, however, Alabama gave Bush 56% in 2000, and Obama couldn't even get to the 40% mark there, his worst showing in the Deep South. And Davis isn't done with politics. He'd like to run for the Senate next... if former Democrat (turned Republican conservative) Richard Shelby retires. Will Davis first follow Shelby's path into the Republican Party? Jordan Bloom at the Daily Caller discovered that he's been doing more than undercutting Democratic policies. Now he's contributing to Republican candidates as well!

Artur Davis’s new tune on voter ID laws isn’t his only recent right turn. According to third-quarter Federal Election Commission filings, Davis-- a former Democratic congressman from Alabama, donated $500 in September to the campaign of Heather Wilson, New Mexico’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. Davis also contributed to the Republican front-runner in the Mississippi governor’s race.

Asked by the Daily Caller to explain the curious donations, Davis equivocated on his support for Mississippi gubernatorial hopeful Phil Bryant.

“I wrote a contribution to Phil Bryant in Mississippi,” he told the DC. “I also wrote a contribution in the primary to Johnny Dupree, the Democrat who’s running.”

Davis told the DC that his support for Wilson stems from what he saw of the New Mexico Republican candidate during their time in the House of Representatives.

Wilson's presumptive Democratic opponent is moderate Democrat Martin Heinrich. But Davis' shocking support for Republican voter ID laws that seek to disenfranchise Democratic voters-- particularly minorities and poor people-- is what's most disturbing about his possible reemergence as a political player in Alabama. He's currently employed by one of K Street's sleaziest lobbying firms, SNR Denton.

It took Davis less than two weeks to go from representing the good people of Alabama's 7th Congressional District to, in the text of an SNR Denton press release, "representing individual and corporate clients in criminal and civil fraud matters in a range of areas, including securities and financial crimes, public corruption and the Foreign and Corrupt Practice Act."

Davis is certainly familiar with lawyers and lobbyists. To wit: Lawyers and law firms rank as his No. 1 industrial campaign contributor during his congressional career, accounting for more than $560,700 in donations, the Center for Responsive Politics' research indicates. Lobbyists? No. 17 out of the more than 120 industries and special interest areas the Center tracks, with more than $70,000 in contributions.

Through the first nine months of 2010, SNR Denton reported $2.17 million in lobbying income, according to federal disclosure reports.

Davis himself won't serve as a federally registered lobbyist, at least not yet. Federal law prohibits House members from formally joining the lobbying ranks for at least one year after leaving office. U.S. Senators face a two-year "cooling off" period prohibition.

SNR Denton's client base is quite diverse, ranging from the National Rifle Association to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to for-profit education firm Apollo Group.

Davis wrote an Op-Ed in the Montgomery Advertiser October 17 backing the Republican plan to prevent Democrats, particularly African-Americans, from voting. He sang the GOP tune on key:

I've changed my mind on voter ID laws-- I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one-- and I wish I had gotten it right when I was in political office.

When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation.

The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.

Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights-- that's suppression by any light. If you doubt it exists, I don't; I've heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I've been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local election results.

When Davis was asked to point out the examples of voter fraud he wrote that he had witnessed, he demurred.

Some pretty serious accusations he’s making there, but Davis isn’t naming names. TPM asked him to provide specific examples of when he witnessed voter fraud and why, especially as a former federal prosecutor, he didn’t report such schemes to authorities.

“I know that those are the talking points that some groups opposed to my article have disseminated and I choose not to play that game with you or them,” Davis told TPM in an email. “It strikes me as the ‘shoot the messenger’ politics both the left and the right deploy and I hope you will do me the courtesy of printing my reply.”

Would a party switch work for Davis as smoothly as it did for Shelby, and scores of other white ex-Democrats in Alabama? I don't think we'll have long to wait before we find out. Meanwhile, as we have seen from Herman Cain's clownish "campaign," right-wing whites, especially in the South, LOVE a good minstrel show.

Is There A Lesson To Be Learned From The Sad Artur Davis Story? Yeah-- Fire Steve Israel Now

Artur Davis finally got a job. Romney named him to his (brand new) Black Leadership Council. [The chairs are notorious unhinged war-criminal Allen West (R-FL), Black teabagger Tim Scott (R-SC) and Rick Scott's Lt. Gov Jennifer Carroll.] Davis gave a lame, utterly unmemorable speech endorsing Romney at the GOP convention in Tampa and Democrats "got back" at them by rolling out two ex-Republicans, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (Tuesday) and former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (today). Chafee said there was “nothing conservative about the Republican Party” which had been “hijacked” by the far right. He said that it was the GOP’s lack of “fiscal responsibility” that forced him to leave the party, although, like Davis and Crist, his departure from the party of his ancestors was preceded by a humiliating defeat in a primary.

DWT had been calling out Davis for many years before he lost his primary and switched to the GOP-- Davis and the conservative, corporate-oriented Democrats who nurtured him-- long before he lost his primary to a more progressive Alabama Democrat, Ron Sparks, and, obviously, long before he reinvented himself as a Republican. Davis was always the worst of the worst. He defeated a progressive Democrat, Earl Hillard, in a primary with a huge influx of AIPAC cash and corporate support. They knew exactly what kind of a whore they were buying-- and so did the DC Democratic leaders who were starstruck by the Harvard-educated, very conservative African American eager to sell out his own "Black Belt" constituents at every opportunity. Lobbyists and right-wing Democratic operatives predicted a bright future for Davis, even as he racked up an abysmal record, voting against, for example, the Affordable Care Act. Always the parasitic opportunist, Davis was quick to identify a future for himself with the GOP within days of his rejection in the Alabama gubernatorial primary. Does he sound just like them?

"As a long-standing member of the old center-right in the Democratic Party, I found the party moving inexorably to the left. Among other things, I felt that Democrats were wrong to embrace tax increases during a time of weak business confidence; wrong to coddle an empty-headed movement like Occupy Wall Street; wrong to resist meaningful entitlement reform; wrong in their overhaul of health care; wrong in their enthusiasm for overregulation and mandates; and way too hostile to any worldview that doesn’t suit the Democratic orthodoxy on same-sex marriage or abortion on demand.

..."I have been pretty detailed in my reasons for opposing Obamacare: too expensive, too much intrusion in the doctor-patient relationship, too many burdens on small businesses, too much new bureaucracy. The law should be repealed. But having said that, Republicans ought to replace the current law with a workable, market-based framework for extending insurance to the impoverished and for bolstering middle-income families who are saddled with catastrophic costs from illnesses. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this goal without the outsized cost and red tape of the Affordable Care Act, and right-of-center publications like National Affairs have documented them in detail.

..."The racial divide will fester as long as the left pursues an identity politics of grievance. The left adds to the racial divide every time its politicians or acolytes equate ordinary conservatism with racial intolerance, and link opposition to the Obama administration to racial backlash. The Democratic Party has unwisely distanced itself from policies like parental choice, vouchers and the overhaul of tenure that would have a transformative effect in the lives of black children, and there is an opening for Republicans to appeal to minorities by claiming priorities like education reform in the course of the next decade.

"It should be noted that Republicans far more than Democrats are providing a pathway for African-Americas, Latinos and Indian Americans who dare to move beyond being spokespersons for their own communities. Condi Rice, Susanna Martinez, Nikki Haley, Brian Sandoval, Tim Scott, Allen West, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio: They are a roll call of Americans of color who have won the privilege to speak for more than their own kind, and Mia Love and Ted Cruz will join them this November. In the Democratic Party, with precious few exceptions, minorities are consigned to represent and to speak for their own."

So a special thanks to Rahm Emanuel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Joe Crowley and the other snakes at the heart of the DC Democratic Establishment who find these characters, support them and push them to the head of the line. Artur Davis was always a piece of shit, not because he endorsed Mitt Romney but because he was Artur Davis. If they missed that, Emanuel, Wasserman Schultz, Hoyer, Israel, Crowley and the rest should turn in their licenses to practice politics. Instead, they're busy finding and pushing more hideous future Benedict Arnolds just like Artur Davis, fake "Democrats" with opportunistic Republican souls who will eventually jump ship sometime down the line-- the Blue Dogs and New Dems being pushed by the DCCC now. And that's where virtually all the money the DCCC gets goes-- to future Artur Davises like Patrick Murphy (an actual Republican who switched registrations so he could run), Juan Vargas (CA), Brendan Mullen (IN), David Crooks (IN), Gary McDowell (MI), Hayden Rogers (NC), Steve Pestka (MI)...

Artur Davis Finally Making His Ideological Switch To The Dark Side Partisan And Official?

Oops... too late

In October I asked a very straightforward question here, When will Artur Davis officially join the Republican Party? Basically, we've been watching Davis, first as a conservative, corporate-oriented shill inside Congress and later as a disgraceful excuse for a Democratic primary candidate for governor of Alabama (he lost 10 of the 12 counties that made up his own congressional district), morph into a Republican for years. Before the primary he went from a moderate 70.82 ProgressivePunch lifetime voting score to a dismal and horribly reactionary 31.58. The guy is a clown, and he was thoroughly rejected by the voters who knew him best. His vote against the health care reform bill was probably the last straw for those folks.

Friday the Washington Post's Aaron Blake reported that Davis is now talking openly about jumping the fence-- just the way conservative Alabama Democrat Parker Griffith did. Griffith was promptly rejected by Republicans, defeated for reelection and banished from public life. He's eyeing his old congressional seat, now held by another worthless corporate Democrat, Terri Sewell, who's just a tad less conservative than Davis.

Former Democratic congressman Artur Davis, who has been a thorn in the side of Democrats in the aftermath of his loss in the 2010 Alabama gubernatorial primary, is a man without a political party.

In an interview with The Fix, Davis openly speculated about running for office as an independent or even a Republican. In both cases, he suggested his decision not to make the switch has as much to do with the difficulties involved as any desire he has to remain a Democrat.

...“While there have been Democrats who have switched down there, the Republican Party has refused to accept them,” Davis said. “Do I agree with the agenda items in the Alabama Republican Party? Some I agree with, and some I don’t. [The state GOP-drafted] immigration law is not something I would have written.”

Davis said he doesn’t identify with a political party in his current role as an increasingly vocal pundit. He caused a splash recently by speaking out in favor of a voter ID law. Given that the Democratic Party regards such laws as an attempt to disenfranchise black voters, having an African-American former Democratic congressman espouse that view wasn’t exactly helpful to the party’s cause.

This week, he wrote a piece for the conservative National Review Online suggesting Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-Neb.) retirement was due to “an exclusively liberal” Democratic Party.

Davis’s criticism of his party ramped up in the 2010 primary, when he carved out a more moderate persona. He wound up losing badly to the state’s agriculture commissioner, Ron Sparks, by 25 points. Sparks went on to defeat in the general election, and bad blood lingers between the two.

Davis has also recently contributed money to the campaigns of two Republicans, former congresswoman Heather Wilson, who is running for Senate in New Mexico, and Mississippi Gov.-elect Phil Bryant.

Davis was always a darling of the DCCC, the exact kind of principle-less conservative they recruit and nourish. But don't worry about them; they've found dozens more just like him-- from Marty Chavez in New Mexico, Rob Wallace in Oklahoma, Brendan Mullen in Indiana, Ted Vick in South Carolina and Clark Hall in Arkansas to Brad Schneider in Illinois, Terry Bellamy in North Carolina and Leonard Bembry in Florida, each as much of a real Democrat as Artur Davis. Send a message to the Democratic Party.

What Is The Takeaway From Artur Davis' Thorough Thrashing In The Alabama Democratic Primary Last Night?

Wrong for the Democratic Party, Wrong for America, Fox "Democrats," Artur & Lori

Last night it wasn't only conservative corporate hacks like former-Blue Dog-turned-Republican Parker Griffith (who was slaughtered in the GOP primary, not even making it to a runoff against some nutcase teabagger) and Palin-backed Angela McGlowan (who came in a distant third in the GOP primary in Mississippi) who had terrible nights. Artur Davis has always been thought of as a Democrat with a bright future, until last night. He spent the last year and a half moving profoundly right: He went from a moderate 70.82 ProgressivePunch lifetime voting score to a dismal and reactionary 31.58 since Obama became President and, more importantly, since he started campaigning to be governor of Alabama. His vote against the health care reform bill was probably the last straw for his congressional constituents, who gave Ron Sparks majorities in 10 of the 12 counties that make up AL-07, Davis' own congressional district! Statewide, Sparks took 199,190 votes (62.4%) to Davis' 119,908 votes (37.6%). Davis' strategy-- one long encouraged by Rahm Emanuel and the DCCC (see Ken's perceptive stinky cheese story from yesterday)-- to move to the political right backfired... very badly. It's a losing strategy; when conservatives vote, they tend to prefer to vote for real conservatives, not Democrats playing the role.

Will the Democrats learn anything from Davis' disaster last night? Not. A. Chance. And especially not know-it-all powermongers like Emanuel and his female doppelganger Debbie Wasserman Schultz. They will continue hunting out reactionary candidates who apologize for being Democrats and, when they can slip into office, vote with the GOP.

A perfect example-- among so many-- is reactionary Blue Dog Lori Edwards, being fiercely pushed on Democrats by Wasserman Schultz. Although they're attempting to gussie her up as a moderate, Edwards is the only non-incumbent so far this year to be endorsed by and financed by the conservative Blue Dog caucus. Wasserman Schultz and her anti-Social Security ally Allen Boyd are hammering lobbyists and fellow Democrats-- including politically naive progressives-- to donate to Edwards. And why? So there will be another anti-government, anti-healthcare, anti-working family Democrat to cross the aisle and vote with Boehner at every opportunity?

The irony here is that the far more electable Democrat, 2008 Democratic candidate Doug Tudor, is also in the race. He isn't a self-funder-- a cardinal sin among party insiders-- and he wasn't an ass-kisser when he had the temerity to ask Wasserman Schultz for help back then. Last night, as Artur Davis' strategy of abandoning the same kinds of values and principles that faux Democrats (and DCCC faves) like Ed Case and Tim Mahoney have abandoned was blowing up in his face, we reached Doug Tudor and asked him about why party insiders always seem to be pushing anti-working family Democrats like Edwards and Davis in primaries.

“Lori," he told us, "may call herself ‘centrist’ or whatever other deceptive term she wants, but the truth is she is a conservative. Having never before run in a Democratic primary-- with the exception of the 2000 Congressional race in which she quit-- Lori showed her true colors early in this race when she actively sought the Blue Dog endorsement. Every Democratic and Independent voter who worked for and voted for change and hope in 2008 will do well to remember it is Blue Dog conservative Democrats who are blocking the President’s attempts to reform healthcare, to reform the financial sector, and blocking his attempts to extend programs which directly benefit working people and middle class families. Lori can join her conservative friends in decrying government, but she certainly shouldn’t be so callous to the many benefits government brings to the countless FL-12 residents who were hurt by the conservative economic policies to which she ascribes.

"As for me, I’ll stand with the many progressives throughout America’s history who have fought the battles that needed to be fought. It wasn’t popular to stand with unions, to end the Hoover-era giveaways to Wall Street and industrial robber barons, to provide a security net for our seniors, to integrate the Armed Forces, to integrate our schools and public places, to ensure the voting rights of all Americans, to provide health care to our elderly, and to expand that coverage to nearly all Americans. It wasn’t popular, but progressives like Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Jack Kennedy and Barack Obama, as well as Dr. King, Robert Kennedy and countless American freedom fighters the country owes such a debt of gratitude to, fought the good fight and won. These are the names and the spirits I want to be associated with… not the names of John Barrow, Jane Harman, and Gene Taylor.

"As freshman Alabama Blue Dog Parker Griffith proved when he switched parties after being in office less than one year, conservative Blue Dog Democrats are just a press conference away from being conservative Republicans. There is a party for people with Lori Edwards’ political leanings, and it is the Republican Party." 

If you can, please help Doug and other real Democrats like Claudia, Marcy and Regina defeat Blue Dog reactionaries in their primary races, all of which are coming up quickly.

Will Artur Davis' Retirement From Congress-- In Pursuit Of The Alabama Governorship-- Lead To More Progressive Representation For The 7th CD?

yeah, yeah... better than a Republican (yawn)

One of the ways progressives are seeking to improve the quality of Congress is to help candidates with proven records that favor working families win seats currently held by conservatives and by corrupt incumbents who do the bidding of wealthy campaign contributors. It's a multifaceted strategy that starts with the obvious: beating Republicans (who are all both conservative and beholden to corporate interests. It gets a bit more dicey when you start considering primaries against conservative or corrupt Democrats because then there is always the danger that the seat could fall to an even worse Republican. Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL) has the absolute worst and most reactionary voting record of any Democrat in the House. There are actually a few Republicans who have been voting more progressively than he has! And his abysmal ProgressivePunch score for this year (19.57) is identical with that of Mike Castle (R-DE), who Democrats are busy berating today after his announcement that he's running for Joe Biden's old Senate seat. But were a progressive-- or even an actual moderate-- to beat the reactionary Griffith in a Democratic primary, there's a chance that an even worse Republican would wind up in the seat. Blue Dogs often use that tactic to scare off support for real Democrats.

However, there's a completely different scenario playing out in AL-07, the most Democratic district in the state (PVI is D +18). Last year, while McCain was racking up a big win statewide (61-39%), Obama was racking up an even bigger landslide in the 7th CD, where McCain only managed to get 25.8% of the vote (coincidentally almost the same percentage-- 25.9-- of whites living in the district). The district is the poorest in the state with a median income of $26,672 (compared to the already awful statewide income of $34,135). Artur Davis has always been a moderate Democrat, not a reactionary like Blue Dogs Bobby Bright or Parker Griffith. His lifetime ProgressivePunch score is 71.09, making him the 165th most progressive member of the House, not close to being a progressive, but not close to being a conservative either. Like I said, he's a moderate-- or at least he was until he decided to run for governor. This year, his score dropped into Republican territory and suddenly he's voting more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats on crucial issues. His Progressive Punch score plummeted from 71.09 to 28.06! This year he isn't the 165th most progressive; he's tied with outrageous reactionary Blue Dogs Walt Minnick, Frank Kratovil and Joe Donnelly as the 241 most progressive.

November 2010 offers a chance to get rid of this opportunist who's far more concerned with his own career trajectory than with the well being of his hard-pressed constituents in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and the Black-belt counties of western Alabama. So far there are at least half a dozen Democrats in the mix and a Democratic primary win in AL-07 is tantamount to a long congressional career. The last time the Republicans even bothered to run someone (an unmarried white mobile home inspector, Steve Cameron in 2004), he barely managed to round up 25% of the vote. But how do you sort through half a dozen candidates, none with much of a national name? There's only one place to go: Alabama's most conscientious and thorough blog, LeftInAlbama. The phenomenally well-infomred Mooncat gave me a hand in navigating the candidates and even let me know that a brand new candidate jumped into the race yesterday-- Patricia Evans Mokolo, a Tuscaloosa housewife and former Obama volunteer, who's never held-- or even run for-- public office before.

The better known candidates are state Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr., Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Smoot, Birmingham activist Terri Sewell, former Selma Mayor James Perkins, Artur Davis campaign manager Martha Bozeman, and Tuscaloosa businessman Eddison Walters. A political friend of mine in Alabama said he's most impressed with Terri Sewell and he thinks she's the most progressive of the candidates. Her family has a long and honored name in the struggle for civil rights. Earl Hilliard, a first-term state legislator, also has powerful family connections and his dad was the district's congressman before Davis, a pretty conservative one for such a deeply blue district.

Shelia Smoot is probably the best campaigner of the bunch and may be the most progressive, but she carries real baggage as a member of the Jefferson County Commission-- she hasn't been indicted but several other members of that body have been (some already convicted) of fraud/corruption and the Mayor of Birmingham goes to trial in a couple of weeks for stuff he did while on the Commission.  And of course, the county is facing bankruptcy from shady financial deals the Commission approved. Shelia may very well be pure as the driven snow, which is certainly her reputation, but the Jefferson County Commission is just a dirty environment. 

James Perkins was a distinctly non-progressive mayor of Selma and his tenure was marked by low level corruption scandals in city government. Eddison Walters, the primary candidate against Artur Davis in 2006, sounds interesting. His big issue is unfair taxation of small business people and the job losses caused by "free" trade bills in a district where unemployment is probably the #1 worry on peoples' minds. He's still seething over Davis' vote for the Bankruptcy Bill.

Because she was Davis' campaign manager Martha Bozeman can be assumed to know the district and know how to put together a winning campaign in it. Observers are wondering if she's got what it takes to move from being a political operative to a political candidate. She has a long way to go in terms of public speaking.

Artur Davis, Always The Skin-Crawling Opportunist, Makes It Official: He's Gone From ConservaDem To Republican

Artur Davis had one of the safest Democratic districts in the South. When he was the congressman from the 7th CD, gerrymandering had packed as many African-Americans into it as they could. It was a 61.7% African-American district with a Democratic PVI of +17. Gore won with 66%, Kerry with 64% and Obama with 72%. And yet Davis, a Harvard graduate on the way somewhere, was always voting as though he had to worry about something. He ran against a populist Democratic incumbent who had-- like Cynthia McKinney-- angered Zionists outside the district and they funded Davis' campaigns. He won on his second try, in 2002, and turned out to be a consistently conservative Members of Congress.

But Davis wasn't voting like a Republican because he was afraid of his constituents. He was voting like a Republican because he wasn't afraid of them and was willing to betray their interests for his own-- his own ambition. He was always told he was meant to be something more than "just" a congressman-- a governor, a senator... maybe more. So his every vote was geared towards pleasing Alabama voters outside the 7th CD, much the way another creepy-crawly Democrat in a similar situation, Harold Ford, Jr., was playing the game in Memphis. But both failed. Davis lost the Democratic primary-- and lost badly, including in his own district-- when he ran for governor. He had moved from a moderate 70.82 ProgressivePunch lifetime voting score to a dismal and reactionary 31.58 from the time Obama became President and, more importantly, since he started his campaign for governor.

His vote against the health care reform bill was probably the last straw for his congressional constituents, who gave Ron Sparks majorities in 10 of the 12 counties that make up AL-07, Davis' own congressional district! Statewide, Sparks took 199,190 votes (62.4%) to Davis' 119,908 votes (37.6%). Davis' strategy-- one long encouraged by Rahm Emanuel and the DCCC-- to move to the political right backfired... very badly. It's a losing strategy; when conservatives vote, they tend to prefer to vote for real conservatives, not Democrats playing the role.

But Davis has long passed "playing" the role to being the role. Last October we asked when Davis would make it official and join the GOP. This week he finally made the move official, both that he's abandoned Alabama for Virginia and the conservative end of the Democratic Party for the Republicans. Forget "I have no interest in running for political office again". He never really meant that anyway, other than in the sense Nixon did.

I should say something about the various stories regarding my political future in Virginia, the state that has been my primary home since late December 2010. The short of it is this: I don’t know and am nowhere near deciding. If I were to run, it would be as a Republican. And I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another.

As to the horse-race question that animated parts of the blogosphere, it is true that people whose judgment I value have asked me to weigh the prospect of running in one of the Northern Virginia congressional districts in 2014 or 2016, or alternatively, for a seat in the Virginia legislature in 2015. If that sounds imprecise, it’s a function of how uncertain political opportunities can be-- and if that sounds expedient, never lose sight of the fact that politics is not wishfulness, it’s the execution of a long, draining process to win votes and help and relationships while your adversaries are working just as hard to tear down the ground you build.

...[P]arties change. As I told a reporter last week, this is not Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party (and he knows that even if he can’t say it). If you have read this blog, and taken the time to look for a theme in the thousands of words (or free opposition research) contained in it, you see the imperfect musings of a voter who describes growth as a deeper problem than exaggerated inequality; who wants to radically reform the way we educate our children; who despises identity politics and the practice of speaking for groups and not one national interest; who knows that our current course on entitlements will eventually break our solvency and cause us to break promises to our most vulnerable-- that is, if we don’t start the hard work of fixing it.

On the specifics, I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators with more taxes just as they are trying to thrive again. I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured: frankly, the symbolism of Barack Obama winning has not given us the substance of a united country. You have also seen me write that faith institutions should not be compelled to violate their teachings because faith is a freedom, too. You’ve read that in my view, the law can’t continue to favor one race over another in offering hard-earned slots in colleges: America has changed, and we are now diverse enough that we don’t need to accommodate a racial spoils system. And you know from these pages that I still think the way we have gone about mending the flaws in our healthcare system is the wrong way-- it goes further than we need and costs more than we can bear.

Taken together, these are hardly the enthusiasms of a Democrat circa 2012, and they wouldn’t be defensible in a Democratic primary. But they are the thoughts and values of ten years of learning, and seeing things I once thought were true fall into disarray. So, if I were to leave the sidelines, it would be as a member of the Republican Party that is fighting the drift in this country in a way that comes closest to my way of thinking: wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities.

USAToday, with a straight face, referred to Davis as an Obama ally and the Washington Post emphasizes his intentions of running as a Virginia Republican-- probably against Jim Moran or Gerald Connolly. But, has no one considered the possibility that he just wants a job on Fox?

As for the DCCC... just look at their Red-to-Blue page. They've recruited dozens of clueless conservatives just like Davis who are bound to vote with Republicans if any of them get the chance and, eventually, to become Republicans, just like he did. The DCCC is spending virtually all the money they've allocated for challengers on conservatives, many to the right of Davis, like Blue Dogs and New Dems:

Shelley Adler (New Dem-NJ)
Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ, who's already announced he won't commit to voting for Pelosi for Speaker)
Leonard Bembray (Blue Dog-FL)
Andrei Cherny (New Dem-AZ)
David Crooks (Blue Dog-IN)
John Delaney (New Dem-MD)
Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)
Val Demings (New Dem-FL)
Bill Foster (New Dem-FL)
Pam Gulleson (Blue Dog-ND)
Clark Hall (Blue Dog/KKK-AR)
Denny Heck (New Dem-WA)
Paul Hirschbiel (New Dem-VA)
Nick Lampson (Blue Dog-TX)
Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY)
Gary McDowell (Blue Dog-MI)
Brendon Mullen (Blue Dog-IN)
Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)
Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
Hayden Rogers (Blue Dog-NC)
Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)
Julian Schreibman (New Dem-NY)
Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA)
Rob Wallace (Blue Dog-OK)
Charlie Wilson (Blue Dog/New Dem-OH)

It's a long list of losers, a long list of candidates "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel wants you to waste your money on. Here's a list of well-vetted progressives you might want to consider as an alternative. None of them will ever switch to the GOP the way DCCC candidates tend to do.

In Alabama, Ron Sparks declines to run in AL-05, sticking to his gubernatorial bid

"It would be an honor to represent the people of the 5th Congressional District in Washington. It would be my honor to stand up against those who break their word and betray their supporters. But right now I think it's more important that I represent the people in the 5th Congressional district in Montgomery."

-- Alabama State Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks,

in a statement today

by Ken

Well, Alabama State Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks has made his decision. He's not going to switch his sights from the Democratic gubernatorial nomination (to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Bob Riley) to the nomination for AL-05, the House seat currently held by first-termer Parker Griffith, apparently one of the less popular members of Congress, all the more so since he announced his (largely technical) switch from DINO-dom to full-fledged Confederate, I mean Republican, Party membership.

Sparks had been encouraged to run for that seat in 2006, when long-time Rep. Bud Cramer retired, but declined, and he's declining again. "I made a commitment to the people of Alabama when I decided to run for governor," he told the Associated Press.

When I wrote on Monday that DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen was reported to be personally lobbying Sparks into the race -- thereby also leaving a clear path to the Dem gubernatorial nomination for go-along, get-along Rep. Artur Davis -- I mentioned that Howie had written about Sparks in 2007, with some pretty inspiring quotes to back up the claim that he's a fiery populist. I thought of requoting those quotes, but eventually settled for including a link. Or at least I thought I did.

No, I was sure I did. Except I couldn't find any damned link there! Well, I've inserted it now, but since people who read that piece originally didn't have the link available, I'm also going to resurrect those 2007 quotes, so you can see what caught Howie's attention back then:

I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of the $3 a gallon gasoline. I'm tired of seeing Exxon-Mobile bringing out these $10 billion profits. I'll tell you something: There's something wrong when you pay an executive, a CEO of a large company, $28,000 an hour. We haven't increased minimum wage in this country since 1997. We had a minimum wage in Washington, and they tied the estate tax to it. It's not about the working people when you tie those two types of legislation together.

Things are not getting better in this country. You know, we've got a president who marched us off to war with no plan. I'm a veteran. I served this country. But there is something wrong when you carry your soldiers into battle and won't give them the tools to fight with. Don't send these young men and women across the water to fight for our freedom in this country when you won't give them a gun to fight with and you won't give them a bullet-proof vest. Then when they come home, you don't want to give them what they deserve. That's wrong, ladies and gentlemen.

Apparently the Davis campaign people are less impressed. Josh Kraushaar reports on Politico's blog that Davis spokesman Alex Goepfert said, "There is a reason why Ron Sparks continues to lag way behind Artur Davis in every poll -- he has no core convictions, believes in nothing and as a result will say anything, and the last thing he ought to be is governor of Alabama."

And Sparks shot back:

I am seeking the Democratic nomination for Governor against another man who has abandoned the values that put him in Congress.

My opponent, voted against vital health care reform measures. He voted to protect the rights of credit card companies rather than the rights of Alabama families. He thumbs his nose at the democratic leaders of our state and panders to right wing power brokers and big business contributors. He draws more of his support from Manhattan than he does from main street Alabama.

Yes, it would be an honor to represent the people of the 5th Congressional District in Washington. It would be my honor to stand up against those who break their word and betray their supporters. But right now I think it's more important that I represent the people in the 5th Congressional district in Montgomery. My opponent is a man who breaks his word and betrays his supporters.

So it looks like a pretty ugly gubernatorial primary ahead. For what it's worth, Swing State Project blogger James L., who was the source of those 2007 Ron Sparks quotes, isn't much impressed with Sparks's gubenatorial campaign, and neither are his commenters. "It's difficult not to agree that Artur Davis is useless," James L. writes, "but I don't see why Sparks saw any upside in staying in such a fratricidal primary where he'll be severely outgunned financially. I think this move shaved a few years off of his political longevity."

As for AL-05, Politico's Josh Kraushaar reports: "Democrats are now looking at several other candidates, including Public Service Commissioner Susan Parker (who ran against GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2002) and former state Supreme Court candidate Deborah Bell Paseur."

By way of background on Susan Parker, here is a March post, "Why Susan Parker Is Right for Alabama's Fifth District," from the blog Left in Alabama, which by the way our progressive friends on the ground in Alabama caution us isn't noticeably "left," being in fact pretty comfortably aligned with the Davis-DLC world view.

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With Democrats Like Artur Davis, Who Needs Republicans?

Before he was thoroughly rejected by Democrats in the Alabama gubernatorial primary in 2010, Rep. Artur Davis, a conservative corporate shill representing one of the safest Democratic seats in the country, was being pushed by the Beltway Democratic Establishment as a future leader. In his last year in Congress he voted far more often with the GOP than with his own party. There are quite a few "Democrats" like that, and when you contribute to the DCCC that's exactly where your money goes. As we mentioned a couple weeks ago, Davis is getting ready to officially become a black Republican. Yesterday he was paying his dues by shilling for the Bush family in the National Review. He's giving his right-wing pals some friendly advice to help them defeat President Obama. When will he get his own show on Fox? He's fretting that "an Obama landslide would devastate conservatism enough that it might be irreparable for a generation" and making the case-- several cases-- for a Jeb Bush run.

One doesn’t have to subscribe to Gingrich’s Manichean rhetoric to concede that an Obama sweep would, for the first time in 76 years, institute government-centered, redistributionist economics as the country’s central governing philosophy. It would be, after all, the agenda that Obama and congressional Democrats had campaigned on, in contrast to the deliberately muted, ideologically vague platforms that elected Carter, Clinton, and Obama in 2008; or the growth-oriented, business friendly liberalism that JFK and LBJ embodied.

Second, Bush would have a pathway to victory in November. His brand of reform-oriented conservatism might actually be his party’s only pathway: Unlike Romney, whose leadership of Massachusetts produced one signature achievement-- a hodgepodge of a health-care law that he likely wishes he could take back-- Bush’s legacy is an issue that Republicans ought to own but are ignoring, education reform. He also turned Florida into a national laboratory for controlling health-care costs and reining in medical tort liability, both soft spots in Obama’s record.

At the same time, Bush has revealed a capacity for coalition-building that has eluded Gingrich. He is a hero of the conservative base who has had remarkable electoral appeal to Jewish and Hispanic voters. He combines support for a modified version of the DREAM Act with backing stronger border security-- a middle ground that is both tough-minded and assimilationist-- and happens to be entering his fourth decade of marriage to a Hispanic woman. It goes without saying that Bush gives Republicans the best shot of removing Florida from the Democratic column, and winning states with a strong Latino presence such as Arizona and Colorado.

The fact is that Jeb Bush bent Florida, a famously interest-group-ridden state, in a rightward direction; that’s an accomplishment Romney can’t begin to claim vis-à-vis Massachusetts. Bush is not just an authentic movement conservative, but a groundbreaker on an array of issues that drive votes, such as accountability for teachers and reining in the costs of private health insurance. While his record has blemishes that Democrats would exploit, from his stint in the Eighties lobbying for southern-Florida business interests to his ill-timed tenure at Lehman Brothers in 2007, this Bush is an adept, articulate campaigner who is unlikely to be tied in knots defending his history. Also, the statute of limitations seems to have expired on the ugliest sentiments around the last Bush presidency.

Jeb Bush should measure his reluctance against the risks looming for his party and, potentially, his country. The fact is that his party could be staring at an unavoidable disaster unless, in the interests of saving it, its best candidate comes out of retirement.

Last week the DCCC unveiled its "Red to Blue" list, the candidates whose elections they're prioritizing. In many cases, they picked staunch conservatives who are in primary battles against progressives. How many on it were just like Artur Davis politically? Far too many. In district after district, "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel forced the DCCC to back future Artur Davises who had already been endorsed by the reactionary, anti-Choice, anti-gay, anti-working-family Blue Dog caucus. The Blue Dogs have recruited right-wing candidates Rob Wallace (OK), Leonard Bembry (FL), Brendan Mullen (IN) and Clark Hall (AR), and they were immediately embraced by the DCCC, which is also backing defeated Blue Dogs Nick Lampson (TX) and Charlie Wilson (OH). Meanwhile Israel hops around the country whispering to Democratic donors to not help fund progressives like Darcy Burner so that he can slip more-conservative and easier-to-control candidates into nominations.

How to avoid future Artur Davises? Refuse to give any contributions to the DCCC until the Democratic Party reforms it and stops appointing degenerate corporate shills like Rahm Emanuel and Steve Israel. Instead, contribute directly to progressive candidates. Here's the best batch of them we could find, dedicated New Deal Democrats like Norman Solomon (D-CA), John Waltz (D-MI), Ilya Sheyman (D-IL), Eric Griego (D-NM), Nick Ruiz (D-FL) and Franke Wilmer (D-MT). Hit the link to view the whole list. Almost all of them have been studiously ignored by the DCCC.

Bernie Sanders Vs... Artur Davis: Guaranteed Jobs

Right-wing Democrat-turned-Republican Artur Davis was originally put into office with AIPAC money after his predecessor, Earl Hilliard, got a little too uppity for about the Palestinians. He represented a super blue Alabama district from 2003 'til 2011 when he ran for governor and was badly defeated in the primary, even in the bluest parts of his own district. He went from being a coddled DCCC creep who was the poster child for the Republican wing of the Democratic Party to switching to the Republican Party and moving to Virginia. He became a rabid GOP attack dog against Democrats and a Romney surrogate. More recently he ran-- and was defeated again-- for mayor of Montgomery, garnering just 27% of tiger vote. He tried to rejoin the Democratic Party and was rejected.

Over the weekend he predicted Doug Jones would lose to Roy Moore today. "It’s very difficult to appeal to white and blacks at the same time," he said. "I’ve been there, it’s a hard thing to do." Davis never had the faintest clue how to speak to working families effectively, regardless of skin color. Even before he officially joined the Republican Party, he was, heart-and-soul, a clueless Republican shill for corporate interests and a pitiful "Uncle Tom" for his entire pathetic tenure in politics.



Recently Bernie economic advisor Stephanie Kelton recommended I read a post by a colleague and former student of hers, Pavlina Tcherneva, Why Bernie Sanders Should Add a Job Guarantee to His Policy Agenda, written in the summer of 2015. Pavlina is now chair of the Economics Department at Bard College and it would have been very useful for Artur Davis to have studied economic under with her or Stephanie. "Discussions of the 'politically possible' always remind me of a favorite quote: 'Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.' Bernie Sanders’ issues page reads like a list of everything we’ve been told is not politically possible. And yet he’s getting record breaking support, precisely because people are tired of being told that something cannot be done-- that it is impossible to get money out of politics, or that tackling inequality and racial injustice is unrealistic, or that securing a living wage is a political nonstarter. Bernie has unapologetically rejected sclerotic visions of what is 'politically possible'.  And now he should add the Job Guarantee (JG) to his list of issues [see video above]. Indeed, he already has the key ingredients-- a bold proposal to eliminate unemployment by creating 13 million decent-paying jobs, a living wage, and a federally-funded youth job guarantee, which Sandy Darity correctly called a stepping stone (a pilot program) to a blanket job guarantee for all.

The Job Guarantee’s time has come.

• It secures a basic human right
• It tackles at least three key sources of “economic violence and injustice”-- unemployment, precarious work, and poverty wages
• It is good for families, the economy, the environment, and our communities

She then outlined some basic facts we all need to know about the Job Guarantee, the first being that it is not some unpredictable big government expansion. But it's an employment stabilization program that offers prevention as much as a cure. It "tackles all the vile consequences of mass unemployment (on private sector spending and expectations, and on people and communities).  The JG is also good for the private sector and ensures more stable and plentiful private sector employment, because it guarantees that domestic demand never collapses as much as it does today with mass unemployment. It's based on the idea that if unemployment is like a virus that spreads through the economy if nothing is done to check it and "the best 'cure' for someone who wants a job-- is a job, not a handout." It's always important to remember this:

Every unemployed person today puts another one out of work, but the Job Guarantee reverses the process: employing one person creates work for another.

"The JG," she wrote, "will always be there to provide voluntary employment for a pool of people (small relative to today’s unemployment numbers)-- who have difficulty finding private sector jobs or have been rendered ‘unnecessary’ by private firms.  It’s one thing to support a family on an unemployment insurance check, and a whole different thing to replace lost private sector income with a living wage income from the JG in a job that does something useful (more below). In this sense, the livelihood of those participants is not disrupted as much as with unemployment, and does not cause the large ripple effect of layoffs through the economy we see today due to collapsing demand. In other words, it is easier to prevent the development of mass unemployment, than to eliminate it once it has developed."

Job Guarantee, she wrote, breaks the vicious cycle at the bottom of the income distribution since "people from different social stations experience different employment situations-- the highly-skilled and highly-educated face virtually no unemployment, or relatively short stretches of joblessness. They are hired first and fired last. But even when they are unemployed, their safety net is much stronger because of more generous employment benefits, severance packages, savings and other sources of wealth. But for those at the bottom of the income distribution, life is very different-- precarious income and employment, longer periods of unemployment, shorter job tenure, and fewer prospects for accumulating wealth or building a nest egg. The vicious employment cycle is fired first-hired last. The JG by design captures those who are most vulnerable." So what it does is change the economic odds for poor and middle class families:

Imagine two candidates applying for a job: one has 9 months of experience in a JG soil renewal of reforestation project and the other-- 9 months of unemployment. Which applicant would the prospective employer hire? Chances are-- the one with the job. And indeed, research shows that, employers consider 9 months of unemployment to be the same as 4 years of lost work experience.

JG changes these odds. It gives people a chance for better life by providing a choice to work in a meaningful public service project-- something welfare checks are not able to do.

It also addresses income inequality and drives a stake through current power interests by guaranteeing access to a living-wage job and lifting incomes for the most vulnerable families in the economy-- a key step to reversing income inequality in the US. The threat of unemployment at the bottom of the income distribution is considerably weakened, she explained. "The JG redefines what kind of work is 'useful'-- public stewardship, environmental renewal and sustainability, community development and, importantly, investment in people, are recognized as important and valuable tasks, worthy of public support" while establishing "a standard for a decent pay package. It’s like the minimum wage, only better-- everyone gets it and more (what good is the minimum wage to an unemployed person?). Private firms must match that minimum standard and pay extra when they need to hire those workers. It's "the next step in completing the Roosevelt revolution" as well as "the missing piece from the social safety-net." In advanced economies, basic needs are generally solved by direct means:

• When the problem is retirement income insecurity-- we provide retirement income (e.g., social security).
• When the problem is food insecurity-- we provide food.
• When the problem is homelessness – we provide housing.
• But when the problem is joblessness, we do not provide employment. We provide a handout, a training program, a college loan-- everything but an actual job. The Job Guarantee institutes an important component of the overall safety-net: a job safety-net.

She makes the point that "The task before us is to provide a decent job at decent pay for everyone who wants one. Many progressives seem to think that conventional public works are better suited as countercyclical stabilizers or job creation policies... [but] we either need to replace the Tappan Zee bridge or not. A high-speed rail system is either a good idea or not. Rain or shine, recession or expansion, the work has to be done. These projects cannot fluctuate because they are essential, strategic, and capital-intensive. They are much needed programs, but they are not cycle-stabilizing policies. And they cannot guarantee an employment opportunity to the last person who hasn’t found a decent paying job, but wants one. Only the Job Guarantee can. But low capital intensity projects are in great shortage, can vary with the mood swings of the economy, and are not make-work.

The private sector is simply not in the business of satisfying unmet basic needs or providing employment for everyone. But once most basic needs are met, will there be enough work for the JG participants to do? I’m convinced, yes. As Warren Mosler says, “There is no limit to the ways we can serve one another.”

My worry is that even if we mobilized everyone who wanted to work in a private and public initiative, there would still not be enough manpower to do all the things that we sorely need-- especially concerning the environment.

Take the Hudson Valley for example where I live and work. The Hudson River and local parks and preserves are struggling with several invasive species (water chestnut and zebra mussel), fundamentally altering the ecology of the estuary and the natural habitat of the Valley. And while my community and friends, volunteers and non-profits, have been hard at work preserving and restoring the the Valley, one crucial thing is missing: large-scale funding and many, many more helping hands.

Learning to identify the invasive plants and removing them is mostly done by community members and school groups on volunteer basis. Other area projects include eel and herring monitoring, building hiking trails, cleaning parks, removing trash-- all low-cost, tow-tech, and high-labor-intensity tasks that bring many environmental and social benefits. And they literally only require gloves, fishing nets, and rakes. The work is flexible and year-round.

And this is just one example that that can provide jobs to thousands of unemployed people from the entire Hudson Valley on ongoing basis for decades to come.

The neighboring city of Newburgh–once the jewel of modern technological achievement was the first electrified city in the United States, showcasing the glory that electrification would bring the nation and the world. (Electrification–the offspring of private ingenuity brought to our doorsteps courtesy of large scale government investment). Today Newburgh’s housing stock-- a rare collection of historical architecture-- is crumbling and needs to be restored and preserved. After years of neglect and severe austerity, the city is slowly turning a corner mostly because of impressive community revitalization efforts. But unemployment remains a pressing problem. What is needed? Large-scale funding and many, many more helping hands.

Most communities throughout the US can benefit from countless ongoing public service, environmental, after-school and care projects. And the unemployed need the restoration of their human worth.

As Bernie Sanders’ himself put it in his 2011 8-hour Senate floor speech:

Human beings want to be productive… They want to be a part of something. They want to go to work, earn a paycheck, bring it home. You feel good about that.

Do you know what it does to somebody’s sense of human worth when suddenly you find yourself at home …[and] you can’t go out and earn a living. It destroys people… That’s what unemployment is about.

Good intensions rarely stand in the way of good economic policies-- but lack of conviction and political will do. When it comes to the Job Guarantee, we can also use a bit of imagination.

Sanders is already changing the conversation about what is politically possible. Adding the Job Guarantee to his issues will solidify his unapologetically bold and sorely needed progressive agenda.

Believe me, Artur Davis never tried addressing black and white voters in this way-- which is why he's a classic failed and pointless politician remember, if at all, as a distance disaster in the lives of his constituents.

The Creigh Deeds Strategy Embraced By 24 Blue Dogs!

Creigh Deeds, strategist for 2010 Blue Dog caucus

Yesterday we talked about how disgraceful Democratic coward Larry Kissell had decided to follow the Creigh Deeds strategy of alienating Democratic voters and keeping them from going to the polls. Maybe Kissell misses being a civics teacher. But last night Kissell wasn't the only Democrat to vote against the most important policy agenda put forward by Democrats. In the end, 39 Democrats were on the wrong side of the aisle and the wrong side of History.

Early yesterday, just as the debate was beginning, the PCCC released a poll of Virginia Democrats and Independents who voted for Obama in 2008 but didn't turn out for Creigh Deeds in 2009. Here's what they found:

• A huge majority of these voters thought Deeds "wasn't progressive enough."

• Many of these voters will decide whether to vote in 2010 based on whether or not Democrats pass a public option

• Many said they were less excited to vote for Deeds after he said he would "opt out" Virginia from the public option.

Stephanie Taylor fleshed out some of the specific findings of the poll over at Daily Kos:

Creigh Deeds seen as "not progressive enough" by huge margin. 64% of Democratic Obama voters and 58% of Independent Obama voters said Deeds was "not progressive enough" compared with only 8% of Democrats and 16% of Independent Obama voters who said he was "too far to the left." (Overall, 5 to 1.)

Obama's voters want the public option. 88% of Democratic Obama voters and 80% of Independent Obama voters favor a public health insurance option to compete with private insurance plans. 93% of those polled said health care is "very" or "somewhat" important when they vote.

Creigh Deeds hurt by opposition to public option. When asked, "Before the election for Governor, Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds said he would side with conservatives and push for Virginia to 'opt out' of the public insurance plan. Did this make you more excited or less excited to vote in this year's election, or did it have no impact?" 41% of those polled said it made them less excited, only 6% said it made them more excited (7 to 1).

Without a public option, Obama voters will continue to drop off in 2010. 43% of Democratic and Independent Obama voters said they are less likely to vote at all in the 2010 general election if Congress does not pass a public option as part of health care reform, compared to only 8% who are more likely to vote. If they do vote, by 46% to 6%, they will be less likely to vote for a Democratic candidate if Democrats do not pass a public option.

Last night's big disgrace was the first substantive vote when 64 Democrats joined all the Republicans to support the horrifying Stupak anti-choice amendment. It passed 240-194-1, that "1" reflecting a "present" by wily John Shadegg, who seems to have finally put that poor child down so he could vote. (What were her parents thinking!) Not one "pro-choice Republican" voted against it. What cowards! The 64 Democrats who crossed the aisle:

Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)
Joe Baca (Blue Dog-CA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR)
Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
John Boccieri (D-OH)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL)
Dennis Cardoza (Blue Dog-CA)
Chris Carney (Blue Dog-PA)
Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS)
Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
Jerry Costello (D-IL)
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
Kathy Dahlkemper (Blue Dog-PA)
Artur Davis (D-AL)
Lincoln Davis (Blue Dog-TN)
Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
Mike Doyle (D-PA)
Steve Driehaus (D-OH)
Brad Ellsworth (Blue Dog-IN)
Mike Etheridge (D-NC)
Bart Gordon (Blue Dog-TN)
Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL)
Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN)
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)
Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)
Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Dale Kildee (D-MI)
Jim Langevin (D-RI)
Dan Lipinski (D-IL/TN)
Stephen Lynch (D-MA)
Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA)
Mike Michaud (Blue Dog-ME)
Jack Murtha (D-PA)
Richard Neal (D-MA)
Jim Oberstar (D-MN)
David Obey (D-WI)
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
Tom Perriello (D-VA)
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Earl Pomeroy (Blue Dog-ND)
Nick Rahill (D-WV)
Silvestre Reyes (D-TX)
Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Tim Ryan (D-OH)
John Salazar (Blue Dog-CO)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)
Ike Skelton (D--MO)
Vic Snyder (D-AR)
Zach Space (Blue Dog-OH)
John Spratt (D-SC)
Bart Stupak (D-MI)
John Tanner (Blue Dog-TN)
Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS)
Harry Teague (D-NM)
Charlie Wilson (Blue Dog-OH)

If you believed the bullshit about the Blue Dogs just being "fiscal conservatives," you saw the truth last night as almost the entire caucus crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans against women's health. Please consider a contribution to the Blue America Bad Dog page. We'll bring down as many of them as we can next year.

The next vote was Boehner's halfhearted, lame attempt to try to pass his substitute sham. It failed 258-176, with only one Republican, Timothy Johnson (R-IL), voting against the travesty. Not even a single mangy Blue Dog deserted for this one. That was followed by Cantor's last-minute attempt on behalf of unreconstructed conservatives to use a motion to recommit in order to slip in an anti-consumer amendment under the guise of "Tort Reform." It failed 187-247. Three Republicans voted with the Democrats (Ron Paul, Tim Johnson and John Duncan), and 12 Blue Dogs (plus one ConservaDem, Scott Murphy) voted with the Republicans: Dan Boren, Bobby Bright, Dennis Cardoza, Travis Childers, Jim Costa, Henry Cuellar, Brad Ellsworth, Bart Gordon, Parker Griffith, Jim Matheson, Walt Minnick, Scott Murphy and Earl Pomeroy.

Then came the bill itself, H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. It passed 220-215, with one Republican, Anh Cao, joining the Democrats and making it a bipartisan bill. 39 shameful Democrats voted with the Republicans against health care:

John Adler (Insurance Industry shill-NJ)
Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)
Brian Baird (WA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
John Boccieri (OH)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Allen Boyd (Blue Dog-FL)
Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL)
Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS)
Artur Davis (AL)
Lincoln Davis (Blue Dog-TN)
Chet Edwards (TX)
Bart Gordon (Blue Dog-TN)
Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (Blue Dog-SD)
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)
Larry Kissell (NC)
Suzanne Kosmas (Insurance Industry shill-FL)
Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD)
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Betsy Markey (CO)
Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA)
Eric Massa (D-NY)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Mike McMahon (NY)
Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA)
Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID)
Scott Murphy (Insurance Industry shill-NY)
Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA)
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)
Ike Skelton (MO)
John Tanner (Blue Dog-TN)
Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS)
Harry Teague (NM)

Again, Blue America will be putting as much attention as we can towards helping opponents to the Blue Dogs who voted against health care reform today. You can help at our BadDogs page.




UPDATE: Cao v Lieberman

Eric Cantor never let up on Cao for a second. He badgered him mercilessly right up until he gave the Democrats the right to call their victory "bipartisan." Cao claims he traded his vote for a promise from Obama to accelerate aid to medical facilities in hurricane-battered New Orleans. Teabaggers and hysterical anti-American fascists have a new enemy to excoriate. Meanwhile Lieberman is assuring his patrons on K Street and the Insurance Industry executive suites not to worry and that he will kill the bill when it gets to the Senate. On Fox this morning, Lieberman whined that "If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote because I believe debt can break America and send us into a recession."