Congressional Candidates Like Bernie Are The Good Candidates-- Others... Not So Much

Bernie was on Face the Nation yesterday and it was an outstanding session. I urge you to watch the whole thing. Bob Costa wanted to talk with him about something he said while campaigning for Biden in New Hampshire about the Democratic Party rejecting its corporate wing. “Biden and his administration,” he responded, “have made some real progress in addressing issues that have not been dealt with in decades. We finally took on the pharmaceutical industry, and we're beginning to make some progress in lowering the cost of prescription drugs; a lot more has to be done. After years of talk, we finally invested in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure— roads, bridges, water systems. Manufacturing is coming back in America. So, I think we're making some progress, but everybody knows that for decades now, not just under Biden, not just under Trump, but for decades now, what we have seen in America is an economy in which the very, very wealthy are doing phenomenally well while working families are struggling. Today, Bob, we don't talk about it much, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of the United States. This is way before Biden. But what we're seeing now is 60 percent of our people living paycheck to paycheck, we have a health care system which is totally broken, we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We've got 18 million households, where people are spending 50 percent of their income trying to pay the rent or pay a mortgage. So, we have some structural problems in America. The Biden administration has made some progress, we have got a long way to go. And what the Democratic Party has got to do is have the guts to take on corporate greed, which is unprecedented, all over the economy. The people who own the large corporations have enjoyed record breaking profits, we got to create an economy that works for all, not just a few.”

Costa, looking for some disunity that would make headlines kept asking if Biden and Kamala have done enough. Bernie wasn’t taking the bait. “Well, I think the issue is, are Democrats doing enough to win back a working class, which is leaving the Democratic Party? And what in my view Democrats have got to do is say, Really? Do you really want to vote for a Republican Party, which wants to cut Social Security; we’ve got to expand Social Security. Wants to cut Medicare; we have got to expand Medicare to include dental, hearing and vision. We got a Republican Party out there that doesn't even recognize the reality of climate change. So I think, Bob, what this campaign should be about is a contrast between the ideas that work for the working families of this country, and what the Republicans stand for, which is more tax breaks for billionaires and paying allegiance to the needs of corporate America, not ordinary Americans… Some of it can be done through executive orders, a lot can be done through legislation. And what I think has got to happen, this is my own view, is I think, what the President has got to say, is give me 50, at least 50 Democrats in the Senate. Give me control over the House of Representatives and by 50 Democrats, I mean, real Democrats, not corporate Democrats, like Manchin and Sinema. And if you do that, within two or three months, we're going to reform health care to move it toward a system which guarantees health care to all people, not just huge profits for the insurance companies. We're going to lower the cost of prescription drugs, so we're not paying any more than the rest of the world. We're going to rebuild our economy, to work for ordinary people, and I think that's got to be the message. Contrast, a progressive agenda for working people versus a Republican agenda.”

Pervez Agwan is the Blue America-endorsed candidate in a new Houston district and he’s running against one of those Manchin-Sinema type “Democrats” Bernie was so frustrated about, Lizzie Fletcher. “Americans are ready for change and they're tired of corporate-bought politicians maintaining a broken status quo,” Pervez told me yesterday. “Corporate greed is ruining this country, and big lobbyists are tainting any meaningful legislative effort for improvement. Fixing the system starts with taking corporate and lobbyist money out of politics. People are drowning in medical debt, but we can't enact Medicare for all because of the health care lobby. We're living through the hottest months in recorded history, but any efforts to curb climate change are stifled by the energy lobby. Democrats need to come together to take strong, progressive stances on these issues because otherwise nothing is going to get done."

We’re in the middle of vetting Aditya Pai, the best of the Orange County candidates vying to defeat Republican Michelle Steel. “As Senator Sanders underscored,” he told me, “structural economic inequality in America is worse than ever. Most workers haven’t gotten a raise in real terms since 1978. Housing in Orange County is unaffordable. And more under 35 Americans are living with their parents than at any time since the Great Depression. I’m running to unseat Michelle Steel because she is part of the problem. Like her MAGA friends in DC, Michelle wants to cut Social Security for seniors and serve corporate America rather than everyday families in CA-45, where she has never lived.”

Former Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson is running for the Senate seat Rick Scott is in. This morning after he watched Bernie he told me that “I think that his point is that if people come together to use the power of their votes in a democracy, then their agents– the officials whom they elect – can make the world a better place for almost everyone, except perhaps ‘the one percent.’ For instance, US corporations spent $1,200,000,000,000.00 ($1.2 trillion) last year on stock buybacks, which is nearly $4,000 for every American, without creating a single job with that money. In a democracy, what is the purpose of that? We are now seeing large parts of the country, like Phoenix, becoming almost uninhabitable, as if it were Chernobyl. People are becoming prisoners in their air-conditioned houses and cars. Shouldn’t we pull together to prevent that? These are the questions that Bernie Sanders is asking, and I’m asking. The answers are not going come from Silicon Valley, or Wall Street. No one will save us but us.” You can help Grayson’s campaign here.