DailyKos, MyDD, Open Left and the Swing State Project are pleased to announce that today, we are adding Mark Pera to the Blue Majority ActBlue page. If you haven’t already read Markos’s hearty endorsement of Pera – and thorough smack-down of Bush Dog Dan Lipinski – go do so now. But let me give you the highlights. Lipinski has:
voted against stem cell research; voted against reproductive healthcare rights (0% rating from NARAL in 2006); voted against gay rights; supported the positions of the right-wing Family Research Council 62% of the time (by contrast, Lipinski’s buddy, IL Republican Mark Kirk, only voted with the FRC 31% of the time); voted to expand Dick Cheney’s warantless wiretapping regime; and partnered with Republicans to support a troop “withdrawal” plan from Iraq which would “reduce” our presence to 130,000 servicemembers – exactly where we were before the surge, and exactly where we knew we’d wind up after (because the military itself acknowledged from the start that the surge was un-sustainable)
And let’s not even mention his ultra-shady installation in office at the hands of his father, after not having lived in the state for years.
But of greatest interest to SSP readers, I believe, is this fact: IL-03 has a PVI of D+10. That’s right, D. While you’d expect a Democrat with a record like this to sit in a pretty red district, IL’s third CD has actually voted for Democratic presidential candidates at a rate 10 points above the national average for the last two elections (59% for Kerry, 58 for Gore). That makes it the 106th bluest district in the nation – in other words, absolutely, totally safe territory for a solid progressive.
And of course, Lipinski is anything but that, which is why Blue Majority has chosen to support Mark Pera. If you can toss in a donation of any size, now’s the time. Not only is end of the fundraising quarter coming up, but Illinois (along with Maryland) also holds the earliest Congressional primary in the nation, on Feb. 5th. We’re hoping to get 500 new donors across the entire Blue Majority page by the end of the week. You can start by booting a Bush Dog and backing a clear progressive.
As always, please let us know in comments if you’ve made any donations to the Blue Majority candidates, or to any other good Dems around the country.
On the web:
Mark Pera for Congress
Blue Majority ActBlue Page
Race Tracker Wiki: IL-03