Republican Wing Of The Democratic Party Makes Its Play To Sabotage The Progressive Agenda

2 of Congress' most venal Blue Dogs, Schrader and Gottheimer

The DCCC insists on sabotaging progressives and smoothing the path for status quo-loving centrists and Republican-lite conservatives who they try to pass off as "moderates." The media is too stupid to understand the connotations of the word "moderate." and they play along. Right now, for example, instead of embracing forthright progressives like Steven Holden in central New York, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick in southeast Florida and Bryan Osorio in California's Central Valley, the Democratic establishment is playing footsie with conservative candidates. What's wrong with that... aside from the likelihood of conservatives losing in NY-24 and CA-21 general elections? Glad you asked. Let's start with this letter 9 conservative shitheads in Congress-- all once heavily backed by the DCCC-- sent to Pelosi today threatening to tank the $3.5 trillion budget resolution reconciliation bill, that includes expanding Medicare and Medicaid, providing free preschool and community college, funding urgent, existential climate change programs, reforming immigration policies, including dental, vision and hearing care in Medicare, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, instituting a fairer tax system by shifting the burden away from working people and towards the wealthiest 1% of Americans and towards untaxed corporate profits...

The 9-- led by far right conservative Democrats Josh Gottheimer (NJ) and Kurt Schrader (OR)-- are all Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who use Republican arguments and talking points to oppose assistance of any kind for working class families. Schrader, for example, led the Blue Dog opposition to raising the minimum wage. These are the 9 culprits who signed the letter, although several others, afraid their Democratic constituents would defeat them next year, expressed solidarity with their fellow conservatives but were too chickenshit to sign on. These are the ones who did:

• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)

• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)

• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)

• Ed Case (Blue Dog-HI)

• Carolyn Bourdeaux (Blue Dog-GA)

• Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)

• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)

• Filemon Vela (New Dem-TX)

• Vicente Gonzalez (Blue Dog-TX)

Key phrase in the letter: "We will not consider voting for a budget resolution until the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passes the House and is signed into law." Pelosi can only afford to lose 3 members so this is avery serious threat.

There is absolutely no way Golden and Bourdeaux-- both in marginal districts and on every GOP target list-- can be reelected without massive DCCC support again. Last year the DCCC and its allies spent $2.4 million on Golden and $7.5 million on Bourdeaux. The DCCC should let them know they will be looking for new jobs if they threaten to kill the top Democratic priorities like this again. Cuellar came within an inch of losing his primary to progressive Democrat Jennifer Cisneros in 2020 and she's running again and is likely to beat him. The DCCC could-- and should-- turn that "likely" into "absolutely."

Earlier this morning, Jonathan Weisman reported that the conservative Democrats' pledge "is a major rift that threatens the carefully choreographed, two-track effort by congressional Democrats and the Biden administration to enact both a trillion-dollar, bipartisan infrastructure deal and an even more ambitious-- but partisan-- social policy measure. The nine House members are more than enough to block consideration of the budget blueprint in a House where Democrats hold a three-seat majority... Pelosi has called the House back early from its summer recess to consider the budget resolution the week of Aug. 23. To assuage liberal Democrats more interested in the social policy bill, Pelosi promised that she would not bring the infrastructure bill to a vote in the House until the Senate passed the social policy bill. Liberals fear that once the infrastructure bill is signed, moderate Democrats in the House and Senate will withdraw their support for the far-reaching social policy measure."

"This is President Biden’s agenda, this is the Democrats’ agenda, this is what we ran on and we need to deliver," Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a leader in the Progressive Caucus, said of the social policy bill. "It is important for us not to miss the mark, and I don’t see a conflict."

This is what happens when the DCCC gets behind corrupt conservatives like Gottheimer and Schrader and their crew. It's time for Democrats to wake up and stop supporting candidates-- like Shontel Brown, for example-- over progressives (like Nina Turner). This morning Steven Holden told me that when he talks with voters in the Syracuse area they have flat told him "that they will not vote for the conservative the Democratic establishment is proposing in a General Election. They would prefer Katko over Conole. They are tired of milquetoast candidates being shoved down their throats, which is why they rejected Fran the first time. Voters say they need to be inspired. Dana Balter ran a great race, and we are incorporating her lessons learned into our campaign. We are also mobilizing new voters in communities that Fran will never go. These are Native American, Afghan, Pakistani, Turkish, Bosnian communities, and student voters at Syracuse. These groups will never vote for Fran, because they cannot write him a big enough check."