Primaries Are Essential For A Healthy Democratic Party

Iconic Photo from the Movie STAR WARS -- Jabba the Hut has Princess Leia in his clutches, and it trying to lick her face with his tongue -- she is, understandably, REPULSED.
The DCCC was not pleased when Wall St. Crony and Corrupt “Good Old Boy” Joe Crowley was ousted from his “Safe” NY-14 seat in congress by an upstart who Dared hold him accountable for his long, lazy, disinterested Legislative Record. Now, they’re changing the rules, making “challenging an incumbent” an “impeachable offense”. If you try it, you’ll be Blackballed by DCCC and “the In Crowd” …Forcing voters to “Take the Representation the DCCC Gives You — And LIKE IT!” Does THIS look like Democracy to you?

The DCCC raised $11.6 million last month, more than they ever raised in any February. Tragically, online donors gave nearly $3 million, at an average contribution of $18.

Most of these donors have no idea they’re feeding their money into the ravenous, bloody maw of Moloch– a DCCC working to hobble primary opponents to corrupt, conservative incumbents.

Last week the DCCC announced a new rule– something they’ve been doing, secretly, for years. Anyone who works with a candidate challenging an incumbent Democrat will be blacklisted. If you do TV ads and work for someone like, say, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez against corrupt establishment icon Joe Crowley (circa 2018), you can no longer do any work for the DCCC or its candidates.

Sound anti-democratic to you? It is, especially when you consider that millions of Democrats in scores of deep blue districts in every part of the country have no way to hold their reps accountable except through primaries.

This cannot move forward.

In fact, AOC is hardly the only Democrat who got into Congress by challenging and beating an incumbent. (And BOY, does he look PISSED about it, too!)

Dozens of current members did exactly that. Last year Ayanna Pressley beat Mike Capuano in Boston. Ro Khanna beat Mike Honda in Silicon Valley and Eric Swalwell beat Pelosi-crony Pete Stark in the San Francisco suburbs in 2012. Beto first won his seat in El Paso by winning a primary against a Pelosi-crony who no longer was seen to be serving the best interests of the community.

When Yvette Clarke ran against another uber-corrupt member, Major Owens, he decided to retire rather than face a sure defeat, whining that her challenge was “a stab in the back.” Current Harlem congressman Adriano Espaillat ran again the corrupt Charlie Rangel in 2012 and 2014, nearly beating him. Finally Rangel announced he’d retire and let Espaillat have the seat, which, because of how “Safe for a Democrat” the district is, is a seat-for-life, without voters being able to turn to a primary.

Nydia Velázquez was first elected by winning a primary, against my old congressman, nine-term incumbent Stephen Solarz. One of Pelosi’s heirs-apparent, Hakeem Jeffries, entered a primary in 2012 against Edolphus Towns, scaring the 30-year incumbent into retirement. In Chicago 1992 saw Bobby Rush defeat Democrat Charles Hayes and in 2016 Dwight Evans beat prison-bound Chakka Fattah in a Philadelphia primary.

Remember Pelosi foe Seth Moulton? I bet deep down she hopes he is beaten in a primary next year, which is how he got into office in the first place, beating Pelosi-pal John Tierney in 2014 (after almost jumping in against him in 2012 as an independent).

Goal ThermometerAnother really right-wing dirt-bag incumbent– this one whining about liberals trying to take him out– is Texas Blue Dog Henry Cuellar who was first elected in 2004 by primarying progressive Democrat Ciro Rodriguez, doing some vote rigging and managing to win the deep blue seat by 58 votes in a shady recount. He’s target numero uno for Blue America and several other progressive groups that help Democrats beat fake-Democrats.

If we don’t push back HARD on this, we might as well have the NC GOP running our party! The thermometer on the right will take you to the Blue America “Primary a Blue Dog” page. Please give generously!


This new move by bone-headed DCCC chair Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL) was, well… bone-headed. She should apologize to the grassroots of the party and to the dozens of good, solid members who are in Congress now– like Matt Cartwright– because they successfully challenged corrupt conservatives. Bustos, by the way is a protégée of Rahm Emanuel. (and we all know how GREAT the Democrats had it during Rahm’s reign of terror!)

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