There are 16 House Democrats with perfect scores from ProgressivePunch for the current session-- a score of 100. One, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) is a freshman, which means her lifetime crucial vote score is also 100. The other freshmen with eye-popping great scores are Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA). ProgressivePunch is a very imperfect tool but where it fails in precision, it excels in relative direction, especially over long periods of time. My gut tells me that Pramila at 5 months in will still be a super-progressive champion at 5 years in. Meanwhile, though, the non-freshman-- so people with a longer and more complicated voting record-- with the best voting record in the House is Mark Pocan from Madison, Wisconsin. Pocan has a 98.99 crucial vote score, almost unbelievable for someone elected to Congress in 2012.And the voters back home in Wisconsin know it. In November, Mark out-performed Hillary in his blue collar Midwest district, scoring 69% of the vote against his Republican opponent. Yesterday Mark was elected co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, taking over for Keith Ellison who is now Deputy Chairman of the DNC. Pocan is one of the Democrats in Congress insistent on the Democrats presenting a positive agenda ago voters, not just a list of complaints about Trump and Putin. He bridges the gap nicely-- something his colleagues should try to incorporate into their own presentations: "With the Trump Administration attacking both the values we hold dear and the programs which provide vital services to people across the country, it is my goal to help make the Congressional Progressive Caucus the voice of the resistance. All we need to do is take a look at the devastating cuts proposed in the budget President Trump released today to see the clear distinction between progressives and this Administration and Congress. I am proud to help lead the charge in Congress for progressive ideas that lay the foundation for our resistance in this era of Trump. The CPC will fight the fights against bad policies and offer positive alternatives which demonstrate progressives have a pulse on the will of the people and a plan forward."As a lifelong progressive, I will continue to fight for the kitchen table issues we all care about and put forward pragmatic, progressive policies to combat Donald Trump and Paul Ryan’s radical agenda," he emphasized. "House Republicans think they can get away with passing a health care bill that will cause 24 million Americans to lose coverage, but the CPC will work with outside groups to ensure people understand what Congress is doing. We know progressives have a winning message across the country and in America’s heartland. I hope to help the Congressional Progressive Congress make sure the voices of the American people are heard in the halls of Congress."As we mentioned yesterday, the DCCC announced their expanded list of target districts for the 2018 midterms. Not a single one was in the great progressive bastion Wisconsin has been and will be again, despite the fact that several of the congressional districts are true swing districts and that one, in particular, WI-01, is occupied by the most obvious target in the whole Congress: Paul Ryan. These are all Wisconsin districts Obama won and have been abandoned by a DCCC incapable of thinking beyond the newest shiniest object (red suburban districts Trump managed to lose in Texas and Orange County, CA). The percentage was Obama's winning number against McCain.
• WI-01 (Ryan)- 51%• WI-06 (Glenn Grothman)- 49%• WI-07 (Sean Duff)- 53%• WI-08 (Mike Gallagher)- 54%
Maybe worth the effort? Especially in a year when Tammy Baldwin will be at the top of the ticket asking voters to send her back to the Senate.Virtually all of the Democratic campaign managers operating independently of the DCCC web of corruption have uniformly negative opinions of the DCCC and their capacity to win races. Rahm was seen as pure evil but Chris Van Hollen, Steve Israel and Ben Ray Lujan are sad-sad laughing stocks who have eviscerate the Democratic Party and crapped on its brand. We asked one of the most respected and coveted of those managers what he thinks of the DCCC boycott of Wisconsin. I swear I could sense steam coming out of his ears as he exploded into a stream of vituperatives. When he calmed down he said that "Given the blue collar nature and partisan make up of Wisconsin 1, there is not a more winnable seat for a Democrat in Wisconsin currently held by a Republican (not to mention the fact that having Paul Ryan as the incumbent most likely means more grassroots money than is necessary to win). Not only is Wisconsin 1 winnable, it is a seat that is necessary to win in order to gain real momentum heading into 2020's battle for the presidency. The Democratic Party can go all over the country looking for GOP-held seats in suburban America, but the fact is that if we don't start winning the blue collar worker back, any presidential math will be difficult. Sweeping Orange County congressional seats would be nice, but let's face it, California is a Democratic stronghold on the electoral map. But if we can show that hard working men and women in good union jobs can articulate strong Democratic values in areas like southeast Wisconsin, Donald Trump (or incoming president Pence) should probably give up and head back to their local Klan meeting or Billy Graham circus spectacular." He gets a little carried away.We asked one of the smartest Wisconsin politicians we know, state Senator Chris Larson, what he thinks of how the DCCC has left his state out of their plans this cycle. He told us that "Wisconsin was a leading state in the progressive movement and we will be a part of the resurgence. Folks thinking of writing off Wisconsin should spend some time on the ground here first. They'd discover what we all know: there are amazing people getting ready to run on a progressive vision and there's a grassroots army ready to to get behind them."
