Justin Santopietro

Guest Post: Stephanie Kelton Introduces A New Candidate For Congress

Stephanie Kelton has been eager to introduce an acquaintance of hers, Justin Santopietro, who is running for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the rural, Appalachian district of VA-09. She had introduced me to Justin a couple of months ago and, among other things, I asked him how he would handle being smeared by Republicans as a puppet of Nancy Pelosi. At the time he told me that "The right wingers' attempts to smear all Democratic challengers as 'Pelosi Puppets' is even more laughable in rural districts like mine, where the national party has no presence whatsoever.

Message To Democratic Candidates: The GOP Will Try To Paint You As A Pelosi Puppet. If You're Not, Inoculate Yourself NOW

It was actually silly for Trump to tweet yesterday that Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones is somehow a Pelosi/Schumer puppet. And, an hour later, he repeated the focus group-tested phrase. Puppet? Pelosi puppet? Jones is running for Senate and Schumer's name isn't toxic enough (yet) among the Fox/Hate Talk Radio masses to stand on its own.