GUARDIAN: “On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary. Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter. “Accountability isn’t partisan. This was an utter failure of leadership.”
Texas officials have still
not declared a winner in the state’s 28th congressional district, where
incumbent Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar leads progressive lawyer
Jessica Cisneros by 175 votes out of roughly 45,000 ballots cast.
But
as progressives wait to see who will win the runoff race, they cannot
help but think of what might have been if House Democratic leaders had
not come to Cuellar’s assistance. Cuellar secured the endorsements of
the top three House Democrats, and the congressman’s campaign was also propped up by millions of dollars in super Pac spending aimed at attacking Cisneros.
Progressives
complain that House leaders’ intervention in primaries like Cuellar’s
is making it harder for their candidates to succeed and they worry about
the repercussions of the party embracing centrist candidates with
controversial stances on issues like abortion rights and gun control.
The potential victory of Cuellar last week, who has previously received an A rating from the National Rifle Association,
is all the more painful for progressives given the recent mass shooting
at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The massacre, which
unfolded roughly 100 miles away from Cuellar’s district, claimed the
lives of 19 children and two teachers.
Hours after the shooting last Tuesday, progressives watched with dismay as Cuellar crept ahead of Cisneros in the vote count.
Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vented her frustration at House leaders for
aiding Cuellar, attacking her colleague’s policy positions and his
possible involvement in an FBI investigation. (Cuellar’s home and
campaign office were raided in January, but the congressman has denied
wrongdoing, and his attorney claimed he was not the target of an investigation.)
[Crabgrass headline paragraph]“On
the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic
party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under
investigation in a close primary. Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it,”
Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter. “Accountability isn’t partisan. This was
an utter failure of leadership.”
Progressives see a
pattern in how party leaders and center-left groups are targeting their
candidates in primaries. In Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district, super Pacs spent millions
trying to prevent the nomination of state representative Summer Lee,
although the progressive lawmaker ultimately won her primary. Democratic
congressman Kurt Schrader, who had attracted criticism for blocking
important parts of Joe Biden’s agenda, still won the president’s
endorsement and secured the backing of House Democrats’ campaign arm,
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Schrader
officially lost his primary to progressive challenger Jamie
McLeod-Skinner on Friday.
Progressives argue
that Cisneros would have easily cruised to victory as well if the
Democratic establishment, particularly House leaders, had not invested
so heavily to assist Cuellar. In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s
election, House speaker Nancy Pelosi
recorded a robocall for Cuellar, while majority whip Jim Clyburn
traveled to Texas to campaign alongside his colleague. Clyburn’s trip to
campaign for Cuellar, who does not support abortion rights, came two
days after the supreme court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade was
leaked to the public.
“With a margin this
small, it’s clear that a pro-choice, anti-NRA Democrat could have easily
won if it wasn’t for the full-throated support of Speaker Pelosi and
the party establishment in Washington for anti-choice, pro-NRA Henry
Cuellar,” said Waleed Shahid, communications director for the
progressive group Justice Democrats. “Why is all of Democratic party
leadership more heavily focused on defeating an anti-NRA, pro-choice
Democrat than defeating Republicans in the midterms?”
[...] Ezra
Oliff-Lieberman, the electoral organizer in Texas-28 for the climate
group Sunrise Movement, said Cisneros would be the stronger candidate in
the general election because of her ability to energize and mobilize
young voters. Since Sunrise endorsed Cisneros last year, the group has
made more than 700,000 calls to support her campaign.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that it was ‘an utter failure of leadership’. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
“We
were knocking doors in 100-degree Texas heat because we are excited
about and inspired by the vision that Jessica is fighting for that says
we don’t have to live in fear of gun violence, that we can have freedom
to make decisions about our own bodies,” Oliff-Lieberman said.
Looking
ahead to the general election, he added, “It’s going to be hard, and we
need a grassroots base to win. And I think Democratic leadership is
squandering any hope of us winning by alienating young people.”
Oliff-Lieberman
noted that young voters helped elect Biden and secure the party’s
majorities in Congress, and he accused House Democratic leaders of
ignoring the needs of a crucial constituency.
“It’s
so abundantly clear what young people want and how Democratic
leadership is willing to do the exact opposite,” he said. “I feel really
angry that we have put so much into fighting for a better world and to
try to put a stop to so many of the crises that we’re facing. And it
feels like the people who are standing in the way of that are people who
supposedly are on our side.”
Oliff-Lieberman
and Cisernos’s other supporters have said they will fight to get every
vote counted in Texas-28, expressing hope that Cuellar can still be
defeated. [...] They are ready to keep
up the fight, even if Democratic leaders attempt to stand in their way.
“If
anything, I think this primary season so far is just emboldening our
movement to build more power, to keep going, to get stronger,”
Oliff-Lieberman said. “And we know that the establishment is scared.”
[italics added] First, "centrist" and "moderate" are misnomers. Cuellar is a conservative, as much so or more than Clyburn even. It is shameful a dildo incumbent gets the support, and not a progressive woman who is more in line with what the party repeatedly SAYS it stands for.
But we know a lie, we know Joe Bidem, whose entire name of course is, Status Quo Joe Biden, and we know the proclivities of the enemies kept closer than those kept at GOP distance.
It sucks. It is a betrayal of decent treatment of those needed to make the sad, bad, choice keep his sorry, nasty incumbency.
Cuellar may win again. Progressives may go lesser evil again. But leadership, has no more credibility. Besides what Clyburn did to Bernie, this is it.
Opinions can differ, but -
The hope here is that Cuellar loses because of those shenanigans, but the Dems keep a House majority. Of those two conflicting goals, which matters the most? Almost always lesser evil controls. This time GOP House control IS the lesser evil, and defeat of Cuellar is paramount.
First we had Clyburn screwing Bernie, to put Blinken in charge of the White House. Then the Perez thing - collectively against Ellison re DNC leadership. Biden endorsing Schrader in Oregan, where the progressive won the primary. Then this Cueller thing; and David Loeb and Clyburn's South Carolina people going after Tlaib's seat. It is a clear pattern. It has to stop. No more bullshit. That means the Republican wing of the Democratic Party has to show a learning curve and at least a nod to decency. We've put up with enough; so let Nancy deal with "Hunter's laptop" impeachment circus, etc. should she lose the Speaker's gavel over a Cueller loss. She'd care. Clyburn wouldn't like it, while accepting it, staying in a prosperous incumbency.
BOTTOM LINE: Clyburn is okay with donors owning both parties, and the donors don't care. Clinton Dems, McConnell GOP, no difference as far as donors can see; two party fascism running on Mammon Nationalism and the Mammon version of the Golden Rule - those with the gold rule. Buy and rule. Invest and rule.
And, it is a circumstantial inference of the Clyburn animus at play, but a part of the Guardian story with an ampersand above, reads
But
allies of Pelosi and Clyburn see nothing nefarious in their actions to
help candidates like Cuellar, given that endorsing incumbents has long
been a standard practice for party leaders.
Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist who
serves as a senior adviser to the DCCC, said House leaders’ strategy was
practical as the party attempts to hold on to its narrow majority in
the chamber. Republicans need to flip only a handful of seats to regain
control of the House, and they are heavily favored to do so, given
historical trends and Biden’s underwater approval rating.
“At
the end of the day, it’s about 218. That’s the number of votes needed
on any given day to get anything done,” Seawright said. “This is all
about preserving and keeping the majority.”
[...] Mr
Cuellar has been re-elected on many occasions in that district,”
Seawright said. “And I think that means that the voters of that district
– Democrats, Republicans [and] independents alike – have made a
decision that he is a person they want representing the interests in
Washington.”
Why the glossover, "a Democratic strategist who
serves as a senior adviser to the DCCC, said [...] "?
