American politics has turned very strange. Of course, much of the reason for that is the truly weird person occupying the White House (and yeah, he’s also corrupt and downright evil, but you can’t deny, he’s just plain weird, too). But it’s definitely not just Trump. Republican sycophancy is at a historic high, and this cycle’s Democratic presidential primary gets pretty high marks for strangeness, too.
Chicago's top political reporter, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, just blew up Blue Dog Dan Lipinski's reelection campaign by exposing an internal campaign document about how to appeal to Republican voters.
Last cycle Mike Siegel held Trump enabler Michael McCaul to just 51.1%, McCaul's worst showing in his political career. McCaul, one of the two or three richest members of Congress-- his in-laws are robber barons-- spent $1,754,122 on the race, swamping Mike's $477,926. The DCCC declined to get involved, telling institutional donors to skip the race because it was too red a district and because Mike is a progressive.
In her introductory video (above), Lauren Ashcroft noted that "in 2018 there was a wave of nominations that changed what we thought was possible. People who were funded entirely by small dollars. They got loud and stood up for their principles against all odds. These are not the people who play it safe. These are the people who are making it safer for us. They were the first wave. I'm part of the next."Lauren is running in a deep blue district (NY-12) that spans parts of 3 NYC boroughs-- Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.
Texas is very much up for grabs this cycle. There are at least half a dozen Republican-held seats that are flippable. TX-12, though, isn't on anyone's radar, primarily because incumbent Republican Kay Granger, first elected in 1996, is so well-liked by her constituents. She usually wins reelection by between 65 and 70-something percent.
Last year's campaign was fiery-- and so will this cycle's beDuncan Hunter, a far right congressman from the reddest southern congressional district was one of the first two Republicans in Congress to have endorsed Trump. Like the other one, Chris Collins of New York, Hunter was indicted and arrested on dozens of financial fraud charges, including wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy.
Back in 2009, when union activist and author Jonathan Tasini was running for Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand, I wrote that sometimes I have to pump some political courage into our candidates and incumbents and coax them to support difficult or controversial items on the progressive agenda. Not Tasini, whose politico-spiritual mentor is Paul Wellstone. I wrote that he's the kind of figure who I fully expected to call me and ask me why I'm not working harder to round up more votes for the most difficult progressive positions in Congress.
Last year's campaign was fiery-- and so will this cycle's beDuncan Hunter, a far right congressman from the reddest southern congressional district was one of the first two Republicans in Congress to have endorsed Trump. Like the other one, Chris Collins of New York, Hunter was indicted and arrested on dozens of financial fraud charges, including wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy.
The Republican wing of the Democratic PartyA reminder: As soon as Blue Dog/New Dem Cheri Bustos grabbed the DCCC chair for herself, she instituted an aggressive new policy aimed at progressives challenging Blue Dogs and New Dems (like herself). She officially declared that any campaign consultants, vendors, polling firms, strategists or operatives who worked for a campaign running against an incumbent would be blacklisted by the DCCC.
