Jared Polis has taken the lead over Joan Fitz-Gerald in the Colorado 2nd primary. With 16% reporting, Polis is up 43.2% to 39.1%. Polis is openly gay, and if he is elected, he'll be the first openly gay challenger to be elected to Congress (other out members came out after they were elected). As many in the comments note, Tammy Baldwin was out when she was elected. So Polis is the first openly gay male challenger elected.
This was a weird primary, with the immensely wealthy Polis putting $5 million of his own money into the race to defeat Fitz-Gerald, a state legislator and darling of EMILY's List. Fitz-Gerald has deep ties to the mining industry and is quite favorable to the oil industry, but has been a reliably liberal vote on most social issues. Polis would be the first Congressman elected as an openly gay man, so this is a big deal from a national perspective.
Polis is also one of the four major funders of the Colorado progressive infrastructure that has revolutionized the state's politics over the last four years. You'd think that this would give him a large advantage in the race, but Tim Gill, another gay billionaire who has also funded Colorado's progressive infrastructure, has been putting money into a 527 against Polis.
It's a very strange primary. I'm a fan of Polis, because he endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq while Fitz-Gerald ignorantly bashed it. I also think Polis is innovative, young, and web 2.0-embracing (he comments on flickr pictures), while Fitz-Gerald strikes me as someone cut in a more traditional political mold.
Stay tuned. This one could be ground-breaking.
UPDATE: A savvy friend tells me that the high turnout is very good for Polis.
UPDATE AGAIN: A source just told me that Polis has won and that the other candidates have conceded. This is a major first, the first openly gay challenger elected to Congress.
In the last couple days, there have been several posts across the blogosphere citing what various candidates running for Congress have said on FISA and retroactive immunity for the telecoms. But so far, it's been all over the map. I'll try to corral all their statements into this diary, so you can see who the "good guys" are.
First, let's start off with the current House and Senate members who voted against this bill. They do deserve credit, as it's their jobs on the line.
Follow me below the fold to see the dozens of Democratic challengers who are standing up for the Constitution, and are against this FISA bill and retroactive immunity.
I'm curious about the release of McCain's medical records. He's a 71 year old guy with three bouts of cancer, and yet the AP is saying he has a clean bill of health. Maybe that's true. But isn't the story really as follows?
The campaign is allowing a small pool of reporters (including NBC) access to McCain's medical records from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm ET in a conference room at the Copper Wind Resort in Phoenix. The reporters are allowed to take notes but not remove or photocopy the records.
Halliburton contacted Congressional candidate Jared Polis in CO-02. Polis has been sharply critical of the company, and the company's letter calls Halliburton 'an American success story'.
In yet another sign of his pivoting toward the general election, Senator John McCain said at a roundtable with business leaders here today that comprehensive immigration reform should be a top priority for the next president.
In other news, SEIU is blasting McCain's recent health care proposal and McCain's health checks out, if you believe a cloistered set of reporters who got to review 1000 pages of medical records for a few hours.
Leslie Byrne and Gerald Connolly are neck and neck in VA-11, with the latest polling showing Connolly leading Byrne 37-34.
Democrats Work and Wes Clark are teaming up with the program 'Serve with a General'. They will go to one Congressional district and jointly do a community service event. You can help pick the district here.
Comcast and Cox filtering the internet and blocking file sharing traffic might be a felony.
Michigan Liberal criticizes the DNC and the Michigan Democratic Party for violating their charter and refusing to hear complaints about seating the Michigan delegation. Michigan Liberal is the blog not given credentials to the convention, because of this legacy of holding the party accountable.
It was towards the end of the campaign in 2006 and we were running well back in the polls. Bill Clinton and Karl Rove, the leaders of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce - they had all lined up behind incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman. Then we received a call that Senator Ted Kennedy wanted us to join him at a rally at a senior center in Bridgeport.
Coal Is Dirty from DeSmogBlog launches to take on the myth of 'clean coal'.
Lots of rumors about Hillary as VP, nothing credible. One of the annoying parts of dealing with the VP game is that it's basically a choice by one man, Barack Obama, and yet he has hundreds of people around his campaign who play themselves off as 'senior' and pass rumors to each other and the press. And this isn't just about feeling important, it's about running a campaign for their preferred VP pick. I've heard a lot of rumors about Chuck Hagel, for instance, but there are a good number of Hagel boosters in the Democratic foreign policy establishment for a lot of (good and bad) reasons.
We've documented a variety of problems caused by the EMILY's List model of politics, including the execrable 11% victory rate for EMILY's List endorsed Democratic House candidates in 2006. I've heard some grumblings from donors who are frustrated at the fairly conservative leanings of many of their candidates and the general lack of accountability in the process. It's getting a bit worse. At the end of the last quarter, EMILY's List sent out a fundraising pitch for Joan Fitzgerald, a Democrat running in a contested primary against Jared Polis, a progressive and wealthy businessman in Colorado, for the second Congressional district. It's a safe seat.
EMILY's List has been sending out materials angering their local donors calling Polis a conservative and making pitches like this: "Will you help Fitz-Gerald keep this critical seat in Democratic hands". The seat is safe, so this argument is dishonest. Furthermore, Polis is not a conservative; he was in fact on the EMILY's List Majority Council and was endorsed by former EMILY's List candidates Peggy Lamm, Pat Schroeder, Angie Paccione and Josie Heath.
There are a variety of other dishonest claims that EMILY's List is making about Polis on behalf of Fitzgerald, and it makes sense for them to work for her election. That's their mandate. But the way it's happening is rubbing a number of their donors the wrong way. EMILY's List is making claims similar to their dishonest arguments in Massachusetts 5th around choice on behalf of Nikki Tsongas, only this time, they have attacked one of their own supporters quite viciously, and this is inadvertently reducing the organization's credibility. People give to EMILY's List to promote female candidates, to promote progressive candidates, and because they believe their money isn't being wasted. By lying about the Republican threat to the seat (there isn't one, it's a PVI D+8 seat), they are reducing their own credibility that they are using resources wisely elsewhere. And by misleading people about Polis's record, the group is muddling the brand that they are progressive.
Some of their donors are quite shocked, and are beginning to wonder if EMILY's List is making false claims in its pitch for resources elsewhere. I have seen up close how helpful the group can be, but there seem to be serious structural flaws that Ellen Malcolm has not yet seen fit to address. You can't simply lie about your friends anymore and expect to escape accountability.
Both Chellie Pingree (ME-01) and Jared Polis (CO-02) are being criticized by primary opponents for signing on to the Responsible Plan. Pingree is being attacked for signing on to this plan because it doesn't include timelines or defunding. War supporter Adam Cote is accusing her of inconsistency, and the long-shot Ethan Strimling is proudly saying he refused to sign on to the plan because it is "inconsistent with my belief that we need to leave Iraq now." I invited Strimling to sign on, and his campaign chose to respond through the press.
It's important to understand that the critiques from both the long-shot candidates like Strimling and the war supporters like Cote are essentially the same, and the consequence will be to prolong the war. If Congress were to successfully impose a timeline, the war would continue, it would just continue by increasing the use of mercenary soldiers and covert operations. Only by doing a comprehensive approach - diplomacy, ending the funding of Blackwater, ending torture, restoring checks and balances - can we actually end this war. And only by doing so with a band of other challengers, so there will be a strong group coming into Congress as a group, can these policies be implemented.
In a lot of ways, it is the institutional momentum from both the traditional liberal messaging and the conservative establishment that is keeping the war going. Jared Polis in Colorado's 2nd is also facing a criticism from establishment Democrat Joan Fitz-Gerald on the lack of timelines in the plan. Of course, like Pingree, Polis supports timelines, and there's nothing in the plan inconsistent with that. The disingenuous messaging from Strimling, Fitz-gerald, Cote, and others is to be expected, as these are elections and they are trying to win against a very powerful argument.
More significant is the debate that we have to have about changing the conversation on national security and moving it away from simple tools like timelines and towards more comprehensive approaches that actually restore our constitutional checks and balances. For instance, if the next President rejects a timeline and moves money from other parts of the military to support the war, what then?
And indeed this is a very real danger. Politically, the easiest scenario for the next President to take is to withdraw most of the troops and substitute in a dirty war using firms like Blackwater. Tom Hayden has warned about this possibility. Only a responsible approach, which looks at all our institutional problems, can avoid this scenario. That is why this plan makes sense, and why timelines aren't and cannot be enough to end the torture, use of armed contractors, and incentives for an irresponsible national security state.
Democrats Work is launching the first-of-its-kind Coats and Cans Primary in Colorado's 2nd Congressional District. This innovative "straw poll" urges supporters of the three Democratic candidates - Jean Fitz-Gerald, Jared Polis, and Will Shafroth - to demonstrate their support by donating needed items to local charities and serving their communities. Come out and "vote" for your favorite 2nd Congressional District candidate by donating coats and canned goods at upcoming Democrats Work service events. The first "polling place" opens on Sunday in Broomfield. Stuffing the ballot box is encouraged!
One can = one vote; one coat = five votes! Follow the voting here.
Open seats, not primaries are the best places where progressives have the most leverage of the Democratic Party. And right now, there's a vicious one in Colorado's 2nd, the seat cautious liberal Mark Udall is vacating to run for the Senate. The race pits Jared Polis, an openly gay progressive businessman and philanthropist, against Joan Fitz-Gerald, an Emily's List candidate and President of the Colorado State Senate (there's a third and largely irrelevant candidate). It's an interesting microcosm of the larger debate in the party, because While Fitz-Gerald was voting to approve Bush's war in Iraq, Polis was protesting the war. Now Fitz-Gerald is claiming that she was lied to by George Bush, while Polis is ripping her for her support of the war. When pressed, Fitz-Gerald argues that Polis does not support the troops.
As for her 2003 vote in support of removing Hussein, Fitz-Gerald said voters should view it in "historical context."
"We were lied to about Saddam Hussein's capabilities," she said. "I'm the one with the voting record and I suppose that makes me fair game."...
Polis, a Boulder Democrat, called on Fitz-Gerald to "apologize for voting twice to praise the leadership of President Bush on the matter of Iraq." The second resolution, which passed unanimously in 2003, focused on supporting the troops but also "commended" Bush's leadership.
Fitz-Gerald campaign manager Mary Alice Mandarich questioned whether Polis supports the troops and said she was disappointed he was "attempting to divide us on the most critical issue facing the nation."
I couldn't see any clear distinctions in this race until now, as I do have sympathy for someone in Fitz-Gerald's position. I mildly supported the war since I trusted the elites like Ken Pollack and Tom Friedman; the right response to being duped is to learn from the experience and not trust the old arguments that led you to a place of misjudgment. So when a candidate breaks out the old 'supporting the troops' canard against someone who was right on the war, well, that's a problem, because it means that Fitz-Gerald has learned nothing.
STATE BLOGS
