In any wave election, a few long-shot candidates take seats who according to conventional wisdom really 'shouldn't.' In 2006, it was Nancy Boyda and Carol Shea Porter who snuck in; neither woman was endorsed by EMILY's List and both shocked the DC establishment by running effective grassroots campaigns and unseating popular incumbents in a wave year. This cycle, there are a number of other possibilities for this kind of candidate.
Becky Greenwald in Iowa is one, Steve O'Donnell in
PA-18 is another, Debbie Cook in California is another and Josh Zeitz in New Jersey is a fourth. Most longshots have a name ID problem, and one way to raise your name ID is by baiting your better known opponent to attack you and 'punch down'. There are other possibilities, such as running a great volunteer operation or a creative set of ads, but getting attacked is a sign that a low budget campaign is working.
Right now, Josh Zeitz is getting attacked by Chris Smith on radio and over the mail, and Smith hasn't acknowledged an opponent by name in 20 years. Steve O'Donnell got a semi-endorsement of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the paper owned by neo-confederate icon Richard Mellon Scaife, and his opponent, Tim Murphy is going hard negative with character attacks. Debbie Cook continues to close in the polls, and former Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey endorsed her.
I'm so fucking mad about the Seattle Times hit piece on Darcy so I can't really do this justice, but we've added a bunch of Better Democrats to our page. Josh Zeitz, Josh Segall, Al Franken, Alice Kryzan, Gary Peters, and Equality for All are on there. It's a mix of longshots who can win in wave and bring us a progressive House and 60 votes in the Senate, progressives in tight contests, and fights we need to fight.
Obviously conservatives and Republicans in Congress are throwing tantrums about how any additional provisions to the $700 billion blank check are partisan maneuvers to take advantage of a crisis. They say this as if Hank Paulson isn't a conservative Republican asking for $700 billion for his conservative friends on Wall Street. This is an ideological war and they are assaulting America. I'd call it treason but it's legal.
On the flip side, this crisis is our chance to thrash the conservative movement and it's one Democrats should jump on. I've had anti-corruption fighter David Donnolly note that this is a good moment to get public financing through, since it's obvious that our political system is totally corrupt and needs systemic reform. This is a good moment to reform the Bankruptcy code. And it's also a good moment to really shift the rules and help labor (where the hell is labor, by the way); here's a note from Joshua Zeitz, candidate for Congress in NJ-04.
No one is even broaching the topic of unions. Ironicaly, given my trouble with labor, this is the point I'm going to hammer home this week. Thanks to the Bush visit, I'll have a microphone.
During WWII, the U.S. government offered industry a deal: cost-plus war production contracts and expansion capital in return for closed shops. Ford, GM, &c. refused to switch to war production until they were offered these cost-plus contracts, and ultimately, Congress and the Roosevelt administration were able to use both the carrot (massive investment of pulic funds in the construction of privately held plants) and stick (the threat of nationalization) to force the unionization of heretofore non-union shops.
The $700 billion bailout plan is comparable insomuch as it will create a massive infusion of public funds into private firms. Unions are dying, and this is a chance to extend them a life saver. There should be a mandate that any firm accepting the federal funds/buyout of securities unionize its support and clerical staff, sign agreements to use only unionized workers when building new facilities, use unionized (domestic) call centers , &c. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to use government leverage to open the door for unions. Democrats need to hammer that point home. It's how we began raising the prevailing wage and benefits in service industries. This is important.
But all of this starts with a total rejection of Hank Paulson as a bad faith actor. This deal is bullshit. Progressives should pick a new number at random to start negotiations, say, $400 billion or $1.2 trillion, and start there with an entirely different framework. It doesn't matter. This is a political game of chicken, and the administration is acting like this is 9/11 and they have another opportunity to rob everyone blind and then run an election on law and order.
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