Well, you know it's getting close to the end of the quarter when the fundraising letters start coming in fast and furious. But most of the Democrats I know are feeling pretty unhappy with the quality of representation we've been getting in DC lately. That's why it was refreshing to get this fundraising email that eschewed feel-good campaign rhetoric and took the straight-shooting approach.
Hello babaloo,
One person really can make a difference.
In just my first nine months in Congress, I've already set in place an agenda that's preserving the status quo.
Since I am passionate about new energy technology, I was particularly proud of the legislation I wrote and introduced to increase research and development funding for cutting edge, 21st century geothermal technology. That legislation was put on a calendar to be considered for a House vote back on June 21, and no further action has been taken on it since that time. Currently, my bill is on hold while I'm trying to round up a veto-proof majority so I can bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
Two months ago, I was honored to lead a bipartisan, all-freshman Congressional delegation to Iraq. I returned impressed with the signs of progress there and am now more likely to listen to those who want more time in Iraq. While I still favor a timeline, I'm now open to crafting it in a way more favorable to generals' wishes.
I feel privileged to be able to sit down with Republicans, see what would be acceptable to them to end the war, and present it to the president. None of that would have been possible without your support in my campaign for Congress. Now I'm asking for your support again.
After you donate, there's a box where you can share your thoughts and ideas. I probably won't read them, but you don't have too many other choices, do you? What are you going to do, help a Republican get elected?
Thank you for everything you do.
Jerry
P.S. I value your support and commitment, at least when its expressed monetarily. So keep your dollars coming and your opinions to yourself.
Truthout has an excellent article detailing the struggles faced by progressive and grassroots Democrats in key US House primaries last year: CA-11, FL-13, FL-16, and IL-06. At the time, Republicans held all four seats, but considering the 2006 political environment all four would quickly become competitive for the Democratic nominee. The central argument of the piece is that in "lean Republican" districts, Rahm Emanuel favored conservative and wealthy candidates in Democratic primaries, and assisted them against progressive, grassroots candidates in violation of the DCCC's policy of neutrality. This assistance did not come in the form of direct support, but instead was largely in the form of better connecting preferred candidates to an elite group of fundraisers and media types. For example, in FL-13, Jan Schneider, the 2004 Democratic nominee, was not included in fundraising materials the DCCC published on the district:
Schneider claims that Emanuel broke this policy during the 2006 primary race. "Emanuel caused the Schneider campaign to be removed from the DCCC website and circulated solicitations for contributions to Democratic candidates indicating that there was no [Democratic] primary in the Florida 13th," according to a memorandum Schneider prepared.
Schneider blames the DCCC for misleading Senator John Kerry (D- Massachusetts) into thinking that Jennings was running in the primary without any competition from within the party. Kerry gave a $1,000 donation to the Jennings campaign, which was publicized by Jennings as an endorsement. When Schneider confronted Kerry about this donation, Kerry apologized and said that he donated based on assertions by Emanuel that the race was "a targeted race with no primary," and that he never meant to interfere with an intra-party contest, according to Schneider. Congresswoman Shelly Berkley (D- Nevada) says that the DCCC sent her a letter asking her to contribute to races where there was no primary. The letter listed the Florida 13th as a race with only one Democrat pursuing the party's nomination.
This was a pattern that I saw repeated in other DCCC fundraising materials, including documents that did not list Christine Cegelis as a Democratic candidate for the primary in IL-06. Apparently, the problem was widespread for the Cegelis campaign:
Tim Bagwell, a grassroots activist and Cegelis campaigner, said that Duckworth was "hot-wired" into the national media and fund-raising circuit by the DCCC. George Stephanopoulos, who served in the Clinton administration with Emanuel, interviewed Duckworth on his Sunday morning ABC News program, elevating her to national prominence.
According to Spidel, the Cegelis campaign was prevented from accessing Democratic fund-raising and Political Action Committee lists held by the DCCC. Cegelis said that many of the potential donors she contacted had been instructed by the DCCC not to give her campaign money. She felt that she was locked out.
The key point here is that it is not necessarily the DCCC that directly makes decisions on who becomes the Democratic nominee in key US House districts, but rather a small group of fundraisers and media types that can propel one candidate to the nomination by providing them with superior monetary, media, and advocacy organization resources. By providing one candidate with greater access to this network of PACs, wealthy individual donors, elected officials, established media pundits, and advocacy organization leaders, that candidate is essentially crowned the nominee by an elite group of decision makers who collectively have a tremendous amount of influence over the process. This elite network can effectively determine the outcome of primaries before votes are cast, and key Democratic figures like Emanuel can provide candidates with favorable access to that network.
The reason I bring this up is that over the past month, in at least two circumstances the progressive blogosphere, grassroots and netroots has demonstrated that it can actually function in the same manner as this established group of elite decision makers. In WA-08, through a large, nationwide blogosphere fundraiser, the blogosphere effectively chose Darcy Burner as the Democratic nominee for the district. Although it was accomplished through thousands of small donations and earned, straight talking independent media instead of through a top-down group of elite donors and advocacy organizations, the result was the same: Darcy Burner was able to leverage her support from this network into an early end to the primary campaign. In June and July, much the same took place in NY-29, where for a while Eric Massa was facing a competitive primary David Nabchar. However, Massa also won the primary before it began by locking down the support of the local blogosphere and netroots, every local Democratic committee, and a sizable amount of small donor, grassroots fundraising. Again, a network of grassroots progressives effectively played the same decision-making role to force an early end to a primary that PACs, wealthy donors, established media types, elected officials, and advocacy organization leaders have played in many other Democratic primaries. The grassroots network of small donors, blogs, and local precinct captains leveraged such an enormous amount of support for Eric Massa that there was no way for other, more elite networks to overcome it.
Earlier today, I put up a post, "The Courage To Follow," worrying that the Clinton campaign was basing too many of their decisions on poll numbers and beltway conventional wisdom. I received a clarification from the Clinton campaign on one of the examples I used in the piece:
Sen. Clinton believes in turning the page on the failed Bush policies. She has called for robust diplomacy and engagement of both allies and adversaries, but in the CNN/YouTube debate, she made clear that we need to lay the diplomatic groundwork before committing to a presidential-level meeting with some of the world's worst dictators and would not unconditionally commit to meetings with them in the first year.
Peter Daou told me that Clinton's position was not to avoid meetings with leaders of nations like Venzuela and Iran, but just that she would not do so unconditionally in the first year, as per the exact wording of the question at the debate:
In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?
I think that is reasonably newsworthy, considering how the debate has been framed so far. Clinton is not going along with the right-wing position on this issue, as much as Mitt Romney and John McCain wold like to think otherwise. She is still different from Obama on this, and the issue still probably does not have much resonance for many people, but I think this clarification is worth noting.
Now, leaving the details of the policies aside, there is another, more important issue I want to address from my post earlier today. Specifically, I wanted to talk about stating, in public, my worries that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton alike tend to bend in whatever direction the political winds are blowing. Even though it comes from a formative experience in my political life--voting for a the first Democratic President I can even remember at the age of 18, but not getting exactly what I hoped for once he was in office--this is not a worry that I enjoy expressing in public. Mainly, I was wary about writing that piece because it reiterates a right-wing talking point that has been sued about the Clintons, and indeed virtually all Democrats, for quite some time: Dems we don't stand for anything.
There are several tensions at play here. One is the need for bloggers to always be honest, authentic, and transparent. I have always believed that this is absolutely necessary for any independent blogger in order to be successful. Second, there is the very real fact that the blogosphere is now part of the broader progressive ecosystem that is engaged, on a daily basis, in fighting the conservative movement. Unfortunately--and I want to emphasize that I am only speaking for myself here--I can see why sometimes talking points and spin are needed to engage such a fight successfully. (Though I don't think the blogosphere is the place for such talking points, and while I don't think we need anywhere close to the same level of robotic, Borg-like message discipline so frequently visible from the right, I can see why it is important in some forums. I just wanted to point out that I sometimes feel tempted.) Third, there is also the very real worry that we progressive activists do not always know what we are getting from the candidates we help to elect. Consider the following statement made today by freshmen Representative, and Blue Majority favorite, Jerry McNerney:
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