I wasn't around the blogs during last years primary mess but I'm still learning to hate the national blogs. Matt Stoller, Chris Bowers, and the other members of Open Left have decided to launch a campaign against the following Democratic members of the House of Representatives that they've dubbed the "Bush Dogs", a play on the Blue Dogs.(…)
As you can see the list includes two Ohio Rep.'s, Zack Space and Charlie Wilson.
Now it's one thing for people who know the district to complain, it's another for someone that knows absolutely nothing to start meddling around. Sure Space and Wilson haven't always voted the way we've wanted but have they looked at their districts?
Christ but I am pissed. We're half a year from the caucuses and out-of-staters from our own movement butt in and tell us who to support? How could this have possibly passed any sane netivist's radar? How is this one iota different than the DSCC fucking with last year's primary?
Chris Bowers invited me into his BlogAds group, and I have always thought well of him. I never dreamed that he or one of his groups would barge into Minnesota and screw with our process. Never.(…)
No more. I just decided to endorse Mike Ciresi. And if Chris Bowers' Blue Majority/Act Blue wants to butt into any other primary races between qualified progressives anywhere else in the country, I'll be endorsing the other candidate in those races as well even though I feel strongly that outsiders shouldn't butt into primaries unless one or more of the candidates really bite.
Considering the comments to the later post in particular, these are not the only two bloggers upset with an out of state activist like me "meddling" in elections and with Democratic members of the US House elsewhere in the country. Even apart from me, these are complaints that I see pop up in many elections concerning many groups. Since I see these complaints often, and since I do not think they are very well founded, I would like to take some time to address all of these issues raised here as clearly and concisely as I can:
I'm intrigued by the recent appearance of progressive Democrats in states like Alaska, Montana, Virginia, Ohio, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Texas. Texas Senate candidate Rick Noriega's appearance on Firedoglake illustrates that this guy is progressive and forward-looking, but not a coastal liberal. That's true with Sherrod Brown as well, who recently told off the DLC, and to a lesser extent, Jon Tester and Jim Webb. What unifies these states is that they all contain extractive industries, either coal or oil. They are like America's OPEC, with the inherent corruption that such resource intensive regions imply, so it is not an accident that Democrats tend to be elected in these states on anti-corruption platforms like that which sunk Conrad Burns in Montana.
These states all have a direct interest in the current fossil fuel and resource extraction economy, with all the subsidies that implies. They are the natural home of the Blue Dogs and people like Dick Gephardt Democrats. Southern extractive states rely much more on military and aerospace expenditures and as such have become more right-wing in recent years, whereas Western states have ranching and farming and a stronger legacy of environmentalism and libertarianism.
Coal cuts through extractive states, and is enormously powerful. This Grist interview with Senator Clinton on coal should give you a sense of how much of a role it plays.
What role will coal play in your plan?
I think we have got to take a hard look at clean coal. I have advocated carbon sequestration, I have advocated power plants looking for ways to use coal more cleanly and efficiently. I doubt very much that using coal in liquid form for transportation could ever pass the environmental test, but I am willing to do the research to prove one way or another.
The political pressure [to use coal] will remain intense, and I think you have got to admit that coal -- of which we have a great and abundant supply in America -- is not going away.
Freshmen Democrats Charlie Wilson, Zack Space, and Chris Carney are all proposing 'clean coal' expansions. Now, clean coal as a technology doesn't exist, but these people are pushing it for political reasons. That's a very bad thing for a progressive coalition.
As we think through how to get progressive Democrats elected in extractive industry states, we need to figure out how to elect people who will be able to move their states off of the fossil fuel energy basis. I asked Rick Noriega about this, and here's what he said.
Second, you are right. Our state depends a lot on the energy industry to drive our economy. As long as we have to burn things to produce things in Texas, we've got to push clean burning natural gas. We've got to push new technologies and innovations. Texas has to lead the way in this arena or else we will become the next rust belt.
There are models here. Lots of people in these states don't benefit from the fossil fuel economy, and if they can be registered and turned out that's enough. These states also have high union densities, though often in extractive industries. In Texas, it's Latinos, and in Montana, it was young people that put Tester over the top. The temptation is, as it was in Indiana where we picked up three Blue Dogs, to play to the conservative corporate instincts that eventually brings in coal money and shreds our Constitution.
I'm curious if you have any thoughts or comments on the politics of extractive industrial regions. I'm just starting to learn about this area.
STATE BLOGS
