Yesterday, reporting for the NY Times, Luke Broadwater used the word "brand" half a dozen times in writing about the House freshmen from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- conservative Blue Dogs and New Dems. He called them "brand ambassadors for the Democratic Party in red districts" but never addressed the fact that by distorting the Democratic brand in the eyes of millions of people, they are turning the party-- once the vehicle for the legitimate aspirations of working families into a second corrupted, corporate-friendly cesspool of careerist politicians. The Cheri Bustos Democratic Party is just as corrupt as the GOP-- not the lesser evil, exactly as corrupt-- but it more or less tolerates the LGBTQ community, is mostly fine with abortions and takes an anti-racist stance. As the Republican Party moved further and further right-- into out and out authoritarianism and fascism-- the Democratic Party establishment was only too happy to occupy the mainstream Republican ground it was ceding. Today's Democratic Party is largely the Republican Party of my childhood. The brand that conservative Democrats represent are not the brand of any Democratic Party I ever backed. Broadwater comes off not as a dispassionate reporter but as a cheerleader for a Democratic Party slipping and sliding-- and marching purposefully-- into a kind of Wall Street-friendly centrism that has gradually come to dominate the Democratic Party ever since Henry Wallace was forced out of the vice-presidential slot just before FDR's death. He's all filled with cheer that the conservative incumbents who were once regarded as "vulnerable"-- just wait for 2022-- are now mostly shoo-ins in the anti-Trump wave that fools are mistaking for a "blue wave." He never found it relevant to mention that of the half dozen biggest DCCC expenditures for incumbents-- as of this week-- all ten were made on behalf of unpopular conservatives:
• Blue Dog Xochitl Torres Small (NM)- $3,357,753• New Dem TJ Cox (CA)- $3,163,927• New Dem Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL)- $2,782,776• Blue Dog Kendra Horn (OK)- $2,484,176• Blue Dog Anthony Brindisi (NY)- $2,437,435• New Dem Harley Rouda (CA)- $2,109,487
Same story for Nancy Pelosi's SuperPC, the House Democratic Majority PAC:
• Blue Dog Max Rose (NY)- $6,193,069• New Dem Harley Rouda (CA)- $5,768,556• Blue Dog Collin Peterson (MN)- $3,994,597• Blue Dog Ben McAdams (UT)- $3,091,534• New Dem TJ Cox (CA)- $2,286,172• New Dem Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL)- $2,205,976
And something all these fine brand ambassadors have in common? Each and every one of them has an "F" grade from ProgressivePunch-- no "C"s and no "D"s... all "F"s. What great brand ambassadors! Do you want to support progressive candidates running in districts that Trump won in 2016? That's what the ActBlue thermometer on the right is for. Broadwater: "Across the country, Democrats like [Virginia Blue Dog Abigail] Spanberger, a former C.I.A. officer who has cultivated a brand as a moderate unafraid to criticize her own party, are playing a pivotal role that has positioned Democrats to maintain control of the House and build their majority." Someone should sit Broadwater down and explain the difference to him between a "moderate" and a "conservative." And then show him the results of the 2010 Great Blue Dog Extinction Election which is being re-set for 2022 because... well, not pointing any fingers, but some people just can't learn anything at all from history, not even recent history. Broadwater is happy, happy that these right-of-center Blue Dogs and New Dems are "leading their Republican challengers in polling and fund-raising headed into the election’s final week." He's very good at regurgitating DCCC talking points: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi likes to call this group of about 40 lawmakers-- most of them young, many women, and predominantly moderates-- her 'majority makers,' while the House Democratic campaign arm calls them 'frontliners.' And they have largely managed to buck intense Republican attempts to brand them as Ms. Pelosi’s minions, socialists or out-of-touch coastal elites." And Broadwater is biting his nails down to the nubs because, he wrote, "there are still a handful who are at real risk of defeat. Representatives Kendra Horn in Oklahoma, Max Rose and Anthony Brindisi in New York, Ben McAdams in Utah, TJ Cox in California, Xochitl Torres Small in New Mexico and Abby Finkenauer in Iowa are all struggling to head off Republican challengers." He's wrong about Finkenauer; she's in no trouble whatsoever but in any case, the House Democratic caucus would be far better off if all 7 lost their seats since they're better thought of as the aisle-crossers than what Broadwater and Pelosi prefer to call the "majority makers."
After Democrats picked up 41 House seats in 2018, Republicans immediately vowed revenge, targeting more than 50 seats, including 13 districts that Mr. Trump carried by six percentage points or more, as their ticket to reclaiming the majority. Polling showed voters in these districts viewed socialism negatively, so Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, embarked on a strategy to try to tie the freshmen Democrats to that label, predicting that their party’s “embrace of socialism is going to cost them their majority in the House.” Democrats were prepared for the onslaught, moving quickly and aggressively to protect the more than 40 members of their Frontline Program-- almost all freshmen-- through aggressive fund-raising, volunteer recruitment and online networking. They rushed to build individual brands distinct from their party’s, and hauled in campaign cash that scared off some potential challengers from the right. And Mr. Trump’s sinking poll numbers in the suburbs has given them an even broader advantage in the closing months of the race. Like Ms. Spanberger, several-- including Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former C.I.A. analyst; Representative Jared Golden of Maine, a Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan; and Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a Navy helicopter pilot-- are known for their robust national security credentials. Ms. Sherrill’s race is not considered competitive. National conservative groups have shied away from challenging Ms. Slotkin again, after spending millions on unsuccessful attack ads against her two years ago, and recently decided to cut their advertising campaign against Mr. Golden. And this month, the Cook Political Report moved Ms. Spanberger out of its “toss up” category, judging that her district was leaning toward re-electing her. Ms. Slotkin said she and other frontliners have had to labor far more intensively than many of their older Democrats colleagues, who hold safe seats in deep-blue districts. “It takes work for a Democrat to represent a majority-Republican district,” Ms. Slotkin said. “We came into Congress with a strong sense of what it took to win in tough districts and what it would take to keep the seats.”
Slotkin is an imbecile. Her R+4 district is far from a Republican-majority district. The district, like all the ones won by the "aisle crossers" has a majority that shifts depending on the political winds and which candidate or party can appeal to independent voters. MI-08, Slotkin's district, is won or lost by turning out Democrats in Ingham County and persuading independents in Oakland and Livingston counties. Slotkin is useless in persuading anyone of anything other than that she's a DINO. Trump did all the persuading needed in 2018, when she won and is doing it again for her this year. In 2022 she'll be on her own and I will predict right now that she will lose to whomever the GOP nominates against her-- unless she changes, which is not going to happen. Same for Spanberger.
In some ways, Ms. Spanberger and frontliners like her have served as brand ambassadors for the Democratic Party in red districts, pushing back against Republican attempts to caricature their party and, at times, openly criticizing their own leaders. On a recent private call with Ms. Pelosi and Democratic colleagues, and confirmed in an interview with Ms. Spanberger, she blasted party leaders for failing to find agreement with Republicans on a new coronavirus stimulus deal, saying she wanted to do “my goddamned job and come up with a solution for the American people.” It was a familiar spot for Ms. Spanberger, who rose to viral fame in 2018 after a debate with the Tea Party-aligned incumbent Republican, Representative Dave Brat, in which she chided him for repeatedly referring to Ms. Pelosi instead of her. “I question again whether Congressman Brat knows which Democrat in fact he’s running against,” Ms. Spanberger said then, as the crowd burst into applause. “Abigail Spanberger is my name!” In this month’s debate, Mr. Freitas, a former Green Beret running as a strict fiscal conservative, attempted to tie her to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the liberal firebrand from New York. “My opponent votes with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez almost 90 percent of the time and then comes back to the district and claims to be a moderate,” Mr. Freitas said. This time, Ms. Spanberger ignored her opponent’s comment altogether. “I don’t fall in line with speaker when I don’t want to,” Ms. Spanberger said in an interview. “I certainly disagree with colleagues, Alexandria among them. But that’s fine. We don’t have to agree.”
AOC and Spanberger were sworn in on the same day in 2019. Since then, AOC has voted 95.06% of the time for progressive initiatives. On those same roll calls Spanberger has voted with the Democrats 28.40% of the time. (Justin Amash was a Republican for half that time and an independent conservative libertarian for the other half. He voted 51.85% of the time with the Dems.) Spanberger's record is much, much closer to that of virtually every conservative Republican in the House than it is to AOC's. The Democratic Party-- and America-- would be far better off if instead of being a brand ambassador to conservative districts, Biden appoints her to be the ambassador to Kazakhstan. That said, there are virtually no Democrats as bad as Trump and his Republican Party enablers. There are plenty of really terrible Democrats, from top to bottom, but any like this? I don't think so. I don't know anyone who isn't voting against Trump.
