Cheri Bustos

Same kind of authoritarian, anti-democratic mindset and instincts. Bustos, chair of the DCCC, is trying to prevent primaries of Blue Dogs and New Dems in Congress, while she recruits New Dem and Blue Dog-types to run against progressives.

Wasserman Schultz and Bustos-- feel inspired yet?Selecting Blue Dog and Rahm Emanuel protégé, Cheri Bustos as DCCC chair was a catastrophic mistake the House Democratic caucus made. This week, Our Revolution made a good case about why Bustos should not be heading the DCCC.

Not likely to vote Republican this cycleI don't usually turn to Charlie Cook for words of wisdom, but after the sheer nonsense I read the other day from Jeremy Peters at the New York Times-- Republicans’ Messaging on Abortion Puts Democrats on the Defensive, any palliative will do.

Yesterday the big news was that Alabama Republicans had passed a total, punitive-- and unconstitutional-- ban on all abortions in their state. The worst DCCC chair ever, the odious Blue Dog from northwest Illinois, Cheri Bustos, thought that would be a good day to announce that she's hosting a fundraiser for Congress' most anti-Choice Democrat, fellow Blue Dog, Dan Lipinski. That's the invitation above.

Trump is so disgusting. Reich is so right about him-- and his enablers in Congress. It seems impossible the Democratic Party could lose against them even if they try. How about if they try really, really hard? Ah... so we're talking about the DCCC. Did you see that piece by Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic on Monday: The Democratic Party Just Ticked Off Its Youngest Organizers? Pelosi really should get rid of Bustos before it's too late.

I'm not sure how much of this is bravado, but almost all the progressives challenging reactionary Democratic incumbents for congressional seats this cycle, have been telling me Bustos' new DCCC anti-primary policy has actually been helping them! One told me that dislike for the policy and for the DCCC in general has sparked grassroots fundraising. Yesterday I had a long talk with Georgia progressive, Michael Owens, who is announcing his primary against corrupt Blue Dog David Scott in the morning.

One month from Tuesday there's a special election to fill the empty congressional seat in PA-12. Haven't heard much about it, have you? You weren't meant to. The DCCC and NRCC have a gentleman's agreement that this one goes to Team Red without a contest. The DCCC is ignoring the district entirely.

Cheri-- burnin' down the House (but not in  a good way)And the winners are... not the candidates being recruited to run for congressional seats next year. These 5 were elected to positions that haven't been well-defined yet:

When Bustos and Pelosi formulated the excuse for the DCCC's vile new anti-progressive "no primaries" diktat, they claimed it was to protect freshmen in swing districts, but that was a typical Pelosi lie. If they wanted to protect endangered freshman, they could have formulated a rule to protect endangered freshmen. Instead their incumbent-protection racket is trying to protect conservative incumbents-- like what was once Joe Crowley-- from insurgent progressives like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

And, so far... a waste of a House seat. Better than Kevin Yoder, thoughKansas' 3rd district (Wyandotte and Johnson counties and some of more rural Miami County) flipped red to blue in 2018. Basically, the district is Kansas City and it's suburbs, a swing district that Obama lost narrowly twice but that Hillary won, also narrowly (one point), in 2016. The district is 72.8% white, 11.6% Latino, 8.6% African-American and 4.2% Asian.