Grubby NY ward heeler Chuck Schümer thinks he gets to decide who Pennsylvanians get as a senatorWhen Obama, straight off his misguided endorsement of Debbie Wasserman Schultz this week, announced he was backing Pennsylvania puppet Katie McGinty (despite-- or maybe because-- Pennsylvania Democratic voters have utterly rejected her dull, waste-of-a-Senate-seat centrism), I tweeted something about how Schumer has promised Obama Wall Street funding for his presidential library if he backs the Schumercrats Wall Streets considers essential for them to continue their jihad against the American people and their goal of "balancing" Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown and a tiny handful of senators willing to stand up to them.Immediately after my tweet, two Beltway journalists contacted me, one demanding to know what I know about the library and one, a more polite guy, who sent me this:
Can you help me understand why the left likes Sestak? He wasn't particularly liberal when he was in the House. I get that any Dem would be better for you guys than Specter, but is he really any better than McGinty, who would probably just be a down-the-line Dem-- almost certainly more liberal than Casey? I never got the Sestak thing. He's kind of a jerk in person-- I remember him snarling at me once in the halls-- but then again if Congress didn't have any jerks in it there would be like 5 guys left on the Hill.
Let me deal with the presidential library first. I don't know a lot about it. A trusted-- never wrong-- DC operative told me a top (like top, top, top) Biden inner circle guy told him Schumer cut the deal for bankster library funding in return for getting easily controllable shills Katie McGinty and Patrick Murphy into the Senate. There will never be any confirmation or-- what was the word-- citations. Just believe it or don't.The second question, though, is something I can answer, although I can't purport to speak for "the left," nor was I even aware that "the left" is favoring Sestak. Tomorrow will be the 10 year anniversary of the Blue America endorsement I wrote for Joe Sestak-- right to the day! We liked Joe, thought he would make a good congressman and absolutely detested the grotesquely corrupt Republican incumbent, Curt Weldon. Joe kicked his ass-- 56.4 to 43.6%-- becoming just the second Democrat to represent these particular Philly suburbs since the Civil War! And he was a decent congressman. Alan Grayson or Raul Grijalva or Donna Edwards he was never going to be-- but he was a better-than-average Democrat. We've never endorsed him again though, not when he ran his successful reelection campaign two years later, not when he ran against Toomey in 2010 and not in the current race. Blue America is pretty doctrinaire ideologically. We're looking for hard-hitting, no-nonsense progressives-- like Bernie, like Elizabeth Warren, like Alan Grayson, like Donna Edwards, like Tim Canova, Maria Chappelle-Nadal, Eric Kingson, Pramila Jayapal and Alex Law. Sestak, Chris Carney and the Pennsylvania Patrick Murphy all ran at the same time in 2006 and Blue America backed them all. Carney and Murphy had been faking when they said they were progressives and quickly joined the Blue Dogs and New Dems and started regularly crossing the aisle and voting with the GOP. We were instantly sorry we had endorsed them, particularly Carney, who had no saving graces whatsoever. We were forced to apologize to our members for ever endorsing him and eventually to spend massively to help defeat him. He was a liar, a nasty asshole and a dangerous right-wing fake. Murphy was just a conservative trying to stay in office in a red-leaning district, more a political coward than an actual bad guy. And Sestak, who never joined the Blue Dogs or New Dems, wasn't really a conservative, more a true moderate, with a decent, if not outstanding, voting record. AND never a close-minded jerk. He was-- and remains-- always open to debate and discussion. When we disagreed on policy and votes, I always felt he welcomed hearing another side. That-- and the fact that he is totally independent and will stand up to a corrupt political boss like Schumer-- is why DWT is always editorially friendly towards him and why we'd like to see him beat McGinty, even if John Fetterman is more of a Blue America type candidate ideologically-- which explains why we're helping Fetterman raise money, but not raising money for Joe.Joe Sestak looks like he's way ahead and will probably be the nominee. Party bosses prefer McGinty because she's so malleable, but polls show that the more Pennsylvania Democrats have gotten to know her, the more turned-off they are. Her 28% polling numbers have collapsed to 17% and she's fighting it out for second place with Fetterman-- a far better candidate... and the one who will win if Pennsylvania Democrats and independents decide to buy into Bsernie's political revolution. I know Pennsylvania Democrats aren't interested in what New York ward heeler Chuck Schumer demands from them. And I doubt the Obama endorsement will mean much either. One senator, who loathes Schumer and knows his ascension to the Senate Leader position will signal a singular disaster for the Democratic Party, suggested to me yesterday that "maybe they’ll just shut down the Senate again," and sent this:
Throughout the primary election, the Obama administration and the Democratic Party campaigned heavily against Sestak, as the President, Vice President, and numerous cabinet members and Senators hosted many fundraisers and events for Specter. On September 19, 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even shut down the entire United States Senate, as he, the President, and many Senators instead flew to Philadelphia to host a prominent fundraiser for Specter. The event drew controversy because of its unconventional nature of closing federal business and how the money raised during the event would be given to Republicans and conservative PACs that asked for refunds of their contributions given prior to Specter's party switch. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, called "Organizing for America" during the off years, also led efforts against Sestak.
Judging by Sestak's letter to his supporters yesterday, he bears Obama no ill-will for the pointless McGinty endorsement which is unlikely to stop her pitiful slide in the polls or turn around her dreadful boss-driven campaign:
The President and I share many of the same battle scars that have gained my deep respect for him. I therefore thought it important in view of today’s announcement to highlight some of what we did in our service together for our nation, particularly when he first became Commander-in-Chief. In Congress, I needed to have the President’s 6 (a military term for “I’ve got your back”) because the nation needed him to have theirs:• As a former Admiral, I wanted to ensure I had the President’s 6 with my military expertise and credibility for the proper drawdown from the war in Iraq, despite opposition from some military leadership and leaders of the Republican Party.• With my Harvard Ph.d in Political Economy, I wanted to have the President’s 6 with the economic arguments to restore our economy through the Economic Stimulus bill, by saving the financial system and then placing safeguards on it, even though I represented a Republican congressional district.• Because my then-four year old daughter survived brain cancer due to the military healthcare my nation provided my family, I brought with a passion that harrowing experience to having the President’s 6 for the Affordable Care Act, so all Americans could have what I had to save my daughter-- and I prized advancing Obamacare at town halls with the Tea Party and on FOX News.• And on issues that had to do with our ideals-- from repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to the closure of Gitmo to the DREAM Act-- I stood steadfast in having the President’s 6 both as a Congressman and today because he had our nation’s.I therefore have great respect for the President and the battles he and I fought together-- for people-- and we wear the same battle scars, with pride.But that is also why I have never asked the President-- nor anyone else in a position of power-- to have my 6, not even by asking for their endorsement. As a leader, it is only about having the people’s 6, and because I have theirs, they will have mine.
Pennsylvania Democrats-- I used to be one when I lived in Stroudsburg a few years ago-- can make up their own minds. Hopefully they'll see there are two outstanding candidates, John Fetterman and Joe Sestak, and one puppet of the corrupt political bosses, Katie McGinty.