Keith Ellison (D-MN) is widely viewed as an up-and-coming progressive leader able to articulate progressive ideas and values to ordinary voters. He may not be invited to many events sponsored by lobbyists on K Street or Wall Street, but Democrats all over the country have been inviting him to speak to local grassroots activists.
Becerra, Grayson, Ellison-- actual leaders, not money-grubbersI'm never really comfortable with a corrupt out-of-touch Beltway committee parachuting into an American congressional district and telling the Democrats there who their candidate for Congress should be. In the old days, even the worst DCCC chairmen-- think Rahm Emanuel-- used to tip-toe, at least publicy, around interfering in primaries.
We've been talking about Carl Sciortino's race for the Massachusetts House seat that Ed Markey gave up when he won the open Senate seat. Blue America is raising money for him directly here and raising money for a billboard campaign here.
Wednesday the House overwhelmingly passed the patently unfair student loan amendment the Senate cobbled together.
Barney Frank retired from Congress last year. Obama picked a series of crooked Wall Street operators for positions he should have tried filling with brilliant and proven tribunes of the public like Barney and Brad Miller (D-NC), who also resigned last year. I'm not certain what Brad is up to now but Barney has certainly not faded away. Having been for so many years the most noteworthy openly gay Member of Congress, media turned to him in droves for comments about the grudging and narrow Supreme Court ruling that struck down DOMA and kind of struck down California's hateful Prop 8.
You may have noticed that lately, the noisy right-wing Hate Machine has decided to take a little energy out of their stream of hatred and calumny usually reserved for Nancy Pelosi, to focus it on Keith Ellison (D-MN). After all, Keith, a very outspoken and articulate co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and only 49, will be in Congress long after Pelosi, 73, retires. Sean Hannity has declared a right-wing crusade against Ellison and spends an inordinate amount of energy smearing him. We've tried to have Keith's back.
