Pelosi and Lujan welcoming Blue Dogs to DCCC headquartersI'm one of those people begging Alan Grayson to run for Congress again. No promises but I don't think he's ruled it out. When I spoke with him yesterday about the state of the Democratic Party he reminded me that "We’ve now reached the point where the GOP literally is taunting the Democratic Party for standing for nothing, just against Trump. Only a Democratic Party united behind a progressive platform can answer the simple question that voters have: 'What’s in it for me?'" FiveThirtyEight keeps a running score of each member of Congress' Trump-adhesion numbers. God forbid anyone should talk about any purity tests, but these are the 12 Democrats who have been most supportive of Trump's legislative agenda:
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 65.9%• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- 46.2%• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- 41.0%• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)- 39.0%• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 36.6%• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- 31.7%• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)- 30.0%• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)- 27.5%• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)- 26.8%• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)- 25.0%• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)- 24.4%• Lou Correa (Blue Dog-CA)- 22.0%
The argument roiling the Democratic Party now about the recruitment and support for Blue Dogs, anti-Choice fanatics and "ex"-Republicans is not academic-- and it's not because anyone cares whether or not the nitwits at the DCCC give them their seal of approval. Candidates are now asking the DCCC to lay low and not make a big production out of supporting them. And Pelosi is toxic for most candidates. When asked who they want to campaign for them, candidates all say Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Ted Lieu, Ro Khanna, Keith Ellison and @IronStache. No one wants Pelosi. No one wants Hoyer. No one wants Clinton. No one wants Wasserman Schultz or Ben Ray Lujan. No one wants Crowley. Well... maybe they want them for closed fundraisers but certainly not for public rallies. That's not where the energy of the Democratic Party is. And as for the DCCC, the only thing anyone wants from them is money to fight Republicans.The problem is that the DCCC spends money on relatively few races. And when they do spend big, they spend on Blue Dogs, New Dems, "ex"-Republicans... the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, not progressives. Decision-makers at the DCCC like Blue Dogs Cheri Bustos and New Dems Denny Heck and Jim Himes use DCCC resources to replicate themselves-- instinctive anti-progressive conservatives. Let's look who got the big bucks from the DCCC (+ Pelosi's Democratic Majority PAC) in the last cycle among those dozen Trumpiest Democrats. This is all money spent to help elect Democrats willing to stand up against Trump's and Paul Ryan's toxic, deadly agenda instead of backing it:
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- $4,683,525• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- $3,928,544• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)- $2,790,962• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)- $2,654,568
Those 4-- which includes 2 "ex"-Republican office-holders, O'Halleran and Crist-- are in Congress today voting consistently against anything that smacks of a progressive agenda. But what about all the losers the DCCC and Pelosi's SuperPAC spent millions on? The candidates below are all from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who were lavished with money and then lost their races:
• Joe Garcia (Blue Dog-FL)- $5,814,215• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)- $4,836,542• Kim Myers (Blue Dog-NY)- $3,663,362• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)- $3,212,691• Lon Johnson (Blue Dog-MI)- $2,367,918• Monica Vernon (Blue Dog-IA)- $1,509,438
So what about progressive candidates? The DCCC normally abandons them entirely if they beat conservative candidates in primaries-- gives them zero. Sometimes they make an exception-- like in the case of Paul Clements, the Democrat running against Fred Upton in southwest Michigan. Clements was so popular among the environmental base against the Climate Killer Upton, that Pelosi's SuperPAC forked out $10,971. Not the $5,814,215 they spent on GOP-lite (and super-corrupt) Joe Garcia, but $10,971.And this year Ben Ray Lujan has openly admitted the DCCC is recruiting Blue Dogs and anti-Choice candidates--and will finance their races-- and they appear to have an unofficial litmus test of their own: candidates who openly advocate Medicare-For-All, which is not backed by DCCC honchos like Lujan and almost his whole team, are getting the shitty end of the stick. It appears that, so far at least, the DCCC is encouraging candidates who don't commit to Medicare-For-All and giving candidates who do, the cold shoulder. So... whose side is the DCCC on? Not the same side I'm on, that's for sure. Blue America is supporting incumbents and primary candidates who stand up to Trump, not help make his agenda seem "bipartisan." Our 2018 congressional candidates are all pro-Choice and all back Medicare-For-All. Have you ever tried clicking on the thermometer? It's easy; give it a try. You may see someone on the page that pops up that you want to give a hand.The bill to fund the Great Wall of Trumpanzee passed 235-192 last week. 5 Republicans voted NO... but it didn't matter because 5 "Democrats" voted AYE. Can you guess which 5?• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)Recognize any of the names? But don't go gettin' all purity test on me, now, right? But, if you do, he's one of the DCCC's anti-Choice Blue Dogs in a solid blue Chicagoland district... so count him in too:And there's a real Democrat running against him this time, Marie NewmanWhile Pelosi, Lujan and Heck are running around recruiting Blue Dogs and "ex"-Republicans as DCCC candidates, Politico reported this morning that "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and top White House staff have huddled with conservative Democrats in the Blue Dog Coalition and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus... So far, the White House courtship has centered on moderate House Democrats because tax reform will be initiated in the lower chamber.... In multiple interviews, Blue Dog Democrats sounded eager to work with the White House on a tax bill." Reports agree that the two with their heads furthest up Trump's ass-- and most eager to betray Democratic Party values-- are, as is so often the case, Gottheimer and Lipinski.
