Derek Cressman, a veteran of the voting rights movement best known for his work to overturn Citizens United with Common Cause, is challenging incumbent Democratic state senator Richard Pan. Only three senate Democrats have a higher ranking by the California Chamber of Commerce than Pan, one of the most conservative Dems in the California legislature.
I wonder if anyone from the DCCC or DSCC will try to figure out the implications A new poll CBS released this morning shows that only 20% of respondents said they approved of the latest Republican legislation aimed at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.
Illinois' 16th congressional district-- which includes Dixon, Reagan's birthplace-- starts up at the Wisconsin border just below Beloit and goes into the eastern part of Rockford, swings south and east into the Chicago exurbs below Joliet and then east to the Indiana border and then south towards Bloomington and Peoria. It's a red district but it celebrated the hometown boy good will to give Obama a narrow win in 2008.
Sunday evening in Leeds, Jared Golden wrapped up his announcement tour as a congressional candidate for the sprawling Maine district he seeks to represent. He spoke at his parents' house and told his supporters that he "plans to make this campaign about working class Mainers... Speaking of jobs," he continued, let’s talk about Bruce Poliquin’s health care vote. He’s the only member of Maine’s Congressional delegation that voted to take health care away from tens of thousands of Mainers.
So... as we discussed over the weekend, the DCCC and the Beltway consultants are telling their client candidates in tough primaries to just lie about healthcare. They tell the conservatives they back that the words "Medicare for all" don't really mean anything and that it's OK to use them as long as they don't get tied down in a pledge to sign onto John Conyers' H.R. 676, the actual very specific Medicare-For-All bill.
I know it's hard to imagine but there was a time when the DCCC used to give their candidates my contact info and tell them to talk with me about progressive issues. That was almost a decade ago. Today they tell their candidates to avoid me at all costs-- or else! And many of their candidates do... but not all.
The other day I was talking with a first-time Democratic candidate who has a bit of a reputation as a centrist, although he insist-- at least to me-- that he's a progressive. I'm not persuaded. He says he's kind of, sort of good with Medicare-For-All but there's no way he'd say he's going to co-sponsor John Conyers Medicare-For-All bill.
The jumpy video above is from a CA-45 (Orange County) Democratic Forum hosted by the Laguna Woods Democratic Club. Notice Brian Forde, an "ex"-Republican using Republican talking points about "access." Access means anyone can buy health insurance-- if you're rich enough to afford it. Forde may have switched his party affiliation a few weeks or hours or months ago and may be trying to appeal to low-info Democrats but... he's still just a Republican. Right after he spoke, Kia Hamadanchy, a former staffer for Sherrod Brown, talked.
Like Trump, a liar and manipulatorA couple years ago, I was driving out to City of Hope in Duarte and was able to listen to a whole segment on KPCC, an interview with in-coming Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. He spoke very eloquently and forcefully about environmental abuses and dangerous industrial and commercial pollution in working class residential communities.
