Frank Schaeffer has been traveling around the country meeting with the best progressive candidates for Congress and filming them. Last week he was in Orange County. We saw his talk with Laura Oatman, the progressive woman running for the coastal Orange County district held by Dana Rohrabacher, a few days ago.
Normally, Democrats win districts where the PVI is D+something and Republicans win districts where the PVI is R+something. The higher the "something," the more likely that party will win. But it's not always the case. Conservative Blue Dog Collin Peterson represents a Minnesota district with a PVI of R+12 (although last year it was "just" R+6). Serial DCCC incompetence has guaranteed the reelection of Republican David Valadao in a D+5 California district again and again.
As you may know-- I hope so-- Frank Schaeffer is driving around the country making a film. He's interviewing progressive Democrats who can beat Republicans next year. Meanwhile he's been posting videos each time he gets to a district. He started with Randy Bryce in Wisconsin and then went to Forsyth County, North Carolina to see Jenny Marshall.
Frank Schaeffer got me to step away from my computer last week and this morning he sent me the little film he made about me. He's in the middle of traveling around the country filming progressive congressional candidates. He was out here in L.A. for his movie... driving around Orange County and L.A. County, speaking with Doug Applegate, Katie Hill, Laura Oatman, Kia Hamadanchy and Sam Jammal.
I have a new friend who I'll be meeting soon in person-- someone I've been writing about for over a decade: Frank Schaeffer. Frank's story is pretty well known. He is the son of right-wing extremist Francis Schaeffer, one of the founders of the religious right. Eventually Frank saw the light and rejected the crazy conservatism he had been raised in. In 2007 he wrote the much-acclaimed Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.
"To Pence, Trump is just a stepping stone to theocracy"Jane Mayer has a piece in the new New Yorker, The Danger of President Pence, that needs to be factored into everyone's impeachment calculus. "The worse the President looks," she wrote, "the more desirable his understudy seems.
On Thursday afternoon, Ryan finally allowed Congress to vote on an amendment by Rodney Frelinghuysen to concur with the Senate on funding aid to hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico, something Trump, a lifelong anti-Puerto Rican racist, has been very sketchy on. The amendment passed by an overwhelming 353-69, all 189 Democrats voting YES, joined by 164 Republicans.
A couple weeks ago we talked a little about Frank Schaeffer's road-trip around America meeting progressive candidates working to take back the House in 2018. His first stop was Racine, Wisconsin, where he spent time with Randy Bryce, Paul Ryan's opponent.
