Jason Hodge: Another Republican in Democrat’s Clothing
by David Atkins
Remember Jason Hodge, the corporate-backed Democrat running for California’s 19th Senate District who “doesn’t think you need higher taxes”, running against progressive Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson?
Well, I just got a nice big glossy mailer from an organization called the California Senior Advocates League, saying that Jason Hodge would be the Democrat most capable of defeating the Republicans and calling Hannah-Beth Jackson the derogatory nickname “Taxin’ Jackson.” What is the California Senior Advocates League? Well, it’s a group that only seems to exist come election time. It runs a now-defunct blog called the Silver Dog Blog, whose latest post trashes the Affordable Care Act. And its funders? Mostly the San Diego and California Republican Parties, big oil and pharmaceutical interests. Most recently it received $20,000 from something called JobsPAC. And who funds JobsPAC? Mostly Philip Morris, Chevron, Anheuser-Busch, Anthem Blue Cross, PG&E and a host of similar companies and institutions.
For what it’s worth, the “California Senior Advocates League” doesn’t appear to have made the necessary legal filing disclosures to the state, but they have made sure that flashy campaign mailers supporting their favorite “Democrat” Jason Hodge make it to left-leaning voters’ mailboxes right before vote-by-mail ballots get there in a few days. There has been no condemnation or mention of the mailer from the Hodge campaign. Keep in mind that this big-money front group didn’t just send out a piece to attack Hannah-Beth Jackson. They sent out a piece to promote Jason Hodge. Since the registration numbers dictate that a Democrat will almost certainly win the seat regardless, the big money boys know where their bread is buttered, and it’s with Mr. Hodge. After all, why fight an uphill battle to elect a Republican when you can elect a Republican in sheep’s clothing instead?
“I’m not surprised that the oil and tobacco companies are behind the mailers attacking me,” Jackson said. “After all, I’m supported by the Sierra Club and the Consumer Federation of California. And look at my voting record – I always stood with consumers, working middle class families and the environment. I successfully banned oil tankers and barges from our coast, and have worked against oil company price gouging.”
Today is also when Fortune Magazine reported its new Fortune 500 with three of the four biggest corporations in the nation being oil companies, including Chevron.
“These oil and tobacco corporations think they are above the law,” noted Jackson. “It’s not enough that they launder their money through fake organizations, claiming to represent the interests of seniors. They have failed to report their expenditures against me, even though they were required by law to report the tens of thousands of dollars in postage that they paid last week for the mailers delivered to households today. I’m sure we’ll be seeing their reports now that we’ve exposed them as lawbreakers,” Jackson concluded.
This is why it’s so crucial to be involved in making the Democratic Party more progressive. No matter how one feels about what is going on in the White House, there are innumerable battles just like this one happening all across America. Battles where progressive Democrats are up against corporate-backed “Democrats” seeking to make the Party just that much more conservative and friendly to big business interests. These are fights we cannot afford to lose.
Looks like those vicious Tea Partiers out to destroy the comity and bipartisanship we used to enjoy when Tip and Ronnie got drunk together are getting a little help. Lee Fang of the Republic Report writes:
After years of bipartisan policymaking, veteran lawmaker Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) is expected to go down in defeat in his primary election today. With the likely defeat of Lugar, political observers are sure to start speculating over the meaning of the election. Is it a rebound for the Tea Party? Is bipartisanship dead? Was Richard Mourdock, Lugar’s opponent, unpatriotic for deceitfully smearing Lugar for working with Obama to secure loose nuclear weapons?
These are legitimate questions.
But it’s worth noting that a primary factor in Lugar’s desperate fight for reelection stems from the power of banking lobbyists. The Indiana Republican can be viewed as a demonstration of Wall Street’s political muscle. In the words of Politico, “The banking industry is making an example of Sen. Dick Lugar.”
In a rare loss for Wall Street, the Senate last year rejected legislation to delay a rule to limit the amount banks can charge businesses for credit card swipe fees. The financial industry mounted an incredible lobbying campaign — as Bloomberg reported, banks hired high priced K Street hacks, used conservative blogs like RedState, and developed Beltway advertising — to pass the measure. But a coalition of big box retailers, like Wal-Mart and Target, along with small businesses and other vendors, persuaded enough legislators from both sides of the aisle to kill the measure and limit the fees. The rule affected some $16 billion in bank profits.
Lugar was among the few Republican senators up for reelection in 2012 to vote against the banks. As Anna Palmer and Robin Bravender reported, bank lobbyists decided early on to use the Indiana primary today to make an example out of Lugar:
Financial Services Roundtable’s Scott Talbott, Lisa Nelson of Visa, Peter Blocklin of the American Bankers Association and Vincent Randazzo of PNC hosted an inside-the-Beltway fundraiser for Lugar’s opponent, Richard Mourdock, this week. The Electronic Payments Coalition, which represents the industry, also sent out an email fundraising blast that included the event. […]
The ABA supported Mourdock on June 23 — soon after the Senate vote on the swipe fee amendment — sending him a $5,000 check, according to federal campaign filings. […]
“There are just a lot of sour grapes out there,” said a GOP financial services industry lobbyist.
But with more battles over swipe fees on the horizon, bankers want to make it clear that there will be consequences for Republicans who vote against them.
Lugar has also been pummeled by front groups tied to the financial services industry. The Club for Growth, which is funded by several highly ideological hedge fund managers and investors, has aired numerous attack ads against the senator. FreedomWorks, run by Dick Armey, who served as a bank lobbyist after retiring from Congress and C. Boyden Grey, a current lobbyist working to chip away at Dodd-Frank, also ran anti-Lugar ads.
Well, you know, corporations are people too and have just as much right as you do to buy elections. It reminds me of this famous quote from Anatole France:
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Via Carlos Miller at Photography is Not a Crime comes the news that the Orange County DA finally released security footage of the brutal beating death of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas, a homeless man from Fullerton, California.
Two police officers, Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, are now on trial for the killing of Thomas, who suffered from schizophrenia. Cops used their fists and batons to beat Thomas. They Tasered him multiple times. Cause of death was apparently “mechanical suppression of the thorax.”
Besides eventually screaming for his father, a former police officer himself, Thomas also repeatedly yells that he can’t breathe.
Here’s what went down:
“Now you see my fists?” Fullerton police officer Manny Ramos asked Thomas while slipping on a pair of latex gloves.
“Yeah, what about them?” Thomas responded.
“They are getting ready to fuck you up,” said Ramos, a burly cop who appears to outweigh Thomas by 100 pounds.
“Well, start punching,” Thomas responds, never once displaying any physical aggression towards Ramos.
Moments later, as Thomas is standing while Ramos is ordering him to get on his “fucking knees,” Fullerton cop Joseph Wolfe, who is not charged in the case, walks up and starts beating his legs with a baton.
Then Ramos gets into the act and Thomas takes off running, moving out of the frame of the camera.
The camera, operated by a dispatcher at the station, then moves toward the beating, showing Ramos and Fullerton cop Jay Cicinelli on top of Thomas as Thomas repeatedly apologizes and telling them he is unable to breathe.
The cops keep telling him to put his hands behind his back and lay on his stomach, but they are both laying on top of him, making it impossible to even breathe, much less move.
As the video continues, one of the cops can be seen kneeing him.
“Please, I can’t breathe,” Thomas pleads as the officers keep telling him to put his hands behind his “fucking back.”
The cops keep telling him to “relax” to which he responds, “I can’t, dude.”
More cops eventually arrive and a little more than four minutes into the video, they start tasing him.
And a little after five minutes into the video, as three cops are piled on top of him, beating him, tasing him, one cop looks up at another cop who just arrived on the scene and says, “help us.”
At one point he yells out, “Dad, they are killing me.”
Even after seven minutes into the video, when six cops are on top of him and all Thomas is doing is crying for his father, they keep telling him to “relax.”
After they got him down, the police repeatedly say “he’s on something.” But he wasn’t. He suffered from mental illness. At the end he’s just saying “daddy…daddy …daddy” and then he stops talking at all.
This is heard distinctly on the tape:
“We ran out of options so I got the end of my Taser and I probably … I just start smashing his face to hell,” Cicinelli said, according to the transcript provided by prosecutors. “He was on something. Cause the three of us couldn’t even control him.”
You can see the video at the link, but it’s so horrible I’m not sure about telling people to watch it.
Here’s what this poor man looked like at the hospital:
The mentally ill die frequently at the hands of police. Sometimes the police do kill them in self-defense. Often they just kill them. Certainly they taser them fairly constantly, which ends up being a form of electo-shock torture since these people are literally unable to comprehend and comply.
Here’s a perfect example of the more “benign” variety. We have a schizophrenic man outside a diner who is alleged to have been harassing customers. Police are called. (Note the sick reaction of the young male observer on the audio):
Had this man had a heart condition he could have died. He was hit square in the chest.
I realize these are tough situations for the police. Dealing with people who cannot comprehend your orders — or the stakes in refusal — makes it even tougher. But ask yourself why that officer couldn’t have walked behind the man rather than demanding that he turn around and shooting him full of electricity in the chest when he didn’t. The man’s hands are up, he’s presenting no threat. So often these things end up being a battle of wills rather than a means to an end. It’s one thing if thing if the person is clearly threatening, but too many times it’s police needing to demonstrate their authority. Needing to do that with people who are hearing lots of voices in their heads telling them all kinds of things already, is just pathetic.
Mentally ill people often live horrible lives in the streets of our towns and cities. They face danger from the elements, criminals and each other. And they often end up in police custody for a variety of reasons. Tasers (and worse) are cruelly used against them. It’s medieval.
The full story of Kelly Thomas is here, with links to reports from the preliminary hearing. It goes without saying that without cameras taping this incident there would not be a trial.
If you ever questioned whether the Very Serious Paul Ryan was a dishonest weasel, this should end it:
CONSTITUENT: My question concerns your current and previous feelings toward the author and philosopher Ayn Rand. […] Mr. Ryan, are you telling us that your political career was founded on the concepts of a rally of hers, but until recently, you never realized Ayn Rand was an outspoken atheist, that she felt altruism was evil, supported abortion, and condemned Christianity for advocating compassion for the poor?
RYAN: […] Just because you like someone’s novels doesn’t mean you agree with their entire worldview philosophy. She has a worldview philosophy which is completely antithetical to mine because she has an atheist philosophy. […] It’s really kind of a canard, is what I would say.
CONSTITUENT: You spoke as a keynote speaker for Ayn Rand banquets. You were quoted at length about how you loved her. You say you grew up and Ayn Rand taught you who you are and what your values are. I think we’ve learned the question of your honesty.
RYAN: It’s a great book! It’s a great book! Let’s go on to somebody over here, I think we’ve covered it pretty well. By the way, I don’t require it. I have a reading list. Lots of young people ask me what are good books. I give them Alexis de Tocqueville, I take the Founders, Friedman, Hayek, Atlas Shrugged. There are lots of good books worth reading if you want to study freedom, free enterprise, the Founders, economics. There are a lot of good books out there to read, it doesn’t mean that you subscribe to the person’s worldview and philosophy. That’s really kind of a stretch.
As everyone who reads this blog has known for years, that it total bullshit. Ryan is just lying. I hope people dog him with this for the rest of the campaign.
But there’s also this:
GLENN BECK: Nice to meet you, sir. Tell me, tell me your thoughts on progressivism.
PAUL RYAN: Right. What I have been trying to do, and if you read the entire Oklahoma speech or read my speech to Hillsdale College that they put in there on Primus Magazine, you can get them on my Facebook page, what I’ve been trying to do is indict the entire vision of progressivism because I see progressivism as the source, the intellectual source for the big government problems that are plaguing us today and so to me it’s really important to flush progressives out into the field of open debate.
GLENN: I love you.
PAUL RYAN: So people can actually see what this ideology means and where it’s going to lead us and how it attacks the American idea.
GLENN: Okay. Hang on just a second. I ‑‑ did you see my speech at CPAC?
PAUL RYAN: I’ve read it. I didn’t see it. I’ve read it, a transcript of it.
GLENN: And I think we’re saying the same thing. I call it ‑‑
PAUL RYAN: We are saying the same thing.
GLENN: It’s a cancer.
PAUL RYAN: Exactly. Look, I come from ‑‑ I’m calling you from Janesville, Wisconsin where I’m born and raised.
GLENN: Holy cow.
PAUL RYAN: Where we raise our family, 35 miles from Madison. I grew up hearing about this stuff. This stuff came from these German intellectuals to Madison‑University of Wisconsin and sort of out there from the beginning of the last century. So this is something we are familiar with where I come from. It never sat right with me. And as I grew up, I learned more about the founders and reading the Austrians and others that this is really a cancer because it basically takes the notion that our rights come from God and nature and turns it on its head and says, no, no, no, no, no, they come from government, and we here in government are here to give you your rights and therefore ration, redistribute and regulate your rights. It’s a complete affront of the whole idea of this country and that is to me what we as conservatives, or classical liberals if you want to get technical.
GLENN: Thank you.
Technically, according to Rand, progressivism isn’t a cancer, it’s a “parasitic” disease, but you get the drift. He did mention God in there, which is de rigeur for all Republicans, even when it makes no sense, but it’s pretty clear that he isn’t quoting the Bible. In fact, with his reference to “classical liberalism” he’s obviously crudely identifying himself in the way that many Randroid libertarians do.
And keep in mind that Ryan hasn’t just made a fetish out of Rand’s far-out economic theories, he’s held it up as a moral system as well, which is hardcore Objectivism in its purest form:
Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism, and this to me is what matters most. It is not enough to say that President Obama’s taxes are too big or the health care plan doesn’t work for this or that policy reason. It is the morality of what is occurring right now and how it offends the morality of individuals working toward their own free will to produce, to achieve, to succeed, that is under attack. And it is that what I think Ayn Rand would be commenting on, which we need that kind of comment more than ever.
Here’s someone with some clearer thoughts on all this: John Maynard Keynes:
It is not true that individuals possess a prescriptive ‘natural liberty’ in their economic activities. There is no ‘compact’ conferring perpetual rights on those who Have or on those who Acquire. The world is not so governed from above that private and social interest always coincide. It is not so managed here below that in practice they coincide.
It is not a correct deduction from the principles of economics that enlightened self-interest always operates in the public interest. Nor is it true that self-interest generally is enlightened; more often individuals acting separately to promote their own ends are too ignorant or too weak to attain even these. Experience does not show that individuals, when they make up a social unit, are always less clear-sighted than when they act separately.
We cannot therefore settle on abstract grounds, but must handle on its merits in detail what Burke termed “one of the finest problems in legislation, namely, to determine what the State ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual exertion”…
That’s what the argument has always been about and it’s an argument that never ends. The morality underlying all of it places Rand at one end and Jesus at the other. Ryan cannot have it both ways.
I like it when conservatives say what they really believe. And the favorite pastor of right wingers everywhere, Jesse Lee Patterson, is one who’s not afraid to do it:
At roughly 8:30 into his 12-minute sermon, he doubles down, amazingly, saying that he believes America went wrong when it gave women the right to vote.
“I think that one of the greatest mistakes America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote,” Peterson says. “We should’ve never turned this over to women. And these women are voting in the wrong people. They’re voting in people who are evil who agrees with them who’re gonna take us down this pathway of destruction.”
“And this probably was the reason they didn’t allow women to vote when men were men. Because men in the good old days understood the nature of the woman,” he adds. “They were not afraid to deal with it. And they understood that, you let them take over, this is what would happen.”
The nature of women. Well, eve did eat that damned apple and we all know what happened after that.
The funny thing is that he’s not the first big shot conservative to say that in recent years:
Promoting her new book If Democrats Had Any Brains They’d Be Republicans, Ann Coulter told a New York City paper:
If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine…
She continued, saying that she doesn’t think it will happen, and says that she places the blame on single women.
The comment, part of an interview published October 2 in the New York Observer, has gained headlines from numerous media outlets.
Megan McArdle of The Atlantic Monthly criticized Coulter’s statements. McArdle comments: “Coulter isn’t getting away with this because she’s a Republican; she’s getting away with it because she’s a woman. If a conservative male had called for taking away the vote from women, Republicans wouldn’t be able to get to the microphone fast enough to denounce him. They know where their political interests lie.”
Coulter went on in the interview to blame former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for the September 11, 2001 attacks and criticized women for “voting stupidly”.
Coulter has made a lot of money channeling the right wing id. I think she’s especially in tune with this one. It just seems to strike a natural chord.
In 2030, 42 percent of American adults will be obese, and about one-quarter of that group will be severely obese, a condition that shortens life and incurs large medical expenses, a new study predicts.
This view into the future is less ominous than one published four years ago that predicted that 51 percent of the population would be obese in 2030. Nevertheless, the trend fortells a huge drag on the health and economic welfare of the United States.
“If we don’t do anything, this is going to really hinder any efforts to contain future health-care costs,” Justin G. Trogdon, an economist and one of the authors of the projection, told experts Monday at the start of the two-day “Weight of the Nation” conference in Washington.
However, if obesity stays at its current prevalence — 34 percent of adults — and does not increase, the savings in projected health-care costs will be considerable, about $550 billion, the authors said. The most recent evidence, in fact, suggests that obesity rates are plateauing.
“Regardless which is correct, we still have a very serious problem,” William H. Dietz, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s obesity program, said of the scenarios.
The causes of the obesity epidemic are many: the expense of healthy foods, subsidies for the ingredients that make up unhealthy processed foods, increased stress and sedentary work hours, and more sedentary entertainments all being among them. Dealing with the problem is a huge part of keeping healthcare costs down, which in turn are a huge part of our issues with Medicare and the deficit in general. It’s a public health problem that requires major public health solutions.
So predictably, Republicans are engaging in character assassination of the First Lady for doing even mildly innocuous things to address the issues. In thirty years everyone will realize what “elitist” readers of Michael Pollan and similar authors already know: that food policy is serious public policy, and has to be managed with the same tools we use for every other piece of public policy.
Thirty years from now the idea of a “twinkie tax” will be taken seriously, rather than serve as the butt of a right-wing joke. For now though, the right will do what it always does: delay enlightened policy by years and decades just because they can. Forgiveness is nice, but sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better for society if conservatives were publicly shamed at regular intervals, with a full accounting of the wrongheaded and retrograde beliefs they held just 30 years prior. Let the opponents of Loving v. Virginia and the detractors of Martin Luther King Jr. step into the light for all to see. Let those who resisted AIDS research be shamed in the public square. In a couple of decades we could have a public accounting for the Bush supporters and the climate deniers and the homophobes.
And in a few more decades, let the opponents of “twinkie taxes” suffer the same light of intense scrutiny. It’s always fun to mock the “other” today. But maybe it’ll be a lot less fun if people see that they’ll be publicly scorned and mocked a few years down the road.
• A sales tax on all abortions. Even rape victims would have to pay the tax, which could be as high as 6.3%. Despite their objections to millionaires paying more taxes, Republicans feel it’s okay to tax women for making a personal decision about their own bodies. This makes abortion more expensive.
• A personhood measure that would define life as beginning at conception, which would almost certainly make abortion equivalent to murder and outlaw all abortion in the state of Kansas. Many forms of contraception could also be banned.
• A measure that significantly limits abortions in the third trimester.
• A provision that bans women from claiming abortion insurance coverage and services on their taxes.
• Doctors are hereby ordered to tell women that abortion causes breast cancer, which is a damned lie.
• Doctors are also shielded from lawsuits if they withhold critical health information from pregnant women that could cause them to decide to have an abortion. In other words, they don’t have to tell women about the health of the fetus they carry and don’t have to tell women about any problems with the pregnancy.
Such measures would make it nearly impossible for women to get an abortion in the state of Kansas. They would severely restrict a woman’s right to make her own health decisions. And the bill forces women to submit to the will of men. This is by far the most dangerous anti-abortion bill in the country and puts the lives of women in danger. Republicans are declaring that abortion is a cause of cancer despite the fact that real science has proved otherwise, and yet, they are forcing doctors to falsely tell pregnant women that if they get an abortion, cancer could follow, even though many top health organizations have proven that such a connection is a total myth.
For me, the White House Correspondence dinner reached its low point in 2003:
The comedy routine drew laughter from the Washington power players and Hollywood celebrities gathered at the annual comedy showcase, which brought together the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Harrison Ford, Christie Brinkley and Osbourne for a night that might have been more appropriately billed as “Ozzypalooza.”
Osbourne, the star of the hit MTV reality series “The Osbournes,” upstaged the rest of the illuminati and basically stole the show. When Bush mentioned Osbourne by name, the aging rock legend climbed up on a chair and threw his arms in the air, drawing wild cheers and prompting Bush to say, “OK, Ozzy … Might have been a mistake.”
Bush jokingly hailed Osbourne for making such recordings as “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” “Face in Hell,” and “Bloodbath in Paradise,” saying “Ozzy, Mom loves your stuff.”
Osbourne was once banned from Texas for urinating on the Alamo, so the joke about Cheney peeing was not completely random. Bush showed a series of photos of top administration officials peering through a peephole that looks into the Oval Office, followed by a staged photo in which Cheney was shown from the back with his hands in front of him, suggesting he might be relieving himself on the door.
Only Ozzy breaking into a rousing rendition of “War Pigs” could have salvaged that hideous display.
I couldn’t be happier to see people starting to seriously discuss ending this tradition they’ve turned into a creepy public schmoozefest that validates everyone’s suspicions about the press’s subservience to not just political power but celebrity power, which is even worse. In fact, it’s pathetic.
If not Norman Solomon, then who? If not here, where? If not now, when?
by digby
In my opinion, this is the most important piece you are going to read this month about the left and elections. It’s written by FAIR’s Jeff Cohen and he talks about the long term electoral netroots strategy in a way I haven’t seen anyone but Howie (or me) try to put into words.
He starts off with a history of the right wing takeover of the GOP, which is well worth reading, just to remind yourself of how systematic it really was. But I’m going to pick up the narrative after that and go against blogging etiquette by copying almost the rest of the entire piece:
In my view, money is not the main advantage rightwing movements have over progressive ones. It’s leadership. And zeal for transformative change. Look at a rightwing leader like the late Paul Weyrich, who coined the term “Moral Majority,” founded grassroots religious right organizations and pioneered direct mail fundraising among small donors. (Yes, he also cofounded corporate fronts like Heritage and ALEC.) Thirty years ago, Weyrich remarked: “We are different from previous generations of conservatives. . . . We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country.”[…]
It’s not glamorous work for activist movements to try to transform a major party. It’s slow and arduous—with more defeats than victories. But rightwing movements have shown it can be done.
To do something similar in the Democratic Party will require coordinated efforts—across issues and movements—to elect progressive activists at every level: from local and state Democratic committees (reforming party platforms along the way) to local public offices to state houses. And ultimately to Congress.
If such a process caught fire, we’d hear a drumbeat from mainstream punditry—not just at Fox News—about the “extremism” of progressive Democrats (despite their own polls showing that ending war, taxing the rich, protecting entitlements, etc., are majority views).
Currently, we do have a Congressional Progressive Caucus of 75 members, the largest and most multiracial caucus in Congress. But it lacks cohesion and teeth. About 60 members pledged to reject any healthcare bill that lacked a public option—and then caved. More powerful than the current caucus might be a cohesive 25-member group ready to vote as a bloc against war and corporate policies, even when it’s a Democratic White House promoting such policies.
Getting to a bloc of 25 genuine, principled progressives in Congress is attainable. What’s needed is a strategy and resources to develop candidates in dozens of solidly progressive congressional districts nationwide: black, Latino, college town, liberal urban, etc. When an incumbent Democrat sells-out or leaves office, activists in such a district should be able to call upon national organizational and netroots support to get a 100% progressive into Congress. Once elected by the grassroots in such districts, it’s hard for corporate or conservative forces to ever get them out. Think Bernie Sanders. Think Barbara Lee.
This is exactly what Blue America has been doing for the past several election cycles. Yes, we love to defeat Blue Dogs whenever possible and we will help good progressives build political infrastructure even in the reddest districts if we can. We don’t do presidential politics and rarely make a foray into the Senate. But our main goal is trying to build this bloc. It takes time, patience and a thick skin, but we believe it can be done.
Now I realize that there is more to progressive politics than seeking state power. It’s necessary to build an outside political movement as well or there’s no hope of bringing the country along. It’s necessary to get money out of politics through a variety of means and working on specific issues of great importance from outside the political system is fundamental. But it would the height of foolishness to do all that and leave state power in the hands of the right wing ideologues and the 1%. They have way too much of it as it is.
Cohen then makes the case for Norman Solomon and I highly recommend that you read it. I feel very strongly about this race, believing as he does that it’s vitally important that we elect him. He is a true progressive leader who is running in the exact situation Cohen describes.
He explains that Norman is a close friend with whom he has written books and columns for many years and then lays out the case:
An acclaimed antiwar leader who led three dramatic trips to Iraq in an effort to avert the U.S. invasion, Norman is running in a new, extremely progressive district on California’s North Coast that stretches from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border. The seat is open due to the retirement of Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a steadfast peace advocate who once co-chaired the Progressive Caucus.
To prepare for this race, Norman paid his dues in local Democratic work. He’s been elected three times to be a delegate from the North Bay to the state Democratic central committee (where he coauthored the party’s “troops-out-of-Afghanistan” position). In 2008, he was elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention—but he has never refrained from criticizing Obama policies that bolster Wall Street or the warfare state.
Norman may or may not win, but he’s built one of the strongest, grassroots campaigns for Congress ever—with over 1,000 volunteers and more than 5,000 donors. He’s been endorsed by local elected officials in the district (both Democrats and Greens) as he’s campaigned on an uncompromising agenda popular with voters: tax Wall Street to fund federal green jobs programs; major military cuts; no attack on Iran; enhanced “Medicare for All”; end nuclear power. The primary is June 5, with voting-by-mail to begin early May.
The good news is that the Solomon campaign raised—in mostly small, grassroots donations—an impressive half-million dollars by the March 31 federal filing deadline. The bad (but expected) news is that two corporate-connected Democrats raised $865,000 and $740,000; both will significantly outspend Norman on TV/radio ads. It’s a classic battle of grassroots vs. big bucks. Will his volunteer-based ground game beat the air attack of the moneyed candidates, as Paul Wellstone did when he got into the U.S. Senate after being outspent 7 to 1? (Like Norman, Wellstone had never previously held elected office.)
In a 12-candidate race, experts in the district see Norman as now running second. The frontrunner is the Democratic establishment candidate, a well-funded state assemblyman who has received most of the labor and environmental endorsements—despite having accepted donations in recent years from companies like Walmart and PG&E that are despised by union and green activists. (The Solomon campaign refuses corporate and lobbyist money.)
These membership groups face a choice in primaries: Do they embrace party regulars and the status quo, or back outsider candidates who want to transform the party . . . and the country. Several unions have endorsed the Solomon campaign, including the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). One of the strongest unions in the state, SEIU California, hedged its bets by endorsing Norman, along with the state assemblyman and another elected official in the race. Some progressive unions (like the California Nurses Association) have so far stayed out.
National groups like Progressive Democrats of America and Blue America have backed the campaign from the start. Norman won the endorsement of Democracy for America (founded by Howard Dean) by finishing second out of 200 liberal/progressive candidates in DFA’s nationwide online straw poll.[Second to Alan Grayson, it should be noted, the most popular Netroots candidate in the country.]
The Solomon campaign earns free media coverage each time a notable like Phil Donahue, Daniel Ellsberg or Sean Penn comes into the district to campaign. Other progressive leaders have endorsed, including Barbara Ehrenreich, Dolores Huerta, Rep. John Conyers and Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Raul Grijalva. Musician Tom Morello tweeted his support of the “antiwar, pro-Occupy candidate” to his 200,000 twitter fans. Blogger Glenn Greenwald, known for criticizing both Republican and Democratic politicians, was effusive: “When it comes to Congressional candidates, it just doesn’t get any better than Norman Solomon.”
The Solomon movement is up against tough odds and big money. But, win or lose, it offers a model—a campaign that inspires activists and challenges power and the Democratic establishment, a campaign promoting the full progressive agenda without settling for a puny number of protest votes.
This is the foundation on which we build our progressive congressional bloc — a hardcore progressive with a lifetime of liberal activism running in a deep blue district, unencumbered by obligation to business or the Democratic establishment. Honestly, I wish the entire Netroots were backing this candidacy with everything it has. As Glenn says, “it just doesn’t get any better than Norman Solomon.”
One of the greatest frustrations of the Obama presidency has been that the tactical and political brilliance of Obama the Campaigner didn’t seem to carry over to Obama the President. Obama the Campaigner understood how to speak to the middle class and address their concerns. Obama the President hasn’t done as good a job.
Any longtime reader of this or most other progressive blogs will have no difficulty finding a long, long laundry list of policy and tactical complaints over the way the Administration has conducted its affairs.
It’s beautiful. Brilliant. It lays the blame squarely on the previous Administration where it belongs, without being nasty or partisan about it which would turn off a lot of people. It’s hopeful. Inspiring. Proud to mention the end of the Iraq War. Populist in its mention that America doesn’t thrive without a thriving middle class. As a political observer, watching the ad gives me a rush of endorphins, not least because I know that the team that puts out ads like this is probably going to defeat Mitt Romney’s more hapless crew.
But then I also know that once the campaign is over, Obama the Campaigner is going to go back to being Obama the President we know all too well: 1000% better than a Republican, but far too beholden to the economic status quo of protecting the system by prioritizing assets over wages, which in turn infects almost every piece of major legislation.
With Mitt Romney, we get Paul Ryan’s radical Ayn-Rand inspired budget and social conservatism run rampant as he tries to win over the fundamentalists who distrust him. With Barack Obama, we likely get austerity-lite on economics but decent progress on social issues. It’s an easy, no-brainer choice for most intelligent people, but it’s still not a great one.
It would be nice if Obama the Campaigner could be Obama the President.
