The Representative from Washington's Congressional District # 3 is a member of the Democratic Party who has backed George Bush on several matters of critical importance to U.S. citizens in general and progressives in particular: 1) support for the occupation of Iraq, and, especially, support for 'the Surge'; 2) approval of the Peru Free-Trade Agreement in late 2007; and 3) an affirmative vote for the construction of 700 miles of fence/wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Consequently, I have been searching for a progressive opponent for Baird in the August primary election. This is the story and result of that search.
Every so often I run across a really egregious example of prowar advocacy and DC gossip couched as journalism. One such example is this article from the Politico on how Democrats want Pelosi and Reid to give up on the war.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, despite their pledges to continue pushing to end the war in Iraq, face growing pressure from their rank-and-file Democrats to focus more attention on domestic, "pocketbook" issues in the upcoming election year.
The article quotes one Democratic House member: Brian Baird. One. That's it. And the context is really remarkable.
My hope would be we start looking at real solutions instead of the dichotomy of cut funding versus stay forever," said Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), who had a change of heart this fall after visiting Iraq and realizing the military surge was working.
"The entire policy has been dictated by the 'Out of Iraq Caucus' ... What are we going to do, have another 40 withdrawal votes?"
The journalists who wrote this piece, John Bresnahan and Martin Kady, just sort of throw out there the assertion that the surge is working as fact. And they quote only Baird, who apparently represents all Democratic junior members, despite not actually being a junior member. They also quote Senator Mark Pryor discussing his desire to cease talking about Iraq and get on with cutting the estate tax, as if he is a junior Congressional member.
So what do junior members actually think? Here's Patrick Murphy, the recognized Democratic freshman leader on Iraq, in the Courier Times.
Murphy said Democrats should have tried to push through a war funding bill with strings attached before they left Washington, D.C. for the holiday break.
"I would have stayed in Washington through Christmas, through the New Year," he said. "When you're willing to stand up to the president and fight for things that you believe in, we can be successful and I think this is one of the things we should have fought harder on."
"There is frustration about Iraq," Murphy said. "The president and the Bush Republicans stonewalled our efforts. I knew this job wasn't going to be easy and I look forward to going back and fighting again on behalf of the soldiers who hope for a better strategy.
According to Murphy, who is not a member of the Out of Iraq caucus but is a freshman leader on Iraq, it's time for Democrats to fight on the war. But according to the Politico, Democrats have given up, junior Democrats want the leadership to give up, antiwar Democrats are crazy, and the surge is working.
Brian Baird (D-WA) is seeking a Communications Director. Duties include developing and implementing a comprehensive communications strategy, including: writing press releases, floor statements and editorials; responding to press inquiries; producing newsletters and e-newsletters; proactively creating new media opportunities, fostering strong relationships with media contacts, and managing office website. A successful candidate will be an excellent writer with good interpersonal skills and a sense of humor. Salary commensurate with experience. E-mail cover letter, writing sample, and resume to Lisa.Austin, Chief of Staff at BairdResume@mail.house.gov.
Tucked away on Seattle's Portage Bay, a sleek, 85-foot speedboat sat idle for years - save for an annual jaunt to maintain its engine.
The Navy paid $4.5 million to build the boat. But months before the hull ever touched water, the Navy gave the boat to the University of Washington. The school never found a use for it, either.
Why would the Navy waste taxpayer dollars on a boat that nobody wanted?
Blame it on Sen. Patty Murray and Congressmen Norm Dicks and Brian Baird. All three exercised their political muscle to slip language into a 2002 spending bill to force the Navy to buy the boat from Edmonds shipbuilder Guardian Marine International.
Year after year, the Washington lawmakers did favors for the tiny company, inserting four "earmarks" into different bills to force the Navy and Coast Guard to buy boats they didn't ask for - $17.65 million in all. None of the boats was used as Congress intended.
The congressional trio say they were helping Guardian Marine because it had a great product. But each has also received generous campaign donations from the company's three executives, its sole employees: $14,277 to Baird, $15,000 to Murray, and $16,750 to Dicks.
This nexus, between Bush Dogs and corrupt practices, just keeps popping up. I've spoken with a number of savvy local political figures, activists and insiders, and by most accounts, Brian Baird's a terrifically smart and cynical Congressman. Whether it was voting for the Bankruptcy Bill, acting badly on Terry Schiavo, or changing his mind on the surge to pull in right-wing support, he's been able to hew a relatively conservative line on some key issues because of memories of Republican Linda Smith, the crazy evangelical he beat in 1998. Baird's upset a good number of local activists with his bad Iraq stance, and rumor has it that he reduced one longtime supporter to tears. He's also upset environmentalists on his logging work, and the distict is shifting along with the country to a more strident progressive and antiwar stance.
With this earmarked useless boat done in return for political purposes, Baird has lost even more goodwill and opened up a clear spot for a primary challenger in 2008 or 2010.
U.S. Rep. Brian Baird said today he'll hold a town-hall meeting in Olympia at the end of the week, giving local residents their first chance to quiz him about his position in support of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq longer. The event is at 7 p.m. Friday evening at Capital High School on Olympia's west side. Baird is under increasing fire from anti-war critics, who plan their own town hall meeting in Vancouver on Thursday evening. The anti-Baird meeting is at Fort Vancouver High in Vancouver.
Baird is a weird, smart, and manipulative politician. He thinks that pretending to listen while holding firm on supporting Bush will matter to his constituents.
If you live in Vancouver, let him know it doesn't.
Meantime, Baird has so many requests for interviews that he already has offered a two-hour media availability Monday, after Petraeus and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, testify before the House.
The House leadership is collapsing on Iraq, but it's possible to stop the limpid compromise in the Senate. Meanwhile, Baird continues to get lots of press for his new position.
Democrats opposed to the war held their tongues about Baird last week. But on Thursday, Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., told Congressional Quarterly: "I'll give Brian a gun and let him go to Iraq and shoot whoever he wants."
When asked about Stark's comment, Baird said, "What was that all about?"
Democratic colleagues attacking Baird personally in his local press market is real progress. And then there's this.
Meantime, Baird has so many requests for interviews that he already has offered a two-hour media availability Monday, after Petraeus and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, testify before the House.
Jonathan Weisman's account of Democratic approach to national security issues in the Washington Post today is worth reading in its entirety, because it shows the mindset on Capitol Hill and why we aren't making progress. The biggest problem are the Bush Dog Democrats like Allen Boyd (the only Democrat to support Social Security privatization in 2005) and Lincoln Davis, who both believe in warrantless wiretapping and use fear of Republican attacks on the issue to justify their authoritarian impulses.
But conservative Democrats and some party leaders continue to worry that taking on those issues would expose them to Republican charges that they are weak on terrorism...
Conservative Democrats, including Rep. Allen Boyd (Fla.), argued just as vociferously that Democrats dare not leave on vacation without passing the White House bill.
"The most controversial matters are the ones that people use to form their opinions on their members of Congress," said Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), who voted for the administration's bill. "I do know within our caucus, and justifiably so, there are members who have a real distaste for some of the things the president has done. But to let that be the driving force for our actions to block the surveillance of someone and perhaps stop another attack like 9/11 would be unwise."
Davis, in this quote, slips and slides between two different explanations. He argues that voters form their opinions based on controversial votes, and then says that the FISA vote was necessary to block another 9/11. The mixture of fear and reactionary instincts is quite revealing. The political evidence for Davis's position is thin. Bush has net negatives on his handling of terrorism, and the public is overwhelmingly opposed to warrantless wiretapping according to recent polling data. In fact, Rove and Bush made terrorism the centerpiece of their 2006 election strategy, and not one single Democratic incumbent lost.
Remember this ad against Chris Murphy, a so-called 'devastating' ad arguing that Murphy's stance against warrantless wiretapping would enable terrorists? The ad moved numbersagainst his opponent, and Murphy crushed his opponent by 12 points. It is simply ridiculous to think at this point that Republicans have an advantage on this issue. It's empirically untrue. But even if you believe the Republicans do have an advantage here, to assume that the Republicans won't run on this issue simply because you threw away civil liberties entirely ignores modern media. The GOP will run on whatever they want to run on, you can't stop them by voting for their proposals. Did Max Cleland's example mean nothing to these people? Apparently.
But it's not just Bush Dog Democrats that are the problem, it's much more pervasive than that. Here's Ben Cardin, a 'liberal' Senator from Maryland.
"If you just say you're standing up for civil liberties, the American people are with you, but if you say terrorism suspects should have civil liberties, it stretches Americans' tolerance," said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who along with Hastings represents Congress on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, a human rights monitor. "It's a tough issue for us."
Among Bush Dogs, the problem is fear and slavishness to Bush. But among liberals like Cardin, it's a poll-driven adherence to conventional wisdom.
If anything, the habeas corpus and Guantanamo Bay issues will be tougher. In June, nearly 150 House Democrats signed a letter by Moran urging the shuttering of the prison. But Moran said last week that he no longer thinks he could muster the votes to pass the measure, even though the move is supported by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Republicans appear to have won the argument with their accusation that Democrats want to import terrorists....
"We can do this, but you have to keep in mind Republicans care more about catching Democrats than catching terrorists," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. "They have spent years taking Roosevelt's notion that we have nothing to fear but fear itself and given us nothing but fear."
The slavishness to fear and conventional wisdom, the misreading of polls and politics, and the unwillingness to lead are remarkable, among liberals like Cardin, strategists like Emanuel, and Bush Dogs like Davis and Boyd. But there's there's also this.
And advocates of a strong push on the terrorism issues are increasingly skeptical that they can prevail.
"I don't think it's that we're reluctant to take on Bush," said Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (Fla.), a senior member of the House intelligence committee. "I think it's we are reluctant to take on each other. . . . If I can fast-forward to September, October, November, December and see where we'll be, we'll be nowhere."
Congress is pretty small, with a little over 500 people. They get along with each other, they are 'office-mates' in some sense, they play basketball together, and they are in many cases friends. Public criticism from a Democrat to another Democrat is quite rare, because it ruins these relationships and makes it personally harder and more lonely to be in Congress. That's actually how you can tell that Brian Baird's 'the surge is working' is quite costly to him, because a fellow House member, Ellen Taucsher, is openly scornful of Baird's judgment.
Building a different set of incentives for decision-makers is going to take a lot of work. The problem is a mixture of conventional wisdom, poor judgment, bad values, a lack of coordination with activists by progressive members, and inertia. Fortunately, the ACLU is now getting very aggressive against Democrats, Nancy Pelosi is showing a harder line, Moveon is cracking down on people like Baird, local activists are becoming much less tolerant of flouting our values, and we're starting the criticism necessary to identify and fix the problem.
To be a part of the Bush Dog Democrat campaign, sign up here.
First let me say that I live in Brian's district and am active in my county's Democratic Party chapter. Secondly, let me say that I have commented previously on this matter to the effect that we will have a primary opponent for Mr. Baird next August.
local activist Paul Spencer, commenting on Open Left
"It could well cost me the next election," Baird said at the end of the meeting. "That's alright."
The campaign was covered in USA Today, on Fox News, the Politico, and in the New York Observer. Anonymous Democratic strategists are attacking me with the straw man argument that criticism will jeopardize Democratic seats, wingnuts are flipping out, and some local Democrats are very very angry. I've heard of possible primary challenges in several districts where Bush Dog Democrats are in power.
It's really amazing what a little criticism from a few of us can do.
After becoming a sudden star on CNN touting the success of the surge, Bush Dog Democrat Brian Baird got incredible pushback from his constituents at a townhall meeting. First, there was a robocall in the district advertising his town hall. Then there was Jon Soltz from VoteVets, who showed up and made his presence known.
He spoke in a high school auditorium that was packed with at least 500 people who were overwhelmingly vocal in their opposition to Baird's new stance. There were also protesters outside calling for Baird to resign.
He was hammered by Jon Soltz, the young, good looking, charismatic chairman and co-founder of political action committee VoteVets.org. Soltz is also an Iraq war veteran, having served in 2003. Speaking calmly and to raucous applause, he said Baird (who recently returned from a visit to Iraq) was fooled "by a dog and pony show" and is unfortunately providing cover for President Bush.
Afterwards, Soltz told me that his goal is to bring Baird back into the Democratic fold.
Another speaker who brought down the house was Zanne Joi, a Vancouver activist with Code Pink Women for Peace. Joi called Baird "arrogant" for trying to dictate how Iraqis should govern themselves and said the war was only about "American oil profit."
A third speaker, who also spoke to tremendous applause, was Jane Lustig from Vancouver, whose main complain was that Baird was not representing his constituents' point of view.
I also talked to several people as they left the auditorium and asked them if they found Baird-who was there to explain his new position-to be persuasive. To a person, everyone shook their head "no way," including Doris Holmes, active member of the 18th district Democrats, who said, "He lied. He's towing the Bush party line. I can't believe he's a Democrat."
This kind of Bush Dog behavior is not new for Baird, despite his vote against the authorization (which is tempered by a bunch of votes he has taken that are actually pretty right-wing on Iraq since that time). And lest we forget, Baird was a TV star on CNN a few years ago because of his behavior during the Schiavo affair.
This is a Bush Dog through and through. And what this town hall shows is that Bush Dog Democrats are not representing their constituents, despite the nonsense of 'oh those are bloggers who don't like that I'm voting my district'. It turns out that their constituents are also pretty angry.
How many times was Brian Baird on CNN discussing Iraq before he wrote this piece? Follow up: does this op-ed, in and of itself, make Baird a Bush Dog? I think it does.
If you already "hate" the national blogosphere, does it matter that you don't trust us anymore?. First follow-up: if you consider what you are doing a "waste of time," then why should I care? Second follow up: is there anything that Charlie Wilson, a man who couldn't even make it on the ballot for the Democratic primary, could ever do that would be worthy of criticism? Third follow up: if the only people sending you approving links are right-wing blogs, are you still certain that you are defending Democrats? Update from blogger in question:
If in six months he votes to extend FISA the way it is you can go after him all you want, I'll even help you. But right now it sounds like that isn't going to happen.
I think we are basically in agreement here. And btw, my math is superior to Rove's, or pretty much any other professional forecaster, for that matter.
Rather than mandating troop withdrawal, why don't Dems just make it illegal for the Pentagon to hire anymore mercenaries contractors? Talk about cutting the heart out of the war, and the military industrial complex, without ever seeming like you are "opposing the troops." Just end the funding for the mercenaries, and you end the war without even mentioning the troops. Is this doable?
If local governments are giving money to corporations, as I discussed earlier today, why don't they get ownership stakes in those corporations equal to the value of their contributions? Seems like those ownership shares that would end the race to the bottom all by itself. The problem doesn't seem to be that we are giving money to corporations, but rather that local and state government are giving money to corporations without getting anything in return. If someone invested several hundred million dollars in a company, and received no ownership stake in return, wouldn't that person be considered an idiot?
Here's Washington state's Brian Baird talking about how great the surge is, how he'll no longer vote for timelines, and bashing Democrats, after spending a grand total of two days in Iraq. This is part of a campaign to split Democrats. As part of the right-wing PR campaign, here's Jerry McNerney bashing Democrats on Iraq to the Washington Post.
But in an interview yesterday, McNerney made clear his views have shifted since returning from Iraq. He said Democrats should be willing to negotiate with the generals in Iraq over just how much more time they might need. And, he said, Democrats should move beyond their confrontational approach, away from tough-minded, partisan withdrawal resolutions, to be more conciliatory with Republicans who might also be looking for a way out of the war.
"We should sit down with Republicans, see what would be acceptable to them to end the war and present it to the president, start negotiating from the beginning," he said, adding, "I don't know what the [Democratic] leadership is thinking. Sometimes they've done things that are beyond me."
This is after a 'clarification' on his blog pandering to activists.
We have a lot of work to do on this Bush Dog campaign. Sign up to profile one of them. And meanwhile, we'll need criteria for figuring out how to add new ones. Baird voted correctly on the FISA bill, but I think it's hard to say that he doesn't deserve criticism. Bush won his district in 2004 by a margin of 50-49.
I transcribed Baird's full interview with Tucker in the extended entry.
