I had dinner with a member of Pelosi's leadership team this week to talk about 2020 House candidates. Who was the first candidate the Member wanted to talk about? Audrey Denney. So I had a real shock ready. Chico, up in Butte County, isn't exactly a bustling metropolis. The population is about 94,776, not exactly the kind of place presidential candidates are flocking to. But it's the biggest city in CA-01, the predominantly rural northeast California congressional district where Denney is running to replace Trump enabler Doug LaMalfa. Not even Kamala Harris has bothered with the area since she thinks it's too red and too Trumpified.Denney was in Washington after the fires that devastated the area, some of which Bernie toured this week, to persuade members of Congress that northeast California needed help-- stat. One of the members she met with was fellow progressive, Bernie Sanders, who promised to come-- and did. He laid out his program for tackling the Climate Crisis in Chico... and asked Audrey Denney to introduce him to her neighbors. That's what the video up top is.CA-01 has a PVI of R+11. That's very red. Trump beat Hillary there 56.2% to 36.5%. But last cycle, Denney ran an incredible progressive grassroots campaign and-- with ZERO help from the DCCC-- came closer than anyone else has in dislodging LaMalfa. Matching him dollar for dollar in fundraising, she kept him down to a 54.9% to 45.1% win-- doing 10% better than Clinton. She also won the biggest county in the district, Butte, and the third biggest, Nevada, out of the 11 counties in the district. She nearly won Siskiyou and made significant headway in Place County. She out-performed both Gavin Newsom and Dianne Feinstein in the district as well.What Denney has been telling voters in the North Country is that "Climate change is not a threat in the distant future. It is threatening the lives, homes, and livelihoods of people who live in my district today. We have to take bold action to mitigate climate change and restore our forests to health. The Green New Deal is not a plan to mitigate climate change-- it is a bold commitment to the belief that we can. I want to be a policymaker who crafts pragmatic policies that support the vision of the Green New Deal-- tailored to benefit the people and the communities of California’s first district. I will be the voice at the table that represents rural America, our farms, ranches, and forests. A lot of misinformation about the GND has been propagated and folks in conservative districts range from skeptical to afraid of it. I believe the GND is a tremendous opportunity for us to push forward innovative policies that will help our farmers and ranchers prosper, make our forests healthy and our communities safer from wildfires, and restore our rural economies-- all while doing our part to mitigate climate change. The incumbent I am running against refuses to even have discussions about this issue because he doesn’t believe climate science." Listen to her own take on Climate in the video below that her campaign put out:Trump's trade wars are killing farms in districts like Denney's-- and the Democratic Party realizes they can win back rural districts. So far they've only been looking for conservative corporate shills and Republican-lite schnooks with not much to offer other than "Trump bad-- me not as bad." I doubt the DCCC will lift a finger for Denney, not while a corporate monster and conservative like Cheri Bustos runs what's left of the DCCC. But with farmers in northeast California struggling to get by as prices plummet and markets dry up and as unsold crops rot, several presidential candidates have put together impressive plans to revitalize rural America, none as vibrant and powerful as Bernie's. The thermometer on the right is where you can contribute both to Audrey's and to Bernie's campaigns. I hope you'll click on it and give what you can.Bonus video-- the deadly California wildfires-- and why the Sunrise Movement endorsed only one congressional candidate: Audrey Denney.
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