Tag: Leslie Byrne

In a Comment to DavidNYC’s article, Blue Majority Page: Call for Nominations JeremiahTheMessiah raised a point:

**Our dollars can go further in races which, so far, have received less attention and institutional backing.**

So then why is Leslie Byrne on the list? … getting sufficient institutional support, already has Webb doing fundraisers, has a contested primary, etc.

So what’s the answer here?

Much more below the fold.

I grew up in Texas, live in NYC. Never heard nor seen Ms. Byrne nor Mr Connolly. I only know what I read online.

Matt Stoller wrote the intro when she got the nod, so maybe something got him excited. But here at SSP the endorsement got only one Comment, about the competitiveness of the district, not a word about the horse picked in the primary.

Go back to the Comments on Stoller on dKos — I’ve never seen so much negative feedback about a candidate put on the Netroots/Blue Majority list. (Condensed & emphasis added.)

I can only hope that she has learned from past campaigns. She ran very poorly in her statewide Lt Gov race, and does not have a great history as a campaigner.

Not impressed with her. I was her constituent when she was in Congress, heck I was her constituent when she was a delegate & state senator. So I know Ms. Byrne and still cringe over her proposed law to make sleeping in a room in your house other than your bedroom illegal.

Not to pour water on the bonfire … I live in VA-11 and I’m not sure she’s a good fit for this district … a very edgy reputation, comes across as a bit too ideological/partisan for many independents. The voters in VA-11 are VERY moderate and ripe for Dem takeover but not sure if they want someone like her.

She’d be a better rep than Connolly, but I have my doubts she can win. She lost the Lt. Gov. race, and that was not a race we should have lost.

Andy Hurst (the ’06 Dem candidate for the 11th) endorsed Connolly

Hate to be a wet blanket. But Byrne … tends to be abrasive and obnoxious. She lost a number of legislative elections, including a recent contest for the VA State Senate. Connolly is a shoo-in. Moreover, he’s a fine progressive Democrat.

Just before the VA primary, I got either an Email or a flyer with Byrne’s picture and statement in favor of HRC. Can’t find the original. Ms. Byrne now claims not to have endorsed (her husband works for HRC, as she did during the Clinton years).

Gosh, no … my congresswoman growing up, one of the worst attendance records in the VA State Senate … a competitiveness that many find abrasive, a history of alienating colleagues. I voted for her in 2005, but that doesn’t mean I believe she is the best candidate.  Not by a long shot.

I’ll say this: The hope is Leslie Byrne has learned something over the last 15 years. In 1992 my wife and I volunteered for her campaign – worked the phones, licked the envelopes, walked the neighborhoods. She won! In 1994 we called to offer our help: “We don’t need you” we were told …

Altogether only 50 Comments, very few for a frontpage article on dKos. And 5 or 10 were sort of off-topic. Above I tried to avoid quoting anyone more than once. So a huge share of the Comments were decidedly negative.

Oh, yeah. About her bad guy opponent. Gerry Connelly’s website, on the Issues:

“I bring a passion for progressive values, and an ethic of getting things done. I want to bring that same ethic — the expectation that government will work for its citizens — to Congress.”

End the War in Iraq

For 10 years, Gerry Connolly was a senior staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has the experience to work with the new administration to end the war in Iraq and restore American credibility around the world.

Enact Comprehensive Health Care Reform

The next President and Congress must act boldly to control rising health care costs and provide quality, affordable care for the 47 million uninsured Americans. Connolly will work with a broad coalition to design a plan that emphasizes preventive coverage and makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage for preexisting conditions.

Provide Strong Environmental Leadership

Connolly worked with the Sierra Club to champion the “Cool Counties” initiative to combat global warming. In Congress, he will lead the effort to promote energy conservation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

They say Connolly is pro-business and pro-developer. Well, I hope it takes more than being “pro-business” to get your opponent endorsed around here. And “pro-developer.” Dayum, I thought that was a job requirement for his current position. Somebody wanna work up a short list of all the anti-development county execs elected in the last few decades?

I was very disappointed to see this intervention in a hotly contested primary where for the life of me I cannot see national implications.

This endorsement runs the risk of diverting thousands of dollars from candidates and races that clearly meet the declared standards of the Blue Majority page. When you put Gary Trauner or Joe Garcia on the list, I get excited. Leslie Byrne, not so much.

VA-10 is one of the richest districts in the U.S., part of the extremely costly Washington-Baltimore media market. Now precious Blue Majority dollars will be poured into a big spending primary against a well-funded and popular Democrat, a self-described anti-War progressive. To me that’s a wanton waste of our resources.

(Our dollars can go further in races which, so far, have received less attention and institutional backing.)

Less attention than a costly open-seat race in a newly competitive battleground state?

How blue is the district or state?

Well, how blue is VA? How blue is this district? Is this the one where Blue Majority can make the most difference? Or would that have been Tom Perriello, VA-5, against Virgil Goode? Or even Judy Feder against in VA-10 against Frank Wolf?

In conclusion [insert roar of applause here] the standards for endorsing in a contested primary should be extremely high. If the high hurdles aren’t met, hold off until a nominee is chosen.

Meanwhile put the emphasis back on races like Steve Sarvi in MN, Sam Bennett in PA, Tom Perriello VA-5, Kay Barnes in MO-06, Vic Wulsin in OH-02, Jane Mitakides in OH-03, Anne Barth in WVa-02, Annette Taddeo in FL-18, Betsey Markey in CO-04, — either Ann Kirkpatrick, the front runner, or Mary Kim Titla, a Native American, AFTER the primary — in AZ-01, Jill Derby in NV-02, Debbie Cook in CA-46, or even Chris Rothfuss (WY-Sen).

DavidNYC, you guys need to keep a closer eye on Matt Stoller. Sometimes over there those guys go off and see Bush Dogs where there are none, ya now what I mean?

(From the diaries – promoted by DavidNYC)

I grew up in Miami, a region dominated by Cuba politics, so I have some knowledge of how significant Joe Garcia’s candidacy is in South Florida.  It is a direct challenge to the pay-to-play foreign policy apparatus of the United States, one where sugar interests and right-wing politics determines that we should have a pointless embargo against the Cuban people.  But today I want to announce that we have another significant nomination for the Blue Majority page: Leslie Byrne for Virginia’s 11th district.

Republican Tom Davis is retiring this year, and the district is a good pickup opportunity.  Jim Webb won the district 55%-44% in 2006, Tim Kaine won the district 56%-42% in 2005, while John Kerry lost it by 50-49% in 2004.  It is turning sharply blue; Tom Davis’s wife, Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, lost to Democrat Chap Petersen by 11 points in a race for state Senate.

With such a ripe pickup opportunity, the primary is ferocious.  The Washington Post frames the primary fight within the Democratic party as follows:

Leading the pack are two of the state Democrats’ biggest personalities: Leslie L. Byrne, a former congresswoman, state delegate and state senator with deep roots in the party’s progressive wing, and Gerald E. Connolly, a Latin-quoting, pro-business Democrat who, as chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, represents one in seven Virginians.

Byrne is the long-time progressive movement candidate facing off against developer ally Gerry Connolly.  Byrne’s progressive credentials are first-rate; a liberal member of Congress from 1992-1994, she was an opponent of the war in Iraq from day one, endorsed Howard Dean in 2004, is a favorite of the local netroots, and endorsed fellow war opponent Jim Webb early on.  That endorsement was critical and provided Webb’s campaign with an early boost of legitimacy in his primary against lobbyist Harris Miller, who supported the war in Iraq and thought Bush’s tax cuts were “a great idea”.  Webb defeated racist Republican George Allen narrowly because he presented a clear choice on economic inequality and the war in Iraq, and has turned around and endorsed Byrne’s campaign.

Leslie Byrne has also been endorsed by Raising Kaine, Not Larry Sabato, Anonymous Is a Woman, 750 Volts, and Bryan Scrafford.  To contextualize these endorsements, understand that the Virginia blogs are probably one of the most sophisticated group of progressive bloggers in the country; they helped put Tim Kaine and Jim Webb into office, and the state in play for 2008.

This is a nasty fight, with Connolly up by 22 in his polling and Byrne up by 10 in her polling.  Connolly is generally seen as heavily tied to developers (see all the coming soon on his campaign’s endorsement list), while Byrne’s endorsement list is pretty impressive and shows her commitment to progressive values:

UAW Virginia, CWA, IUPAT, Ironworkers, Plumbers, Operating Engineers, Heating and Asbestos Workers, Washington DC Building Trades Council, AFSCME Virginia, Boilermakers, Operating Engineers, EMILY’s List, UAW International, National Women’s Political Caucus, and EMILY’s List.  

If she win the primary and the general, Byrne will be a great member of Congress.  I emailed back and forth with her over our standard set of questions focusing on key moments of progressive leverage in Congress; the war funding vote in 2007, the FISA vote in 2007, and retroactive immunity for the telecommunications industry.  Here are her responses.

1) How would you have voted on the war funding bill that the Democrats passed in May?

I would have voted against the war funding bill. I have been on record since January,2003 as being against the war and the occupation of Iraq when a dozen former members of Congress and I sent a letter to President Bush not to embark on this foolhardy war.

2) What is your position on the Protect America Act that went through Congress in August, the bill that extended the President’s eavesdropping power3?

I would have voted against it. Warrantless wiretapping, cutting courts out of the process and giving the power to the administration, under any fair reading of the Constitution should be illegal.

3) What is your position on retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies?

I’m against immunity.  The telecommunications companies  who complied (not all did) have some of the highest priced legal talent available. They should have asked for a court ruling before handing over their customers records. I was very pleased that the US House found their voice on this issue.

Byrne has also signed on to the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, showing leadership now as a candidate for office and facing withering attacks because she spoke out substantively to change the conversation on national security.  

Even though many of us are political junkies, we don’t get many chances to really impact politics in this country.  Primaries, though, are the moments when our influence is felt most keenly, because it is at those times when Democratic activists and Democratic voters really shape the party’s direction.  It’s hard to have a clearer choice than the one presented in this primary in Virginia, so if you want to put money to where it will really matter, give $50 to Leslie Byrne, and let’s send another progressive Democrat to support the fight we started years ago.

Give to Leslie Byrne through Blue Majority

Leslie Byrne for Congress

UPDATE:  Right now, Blue Majority is at 5534 donors.  Since we started the page, here’s what our candidates have done:  Donna Edwards won a primary, Bill Foster is a member of Congress who was pivotal in the FISA fight, Al Franken is winning his primary, Joe Garcia is presenting a fundamental challenge to the fruitless embargo against Cuba, and Darcy Burner and Eric Massa have presented a substantive and responsible plan to end the war in Iraq.  I’d say we got our money’s worth.

One point to note is that these are the salad days of progressive change, with Republicans dropping like flies.  We will not face an environment like this for years, so it is right now when your money matters.  We’ve seen the change that our candidates are already making.

It’s time to support them, so throw in $75 if you can.  Blue Majority is setting a goal of getting to 6500 donors by the end of the quarter.  If you haven’t given, now’s the time.  I just threw in $100.  And now, courtesy of Actblue’s new user account feature, you can store your donation history.  Here’s mine.