Sorry To Report But It Was Mostly Bad News In Yesterday's Primaries

AIPAC defeated Both Susheela Jayapal And Jamie McLeod-Skinner

Vicious AIPAC strategist Mark Mellman was the bigger winner in Oregon yesterday

There were primaries in 4 states yesterday— Georgia, Kentucky, Idaho and Oregon. There wasn’t anything interesting enough going on in Idaho to catch my attention. Oregon was most consequential and I want to start there. The state has more than 3 million registered voters, 33% of them Democrats, 24% Republicans and 36% not affiliated with any party. Yesterday wasn’t a good day for progressives. State Sen Jim Manning, one of Oregon’s most progressive legislators, loast his bid to become Secretary of State. And in the Multnomah County (Portland) district attorney race in progressive incumbent Mike Schmidt is losing to ex-Republican conservaDem Nathan Vasquez. As of this morning, with 63% of the ballots counted, Vasquez led Schmidt 65,349 (55.7%) to 51,371 (43.8%). In Eugene, progressive champion Doyle Canning lost to corrupt conservative Lisa Fragala for an open state House seat.

There was a bit of good news in northwest Portland where corporate lawyer Peter Gabriel, a reactionary fake-Democrat running with the support of the Chamber of Commerce, the big real state super PAC, the police union and rich Republicans, lost to Shannon Isadore, a decent liberal.

But the two BFD races were the congressional races AIPAC targeted: OR-03 and OR-05. AIPAC puppet candidates, respectively Maxine Dexter and Janelle Bynum won their races against Susheela Jayapal and Jamie McLeod-Skinner. AIPAC uses both foreign and Republican money to defeat progressives and never mentions Israel in their poisonous and deceptive propaganda. The results weren’t close:

• Maxine Dexter- 51.1%

• Susheela Jayapal- 28.6%

• Eddy Morales- 14.2%

• Janelle Bynum- 68.9%

• Jamie McLeod-Skinner- 31.1%

The two progressives lost in every county is their respective districts. It was a conservaDem blowout paid for by AIPAC and its proxies and allies. Nick Tagliaferro and Opinion Havert from Primary School wrote that AIPAC went after Susheela so heavily because of their intense hatred for Pramila. “[T]hankfully, AIPAC sucks shit at covering its tracks. A mysterious May 7 fundraiser in Los Angeles brought in more than $200,000, and two-thirds of those donors have a history of giving to AIPAC, which makes it hard to take Dexter’s campaign seriously when they insist that AIPAC hasn’t endorsed anyone in this race. AIPAC also wasn’t able to keep word of its clandestine efforts under wraps; The Intercept caught wind of behind-the-scenes AIPAC efforts to benefit Dexter on May 3, reporting that AIPAC planned to funnel its money through 314 Action Fund, an ostensibly pro-science group (Dexter is a physician) that doubles as a shameless super PAC conduit. By May 10, The Intercept had confirmation from a 314 staffer about the real reason for the group’s $2 million in pro-Dexter advertising, as well as an admission from a direct donor at that May 7 fundraiser that “I give all my contributions through AIPAC. Whenever I am asked to give to their endorsed candidates I give.” Soooooo…would the Dexter campaign please stop lying to the press? (This morning, we learned who some of 314’s big donors were, and they included Michael Bloomberg and GOP financier John Granieri, both of whom are large AIPAC donors as well.) The 314 Action shell game isn’t all. The Intercept also reported on another likely AIPAC front that did go to the trouble of hiding its donors, Voters for Responsive Government, and VRG has done the dirty work, going harshly negative on Jayapal. VRG has dumped over $3 million into attacks on Jayapal.

In the 3rd district AIPAC spent over $5.4 million defeating Susheela. And in the 5th they and their allies at the New Dems coalition spent $1,226,903 against Jamie. The DCCC, which still hates Jamie for defeating Blue Dog Kurt Shrader in the 2022 primary— more than they hate Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer— helped orchestrate the win for whatshername, not-Jamie. Let me give you an example of how they work. This piece in the Washington Post yesterday purported to be “analysis” by two pathetic hacks, Theodoric Meyer and Leigh Ann Caldwell, who are better at taking direction from the DCCC than for analyzing anything do with politics. Critical thinking and innovative thought aren’t exactly what shines through their morning columns… talking points and p.r. from the DC sources of power is what does shine through, in this case, from the DCCC.

The DCCC talking points— used very effectively and reported as part of "analysis" by Meyer and Caldwell— was that 

1. Democrats were seeking to avoid 2022 repeat in Oregon primary
   

2. McLeod-Skinner can’t win against Chavez-DeRemer because she lost in 2022 when Biden won the district
   

3. Bynum defeated Chavez-DeRemer in state House races in 2016 and 2018

What the two brilliant analysts didn’t bother to research or mention is that in the very blue state legislative district Bynum won in, Jamie also beat Chavez-DeRemer. That point wasn’t part of the p.r. the DCCC was spreading of course.

Neither was another way of looking at points 1 and 2. In 2022, two shitty conservative state legislators in California, Rudy Salas and Adam Gray, lost in much bluer districts with many millions of dollars in DCCC support (while Jamie had none). And yet… the DCCC re-recruited both men to run against the same Republican incumbents this cycle. Does that mean they aren’t seeking to avoid 2022 repeat in California? No, it just means the DCCC decided it hates Jamie, will spend resources to beat her even if it means running a weaker candidate who has shown she would make a terrible member of Congress. 

Strong progressives Mark Takano (CA) and Becca Balint (VT) endorsed Jamie despite intense DCCC pressure for members to either endorse their worthless AIPAC shill or to stay out of the race. Meyer and Caldwell were happy to run an unanswered quote from the DCCC p.r. person: “Janelle has already defeated Lori Chavez-DeRemer twice before— and we’re hopeful she’ll have the opportunity to do it again in 2024.”

Bynum’s TV ads— which the DCCC helped to pay for— don’t criticize McLeod-Skinner, but some of the outside groups backing Bynum have gone negative.

“Politics are nastier and more divisive than ever, and Jamie McLeod-Skinner is part of the problem,” the narrator says in an ad the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund PAC is airing, citing a story in the Oregon Capital Chronicle last year that described McLeod-Skinner as “a nightmarish boss.” (McLeod-Skinner told the Capital Chronicle at the time that she had “always sought to create a positive work environment.”)

The PAC is affiliated with the New Democrat Coalition, a [conservative-leaning, corporately-funded] caucus of nearly 100 House members.

Let me just mention a couple of things about some races in Georgia and Kentucky. In Georgia, even though Christian Smith probably would have made a better Fulton County D.A., no one was going to keep Fani Willis from being reelection— not with her national profile in a county whereTrump only got 26.2% of the vote. She crushed Smith 87.5% to 12.5%. 

I was interested to see what Trump’s endorsement would be worth in the race to replace Drew Ferguson in the 3rd district west and south of Atlanta (PVI— R+18). It was worth a lot. He  endorsed former staffer Brian Jack who parlayed it into a fundraising lead and 47.5% share in a 5-person race. His closest rival was Mike Dugan with 27.7%. As for Democratic seats, Lucy McBath won her newly drawn in a landslide— 84.9% in a 3 person race. And, alas, senile Blue Dog David Scott is being sent back to Congress to do nothing by his moron constituents, who deserve nothing. The hopes of forcing him into a run-off was smashed in the 7-person race when he won every county and took 59.0% districtwide. His two closest opponents wracked up 11.3% (Mark Baker) and 9.7% (Marcus Flowers, they who raised a fortune when he ran against Marjorie Traitor Greene last cycle).

There were some legislative seats, pitting normal Democrats against charter school whores. SD-38 had 5 candidates trying to beat charter school advocate Rashaun Kemp, who will face Ralph Long in a runoff, after a 25-22% result, with Nate Green at 21%. The 56th House district (Central Atlanta and as blue sit comes, saw the Democratic incumbent, Mesha Mainor, switch parties and vote for charter schools with the Republicans on that and other issues. 4 Democrats competed for the honor of ousting her in November. Progressive and labor candidate Bryce Berry took it away with 56%. HD-65 (south Fulton County) has an open seat with 4 candidates. One, Sam Wakefield is a charter school chairman with the most money. He came in third with 13%.Robert Dawson won with 54%.

There were also a few state House races in Kentucky worth looking at. Freshman Rep Daniel Grossberg (HD-30— southeast Louisville) turned out to be a completely unhinged AIPAC whore who was challenged by Mitra Subedi, a refugee from Bhutan. Though he had almost no budget, he held the right-wing AIPAC loon to a bare 51-49% win, with more votes still to be counted (and still uncalled this morning). The only incumbents to lose their seats in the state House were 2 Republicans, Richard Heath (HD-2 in western Kentucky) to Kimberly Holloway and Killian Timoney (HD-45, parts of Jessamine and Fayette counties) in a landslide to MAGA freak Thomas Jefferson. Democrat Adam Moore will probably be able to beat an extremist like Jefferson, so good news there). Kim Moser was another GOP incumbent who nearly lost her primary against a MAGA extremist, in this case real estate agent Karen Campbell but pulled outa win by just 84 votes.