Today Is Connie Saltonstall Day
by digby
Howie Klein notes that today is the day you receive all those desperate emails for end-of-the-quarter donations from the Democratic party committees — and that the money will almost certainly be spent on preserving the seats of Blue Dogs who vote against everything you care about. It’s more than a little bit frustrating.
But there’s something you can do about it. You can Send the Democrats A Message They Can Understand.
Howie says:
As you may know, Blue America has a page dedicated to sending Democrats a message and contributing to Connie Saltonstall’s primary campaign against Stupak is a music it is very healthy for Inside-the-Beltway Democrats of all stripes to hear. This morning I spoke with Connie and asked her if she’d do a guest post about why her race is more important than ever, even though pressure from Democrats forced Stupak to eventually vote for the healthcare reform bill. This is how she put it:
We all know by now that Bart Stupak finally gave in, dropped the ‘Stupak Amendment,’ and voted for the healthcare bill. While I applaud his vote, it does not change my determination defeat him in the Michigan primary on August 3rd.
Representative Stupak’s reluctant support of healthcare reform came at a very high cost. Mr. Stupak’s dogmatic insistence on inserting his own religious views into the legislative debate and threatening to deprive his constituents of needed healthcare reform eroded people’s trust in him. Throughout the debate there was the sense that our Congressman let us down and that sense has not disappeared with the change in his vote. For me and so many of his constituents, he crossed the line with his grandstanding.
My campaign is about getting past the kind of political obstruction that marred the healthcare debate. I look forward to working in Congress to represent the Democratic values of the First District– affordable, accessible healthcare for all, healthcare that allows women the opportunity to make responsible life decisions for themselves and their families, protecting our Great Lakes and other precious natural resources, and fighting to put people in our district, so hard hit by this recession, back to work.
Since announcing my candidacy I have been overwhelmed and humbled by the enthusiasm, support and outreach for my campaign, both nationally and locally. People from all over the district are calling daily offering to donate and do anything they can to help. Political pundits like to say that someone from the lower peninsula cannot win in Michigan’s First District. I don’t believe that. I have heard from people all the way from Gogebic County in the Northwest of our district to Bay County in the southeast of our district. We are all Michiganders and our commonalties are far more important than our differences. I am here to give the people of Michigan’s First District a choice!
And Blue America wants to help her do just that. Please consider helping Connie, not because this is the last day of the quarter, but because we just have to save the Democratic Party and our country from characters like Bart Stupak.
As I wrote yesterday, Stupak got punk’d by the lobbyist for the Catholic Bishops — a Republican ally to such a degree that they were willing to deny millions of the working poor access to health care in order to help the GOPs cynical obstructionist agenda. Stupak was either too stupid to see it or too cynical himself to care. Either way, his behavior should not be rewarded.
I realize he’s now being vilified by the very people he worked so hard for, but that doesn’t make him a hero. Indeed, it calls his judgement into serious question. For the sake of people everywhere who care deeply about a woman’s fundamental human right to her own bodily autonomy, I can’t think of a better message to the Party than if Bart Stupak lost his seat to Connie Saltonstall.