When I was at Netroots Nation on Thursday, I pointed out why a majority in the House of members with D’s next to their names isn’t as valuable as a majority populated by Better Democrats:
We currently hold a 37-vote-margin in the House. Yet 34 Democrats voted against the health care reform and 19 voted against financial reform. It doesn’t take a genius to see that it barely matters what happens in November when that many Democrats are voting with – and voting like – Republicans.
That’s why you were there for Donna Edwards when she took on Al Wynn. That’s why you were there for Bill Halter when he took on Blanche Lincoln. And that’s why you should be with me as I take on Stephen Lynch.
As a reminder, my opponent in the Democratic primary, incumbent Stephen Lynch, voted for the Iraq War and its continued funding, for the Patriot Act and its reauthorization, and against health care reform, and has voted to restrict a woman’s right to choose.
The differences between my values and Stephen Lynch’s values couldn’t be clearer. Ilyse Hogue, Director of Political Advocacy and Communications for MoveOn.org, highlighted as much when she sat down with Amy Goodman for an episode of Democracy Now! taped on location at Netroots Nation:
Amy Goodman (52:33): Ilyse Hogue, what about other primaries that are taking place?
Ilyse Hogue (52:37): Well, I think Bill Halter was the precursor. What we saw was him embodying a very strong feeling that our members have, and we think is sweeping across the country, which is he was taking on Wall Street. But Blanche Lincoln was also showing a friendliness towards the HMO’s during the health care fight. And, what we’re seeing is the base – our members – saying, ‘Enough with Democrats who think that they’re more accountable to corporate powers in this country than they are to us.
So we’re seeing that same thing play out with Stephen Lynch and Mac D’Alessandro in Massachusetts-09. That primary is September 14th. What’s interesting about that is that that is largely believed to be a safe Democratic seat, so the primary is actually the election. And Stephen Lynch, who is the incumbent, voted against the health care bill even though, at the end of the day, most of the Democratic base thought it would provide some relief. He did not do it as a champion for the public option. He was not there for the public option fight.
Mac D’Alessandro has come in and he’s said, ‘You know what? If we really want this democracy to be owned by the people and work for the people, we’ve got to do things. We’ve got to overturn Citizens United. We’ve got to actually get public financing. We’ve got to get lobbyists out of D.C.’ And, I think that most Americans are looking for action on specific legislation like financial regulations, but they’re also looking for people who are going to challenge the system because the system is not working for most Americans.
The kind of grassroots campaign that I’m running is built upon reaching out to voters directly, on the phones and at the doors. With the help of enthusiastic supporters across the 9th district, we have built a grassroots army that has generated strong momentum.
Just today, it was announced that we finished in second place in Democracy for America’s Grassroots All-Stars contest, a competition that began with ninety candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives from across the country. I was the top finishing candidate among those still in a primary campaign, and I was the only candidate among the top five finalists not from the state of California.
I am running against an entrenched incumbent who has a million dollar warchest lined with contributions from big corporations and special interests. But, if there’s one thing I’ve heard over and over again from voters as I’ve gone door to door across the district, it’s that the voters want someone who stands up to big corporations, not someone who is funded by them.
That’s why I need your support and the support of the netroots. Like Ilyse Hogue said, this is a blue district, so we have an opportunity to focus on electing the best Democrat we can. I urge you to support my campaign so that Massachusetts’ 9th can be represented by a Better Democrat.
Oh workers can you stand it?
Oh tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
–Florence Reece, 1931*
There are sides in history–although the powers that be will always deny it. And if they cannot deny it, they can at least minimize it, trivialize it, dissolve it into a mass of muddled details… or so they seem to think. We’ve seen this once again this week.
Following Bill Halter’s narrow loss to Blanche Lincoln in the run-off Tuesday, Glenn Greenwald wrote a scathing analysis, the bare bones of which ran roughly thus:
The run-off between Democratic Senate incumbent Blanche Lincoln and challenger Bill Halter, which culminated on Tuesday night in Lincoln’s narrow victory, brightly illuminates what the Democratic Party establishment is…. Obama loyalists constantly point to the Blanche Lincolns of the world to justify why the Party scorns the values of their voters: Obama can’t do anything about these bad Democratic Senators; it’s not his fault if he doesn’t have the votes, they insist.
So what did the Democratic Party establishment do when a Senator who allegedly impedes their agenda faced a primary challenger who would be more supportive of that agenda? They engaged in full-scale efforts to support Blanche Lincoln….
Ordinarily, when Party leaders support horrible incumbents in primaries, they use the “electability” excuse…. That excuse is clearly unavailable here. As Public Policy Polling explained yesterday, Lincoln has virtually no chance of winning in November against GOP challenger John Boozman….
What happened in this race also gives the lie to the insufferable excuse we’ve been hearing for the last 18 months from countlessObamadefenders: namely, if the Senate doesn’t have 60 votes to pass good legislation, it’s not Obama’s fault because he has no leverage over these conservative Senators. It was always obvious what an absurd joke that claim was; the very idea of The Impotent, Helpless President, presiding over a vast government and party apparatus, was laughable. But now, in light of Arkansas, nobody should ever be willing to utter that again with a straight face. Back when Lincoln was threatening to filibuster health care if it included a public option, the White House could obviously have said to her: if you don’t support a public option, not only will we not support your re-election bid, but we’ll support a primary challenger against you. Obama’s support for Lincoln did not merely help; it was arguably decisive….
In response, Tapped sniffed:
Remainders: Glenn Greenwald does not have a good grasp on how the American presidency works;
Hi, folks. Stephanie Taylor, one of my PCCC co-founders, just sent out this email to our members.
She's on a plane, so I wanted to share it with the OpenLeft community which was such a big part of the Bill Halter movement experience:
Hey everyone,
Last night was a really tough night. You've probably heard by now, but Bill Halter lost the Arkansas Senate primary to Blanche Lincoln in a squeaker.
The Democratic Party establishment and the White House teamed up with big corporations to protect one of the most corporate-owned senators in America — and they barely won.
Today in news reports, the political insiders are gloating. They're proud that they beat thousands of people fighting for change.
But what the political establishment doesn't realize is that the progressive movement built power in this election.
Bill Halter started nearly 20 points down. He wasn't taken seriously by most insiders. But he gave Blanche Lincoln the scare of a lifetime with the help of a vibrant progressive movement — thousands of people who committed time, talent, and small-dollar donations in the fight for change.
We formed the PCCC last year to create a new model for supporting progressive candidates. This race was an important building block:
First, let me just say that we lost, and there is no covering that up. Even though it was close, a win would have been almost 100% better than a loss.
Now, with that said
Anti-Wall Street messaging works: Blanche Lincoln produced strong language on the derivatives portion of the all Street reform bill. She went to the left of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate leadership in her language. Further, it ended up in the bill that passed the Senate because of her primary challenge, and then she proceeded to campaign on it:
[corrected: had the wrong video up overnight]
Even if the Chamber of Commerce went to bat for Lincoln, that is a strong, anti-Wall Street message.–and it is the message that voters heard Democrats should follow suit, keep Lincoln’s language in the Wall Street reform bill, and run on it themselves. Honestly, it might be the only thing to save them in 2010, as it saved Lincoln.
Very few incumbents are challenged this hard: Primary challenges rarely come tthis close. For all the blather about the anti-incumbent mood, as Larry Sabato noted over Twitter:
So that’s 4 incumbents down, 200 renominated. Um, how’s that “anti-incumbent wave” going, my dear headline writers?
Incumbents almost never lose in primaries. Even the losses that have occurred this year all come with asteriks. Arlen Specter and Parker Griffith switched parties. Alan Mollohan had ethics problems. Bob Bennett faced a caucus, not a primary. A Halter win would have been the ultra-rare, straight-up defeat of a Senator largely because that Senator angered her base and progressive organizations. Those defeats happen less than once every two years. Getting challenged this hard is almost as rare.
Low union, netroots denisty: Arkansas is one of the weakest states for the labor and netroots organizations backing Halter. As Eddie Vale points out, Arkansas is 49th out of 50 in terms of union density. It probably isn’t too much higher in terms of netroots density. If we can come close in this state, then Senators in almost every other state better take notice.
It is a tough night, but there are good reasons to be proud. We might get some good legislation from this campaign, primary challenges very rarely come this close, and it was this close despite Arkansas being a terrible state for labor and the netroots. Winning would have been a helluva a lot better, but that ain’t nothing.
And, most importantly, we are going to keep running these primary challenges, no matter what, bad Dems don’t get a break because of what happened here.
Greetings from Little Rock, where it's election day!
If Bill Halter defeats Blanche Lincoln today, it will send shockwaves through the Democratic establishment — sending a signal that corporate Democrats like Lincoln, Nelson, Landrieu, and Lieberman (I) will be rejected by voters back home when they obstruct progressive change.
I talked about the race last night on MSNBC with Ed Schultz, video below.
This doesn't have to be a spectator sport. Yesterday, Halter's grassroots field team — led for the last two months by PCCC staffers Michael Snook and Keauna Gregory — made a whopping 60,000 volunteer phone calls. Wow! The good folks at Democracy for America and MoveOn have also been instrumental. Can you help today too?
Hi–I’m Forrest Brown, senior organizing fellow at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Along with other groups like DFA and MoveOn, we’re pouring our energy into getting Bill Halter elected – but I wanted to take a minute and pass along Bill Halter’s thanks to all of you.
Progressives nationwide have been instrumental in putting Bill Halter in position to win. Here at OpenLeft and across the netroots, you’ve helped donate more than $3.5 million for Bill, and helped us make calls to over 200,000 voters in Arkansas. At the PCCC, we’ve raised over $250,000 for Halter’s field operation — putting staffers on the ground and talking to thousands of voters on the phone.
Today, Bill said thanks to his netroots supporters in a big way.
As the Hill reports in “Halter thanks progressive allies ahead of Ark. vote”:
Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D) is continuing to pull in significant amounts of campaign cash from national progressive groups. He sent an e-mail to supporters of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee on Monday to thank them for helping him raise $250,000 ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
“Thousands of PCCC members gave $250,000 in small-dollar donations, which went to fund our grassroots field operation and TV ads,” Halter wrote in the e-mail. “You also helped make over 200,000 phone calls to voters in the final days, allowing us take the lead in the polls.”
Halter is up against Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) in the runoff for the Democratic Senate nod.
A spokesman for PCCC said the group “has had senior staffers on the ground for the past couple months, leading Halter’s field operation.”
The photo below captures the moment Halter wrote the note onboard his campaign bus, according to the PCCC spokesman.
We’re less than 36 hours away from polls closing in Arkansas, and this is the critical period to get Halter supporters to the polls. We need your help one more time.
Research 2000 has a new poll in Arkansas showing Bill Halter leading Blanche Lincoln, 49%-45%. This is still a very close campaign, given not only the margin but also the poor record of public opinion polling in primaries.
However, the trendline from Research 2000 suggests that Halter is still in a very good position to win on Tuesday. In the eight polls Research 2000 has conducted of the primary, Blanche Lincoln’s share of the vote has remained static, while Halter has consistently gained:
Lincoln’s support is almost entirely unchanged over the past six months. She has hovered in the mid-40s the entire time, with no upward movement whatsoever.
Given that Lincoln was only 2% ahead of Halter on May 18th in actual votes, given her inability to win over new supporters, and given that upwards of 12% of the vote is up for grabs, Bill Halter looks pretty darn good for Tuesday.
Shortly before Congress voted on health care reform, I posted here highlighting Bill Halter’s challenge to Blanche Lincoln part of a pattern of primary challenges in Democratic primaries this year.
Now, the pattern shows signs of turning into a progressive wave, with Joe Sestak’s win in the Pennsylvania US Senate primary, the results that day in Kentucky, and leading to the runoff between Halter and Lincoln coming up this Tuesday.
On of the most notorious yes-to-no vote switchers on health care was Massachusetts’ Stephen Lynch. Although the woman who was publically mulling a run against him at the time decided against it, it was clear that there would be a challenger, and there is: Mac D’Alessandro.
Barely a third of likely Democratic primary voters in his district say that Steve Lynch deserves re-election, according to April poll numbers obtained by the Boston Phoenix.
Lynch, a relatively conservative Democrat, has been criticized by some liberals for voting against the final health care reform bill earlier this year. In the past, he has also received criticism for his positions on social issues like abortion, and for his vote to authorize the war in Iraq.
However, he has never had difficulty winning re-election. This year, he is being challenged in the primary by Mac D’Alessandro, northeast political director for the Service Employee International Union (SEIU).
I recently met Mac, and my latent frustration with Stephen Lync quickly gave way to a real excitement that this man may go to Congress. I believe he could be one of the best members of Congress we’ll have.
Just in case you are counting . . . there are 5 days left until the AR Primary Runoff. Bill Halter is doing great and you can help push him over the edge. Check out this momentum – Pollster.com puts Halter ahead 47.9% to Lincoln’s 45.2%.
They recently released 2 new ads. One features DFA member, Pauline, and
Arkansan who is ready for change. Take a look, they are both worth
watching:
Pauline:
Signs:
There’s a ton of great energy in the campaign. And, DFA staff and
Members are there on the ground to help out. You can help too — every dollar,phone call, and face-to-face conversation makes a difference.
There are only six days left in the critical primary between corporate Democrat Blanche Lincoln and netroots challenger Bill Halter. Bill Halter has the momentum leading up to next Tuesday’s vote. This race is a tremendous opportunity to deliver a knockout blow to corporate Democrats like Blanche Lincoln all across the country.
Yesterday, Bill Halter rolled out his closing ad from Arkansas retiree Pauline Wildman. Pauline depends upon social security for her livelihood. In the ad, she calls out Blanche’s proposal to cut social security. True to her sellout ways, Blanche wants to cut taxes for millionaires, but isn’t as concerned about preserving social security.
It’s the final week before the runoff election between corporate Democrat Blanche Lincoln and netroots challenger Bill Halter – time for closing arguments. Bill Halter’s campaign just came out with a powerful new ad that features the story of Arkansas resident Pauline Wildman fighting back against Blanche Lincoln’s proposal to cut social security.
“This is not a left vs. right debate. Voters care about who is going to fight for them in Washington against special interest lobbyists.” – Charles Chamberlain, Political Director DFA
Last night DFA commissioned a poll from Research 2000 to see why Democratic voters went to the polls in Arkansas yesterday.
Here is what we found: Democrats in Arkansas want someone who will stand up for them, not stand with corporate lobbyists in DC. And, Bill Halter is ahead in the run-off 48-46.
Update–Cloture vote will fail: Cloture is about to fail. Collins and Snowe voted for cloture, while Feingold and Cantwell voted against it. Specter and Begich did not vote. So, even when Specter and Begich come back, Dems will need to find one more vote. Hopefully, that will be accomplished by getting Cantwell a vote on her amendment to reinstate Glass-Steagal.
***
Wall Street reform legislation continues to unfold in the Senate, with several dramatic developments over the past 24 hours. Here are where things stand at 2:55 pm:
1. Cloture vote delayed The cloture vote on the overall bill had originally been set for 2:00 p.m. today, but is now delayed indefinitely. Senate Democrats are caucusing to figure out what to do next.
2. Susan Collins and Ben Nelson on board, but progressives blocking passage Republican Susan Collins, and uber-ConservaDem Ben Nelson came out in favor of cloture today.
If all other Democrats held together, this would mean there are enough votes for cloture to succeed. However, many progressives–Cantwell (reinstating Glass–Steagal), Dorgan (ending naked credit default swaps), Harkin (capping ATM fees at $0.50), Merkley (reinstating Volcker rule), Levin (same as Merkley) and others–remain angry that their strengthening amendments have not received votes, and as such are not promising to support cloture. In fact, Cantwell just said she does not support cloture, as of right now.
Progressive anger over this turned into chaos–or as close as the Senate ever gets to chaos–on the floor last night. Tom Harkin openly angry at Harry Reid, Senators huddled every which way to strategize, strange procedural moves were employed (see bullet point below for the prime example), and more. Ryan Grim and David Dayen have good rundowns of the events.
3. Big strengthening amendment attacked to big weakening amendment Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin are two of the progressive Senators pissed that their amendment (to reinstate the Volcker rule) did not receive votes. Republicans had been objecting to holding a vote on the Merkley-Levin amendment (unanimous consent is required for amendment votes), and the amendment was also not deemed germane by the parliamentarian for a post-cloture amendment vote. Basically, there was no way to get a vote on their amendment.
So, to “solve” this problem, Merkley and Levin attached their amendment to a horrendous weakening amendment, filed by Republicans, which has been deemed germane for a post-cloture amendment vote. That amendment, filed by Sam Brownback, exempts auto dealers from new consumer protection laws, even though auto loans are the biggest instances of financial malfeasance against consumers, especially military personnel.
Now, to prevent a vote on Merkley-Levin, Republicans would have to also block a vote on the Brownback amendment. From a statement by Senator Merkley:
The Merkley-Levin amendment must now be voted on before the entire Wall Street reform bill receives a final vote. For the Merkley-Levin amendment to ultimately be included in the final Wall Street reform bill, the Merkley-Levin amendment must pass and then the Brownback amendment to which it is attached must pass.
The Merkley-Levin amendment will ban high-risk trading inside our lending and depository institutions to help prevent a future financial crisis and prevent bank capital from being diverted away from loans into trading. The amendment will also end conflicts of interest in cases such as Goldman Sachs and will send a strong message to Wall Street that betting against the best interests of their clients will no longer be allowed.
This leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but it isn’t actually a bad bit of gaming from Merkley and Levin. The best way to approach this is to try and get the votes for Merkley-Levin, and simultaneously work to the Brownback amendment anyway. It is still preferable that the Brownback amendment is defeated, thus defeating both amendments, but at least this way there is no way for the Brownback amendment to pass without a big strengthening amendment simultaneously passing (at a 51-vote threshold, Merkley-Levin should be a sure thing). We can’t get the best of both worls-passing Merkley-Levin and defeating Brownback, but at least we won’t get the worst of both worlds now.
4. Arkansas Senate primary saves derivatives reform (for now) And here is the most dramatic development of all.
Last night, Chris Dodd (who is managing the Wall Street reform bill), introduced an amendment to gut the derivatives regulation that is at the heart of the bill. The original derivatives language had been written by Agriculture Chair Blanche Lincoln. It was pretty strong, as it required the biggest banks to sell off their derivatives departments. Dodd’s proposal would delay implementation of Lincoln’s language by two years, and probably forever, by requiring a series of studies led by people opposed to those portions of the bill (such as leading Obama administration figures).
Dodd had planned this course of action all along, but had waited on doing so to prevent embarrassing Blanche Lincoln, who faced a left-wing primary challenge from Bill Halter. If Democrats were to strip Lincoln’s populist legislation from Wall Street reform, it would cause her real trouble, as Halter is challenging her from a populist and progressive angle. Lincoln can’t afford to look ineffective, like a suck-up to Wall Street, or like someone who only wrote the legislation to get elected.
However, now that Bill Halter not only forced Lincoln into a June 8th runoff, but only polled 2% behind her overall, Lincoln is still in real danger of being defeated in the primary. As such, Dodd withdrew his proposal to gut derivatives regulations.
This is a remarkable example of both good timing, and bow primary campaigns are an effective means of changing Democratic behavior in Congress. Without the progressive pressure on Lincoln specifically, and on Senate Democrats more generally, the derivatives portion of the bill would already be gutted.
****
More developments as they come in. Everything is up in the air right now.
Finally results from the Arkansas primary are still not in but as of this morning the two top Democrats are nearly tied and, because neither reached 50 percent, face a June 8 runoff election. That's just 3 weeks away.
As of now, Blanche Lincoln has 44.4 percent and Bill Halter 42.6 percent. But all the momentum is with Halter.
Research 2000 has been polling this race all spring for Daily Kos. The last 4 polls look like this for Halter:
March 25: 31 percent
April 15: 33 percent
April 29: 35 percent
May 13: 37 percent.
In the same polls, Blanche Lincoln was always within 1.5 points of 44.5 which is almost exactly the percent she tallied last night. She's not likely to do any better in June for several reasons. Turnout for special elections is usually quite low which will favor the candidate with more excited voters. Halter's momentum shows he is overcoming lower name ID. Lincoln's favorable/unfavorable numbers are terrible. And finally, polling versus the Republican nominee shows Halter stronger than Lincoln which may also move Democrats to Halter.
You can donate to Halter here.
It will be an uphill fight in the general but 1) Lincoln had no chance in the general anyway and 2) the Democratic Senate caucus is more progressive without her (and Specter) in it. The conservaDems in that group will be increasingly isolated and have less ability to sway the group. And 3) Halter's primary momentum could help carry him to an upset in November.
