We at Sum of Change, attended a health care town hall last night, hosted by Congresswoman Donna Edwards. The Congresswoman gave a brief speech, and then opened the floor for questions. The town hall was heated, which should come as no surprise. Not only were conservative groups organizing to get people out to these town halls (with detailed instructions about how to act and talk), OFA 2.0, several Unions, and liberal bloggers pushed progressives to turn out as well. The debate was vigorous, but not disrespectful. If anyone came there with the intent of disrupting the town hall, they failed miserably.
We'll go through a round of the Q&A's. I strongly recommend watching these all the way through, the Congresswoman knows how to finish an answer.
On Thursday, July 30th, the Progressive Caucus held a press conference to draw a line in the sand when it comes to the inclusion of a strong public option in the health care bill.
An exciting announcement: Representative Donna Edwards will be answering your questions on Open Left today at noon eastern.
Use this thread to ask Representative Edwards some questions beforehand. Right now the political focus is obviously health care, but feel free to ask any questions you like.
Update (12:11): Representative Edwards is logging on now. Check the comments for her responses to your questions. Also, I imagine there is still time to ask a couple questions.
Update 2: Having some technical difficulties. I am now posting her answers as she sends them to me over email.
Update 3: Votes will be called soon. Representative Edwards has to go vote, but will return soon to answer more questions. I will be posting her responses in a separate thread later today.
Update 4: Another response posted. Representative Edwards thanks everyone for posting questions, and that she looks forward to coming back again soon. I'll see if I can get more answers to your questions later today.
Update 5: Looks like that is all Representative Edwards can do today. I am sorry to everyone who didn't have their question answered--it is my fault, due to technical difficulties. However, she says that she will come back soon, and I think we made some news with at least one of her answers. Representative Edwards is taking the FDL pledge!
As you may have noticed, we busted through our goal of 600 donors on the Better Democrats page. We're amazed and shocked that people here were able and willing to raise this much money on our little ole blog for progressive Democrats in such a short amount of time. I think what it means is that there's a real hunger not just for change, but for progressive change. And that's the key. In 2009, we could be sitting with a Blue Dog swing block or we could be sitting with a progressive swing block. And the difference between the two is immense.
A couple of big donors have stepped up to match donations of up to $3000 apiece for the women on the page. I've moved them all up to the top. Alice Kryzan just got the Working Families party line, which should help her immensely. Darcy Burner, Debbie Cook, Annette Taddeo, and Sam Bennett are all facing tight races, but all of them are winnable. Chris and I have blogged about how the caucuses are divided not just by ideology but by gender, so having more women in Congress will be very important. It shouldn't be a surprise that the Blue Dogs and the Republicans are nearly all men. In 2006, most of the new Democrats were men. This cycle, we need to even out the freshman class.
Now, Chris and I are shocked that 600 of you have thrown some cash towards Better Democrats since we set up the page. But that's still about 1% of the daily readership of this blog. That means that a lot of you haven't given. Well now's a great time, since you can get your donation matched to a great progressive Democratic woman. Even if it's just $5, it matters. So give. And don't be shy about throwing some cash to some of the men, too, they're ok I guess.
Ok, so we made it through that $50K barrier for Better Democrats. I suppose it's time for a little update on how our candidates are doing.
Markos and Crisitunity blog the new Dailykos/Research 2000 poll (these polls are such an awesome concept), which shows the race all tied up at 46-46. It's a random digit dial, which makes this kind of poll more favorable to Reichert since cell phone only and VOIP users aren't sampled. The stats seem to bear that out; Obama's ahead by only 6 points in the poll, and most people think he's up more than that in WA-08. Trendwise, it's very good news that Darcy's gone up by 8 points since the last Kos poll, when she was behind 49-41. Reichert's dropped 3 points and Darcy's gone up 5.
The Mormons are pulling the plug on Prop 8 calls from Utah.
Progressive Democrat Senate candidate Jim Martin is about two points off of Chambliss in a composite of polls, which is far closer than anyone could have imagined a month ago. Al Franken is up by three, Begich leads by two, and Merkley's up by six.
We managed to convince Debbie Wasserman Schultz to back Annette Taddeo, which is not a small feat. Taddeo is in a tight race with Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the district that encompasses South Beach. South Beach. That's the setting of the Bird Cage movie.
Massa's opponent is on the 'death list' of Republicans, Dennis Schulman and Tom Perriello are closing, and Grayson is up over 10 on his opponent.
When Blue Majority split up earlier this year, it took us some time to figure out the right way to add to the Democratic wave. In retrospect, the Better Democrats concept should have been obvious - with our work on Donna Edwards and Ed Fallon, it was pretty clear the direction this community was headed. I'm really proud of what all of us have been able to do with Better Democrats. In the waning days of a campaign, money becomes less important, because the electorate is basically settled. In this case, though, there are so many seats on the bubble, including many of our best Better Democrats (Merkley, Darcy, Perriello, Martin, etc), that a little more cash to bring them up to the level of Obama actually matters. So to those of you who have given till it hurts, thank you. And for those of you who haven't, what are you waiting for?
How's that Wall Street bailout working out for you?
Even after Wall Street panicked Congress into approving up to $700 billion to buy "toxic" mortgage-backed securities, the stock market continued to plunge and credit markets tightened. But a week after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson reportedly told President Bush "There is no Plan B," it turns out there is one: The Federal Reserve, on its own authority, plans to buy unsecured short-term debt ("commercial paper") to corporations needing credit to maintain operations.
"This will keep the credit markets working even if the zombie banks aren't up to the task," Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote at Prospect.org (Oct. 7). "In other words, the threat of a complete meltdown in the absence of a bailout was nonsense and the media once again got taken for a ride by the Bush administration."
Baker, like many progressive economists, favored a direct injection of capital into the banking system instead of overpaying for bad assets, as Paulson proposed.
As I said before, Donna Edwards trusts Barack Obama, and it looks like her 'yes' vote was a result of a conversation with him. She secured a pledge from him that he would "work to provide direct relief to homeowners facing foreclosure by enabling home mortgages to be dealt with in the context of personal bankruptcy and looking at a program such as one that existed in the 1930's to 1950's to work directly with homeowners to mitigate foreclosures."
She used leverage to extract a pledge from him. I still think that her vote was wrong, but note that she got something for homeowners for her yes vote, unlike the yes votes on Monday. Her full statement is below.
Here's their statement. I am leaving now for religious reasons, so anyone who wants to pick up this thread and add more details in the comments would be most welcome. Great progressives like Donna Edwards, Peter DeFazio, and Mazie Hirono are pushing this rescue plan. More information is here.
Meanwhile, Obama is demanding 'no vote' Democrats and Republicans "step up to the plate and do what's right for this country." Congratulations, all of us have just been called unpatriotic by Barack Obama for objecting to the bailout.
You guys are amazing. 43 donations in 12 hours is remarkable, not because of the number but because this site spends A LOT of time criticizing Democratic leaders, so turning around and investing your faith in Democratic politicians requires a dexterity of mind and a realistic optimism that we find quite rarely. We're going to shoot for 100 donations, because Better Democrats are the most important thing we can aim for this cycle. And as evidence, this is what having Better Democrats means.
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR-04), an outspoken critic of the Bush/Paulson bailout, along with Rep. Kaptur (OH-09), Rep. Scott (VA-03), Rep. Cummings (MD-07), Rep. Doggett (TX-25), Rep. Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Edwards (MD-04) and Rep. Hirono (HI-02), will introduce legislation today to address the failures in the financial markets. DeFazio believes that the Paulson/Bush proposal is based on a flawed premise: if the American taxpayers spend $700 billion to buy Wall Street's toxic assets - a plan pundits are calling "trash for cash" - it will create liquidity in our financial markets and will somehow trickle-down to Main Street.
DeFazio's plan is not in any way based on the Paulson/Bush plan. Instead of throwing taxpayer dollars at the program and crossing our fingers that the plan work, the measure will direct the Administration to take five simple steps, suggested by noted economist and former head of the FDIC, William Isaac, to re-regulate the markets and move America towards a healthy financial future.
The legislation will be available at the press conference.
Who: Rep. DeFazio, Rep. Kaptur (OH-09), Rep. Scott (VA-03), Rep. Cummings (MD-07), Rep. Doggett (TX-25), Rep. Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Edwards (MD-04) and Rep. Hirono (HI-02)
What: Press Conference to introduce legislation to fix financial markets
Where: House Radio and TV Gallery
When: 3 pm TODAY
I'm amending my position on a bailout from hell no to HELL YES. Here's a video from the night of Donna's victory, where she thanks OpenLeft for her victory.
We did this. We helped put Donna in office, and she's showing leadership. She's making us proud. And I know many of you gave to her and volunteered for her, and you should be very very proud. For those of you who didn't, you now have another chance to put people into office who will band together, as these progressives are doing, not when it is easy, but when the pressure is on, when it is hard. I know this is an uncertain time, nerves are raw, and we're playing with trillion dollar decisions. But this is when it is most important to stick to our values, to show that progressive leadership IS powerful and IS meaningful and that we will reward those who stand up.
Join us. Give a little today. And in 2009, we'll have a powerful caucus of Better Democrats in the House and the Senate. I can see it now, Donna Edwards, Darcy Burner, Alan Grayson, Jeff Merkley, Annette Taddeo, Sam Bennett, etc.
21:03 - Someone just announced a 10 minute delay to the start of this.
21:28 - "please take your seats, our presentation will take place in one moment" - still alt-rock on the feed. That Michael jackson cover from a few years ago "Smooth Criminal"
21:32 - And we're off, further updates below the fold.
Donna is going to give the keynote on Saturday. She also got on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Science and Technology Committees. The Transportation committee is going to be significant next year because the highway bill is going through in 2009.
Whenever a newly elected Democrat turns out to be a disappointment on a key vote, media messaging, or other campaign, there is a long-standing, knee-jerk response. In such situations, some variation of "well, I suppose you would rather have a Republican in that seat instead," is often brought up to quell dissent and keep the troops in line.
However, in Congress, there are now more than more than enough Democrats instead of Republicans to form a majority. To be precise, there are 236 Democrats in the House in seats that could otherwise be held by Republicans, and 49 Democrats in the Senate (plus two others who caucus with Democrats). Further, all indications are that in November, these majorities will grow substantially, providing Democrats will clear majorities in both branches of Congress of such size that Republican opposition could be rendered inert. In this situation, we are past the point of needing more Democrats in Congress. Now, unless we want a repeat of FISA and Iraq on virtually every issue, even under a vast Democratic trifecta, we have to work to make sure that we elect better Democrats.
It is with this principle in mind that today Open Left is introducing its first multi-candidate Act Blue page, simple entitled Better Democrats. In 2008, progressives do not have to, and should not, work to just elect any and all Democrats in every district across the country. Instead, we need to focus our efforts on those candidates who will be strong progressive voices in Congress, whose victories will help define the 2008 elections as a progressive victory, and whose victories will help ensure a long-term Democratic majority for years--maybe decades--to come.
Starting with our first seven candidates, Better Democrats will endorse those candidates whose victory, in our best estimation, will have the largest progressive impact on Congress as a whole. While there is no single criteria for our first seven candidates, there are several important factors we took into consideration. Endorsing The Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq helps. Being from a blue district that will be easier to defend helps. Also, being a woman and / or a minority helps, given that the vast majority of conservative in the Democratic Congress are white men. Even though it is a generalization and not a hard rule, electing more women and minority Democrats to Congress means electing more progressives. Further, Willingness to speak out against Democratic capitulation on issues like Iraq and FISA helps. Yet further, running a primary campaign against a conservative Democratic in Congress really helps. The candidates who most closely match these criteria will end up on the Better Democrats page.
Our first seven candidates are:
Donna Edwards, the newest member of Congress from Maryland's 4th Congressional district. In February, Representative Edwards defeated incumbent Al Wynn in the Democratic primary, but she will surely face strong, more conservative competition in 2010.
Darcy Burner, Democratic nominee from Washington's 8th Congressional district. Darcy is a long-time netroots favorite, even a blogger herself, and hails from a very winnable, very blue district. She is also the organizer of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.
Jeff Merkley, Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives. After a hard fought primary that was waged largely online, not only is Merkley from a blue state, but he is the only Senate nominee to endorse the Responsible Plan.
Regina Thomas, State Senator from Georgia, who is challenging Bush Dog John Barrow in the July 15th Democratic primary for Georgia's 12th congressional district.
Sam Bennett, Eric Massa and Tom Perriello, who are respectively running in the lean-blue Pennsylvania 15th, the lean-red New York 29th and the reddish Virginia 5th. All three were among the original ten endorsees of the Responsible Plan. Not only will they be a step up from the Republicans who currently hold those seats, but they will also be a step up from the many Democrats who capitulated to Bush on FISA and Iraq last week.
More candidates will be added as time goes on, but for now we will start with these seven. Dollar for dollar, you won't find seven candidates who will create more progressive change for your money than these. Make progress happen--give today.
Here's Donna. Notice the Republicans cheering loudly when she talks about not having time to waste to deal with gas prices - they believe in pushing this drill drill drill message.
This is Adrienne Christian, her new chief of staff.
I spent much of the morning at meetings, and I ended up talking to a former corporate insider who told me how boards vote on decisions. All corporate power flows through a small group of people on Wall Street. Fascinating.
Donna Edwards gets elected today, and will be sworn in on Friday.
Moveon is running this ad, the pundits pan it.
Inflation is kicking up, officially. To put it another way, inflation is now so bad that the official numbers are showing it.
I was at an EMILY's list luncheon today at the Omni Shoreham hotel near Cleveland Park. The Omni Shoreham is one of those giant hotels that could be the hotel from the Shining - bad carpeting, hyper-cooled air conditioning, excessive ornamentation combined with 1970s porn interior - except it's a popular destination for DC conferences and luncheons. I'd have taken pictures, but my camera is finally dead (that fundraising is paying for a new camera, among other things). Every DC organization, and EMILY's List is nothing if not a very successful DC organization, has one of these annual luncheons where they present awards, laud each other's accomplishments, and talk about how important and critical they are to some set of values or pieces of policy decisions. It's not that it's untrue, it is very often the truth, but it's still very boring, a bit painful, and it takes a lot of time to set small injustices right. It's a lot like orthodontist work.
(Thanks again to Matt, Mike and Chris for the privilege -- Tim)
Here's something right up Open Left's alley. We'll be streaming a pair of speeches from the convention today. First, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger talking about restoring the middle class, why politics matter and accountability.
SEIU points to a certain Maryland primary this past February as a dramatic example of it's accountability project. And that candidate, Donna Edwards, will be following Anna Burger on the main stage.
You can watch both, live, in the extended entry (video will auto-play).
Roll Call reported today that House Speaker Dennis Hastert is, like all good retired Republican officials, becoming a lobbyist. He's joining a senior staffer in his office and Al Wynn at Dickstein Shapiro, one of the largest law firms in DC and one with over 100 of the Fortune 500 as clients.
I just read a new paper out by Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox titled 'Why Are Women Still Not Running for Public Office?'. Right now, America is 84th in the world in terms of percentage women in our legislature, with a whopping 16.3% of our seats in the House and Senate held by women. That is not only below Uganda, Burundi, and Cuba, it is lower than the international average itself.
Why is this? It's not, as Lawless and Fox note, because it is harder for women to win than men. And it's not because qualified women don't exist The problem is just that women don't seem to think they should or can run compared to men of similar demographic status and accomplishment. Part of this is cultural, and part of it is infrastructure, as women just aren't recruited as often as men (organizations like EMILY's List and She Should Run are set up to deal with this problem).
One of the consequences of this cultural problem is that progressive citizens run less than their share of the population, and conservatives run disproportionately higher than their share of the population.
Women in the sample, on average, are three years younger than men, a probable result of the fact that women's entry into the fields of law and business is a relatively recent phenomenon. Further, women are more likely to be Democrats and liberal-leaning, while men are more likely to be Republicans and conservative, a finding consistent with recent polls showing a partisan gender gap among the general U.S. population.
This pattern of who runs drives how progressive our politics is quite directly. If you look at the caucus, and Chris and I did last week, you'll see the pattern instantly.
Men
Women
Black
White
Latino
White Males
Non-white or non-male
Total
Progressives
48
23
28
35
8
20
51
71
%
68%
32%
39%
49%
11%
28%
72%
100%
New Democrats
44
14
4
53
1
38
20
58
%
76%
24%
7%
91%
2%
66%
34%
100%
Blue Dogs
42
6
2
42
4
37
11
48
%
88%
13%
4%
88%
8%
77%
23%
100%
Republican Caucus
179
20
0
193
6
173
26
199
Republican Caucus
90%
10%
0%
97%
3%
87%
13%
100%
The more women in office, the more progressives in office. There's good news in the report - since 2001, there has been an uptick in women doing the things that precede running for office, such as building a fundraising network and being recruited for office. And women are inspired across parties by women in positions of power such as Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Condoleeza Rice. In the Republican Party, 17 percent of women, compared to 4 percent of men find Hillary Clinton 'inspirational'.
I think the core challenge for progressive activists is to tell the story of the tough female progressive - the Donna Edwards and Darcy Burner versus the hypermale Jim Webb. It is a huge paradox that the archetypes we celebrate most - soldier, police officer, hard-nosed prosecutor - are typically good fits for men. By fitting this narrative, relatively conservative Democrats in swing or even blue districts like Ashwin Madia, Adam Cote, and Jon Powers skew our politics to the right like Brad Ellsworth and Joe Donnelly in 2006 did, while progressive older women like Leslie Byrne - who really got Jim Webb rolling with her early endorsement of him back in 2006 - have less raw material to work with. It should be quite obvious that the route to progressive change lies with more candidates like Leslie Byrne, Donna Edwards, Darcy Burner, and Sam Bennett, and fewer men like Al Wynn, Joe Sestak, Jim Webb, Jon Tester, Brad Ellsworth and Chris Carney.
Tough, kick-ass, no-nonsense women are a new and fresh way to say 'progressive'. It was nurses who took down Schwarzenegger, and it is women who can break down the 'good ole boys' network that still dominates Congress today. Now it's up to us to start telling their stories.
UPDATE: Northcountry offers this significant comment on Madia.
MN-03 is a great example of this. A strong female state senator (and a life-long democrat)who first ran for state office in 2005 by running and winning in a republican legislative district lost in the congressional endorsement process to an ex-Marine who was a John McCain volunteer in 2000 and a big supporter of Bob Dole in 1996.
You tell me who's going to be more supportive of progressive issues like universal healthcare, reproductive rights, and education and job training initiatives; especially in coaltion with a broad-based progressive movement.
Madia just wants to reduce the deficit and leave 20,000 or 30,000 troops in Iraq. Its great that he's on our side and will contribute to a democratic majority, but does he really advance progressive policies and values?
I'll note that Madia was supported by the netroots and activists over Bonoff. While I don't know the race particularly well, I don't see why someone like Madia, who wants to keep 20-30k troops in Iraq, should be considered particularly progressive, and I don't know why activists should be proud of this one, unless your only standard is that your guy 'won'. 20-30k troops in Iraq is a really bad idea that will lead to lots of death and mayhem.
In his endorsement interview, Boswell talks about how we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein and how the Iraqis have had elections.
Last week, I blogged about Ed Fallon and his race against Bush Dog Democrat Leonard Boswell. Fallon faces a tough race, but got a key boost this weekend. Here's what I noted on Saturday.
The hope for Fallon is that the media continues to report on the race in a substantive manner, and that Boswell's ducking of debates continues to annoy the voting public.
Today, the Des Moines Register endorsed Ed Fallon. Here's what it said about Boswell:
But currently holding the job of congressman doesn't mean a candidate automatically deserves to be re-elected. After interviewing both candidates and reviewing their records, the editorial board can no longer embrace the congressman as the best person to represent Iowa in Congress. Fallon is running under the slogan "new energy for Iowa." On June 3, Democrats in the 3rd District should give Fallon a chance to unleash some of his ideas and energy in Washington.
Why Boswell falls short
Boswell's own record of accomplishment in a dozen years in Congress is relatively light, and, in a recent meeting with the editorial board, he seemed out of touch about some serious issues facing the country.
One example: Boswell expressed skepticism about the financial problems facing Medicare, asking what economists the Register had consulted to conclude the health-care program was in fiscal trouble. It's hardly an issue for debate. The Medicare Board of Trustees has issued numerous reports outlining the trust fund's looming deficits. David Walker, former comptroller general, has expressed concerns about projected Medicare spending. Yet Boswell talked about further studying the issue rather than proposing how to address it.
On immigration, he suggested that undocumented immigrants should go back to their home countries and "get in line" for a chance to come here. That's hardly realistic considering there are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
When asked about Republican presidential candidate John McCain's prediction the previous day that most American troops could be home from Iraq by 2013, Boswell seemed unaware of McCain's statement. When asked about education in Iowa, Boswell said the state does "pretty good." And when asked what he based that on, he said Iowa's history and his own experience. But Iowa's educational system - not to mention the world economy - looks nothing like it did in Boswell's childhood.
Fallon has endorsed Obama, whereas Boswell is a Clinton superdelegate. There couldn't be a more stark difference. Here's Fallon's letter on May 10th to Boswell on his vote in the Intelligence Committee offering retroactive immunity to telecom companies.
May 10, 2008
The Hon. Leonard Boswell
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.
Dear Congressman Boswell:
I am writing today to ask you to disclose to the people of our district how you voted last week in the House Intelligence Committee on Rep. Heather Wilson's measure to add the Senate-approved FISA bill to the fiscal year 2009 intelligence authorization bill.
Published reports indicate that one of the Democratic members of the committee voted in support of Rep. Wilson's measure, thus supporting the Bush Administration's agenda of giving retroactive immunity to the telecom companies for assisting in the Administration's program of eavesdropping on Americans. You were also one of the 21 Democrats who signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on January 28, 2008, asking the House to grant such retroactive immunity to the telecom companies.
Your original and continued support of the so-called "Protect America Act" and of the PATRIOT Act is an issue to be addressed in public debates. As one of your constituents, I want to know why you supported these bills, and whether you continue to support them. In particular, I want to know whether you continue to support granting retroactive immunity to telecom companies.
On a related matter, I am disappointed that you have refused to debate me, and I encourage you to reconsider. You and I both know that, as candidates for public office, we have a responsibility to voters to let them see us, face-to-face, discussing the key issues facing our district, state, and nation. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ed Fallon
Candidate for Congress
We are thinking of doing a special OpenLeft fundraiser for Fallon.
