Rick doesn't have the most money, but he has the best issue for TuesdayThe media tended to cover Kara Eastman's startling-- at least to them-- win of DCCC/Blue Dog Ben Ashbrook in Omaha last week as a win for Medicare-for-All versus a status quo approach. And there is no doubt that that was a part of the equation that, despite the DCCC, catapulted Kara into the Democratic Party nomination. But it wasn't just their two respective approaches to health care.
Tuesday is primary run-off day in Texas. The DCCC is counting on an anti-union middle-of-the-road nothing candidate to win the primary and go on to face dull Republican incumbent John Culberson in a suburban Houston district (TX-07) where Hillary unexpectedly beat Señor Trumpanzee 48.5% to 47.1%. Going into that election the PVI was R+13 and Obama had only managed 39% against Romney. Al Gore had only gotten 31%.
The Texas runoffs are May 22. And as The Nation noted this week, "Insurgent populists are facing off against establishment picks in a series of high-stakes runoffs." D.D. Guttenplan wasn't deterred by a bunch of progressive defeats in Tuesday's primaries in Ohio, North Carolina and Indiana.
Rahm Emanuel was chairman of the DCCC in 2006, the last time there was a huge Blue Wave. He had as little to do with creating it as Ben Ray Lujan has in creating the 2018 huge Blue Wave (i.e., nothing whatsoever). Infact, Lujan, like Rahm (who consults him), is keeping the wave from growing even bigger. In 2006, the Democrats picked up 30 seats from the GOP. That's good, right?Well... kinda/sorta.
McConnell salutes West Virginia grassroots Republican votersThird party Super PACs spent $7,343,577 tearing apart Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race. $6,552,448 of that came from Mitch McConnelll's Senate Leadership PAC. McConnell had so sullied Moore's reputation that when he won the primary against the establishment candidate, he couldn't win the general election.
Alexandria Ocasio is such an underdog in her primary challenge to Joe Crowley-- one of the biggest big shots inside the Beltway-- that none of the Inside the Beltway prognosticators ever even mention her race against the Pelosi heir-apparent, one of Congress' most corrupt members. That's not because the media is lazy; it's just that they're stupid and unimaginative... and lazy.
So who is Patrick Karlsson? No really... who is he (or who are they)? If he were a person, he would be a superman who doesn't need any sleep and who would "automatically" tweet as soon as someone would say anything positive about Laura Moser (like "Patrick Karlsson"-- not a Swede-- does). About 3 or 4 days before the primary, he popped up and went on the warpath against Moser. A pseudonym for Ben Ray Lujan or Nancy Pelosi? Nah.
In Texas' Tuesday primary the DCCC's biggest bet was in TX-23 and on Jay Hulings, a right-of-center dull corporate shill endorsed not just by the DCCC but also by the Blue Dogs, the New Dems, the Castro San Antonio political machine and every corrupt surrogate the DCCC could round up. (Don't ask me why the Congressional "Progressive" Caucus didn't back him; they must have forgotten.) Anyway, no one won outright and the nomination to face GOP incumbent Will Hurd in November will go to a May 22 primary runoff. But Hulings won't be in that runoff.
Democratic women did well in Texas yesterday: Veronica Escobar, Dayna Steele, Sylvia GarciaLet's start with this: among Texas' 15 most populated counties, which are the only ones the Secretary of State announces, early voting in the Democratic primaries-- so in places like Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio...-- spiked by 105% from the 2014 midterm. That means more than doubled.
DCCC's fearless leaderTomorrow is the first step in the process of Texans deciding who will represent them in Congress. Although the state is one of the most gerrymandered in the country, demographics-- and an enormous anti-Trump backlash-- seem to be negating GOP gerrymandered advantages in many districts. Not all though.
