Yesterday Ally Boguhn penned a post for RH Reality Check about the efficacy of primaries, focusing in on one of the most important challenges to an incumbent in the nation-- Tim Canova's battle to rid South Florida of the corrupt affront to democracy and the Democratic Party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Boguhn has chosen, among the vast array of Wasserman Schultz sins, to focus on the corrupt congresswoman's relationship with the predatory payday-lending industry, a relationship currently on the minds of many astonished Democrats in Florida. She's cosponsoring standard Republican Party anti-family legislation-- on behalf of her campaign donors in the industry-- that would roll back the consumer protections of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Predatory payday loan lenders often prey on those in poverty, offering high-interest, short-term loans most are unable to pay off. “In any given year, 12 million Americans take out a payday loan, which often comes with a triple-digit annual interest rate,” Joe Valenti, director of asset building at the Center for American Progress, and Alice Vickers, the director of the Florida Alliance for Consumer Protection, explained in a post for Talk Poverty. “And, as four out of every five of these borrowers aren’t able to afford these usurious rates, millions end up saddled with unsustainable debt.”...“The difference between Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s relationship with payday lenders and the average borrower’s relationship with payday lenders could not be more stark,” Karl Frisch, the executive director of Allied Progress, told Politico. “Rep. Wasserman Schultz is benefiting greatly while borrowers are left holding the bag. It’s time for her to quit trying to sabotage President Obama’s hard work to hold payday lenders accountable and instead join him in standing up for hardworking Florida families.”...The primary battle between Wasserman Schultz [and Tim Canova] is stirring up excitement, both for its potential to oust a party leader and for demonstrating the importance of challenging establishment candidates and holding politicians accountable.“By demonstrating to incumbent politicians that their party affiliation is not enough, primary challenges can be a very effective way of influencing the direction of the national party. And by providing core constituencies in the party a forum where they can’t be taken for granted, primary challenges show how party building in a democracy ought to work: from the bottom up,” explained Century Foundation Fellow Amy B. Dean in an op-ed for Al Jazeera America.“While embracing the lesser evil tends to produce a disengaged base, demanding accountability even of incumbent politicians is a recipe for revitalization. And the excitement around the Florida race, which may shake up the Democratic Party leadership, is exhibit A for this case,” wrote Dean.“In deep-blue districts, like her [Wasserman Schultz’s] district, where Republicans don’t even bother to run, you need primaries to keep … a Democrat honest. Or in a deep-red district, you need a primary to keep a Republican honest,” Klein noted when asked about the importance of such races.Klein went on to explain that primary battles such as the one playing out in Florida are a necessity for a healthy party and political system. “It is just absolutely crucial for the sake of a vibrant healthy Democratic Party… and also for the sake of American democracy that there be primaries in these kinds of districts.”
If you'd like to help Canova end Wasserman Schultz's shameful political career, you can do it by tapping the thermometer on the right. Wassermann Schultz is already doing the only kind of politics she knows how to do: filthy cheating. In an OpEd yesterday, Canova wrote that he had called the Florida Democratic Party to request access to the voter file database and software known as VAN that is routinely used by Democratic candidates across the country. Remember how Wasserman Schultz had tried to disrupt Bernie's presidential campaign by sabotaging his access to the database? She has the corrupt shills at the Florida Democratic Party doing the same thing to Canova now. He writes that he was "told that our campaign would be denied access to this database because I am running against an incumbent Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I was also told that any Democratic candidate running against an incumbent Democrat would be denied access-- even a lifelong progressive challenging an out-of-touch incumbent.
This is unfair and undemocratic. My opponent already has untold advantages against an insurgent progressive campaign like ours. We are refusing to take corporate money, while she has taken millions of dollars from Wall Street bankers, payday lenders, private prison companies, and other corporate special interests. How much more of an advantage does Wasserman Schultz need to silence the voices of grassroots voters in our district?This is nothing less than an entrenched establishment throwing up roadblocks against our political revolution. We’ve seen my opponent do this against Bernie’s presidential campaign and other progressive challengers. As head of the DNC, Wasserman Schultz has pushed strategies that suppress voter turnout, all to protect incumbents and establishment politicians. She has routinely defended the party’s use of Superdelegates to block the will of Democratic voters in state after state.All of this has made our party weaker and more vulnerable against Republicans in general elections, which is so painfully obvious with the Democratic Party’s losses in the midterm elections in the past six years-- 13 Senate seats and 69 House seats, the biggest loss of congressional Democrats in modern political history....Bernie Sanders had to go so far as to sue Wasserman Schultz’s DNC in December to regain access to his own party’s voter database. As we continue to compile alternative voter databases from other sources, rest assured that we will not allow the establishment to weaken our campaign. We will overcome any obstacles and we will fight back.
Again, you can contribute to Tim's campaign here-- or here, on the page reserved for candidates who have endorsed Bernie and are part of the political revolution. Time would be a great candidate even if he weren't running against one of the most deceitful, harmful and duplicitous members of Congress on either side of the aisle. He deserves all the support we can give him.
