In a new note to her supporters, Will County board member, Rachel Ventura, the progressive running for Congress in IL-11, articulated something that most of the primary candidates we’ve been talking with have been saying. They find themselves, not just fighting incumbents to the right of them on the political spectrum, they find themselves-- like Rachel-- fighting the DCCC as well.Rachel makes the point that since Trump’s term began, “there is a huge number of underrepresented people that are stepping up to run for office.” However, a far more conservative IIllinoian than Rachel-- Rahm Emanuel protégée Cheri Bustos, who has highjacked the DCCC-- has set about to derail progressive candidates. She imposed an anti-democratic rule-- around 9 months ago-- that prohibits anyone from working to oust an incumbent from doing business with the party. Additionally, they are trying to blacklist any consulting firms that work with primary challengers. Until last week that included beloved Bustos crony Jeff Van Drew-- an ultraconservative Blue Dog, who is now a devout Trumpist-Republican (and there is NOTHING substantive about Van Drew that has changed). The Blue Dogs and New Dems backed by the DCCC still includes incumbents basically just as bad as Van Drew, if not yet ready to switch.“This rule,” explained Ventura, “harms women and people of color whose route to Congress is often limited to challenging incumbents in blue districts.” Ironically, dozens of current members of Congress have taken this path-- succesfully challenging an incumbent in a primary-- to win a seat. We saw AOC and Ayanna Pressley do it last cycle. Before that, it’s how a progressive like Ro Khanna got to Congress and it’s how a reactionary Blue Dog like Henry Cuellar got to Congress. Ironically, it was Cuellar who whined to Bustos and influenced her to promulgate the new rule. In 2004, he ran for Congress against Democratic incumbent Ciro Rodriguez, beating him and capturing the seat he now holds-- and thinks he owns. When young progressive attorney, Jessica Cisneros, challenged him he began howling and hasn’t stopped.In the recent past Blue America has helped Donna Edwards, Matt Cartwright, Beto O’Rourke, among others, win primaries against corrupt conservative incumbents. Today, Rachel is running against a multimillionaire New Dem who has virtually no connection to the district and who votes for the interests of his own class, never for the working class’. Last week, for example, he voted for NAFTA 2.0. Rachel explained why should wouldn’t have:
The bill includes enormous giveaways to big oil companies, incentivizes the XL pipeline and will exacerbate the climate crisis.This, along with his recent vote to fund Trump's Space Force, shows that Foster's priorities do not match those of IL-11.I am running for Congress because I believe that our government should be of the people. It seems as if our current congressman does not agree.This situation is not unique. Progressives are running against Democratic incumbents throughout the country because people are ready for real change. The DCCC is trying to stop us, but we cannot let them.
Blue America has a page specially for candidates like Rachel and you can access it by clicking on the thermometer on the right. All of these candidates are running trim, people-powered campaigns and all of then are making the contributions Blue America and other progressive groups are funneling to them from grassroots donors stretch. Take Kim Williams in California’s Central Valley for example. Williams is the only progressive in her race and sees the many failures that create the extreme poverty and pollution that plague her district."We have so many challenges here and every one of them is a direct result of political neglect," she told me. "My Blue Dog incumbent and establishment challenger have both claimed to be progressive but neither back progressive policies and neither has put forth a single solution that actually empowers everyday people. They are the beneficiaries of the status quo, and they are part of a great machinery that seeks to keep things exactly as they are. Local party insiders refuse to even acknowledge the very real crisis so many people face here. They deny the experience of hundreds of thousands of people, and they render them invisible. In lockstep with the national party, this small political class rigorously pursues the same transactional politics that benefit them personally while working class families sleep in cars. They either do not understand, or care, that the same structures that erode our political system tear apart the fabric of this country. The insiders who win by whispering false promises and brokering side deals with corporations will never open the door for someone behind them and will never take care of the people once in office."Eva Putzova is also running for a seat— this one in Arizona— held by a reactionary, a former Republican state legislator recruited by the DCCC instead of an actual Democrat. Eva wants us to know that she’s “challenging a Blue Dog Democrat who is supported by the DCCC and takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate interests. All my contributions come from individual donors. Most voters I talk to support the progressive issues I champion like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, an end to wars of choice, an immigration overhaul, etc. My opponent is out of touch with the voters in AZ-01 because he is beholden to corporate interests who oppose all the things they really want. We need to break the stranglehold that corporate power exerts on candidates in both parties. That is what my campaign is all about.”Mark Gamba is the progressive mayor of Milwaukie taking on wretched Blue Dog Kurt Schrader in a blue Oregon congressional district. He told me his campaign is feeling "a natural groundswell of support. We’ve had over 1000 people sign up to volunteer and we have received more individual donations since I announced, than the 6-term incumbent Blue Dog has in the same period of time. Clearly there is a lot of popular support for a progressive candidate with a proven progressive record. But in this day and age, with the need to reach 100’s of thousands of busy voters, having an experienced team could be the thing that would put us over the top. Not that I’m complaining about my staff; we are newer, younger, scrappier and more passionate than the list of jaded political hacks that gravitate to the big money corporate campaigns, and I look forward to rubbing it in the faces of the DCCC when we wipe the floor with their machine." Like that kind of talk? Gamba is not the next Jeff Van Drew-- something no one would say about Kurt Schrader. Mark continued about the DCCC’s impact in his Oregon primary and on the Democratic Party in general:
But it does beg the question: Who does the DCCC represent? Their choices and decisions prove them to be worse than climate deniers, because they know it’s real and still choose to sell out to the oil companies for all that cash. When the very existence of human life on this planet is on the line, you would think people could get past the “any blue will do, win at all costs” mentality. Or at the very least get out of the way and let the people decide.It’s no wonder both parties are losing people to third parties or those just opting out altogether. The Democratic Party machine is proving itself to be no better than the Republicans. It’s really why we got Trump; the majority of people didn’t love him-- they just hoped that an outsider lunatic would break the system badly that maybe we could start over with a real democracy for a change. A democracy that would actually serve the people rather than the current plutocracy that serves only corporations and the 1%.AOC was the tip of the spear. I truly believe that 2020 will be the year we begin to take back this country and elect a whole slate of real, non-millionaire, progressives that will be there to do the work of making life better for the average person, protecting their kids futures and holding corporations to task for the damage they’ve been doing for decades.
Please don’t forget to contribute-- to Rachel, to Kim, to Eva and to Mark-- by clicking on the thermometer above.