Perhaps you've seen a slew of endorsements for Miami-Dade Democrat Annette Taddeo in the past few days. Today it was J-Street. Yesterday it was theSEIU in the morning and Hector Caraballo, president of the Miami-Dade Cuban American Democrats in the afternoon. The day before it was Maurice Ferré, the first Hispanic mayor of Miami and Raul Martinez, the former mayor of Hialeah.
As we mentioned the other day, Adrian Garcia, is one of the bright lights in the 2016 congressional election cycle, a true public servant for over three decades, first as a police officer, then as a city councilman and later as sheriff of Harris County, third biggest sheriff's department in the country.
You probably remember how excited we were to see progressive icon Zephyr Teachout take on corrupt conservaDem Andrew Cuomo for governor of New York in 2014. She did remarkably well outside of Machine-controlled parts of New York. She won 30 counties, some with over 70% support. This week she announced that she's running for the open congressional seat-- Republican Chris Gibson isn't seeking reelection-- encompassing an area she swept when she ran against Cuomo.
The last Republican presidential candidate to win Washington was Reagan in 1984. Although Washington is basically a blue state-- Obama beat McCain 58-40 and beat Romney 56-41, both U.S.senators are Democrats and every governor for over 30 years has been a Democrat-- the state Senate is narrowly controlled by the Republicans + one renegade conservaDem, Tim Sheldon from a district across the Puget Sound from Seattle.
Blue America is matching every dollar up to $5,000 for Lou VinceJust when we thought the DCCC was finally going to cave and support a real Democrat for Congress, they discovered yet another way to lose in California's newly blue 25th District.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy graduated from the California Assembly to Congress in 2006 and with 71% of the vote. Two years later he had 100% and 2 years after that 99%. The DCCC has long been in the habit of giving McCarthy a free pass. In 2012 he had some token local opposition and was reelected with 73% and last time, it was the same story and a 75% win. And, no, he's not that popular. The DCCC just ignores him, the way they ignore all Republican leaders.
In his NY Times column yesterday, Nick Kristof talked about the feeling of fundamental unfairness that has been sweeping the country and roiling the election season. The feeling is devastating to the campaigns of establishment hacks like Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.
This week Florida-based PolitiFact looked at Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's scheme to undermine Bernie Sanders' campaign from her perch at the DNC. If they were a judge and jury, she'd be going to jail.
When it comes to recruiting, the DCCC is always attracted to conservative ex-colleagues who have already lost to Republicans. We've talked about how Steve Israel and his crew of incompetents managed to lose the D+5 district centered around Syracuse, New York last cycle by running Republican-lite New Dem Dan Maffei after he had already been beaten in 2010. He road back into office on Obama's strong 2012 coattails, only to be thoroughly thrashed by the voters again in 2014 after 2 years of proving, again, he's not in the least bit progressive.
The day after that speech, April 4, 1968, an earlier version of a prototypical Ted Cruz/Donald Trump/Mike Huckabee supporter shot and killed Dr. King, one of the darkest moments in our country's contemporary history. Today, progressive Democrats are still carrying on Dr. King's struggle against economic inequality and much of what you hear from Bernie Sanders comes straight from Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, Dr. King's final book, and from his final Poor People's Campaign. Blue America always strives to find candidates who will uphold Dr.
