Author: Matt Stoller

(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.

(From the diaries – promoted by James L.)

I’m really happy to announce the next endorsement on the Blue Majority page, Wyoming candidate Gary Trauner.  Like several of Blue Majority’s candidates, Trauner nearly won in 2006.  He was up against super-wingnut Barbara Cubin, and lost by only .5%, 47.8% to 48.3%, with the balance going to the libertarian in the race.  Cubin, instead of running for reelection, has chosen retirement.

The Republican establishment in Wyoming is in disarray, with a probable field of 5-7 candidates vying for the nomination (the primary is in August).  Possible Republican establishment choices include former state treasurer Cynthia Lummis and Cheney acolyte Tom Sansonetti, both of whom sought to fill the Senate position opened up when Craig Thomas died, and that John Barrasso now occupies.

Though Wyoming is a deeply red state, in 2006, about 25% of the Republicans in the state voted for Trauner over Cubin.  A much higher percentage have voted for the well-liked conservative Democratic Governor, Dave Freudenthal, so this is a place where the electorate is willing to pull the lever for Democrats.  A libertarian populist streak runs through the state, one that Trauner captures with his grassroots-driven and outspoken campaign.  

In Wyoming, as in the rest of the country, people are looking for leadership.  And that’s what Trauner is about.  His blog is peppered with familiar arguments about the rule of law, media accuracy, secrecy, and core constitutional values.  And he speaks out when it’s hard, not when it’s easy.  Here is what Trauner said about the FISA legislation back in August.

Yesterday I announced my intention to run again for Wyoming’s lone seat in the US House.

On my long drive home, I had time to think about what really matters to me this election.  And I kept coming back to 2 things: 1) my belief that we need true leaders who will “do the right thing” regardless of party or political calculation, and 2) my concern that the politics of fear is beginning to corrode our Constitution and our country from the inside out.

Which brings me to the current debate about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (known as FISA), warrantless government intrusion and large corporations, specifically telecom companies.  We hear a lot these days about National Security.  Certainly, we must maintain a strong military to protect our Nation from external threats .  However, there won’t be much left to defend if we fail to enforce the law and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.  As one constitutional scholar recently wrote, “There is no such thing as a ‘patriotism exception’ to the laws that we pass. It is not a defense to illegal behavior to say that one violated the law for ‘patriotic’ reasons.”

Let’s review the situation: First, Congress – Republicans and Democrats – passed multiple laws to prevent the government from intruding in our lives by secretly getting information on American’s communications from private telecom companies. Next, Telecom companies proceeded anyway, in conjunction with our federal government, with the exact behavior these laws criminalized. Finally, the Administration vows to veto any bill that does not give retroactive blanket immunity to these companies.

Granting blanket retroactive legal immunity to large corporations who may have broken the law undermines, at its core, the very notion of American Democracy. It is a slap in the face to every law abiding citizen in this country who believes that laws should be applied equally to everyone, even powerful and influential corporations. Democracy and Constitutional freedom is hard work. Ben Franklin put it clearly as we were forming this nation, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither.”

Forget politics – this is about right and wrong, about what makes Wyoming and America great and what we need to do to keep it that way.   Amending the FISA law to ensure our ability to monitor foreign-to-foreign communications for intelligence purposes is the right thing to do.  Allowing companies, public officials or individuals to break the law and get away it is not.  Ensuring our constitutional system of checks and balances is the right thing to do.   Allowing one branch of government unchecked ability to determine, in its sole discretion, whether or not to intrude in our private lives or follow the law is not.

Blue Dog Democrats tend not to stand up for the Constitution because they think that the public is willing to let the government intrude into every facet of their lives.  They think that convincing Republicans to vote for you is about pandering to fear.  Gary Trauner stands this equation on its head by showing actual leadership.  He actually fights for core Constitutional values, says no to fear, and is able to persuade Republicans to vote for him as a result.

Now, Wyoming is not an easy state for a Democrat, but there are several trends that make this race winnable.  One, there is tremendous frustration with the war in Iraq, and a strong sense that there needs to be a change in strategy.  Two, though Wyoming is an energy patch state and has a budget surplus, it also has one of the highest percentage of people working multiple jobs in the country.  The people are struggling, and the benefits of high energy prices are going to large companies which don’t put their profits back into Wyoming.  

Three, the ‘hook and bullet’ crowd of hunters, fishers and ranchers are beginning to see climate change and environmental damage as a real threat to their way of life.  With more BTU’s of coal in Wyoming than BTU’s of oil in Saudi Arabia, the state is being physically gutted.  Fishermen and hunters are noticing gas rigs in their favorite spots.  And Gary told me that that when he goes to talk to ranchers, he is beginning to hear less about cheap beef imports and more about health care and climate change.  Rancher families that have lived on the same land for five generations are noticing the extended drought and changes in weather patterns, and are beginning to realize something has got to be done to curtail carbon emissions.  

Trauner is a businessman, and he likes to talk about Congress as a board of directors and the President as the CEO.  He told me that any board of a company where the CEO had a bad strategy, used bad information, didn’t plan well, didn’t execute, and was unwilling to consider any other path to success would have a a fiduciary responsibility to put some restrictions on that CEO.  Trauner said that “there is no way you can give someone like that a blank check”.  He will carry this attitude forward in Congress as an aggressive Western Democrat.

The key to Trauner’s race is to appeal to the independent libertarian streak that runs through Wyoming.  Voters are fed up with the establishment and with bad decisions coming from DC, and are looking for someone willing to authentically carve a different path forward.  Trauner’s willingness to speak out on core constitutional principles and his aggressive grassroots campaign are important ways to build that narrative, and his track record in 2006 and ability to appeal to Republicans suggest he can win.  He has after all already forced Cubin out of Congress.

That said, this is not a safe race.  It’s Wyoming.  And Trauner isn’t a milquetoast candidate with your standard political rhetoric.  He’s outspoken and aggressive, not when it’s easy, but when decision-makers in DC just want to pass bad legislation, like blank check war funding and immunity for telecom companies.

And that’s why we need Trauner in Congress.  Because he’s a leader.  And with Trauner standing strongly for the Constitution in Wyoming and getting Republican support, it’ll be increasingly difficult for anyone to use the ‘oh the bill of right isn’t popular in my district’ excuse.  The Constitution is popular everywhere, except, perhaps, in DC.

You can read more at his remarkable blog.

Blue Majority

Gary Trauner for Congress

(From the diaries – promoted by DavidNYC)

The next addition to the Blue Majority page is Dan Seals, who is running in Illinois’s 10th district against Republican Mark Kirk.  The district is one of the bluest in the country held by a Republican, going for Kerry over Bush in 2004 by 53-47.  Seals ran a hard race in 2006, and had a heart-breaking and narrow loss.  Running for office is incredibly difficult; you must work 14 hour days for months, with almost no income, no sleep, limited family time, and no exercise.  You have to beg for money from anyone you’ve ever met, and you get yelled at by activists on both sides.  Meanwhile, voters are looking to be persuaded that they can trust you, and while your arguments make sense to you and your staff, you can never tell if voters believe you.  It is incredibly difficult, and almost everyone loses their first time out.  A successful political movement helps not just those who win, but those who take risks and lose, because without risk-taking, change cannot happen.  And that’s why we’re in this.  Seals gave up his career, his family life, and his privacy in 2006, and we’re going to make sure that he, like Eric Massa, Darcy Burner, and Charlie Brown, gets to finish the job.

As for Kirk, it’s pretty simple why this guy has to go.  He’s considered a ‘moderate’ Republican by many anonymous strategists in insider publications, because apparently in DC, up is down.  Sometimes he breaks with his party when we don’t need his vote, but the reality is closer to the video above, where Kirk ran away from an Iraq veteran so he wouldn’t have to answer questions about his stance on the war.  The camera man is an AAEI organizer named Josh Lansdale, who also happens to be an Iraq vet.  I wrote this episode up in July.

Kirk likes to portray himself as a moderate Republican, and he even went to the White House earlier this year to talk about Iraq with George Bush.  In fact, The Hill reported that Karl Rove came down on Kirk hard for leaking this ‘confrontation’ to the press, and Kirk has quieted down.

Josh is an organizer for AAEI, and his goal is to stop the war by getting members of Congress to come out on Iraq.  In this case, he went to the event trying to get Kirk to go on the record with what he said in the White House and what his current position is on Iraq.  Does he support a withdrawal?  Does he support timelines?  Where is he on the surge?  People who attended the event said that Kirk was wishy washy, but Josh couldn’t get a direct report.  This episode took place at an event where Kirk keynoted eight local Chambers of Commerce coming together.  Josh had bought a ticket online, but was not allowed to attend, with organizers claiming the event had been sold out as they were selling tickets nearby.  So Josh eventually had to find Kirk out back, with this video camera.

The district, blue and getting bluer, is going to eat Kirk alive on Iraq, and he’s pushing extremely hard to be perceived of as moderate.  He’s even going so far as to propose ‘bipartisan’ solutions with Bush Dog Democrat Dan Lipinski, as Kos noted earlier this month.

The Lipinski-Kirk plan calls for a phased withdrawal similar to the one that U.S. Gen. David Petraeus outlined on Monday. Under the plan, one troop brigade would return to the U.S. in December and three more would be removed in the spring, without replacement. It would provide for troop levels in July 2008 of about 130,000, which is equal to “pre-surge” troop levels.

Got that? We’d simply hit the “reset” button, taking 10 months to get us back to the pre-surge status quo. And somehow, this “bipartisan” bill (which Bush will announce this week anyway) is supposed to be a solution to anything?

Nope, it’s two endangered congressmen — one a Republican, the other a Lieberdem — clinging together for dear life in the face of an unpopular war that they in reality support. Their actions don’t change the facts on the ground (the surge was always unsustainable for the long haul). It does nothing to end a conflict in which a solution is far beyond our grasp.

We’ve already got Lipinski in our cross-hairs, and it’s going to be tough to take down the Chicago Democratic machine.  But wouldn’t it be sweet if our response to Kirk and Lipinski’s bipartisan shill plan to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely was a bipartisan response of getting rid of both of them?

Yes, it would.  Please throw a few coins to Dan Seals for Congress on Blue Majority.