Losers, Inc-- this is what's become of the Democratic Party in DCThe DCCC suffered another stunning defeat by local Democrats Tuesday. Once again their handpicked recruit-- this time some guy named Cory Simpson in West Virginia-- was rejected by local voters in West Virginia's second congressional district, who voted to nominate former state legislator Mark Hunt and tell Steve Israel and his corrupt Beltway party bosses to stay out of their affairs. The DCCC had put Simpson on their Red to Blue list, helped him raise money and sabotaged Hunt's fundraising capacity. In the run up to the 5-man primary, Simpson spent $126,414 to Hunt's $77,212. The DCCC refused to even meet with or even talk with Hunt or his campaign chairman, Steve McElroy, the well-respected former executive director of the West Virginia Democratic Party. Ironically, Hunt was the only person in the race who had ever been elected to anything and the DCCC's obsession with Simpson is a mystery to West Virginia Democrats.Within hours of the stinging rebuke, the DCCC had removed WV-02 from it's Red to Blue website, refusing to replace Simpson with Hunt, just writing off the whole congressional district entirely and making it easier for Republican Alex Mooney to win reelection in November. (Mooney, hoping to face Simpson in November had run 3 robo-calls against Hunt just before the primary.)So once again we see Pelosi's dismally failed DCCC using the same tactics they put in place after progressive grassroots candidate, Mary Ellen Balchunis, beat some DCCC stooge, Bill Golderer, 74-26%. In that race too, the DCCC wrote off the must-win race to take back PA-07 in the Philly suburbs. If the Democrats don't win seats like PA-07 and WV-02, there is no chance they will win back the House, no matter how gigantically Hillary or Bernie stomps Trump.West Virginia's second district snakes clear across the state, starting in the DC suburbs around Martinsburg, shooting right through the rural center of the state,to metropolitan Charleston, and ends at the Ohio border. It's the least Republican of the state's districts, and Mooney, a Maryland carpetbagger and an undistinguished freshman/backbencher, won his race with a 47% plurality in 2014, a year Republicans swept the state, and is widely viewed as a good target for the Democrats in November. But the DCCC would rather see Mooney win than help Hunt. During the race, they pressured the West Virginia state party to assist Simpson, which it did-- while professing strict neutrality. Luckily for Hunt, virtually every labor union in the state, from the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers AFSCME and the Communications Workers of America to the building trades unions, endorsed his campaign and stood up to the DCCC's efforts to get them behind their candidate.Next week, the DCCC may see another slap in the face from voters, this time in Oregon, where progressive Bernie-backer, Dave McTeague, is running against the very right-of-center head of the Blue Dogs, Kurt Schrader. Schrader has over $1.5 million in cash on hand and has already spent $442,433 to McTeague's modest $30,629 in expenditures (and mere $991 cash on hand.) Blue America has endorsed McTeague and you can contribute to his campaign by tapping the thermometer on the right. Peter Wong covered the campaign in Oregon's 5th congressional district for the Portland Tribune earlier in the week, pointing out that McTeague is counting on a big turnout for Bernie to help him win the seat.
“We raised enough money to communicate district-wide with Democrats,” said McTeague, who had a left-of-center approach when he was a state representative from Milwaukie from 1985 to 1995. “That mailer links my campaign with the issues raised by Sen. Sanders. There is going to be a strong vote for Sen. Sanders and I am supportive of his program.“Congressman Schrader is disconnected from the Democratic grassroots. There is tremendous concern across the district with his voting record-- and the word gets around.”But Schrader, a centrist state senator from Canby until his election to the U.S. House in 2008, said the 5th is one of a relative handful of the 435 districts that are almost evenly divided between registered Democrats and Republicans.“So I can’t be crazy,” he said. “I have to listen to everybody.”
By "crazy," Schrader means sticking up for the progressive values and principles of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, which his voting record shows he absolutely abhors. He votes with the Republicans on core issues more than almost any other Democrat in the House and is rated a solid "F" by ProgressivePunch. Obviously, Schrader has endorsed Clinton, the candidate of the status quo. McTeague, who is also being backed by the Working Families Party, emphasizes that his issues and Bernie's issues are on the same page and lists these three as examples, each of which differentiates him from Schrader:
• Opposition to the 12-nation trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Schrader has said favorable things about it though it’s opposed by labor unions and supported by agricultural interests and voted in 2015 for the fast-track authority to negotiate an agreement that Congress can only vote up or down without amendments.• Opposition to Schrader’s support of tighter restrictions on the entry of Syrian refugees.• Opposition to changes in Medicare and Social Security, federal entitlement programs that Schrader seeks to rework to lessen their effects on future federal budgets. Schrader opposes Republican proposals he says would harm post-World War II baby boomers heading into retirement.
Schrader was also the Democrat who introduced the failed Simpson-Bowles amendment to cut Social Security benefits, something McTeague vehemently opposes.After Oregon, the DCCC faces stiff opposition to some of their most corrupt and conservative candidates in New Jersey, where Alex Law is challenging that state's most right-wing Democrat, Donald Norcross; Iowa, where Republican-masquerading-as-a-Democrat Monica Vernon is the DCCC candidate against Pat Murphy; California, where the DCCC parachuted in some Orange County lawyer, Bryan Caforio, to sabotage the official Democratic Party candidate, progressive Lou Vince; and then in Florida, where progressive hero Tim Canova faces off against venal bribe-taker Debbie Wasserman Schultz. You can support Alex Law, Dave McTeague, Pat Murphy, Lou Vince and Tim Canova here:
