Brad Ashford

  Two of the members of Congress I respect most, Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) are in safe blue districts and have been working their asses off to elect other Democrats to Congress. Sometimes, it drives me crazy, though, that they are working to elect all Democrats-- from complete garbage like Oklahoma Blue Dog Kendra Horn to the top progressive challengers across the country.

Last Tuesday, one of the biggest victories for progressives was Kara Eastman's win in the Nebraska Democratic primary. She beat Blue Dog and DCCC endorsee Brad Ashford 20,239 (51.43%) to 19,113 (48.57%).

Progressive champion Kara Eastman defeats the DCCC, the Blue Dogs and the New Dems-- our heroAll across the country there are counties and districts where Bernie beat Hillary in 2016 (and many where Bernie got more votes on primary day than Trump as well).

Many outsiders tend to think of Nebraska as another hopeless red ink state. But it's not. The Omaha-based 2nd district is a nice normal all-American swing district. In 2012 Obama won narrowly; in 2012 Romney won narrowly and in 2016 Trump beat Hillary 48.2 to 46.0%. The PVI is R+4. The current congressman is Republican Don Bacon, who beat Blue Dog Democrat (an "ex"-Republican himself) Brad Ashford, in 2016.

Kirkpatrick and Ashford-- the worst of the DCCC recruitsThis quote from Bernie is taking on a life of its own online "We cannot defeat Trump and the Republican Party with the same playbook, or by supporting the same kind of candidates long favored by the political establishment and financial elite.

Ever since Rahm Emanuel was handed the reins of the DCCC-- the beginning of Pelosi's downfall as a force for good-- this blog has spent a good deal of time exploring what's wrong with that organization. In the last few weeks the eruptions have been so frequent and vitriolic that DCCC-connected congressmen and staffers have been asking me to cool it and one even called a friend of mine and asked him what they had to do to stop.

Kara Eastman is the newest Blue America endorsee. She told us that when she was nine, she told her mother that she wanted to save the world; when she was 15, she told her best friend that she was going to a college that would best prepare her to help others (she told Kara that wasn’t smart because she would never make any money).

Ostensibly they're both Democrats-- similarly to the way Chicagoland Blue Dog Dan Lipinski and progressive reformer Marie Newman are both Democrats. By in this Omaha case there's an even starker contrast. As far as we know, Lipinski wasn't ever an actual Republican. Brad Ashford, on the other hand was a Republican . He served in the Legislature from 1987 to 1995 and again from 2007 to 2015. He was a registered Republican and opportunistically, he switched his registration to the Democratic Party when he was termed out of his seat in the legislature and decided to run for Congress.

Frank Schaeffer is continuing his roadtrip, meeting progressive congressional candidate and filming them as introductions of the best candidates running. Last we caught up with him was in Lewiston, Maine where he spent a day Jared Golden, the progressive candidate running for the swing district that isn't the Portland coastal area. From there he headed off to Omaha where he met with Kara Eastman.

After the odious Debbie Wasserman Schultz chaired the DCCC's Red-to-Blue program in 2008-- while endorsing 3 Republicans in seats neighboring on her own-- the program lost all credibility and the name faded.