Lee Rogers Is Running For The House Seat Currently Occupied By Buck McKeon

After the closest call with political mortality of his life in 2012, Santa Clarita Republican Buck McKeon has told political allies that he won't run in 2014 if Lee Rogers challenges him again. Today he's getting the bad news: Rogers-- this time with the solid backing of the DCCC-- is running for the CA-25 seat. McKeon has promised the seat to Tony Strickland but Santa Clarita Mayor Bob Kellar, state Sen. Steve Knight, former Assemblyman Cameron Smythe, State Equalization Board chairman George Runner and Assemblyman Scott Wilk all agree that the seat isn't McKeon's to give away and that Tony Strickland, who ran against Julia Brownley last year, is a carpetbagger. This promises to be a very bloody primary-- at least on the Republican side.

Democrats in Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley have closed ranks behind Rogers, who has built a solid base of supporters, a network of donors and volunteers and a top notch campaign team to take on McKeon or whoever replaces him if he's too scared to face him again-- or too eager to go into the lobbying business his brother and nephew have already started for him.

Rogers, a nationally acclaimed surgeon and a recent national spokesman for the American Diabetes Association, has impressed district voters as a health care and patient advocate with the experience and know-how to reduce medical costs by making appropriate adjustments in the Affordable Care Act. Last year he was endorsed by Blue America and we're endorsing him again this year.

"I'm running for Congress, because I still believe that one person can make a difference. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. I could have done the easy thing and get back to my life being a doctor and treating patients who need me. But the district and the country also need me. Washington is constipated and it requires an enema. There is no progress. We demand improvements to the Affordable Care Act, passing universal criminal background checks for gun purchases, achieving comprehensive immigration reform by providing a reasonable path to citizenship for undocumented residents, getting out and staying out of wars in the Middle East, and preventing corporate money from influencing elections. I need your help to put progress back in Congress."

Rogers opposed the Sequestration which McKeon supported and which has held back economic growth. Rogers also opposes the Obama-Boehner scheme to cut Social Security benefits by messing with the cost-of-living adjustments, which McKeon supports. Here are a dozen important votes McKeon took since he was reelected that Rogers disagrees with (chronologically):

• H.R. 678- McKeon voted against requiring that when practicable, all materials used for conduit hydropower generation be manufactured in the United States
• H.R. 624- McKeon voted for CISPA, a Big Brother type domestic spying bill.
• McKeon also voted against a motion to make H.R. 624 less intrusive by prohibiting employers, prospective employers, or the Federal Government from requiring the disclosure of social networking or personal account passwords by an employee or job applicant without a court order.
•H.R. 1406- McKeon voted to penalize workers who receive overtime pay for overtime work.
•H.R. 807- McKeon voted to prioritize payments to China, Saudi Arabia and wealthy bondholders if the Republicans decide to stop funding the government.
• H.R.3- McKeon voted to approve building the Keystone XL Pipeline would will bring toxic tar sands into the U.S. from Canada so it can be trans-shipped to China
• H.R. 1911- McKeon voted to double the cost of student loan rates-- starting today!
• H.R. 1960- McKeon voted against giving the victim of sexual abuse in the military the power to choose whether to allow the Office of Chief Prosecutor to make the binding decision on whether a case goes to trial, or to allow the commander to proceed with the case.
• H.R. 1797 McKeon voted to make it illegal for a woman and her physician to go through with an abortion after 20 weeks.
• H.R. 1947- McKeon voted over and over to cut the food stamps program.
• H.R. 1613- Mckeon voted against allowing California to decide on its own whether or not to allow offshore drilling for oil.

• And, of course, McKeon and Rogers have a basic disagreement over the Affordable Care Act. Rogers sees a flawed bill that needs to be fixed and made better. McKeon voted 37 times to just repeal it, even though it is already saving Californians hundreds of millions of dollars in health care costs.

"We can't let crazy extremist social policies, like limiting a woman's right to make healthcare choices with her doctor, rule the day," Rogers told me yesterday. "If you want someone to go to Washington and stick up for our values, to fight for individual freedoms, and to prioritize challenges faced by our country, I'm your guy!" We know that... please consider being a first-day-supporter, right here.

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What Happens When Voters Just Eliminate The Nihilist Republicans From Government?

Puppet Pat might want to call Jerry Brown and get a lesson in being a governor

California has no statewide Republicans in office. Many of the Democrats in the legislature are conservative corporate whores but at least the Republicans are relegated to the sidelines and can't even obstruct the smooth functioning of government any longer. In 2012, the Democrats won 2/3s majorities in each house of the legislature. They won 4 more seats in the state Senate, for a total of 29 to the GOP's 10. The Dems gained 3 Assembly seats, bringing the partisan split to 55 to 25. Republicans can no longer block anything in either body. Two years earlier the state elected Jerry Brown over big-spending Meg Whitman, who managed to get a mere 40.9% for the $140 million she spent out of her personal fortune.

So while in DC, anti-government ideologues on the far right-- particularly Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-DL) and Rand Paul (R-KY)-- are working, with a great deal of success, to gum up the workings of government functionality and to prevent an economic recovery, in Sacramento, the shriveled nihilist faction can... talk darkly among themselves and watch the state move forward. I hope you read the collection of IMs last night by economist Umair Haque on the nature of conservatism. It helps explain why the federal government is such a mess while California is thriving. California is kind of the opposite of what's happening to the people in North Carolina, who elected an all-Republican government which is failing miserably and making the state unlivable and the legislature veers off the ideological cliff.

Haque's Sunday follow-up

The state’s hard turn to the right comes less than five years after people took to the streets here to celebrate the 2008 victory of Barack Obama, the first Democratic presidential candidate to capture the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976. The win prompted Obama’s supporters to crow about the growing influence of progressive and minority voters not only in North Carolina but across the South.

But that euphoria is now a distant memory. Since the recession hit, North Carolina has been saddled with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates. The bad times helped prepare the way for a carefully executed strategy, with big financial support from a major conservative activist, that helped the GOP win control of both chambers of the state General Assembly in 2010.

Those victories were capped last year when Republican Pat McCrory was elected governor, giving the party control of all levers of state government for the first time since 1870.

The victories were aided by the strong financial support of Art Pope, a multimillionaire who spent heavily in support of the state’s GOP candidates. The Institute for Southern Studies, a North Carolina-based research organization, said Pope’s advocacy network spent $2.2 million on 22 legislative races, winning 18. Overall, conservative organizations largely supported by Pope accounted for three-fourths of the outside money spent in North Carolina legislative races in 2010, according to the institute.

One of McCrory’s first acts after being elected governor was to install Pope, a former legislator, as the state budget chief. (The governor’s office declined to make Pope available for an interview.) And now, GOP lawmakers are moving swiftly to enact a long list of legislation they say is largely aimed at limiting government debt and snapping the state’s economy out of a years-long malaise.

Legislators have slashed jobless benefits. They have also repealed a tax credit that supplemented the wages of low-income people, while moving to eliminate the estate tax. They have voted against expanding Medicaid to comply with the 2010 federal health-care law. The expansion would have added 500,000 poor North Carolinians to the Medicaid rolls.

...Lawmakers are also considering proposals to reduce and flatten income tax rates while expanding the sales tax, perhaps to even include groceries and prescription drugs-- which some advocates see as a first step toward eliminating the state income tax.

North Carolina is in a hole and the GOP has shovels digging deeper, much, much deeper. Instead of looking to Art Pope's plans for plutocracy, it should be looking at the way California Democratic voters got rid of Schwarzenegger and taken the ability to block progress away from the Republicans and then went on to turn a $60 billion deficit into a $4 billion surplus.

The debate reflects uncertainty about whether the revenue is a one-time event, a result of state taxes on wealthy residents selling off investments at the end of last year to avoid increased costs as the Bush-era federal tax cuts expired. But it also illustrates philosophical differences about the role of government, about spending versus taxes and about the need, as Mr. Brown argued, to learn lessons from a decade in which many states saw the bottom fall out from their revenue collections.

“We’re seeing a change in conversation in state legislatures this year,” said Todd Haggerty, a policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “They’re not talking about how to close a budget gap anymore, which is a welcome relief after years of that during and after the Great Recession. Rather, states are having conversations about how to allocate increased revenues.”

Nowhere does that battle promise to play out with more force and intricacy than in California, the state that underwent perhaps the most severe retrenchments in the country.

[Governor] Brown, a Democrat who has always had a fiscally conservative streak, is leading the don’t-pop-any-Champagne-corks brigade, saying that he would oppose significant increases in new spending and that the money should go into a rainy-day fund. His administration put out the lower $1.2 billion estimate.

Voting nihilists and crazed ideologues out of government makes government more successful for the citizens. North Carolina would do well do defeat every Republican on the ballot next year and get back on the road to prosperity.

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This Post Is Only For Californians-- Unless You Also Live In A State That Gets Wildfires

It's wildfire weather in L.A.-- temperatures in the 90s and very dry. There are plenty of reasons to be angry about the irresponsibility of Members of Congress who voted for the Sequester-- and inconvenience at airports is the least of them. The possibility of losing homes and lives to wildfires is far more serious. Monday Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who's in charge of the U.S. Forest Service, and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell were in Idaho were in Idaho explaining that Congress' Sequester had tied their hands in terms of using prescribed burns for fire prevention and that 500 fewer firefighters and 50 fewer engines will be available to fight fires in the dry West this summer.

Idaho has two congressmembers, both Republicans. Mike Simpson is a GOP Establishment shill and a lockstep ally of Boehner's. He voted for the Sequester. Raul Labrador is a bit of a rebel with a libertarian streak and he was one of the 66 Republicans who joined with 95 Democrats to oppose Boehner's sequester bill on August 1, 2011. Tuesday, the editors of the Great Falls Tribune in their state sent them a message: voters are watching:

Cutting federal dollars for firefighting would seem to be foolish on its face.

Unless Congress wants to see the West go up in flames this fire season, federal dollars for fighting fires should be restored to last year’s levels.

It’s an easy thing to suggest whacking the heck out of the federal budget. But it’s not such an easy thing to find federal programs that don’t affect people in small or large ways. Even chemotherapy to cancer patients has been delayed by cuts.

Last year, wildfires burned 9.3 million acres of land and destroyed more than 4,400 structures. It was one of the worst wildfire years in since most Americans were born. This year could easily be worse. A bad year for Congress' meat ax approach to ideologically-inspred budget cuts. And it isn't just Idaho that is worried, of course. New Mexico and Oregon were both hit very hard last year. Much of Texas, whose Republican-dominated congressional delegation is Austerity-mad, has been a tinderbox. Washington is another state under severe threat-- and so is Florida, another state where senior Republican congressmembers like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, John Mica, Bill Young, Vern Buchanan, Tom Rooney, Mario Diaz-Balart, Anders Crenshaw, Jeff Miller, Richard Nugent and Gus Bilirakis helped push the Boehner-Cantor-Ryan wing of the party's pro-Sequester position.

But no state is in greater jeopardy than California from the $115 million cuts to the federal wildland fire program budget. Fires have already begun and the outlook is grim. The games they play back in Washington are grim too and Members of Congress-- regardless of party-- who voted for the sequester should be held accountable. My own congressman, New Dem Adam Schiff, voted for the sequester. I won't be voting for him in 2014. This is the list of California congressmembers still in Congress who voted for the Sequester:

• Karen Bass (D)

• Howard Berman (D)

• Ken Calvert (R)
• John Campbell (R)
• Lois Capps (D)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog)
• Susan Davis (New Dem)
• Jeff Denham (R)
• Anna Eshoo (D)
• John Garamendi (D)
• Darrell Issa (R)
• Kevin McCarthy (R)
• Buck McKeon (R)
• Gary Miller (R)
• Nancy Pelosi (D)
• Dana Rohrabacher (R)
• Ed Royce (R)
• Loretta Sanchez (Blue Dog; her sister, Linda Sanchez, had the sense to vote NO)
• Adam Schiff (New Dem)
• Brad Sherman (D)
• Jackie Speier (D)
• Mike Thompson Blue Dog)

The California members with the good sense to vote against Sequester: Xavier Becerra (D), Judy Chu (D), Janice Hahn (D), Mike Honda (D), Duncan Hunter (R), Barbara Lee (D), Zoe Lofgren (D), Tom McClintock (R), George Miller (D), Grace Napolitano (D), Devin Nunes (R), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D), Linda Sánchez (D), and Maxine Waters (D).

On election day, few people just vote on a single issue. If your house burns down this summer and there are no firefighters there to help, you might want to at least take this one into consideration.

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What Makes A Democrat Turn Bad When He Gets To Congress? Let's Ask Eric Swalwell

Q: Why does Jim Matheson vote with the Republicans all the time?
A: He's a careerist and a political coward and, after all, Romney beat Obama in his district 68-30%

Q: Why does Mike McIntyre vote with the Democrats on crucial rollcalls about as much as Walter Jones, a conservative Republican in his state?
A: McIntyre's district went 59-40% for Romney.

Q: People say John Barrow used to be progressive when he was a councilman in Athens. Why did he turn into one of the most reactionary Democrats in Congress?
A: Barrow doesn't stand for anything and never had any backbone-- and his district went 55-44% for Romney

Q: How did Ann Kirkpatrick wind up with the most Republican voting record of any Democratic freshman this year?
A: She's kind of like Barrow-- and Romney beat Obama 50-48% in her district... which isn't that daunting, so it must mostly be about cowardice and, since she was defeated in 2010 for doing the same thing, stupidity.

Q: I thought Patrick Murphy ran as a progressive; why is he behaving like a conservative Republican since she got to Congress?
A: Aside from always having been a Republican for his whole life, he's nervous because his district went for Romney 52-48%.

Q: Why is San Francisco Bay Area freshman Eric Swalwell so conservative since getting into Congress? Does he have one of those red districts too?
A: This one is tough to figure out. Either Swalwell is a Republican calling himself a Democrat for political expediency or he just hates working families and wants to wreck their lives. Obama didn't just win his district in a landslide, he won in a massive 68-30% landslide.

Swalwell, one of the most disliked Democratic freshman and one of the most disliked California incumbents in the state delegation, will have a primary to worry about next year. Not only is he way too conservative for his district, many party activists, who are much more likely to vote in a midterm than a run of the mill Democrat, haven't forgotten he primaried-- and in the nastiest way imaginable-- the district's beloved former congressman, Pete Stark. State Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett wanted to run for the CA-15 East Bay seat (Hayward, Dublin, Pleasanton, Livermore, Union City, Castro Valley, San Ramon, San Lorenzo), but Stark had asked her to wait another cycle. Now she's termed-out of the legislature-- and running hard against Swalwell (She had announced she would run last fall, even before Swalwell was elected).

Ellen Corbett is not Pete Stark-- in either the bad or the good ways. She is a calm, measured politician; she’s pleasant, smart, compassionate and empathetic, without being overly emotional. She is unlikely to make offensive statements on the campaign trail and give Swalwell the type of ammunition that he had with Stark. However, Corbett has been in public office for a couple of decades: first as a City Council member and Mayor of San Leandro, and then in the California Assembly and now California Senate. If Swalwell decides to run a negative campaign against her, he will probably be able to find plenty of things to criticize.

In 2012, Corbett’s advantages over Pete Stark were that her Senate district included most of CD 15 and that her views were more moderate, and thus more attuned to the voters. She’s always been a grass-roots politician, and knows the importance of one-to-one contact with voters. Voters have seen her at community events in their cities throughout the years. Since the district was redrawn, Corbett has also been seen in community events in those cities she does not currently represent: Dublin, San Ramon and Livermore.

In order to win, Corbett will have to make sure that the votes that went to Stark in 2010 now go to her and that the Democratic voters in Castro Valley and Pleasanton who voted for Swalwell, now vote for her instead. Of course, she will also have to make inroads with other Tri-Valley voters.

...Converting Swalwell voters to her is likely to be more difficult. While it’s true that many of the votes that Swalwell got were “anyone but Stark” votes, Corbett will need to make a case to the voters as to why she’s a better choice for them than the man they just put in office. Attacking his youth or inexperience did not work for Stark, so she will have to try to draw other distinctions.

So far the only message I’ve heard concerns Swalwell’s political stances. Rumors are being circulated that he has reached out to Blue Dog Democrats and to Republicans and that he is really a Republican in disguise (though that can also be said about President Obama). But rumors are just rumors and Swalwell is smart enough to know that it behooves him, at this point, to entrench himself within the Democratic party and follow Nancy Pelosi‘s lead. So far, all indications are that he’s doing just that. He has co-sponsored gun control legislation and the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and he happily accepted being appointed an Assistant Whip, which means he is now responsible for making other Congress members fall into the Democratic party line. If Corbett wants to go after Swalwell on the issues, she will have to be ready to make strategic attacks on the party line.

One area in which Eric Swalwell and the Democratic leadership are particularly weak is the protection of civil liberties. Swalwell approves of the Patriot Act, going to war with Iran and  has dodged questions about whether he supports US Presidents having the power to assassinate American citizens (which would imply that he does). Swalwell, moreover, has made it explicit that he doesn’t believe in a separation of Church and State and has suggested there is no place in government (or maybe even America?) for non-believers. While those positions may play well with his conservative base in both parties, they will make many voters on his district-- both in the Democratic left and the libertarian right-- very uncomfortable.  Indeed, his support for gun control legislation is already losing him support in the Tri-Valley. Corbett could seize on this and develop a strong civil liberties agenda that would put all those voters in play. Indeed, this would also draw her closer to her potential colleagues to the north and south, Barbara Lee and Mike Honda, both staunch civil liberty advocates. That said, Corbett has not focused on civil liberties in the past and seems to be in favor of stronger federal gun control measures.

Corbett has two other big hurdles to clear: money and support. It’s almost impossible to win a Congressional campaign without money. Candidates need to put their names out there and that involves sending out mailers and putting out radio and TV ads, all of which are very expensive. A crafty candidate can save some money by manufacturing news events and getting free media coverage, but Corbett has not exhibited those media skills. Corbett started the year with only about $100K in her campaign account for Congress, that’s less than a tenth of what she will need in order to run a competitive race. And it’s not clear where her funds will come from. Her previous campaigns have been funded almost exclusively by PACs, so she doesn’t have a network of individual contributors on whom to rely on (by contrast, 85% of Swalwell’s contributions came from individuals). PACs, however, are unlikely to support her unless she can give them something that Swalwell can’t or won’t.

It’s also unclear how much support Ellen Corbett will be able to get from the Democratic party, labor and other groups.  She is extremely entrenched within the local party, while Eric Swalwell has received the cold shoulder-- at least publicly-- from local politicos.  But Corbett is not without her detractors: it’s hard to be in politics for so long without making enemies. She also has a reputation for not paying back her political debts, something which may come back to haunt her.  She does, however, have a good shot at winning the party’s endorsement, though it’s definitely too early to know how that will play out.

Local Democratic insiders seem to be under the impression that Corbett’s gender will play in her favor. Some believe that Corbett will get the support of Nancy Pelosi because Pelosi wants to see more women in Congress. While I’m sure she has that goal in general, I will note that in 2011 she participated in fundraisers for Ro Khanna, who at the time was planning to run for CD 15 against Ellen Corbett. And if Swalwell falls into line, Pelosi would have no incentive to back Corbett-- in particular, when there are plenty of more important races for her to concentrate on. It’s also doubtful whether Corbett will enjoy the support of Emily’s List, which also has more important races to focus on. Plus Swalwell has been playing it smart, not only did he co-sponsor re-authorization of VAWA but he joined the pro-choice caucus.

Even without overwhelming party support, Corbett is likely to have the support of the Alameda Labor Council. She has been faithful to labor for many years and chances are they will go to bat for her. However, it’s unlikely that the AFL-CIO will go against an incumbent Democratic candidate-- in particular, if he doesn’t do anything to offend them-- which could put local labor in a pickle. Without labor’s money and volunteers, her campaign is a non-starter.

Even with them, Corbett’s campaign has one additional problem: it has not embraced digital campaign technologies. As of this writing she doesn’t have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a blog, a mailing list or even her own campaign website. This means that, at least online, the story of her campaign is being told by others (including me, if you search for “Ellen Corbett” you’ll see a link to San Leandro Talk). While in the digital age, it’s impossible for any politician to completely control their message; they still need to attempt to do so. And digital technologies not only allow politicians to interact with voters and maintain name recognition, but they also make it easier to run organized campaigns cheaply.

Swalwell knows all of this only too well. He has been tweeting out a storm (though he doesn’t respond to tweets), keeping up his Facebook page, posting videos on YouTube and making sure he’s seen everywhere. According to a recent tweet: “January by the numbers: 50 mtgs, 30 dist. events attended, 10 hearings, 200 guests from #ca15 for swearing-in & 9,000+ miles in the air.” He could have added his office issued 10 press releases in January, all available on his website (Corbett’s last press release is from September 2012). Moreover, Swalwell has been keeping the eyes of the media on him by hosting quirky events (e.g. “Ride with your Rep“) and vowing to try out one job held by people in his district every month.

...If a serious moderate Republican entered the race, however, things could get complicated very quickly. Roughly 40% of the votes in CD 15 are conservative/Republican votes. Swalwell got all of these in November 2010, but he would likely lose a large percentage of them in June 2014 if a serious, well-funded Republican entered the race. If Corbett was able to hold on to Stark’s votes, it’s possible that Swalwell could be eliminated in June, sending her and the Republican candidate to November (when the 60% Democratic votes would give her a win). If I was Corbett, I would be looking hard through my Rolodex with anyone with an R by their name.

Meanwhile, Swalwell has already sucked up contributions from every crooked Beltway lobbyist and corporate PAC in existence. His FEC report reads just like a garden variety Republican FEC report.

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Who Remembers Weasel Words? Interpreting Ro Khanna

We often hear Republicans-- particularly Paul Ryan and his cult followers-- saying things like “I don’t think we ought to be cutting benefits that have been promised to current seniors." The word "current" means the speaker wants to phase out Social Security for future generations, a very standard Republican Party position. But that particular quote I just transcribed, wasn't from Paul Ryan, one of his cult followers or even a registered Republican at all. It came from a certain breed of "Democrat" ungrounded in any of the principles or values of the Democratic Party. That quote came from Ro Khanna, the right-of-center Silicon Valley fundraiser/opportunist who has launched a scorched earth campaign against longtime progressive champion Mike Honda.

Honda has been a strong fighter on behalf of regular American families-- the ones that don't have the resources to hire their own slick K Street lobbyists or to bribes congressmembers with huge campaign contributions. Khanna... wait for it: "We need representatives that are willing to reach across the aisle and find common ground." That's another especially charged weasel phrase and it means giving in to hard right demands that the Republicans make. That mentality-- as well as Honda's record-- is why virtually the entire California Democratic House delegation has joined President Obama and California's two U.S. Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer in endorsing Honda. Nancy Pelosi led the way as soon as Khanna announced he was running:

“Congressman Mike Honda's life has been a tribute to the quintessential American ideals of equality and opportunity for all. From a childhood spent in an internment camp, Mike has risen to the heights of American leadership-- as one of the top Democrats on the powerful Appropriations Committee and a critical voice for fairness, the rights of LGBT couples and all families. Mike is a bold and effective leader who understands the needs of Silicon Valley and the 17th District, ensuring American competitiveness and fighting for American manufacturing, comprehensive immigration reform, STEM education and technological innovation. We need his continued leadership for our nation in the House of Representatives, and I am proud to endorse him.”

  Although another California fake "Dem" who has eagerly thrown in with the GOP at every opportunity-- Eric Swalwell-- has remained neutral, here are the California Members of Congress, spanning the ideological spectrum from Blue Dogs like Jim Costa and Loretta Sanchez and New Dems like Adam Schiff and Scott Peters to progressive warriors Barbara Lee, Xavier Becerra, Mark Takano and Judy Chu, who have endorsed Mike Honda's reelection:

Jared Huffman
John Garamendi
Mike Thompson
Doris Matsui
Ami Bera
Jerry McNerney
George Miller
Barbara Lee
Jackie Speier
Jim Costa
Zoe Lofgren
Sam Farr
Lois Capps
Julia Brownley
Judy Chu
Adam Schiff
Tony Cardenas
Brad Sherman
Grace Napolitano
Henry Waxman
Xavier Becerra
Gloria McLeod
Raul Ruiz
Karen Bass
Linda Sanchez
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Mark Takano
Maxine Waters
Janice Hahn
Loretta Sanchez
Alan Lowenthal
Juan Vargas
Scott Peters

Khanna first announced his campaign at De Anza College. But students there weren't taken him by his weasel words. Sunday, the student newspaper ran an opinion piece entitled Challenger to U.S. Rep. Mike Honda sidesteps Social Security in kick-off at DA.

Last Sunday former Obama White House cabinet official and Stanford educator Ro Khanna announced his campaign at a rally in the Sunken Gardens at De Anza for the 17th Congressional District, which encompasses a large part of Silicon Valley including Cupertino.

A crowd of 200 volunteers and supporters cheered as the youthful and exuberant Democrat announced he was running to help break the gridlock that has crippled politics in Washington.

“We need representatives that are willing to reach across the aisle and find common ground,” Khanna said.

Should Khanna win the election next year against the popular incumbent Mike Honda, questions remain over how far he would be willing to reach compromise with the Republican Party.

In exchange to pass his agenda, President Obama has introduced a budget that will radically reduce social insurance benefits to the aging population by recalculating the cost of living, potentially threatening those on Social Security most at risk of falling into poverty.

When asked where he stood on cutting social security benefits, Khanna danced around the question.

“I don’t think we ought to be cutting benefits that have been promised to current seniors,” Khanna said.

A popular talking point, “keeping promises to current seniors” is what most Democrats say when they don’t want to be held accountable for wanting to cut social insurance benefits.

A majority of the country favors preserving social security and trusts the Democratic Party more with entitlement programs over Republicans, who want to severely privatize them at the expense of society’s most vulnerable.

If you think that the Social Security issue does not affect you because you are far from retirement, think again.  If you are a wage earner, you are paying into the system and basically putting money into a fund that will hopefully be there for you in the future.

As students, we are living in precarious times of uncertain job markets, rising costs of living and inescapable student debt, and we have to ask ourselves if there will be a social safety net should things take a turn for the worse.

Honda believes that the new calculation “lowers earned Social Security benefits and would institute compounded benefit cuts that would hurt future retirees harder as time goes on,” according to his Facebook page. “We should be working together to make Social Security stronger not weaker.”

Honda has exhibited the type of leadership the Democratic Party needs on one of its core issues. His proven track record on the social compact is consistent, not compromising.

The most accurate polling firm in the business, Lake Research Partners, recently completed a survey of the 17th district (Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Milpitas, North San Jose, Newark, Fremont, and Berryessa) and showed Honda with a staggering 52 point lead over Khanna. Khanna has raised over a million dollars, much of it from Silicon Valley multimillionaires.

Honda begins with 57% of the vote while Khanna has 5%. Republican Evelyn Li picks up 13% of open primary voters with 23% undecided. Honda’s lead remains strong, holding an absolute majority of votes, even after compare and contrast messaging is provided... Another noteworthy finding was that among voters who work in the tech industry, 56% support Honda, while only 6% support Khanna. Honda’s proven track record of supporting initiatives that benefit innovation, job growth, and an educated and diverse workforce have been noticed by the people he represents.

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Anyone Want To Run Against ConservaDem Adam Schiff In A Nice Blue L.A. District?

Adam Schiff- totally wrong for his new district

When some of the country's "gayest" and gay-friendliest neighborhoods-- West Hollywood, Silverlake, Atwater, Los Feliz, Hollywood-- were redrawn into Adam Schiff's congressional district last year, you would have thought the long-time homophobe suddenly discovered he had 5 gay sons and a long-lost lesbian sister. From someone routinely and gratuitously voting against LGBT community interests, Schiff was suddenly treating gay people as though they were Armenians-- i.e., with respect, reverence and deference-- when he was the congressman with the district with the most Armenians outside of Yerevan. Now he has more gays in his district than San Francisco does!

First thing to go was his membership in the KKK-like, viciously homophobic Blue Dog Caucus. Now he's in the "cleaned up" version of the Blue Dogs, the reactionary New Dems, a corporately-funded Republican wing of the Democratic Party. CA-28 only give Romney 26.5% of it's vote; that's what you call deep, deep blue. It's not a district that needs a conservative Democrat as a congressman to hold it against a Republican. No Republican is ever going to win in this district (although Mark Foley was asking around about running in it recently). Schiff makes no sense in this district. His career-long ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is a very mediocre 81.33. Karen Bass, who represented the area before he was dumped into it, has a 94.68 score, much more in line with where the district's residents are politically. This session, Bass' score is 100% and Schiff-- even trying as hard as he can to "be" more progressive-- still has only managed a crappy 83.33.

It's also worth mentioning that Schiff is a dedicated, bloodthirsty warmonger-- in a distinctly anti-war district.

Though I live in the district, I'm glad I'm not the only one keeping score. The highly successful anti-incumbent super-PAC, Campaign for Primary Accountability, has officially put Schiff onto it's short-list of targets for 2014. The group's spokesperson, Curtis Ellis told The Hill this week that Schiff would be a likely target if he draws a challenge.

“Adam is a guy who you could kindly call a center-right, almost Blue Dog-type guy, and as a result of redistricting he’s in one of the brightest blue districts in America. He’s running very hard to get an extreme makeover, House of Representatives edition, to make himself more likable to his constituency. We hope someone steps forward there who’s more truly representative of that district,” Ellis said.

  “We are looking, hoping and praying for a challenger. We can’t recruit candidates ourselves, but that’s one where we’re hoping to see a good challenger stepping forward.”

...The super-PAC targets incumbents of both parties its research shows are unpopular in their districts but unlikely to face a tough race because their districts are safely Democratic or Republican.

When confronted with Ellis' comments Schiff had his flack go out with a prepared statement: "We don't believe that residents in our district will respond well to a group of right-wing Texas billionaires trying to tell them who should represent our community." Excellente-- almost word for word what Schiff's Blue Dog colleague Tim Holden said last cycle... before progressive challenger Matt Cartwright ended his political career ignominiously.

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Honda vs Khanna-- Substance vs (Bad) Style

Here's one member of the Obama team not getting on the Ro Khanna choo choo

There was some sense of panic last week in the left blogosphere where it came out that some former Obama campaign operatives-- no one you probably ever heard of-- took jobs from tech-and-publicity-savvy Ro (short for Rohit) Khanna's perpetual campaign to put himself into office. Blue America has long encouraged primaries against bad Democrats. Last year we helped progressive superstar Matt Cartwright beat corrupt Blue Dog Tim Holden in northeast Pennsylvania. We also lent a hand to a young reformer in El Paso, Beto O'Rourke, is his bid to win a seat from another corrupt, conservative, Silvestre Reyes. Our biggest upset ever was helping Donna Edwards take on Al Wynn in Maryland years earlier. And in between there were hard-fought, though not successful, campaigns against Blanche Lincoln, Dan Lipinski and John Barrow. All these targets have two essential characteristics in common: corruption and self-serving, anti-family conservatism. Each had long ago betrayed the values and principles that make the Democratic Party worthwhile in relation to the Republican Party.

Ro Khanna has a carefully nurtured-- and well-placed-- bio but the only reason he's running against Mike Honda is ugly personal ambition. Mike Honda is an embodiment of what's right about the Democratic Party. That's why President Obama, who rarely bothers endorsing incumbent congressmen, came right out for Honda. And he wanted to make it clear that if a bunch of political operatives who worked for his campaign have hooked up with an ego-driven opportunist, he wasn't going along with it. Both California senators and the whole political establishment from Howard Dean and Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison on the left to more centrist Democrats like Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz and powers on the right of the party like Steve Israel, have all endorsed Honda. Obama: “Congressman Mike Honda is the right leader for the 17th district.  Together, we’ve worked hard these last four years to bring meaningful, positive change to our nation, but there is much more to do. As we continue rebuilding our economy from the middle out, we know expanding educational opportunities is critical. Congressman Honda's lifelong commitment to education and fierce advocacy for innovation and technology is exactly what this nation needs as we continue to move America forward. We need Congressman Mike Honda in the United States Congress, and I urge you to vote to keep him there."

  Pelosi knows Honda a lot better and for a lot longer. She also knows Khanna pretty well and is very aware that he's been a major conduit of Indo-American money into the Democratic Party. Her statement on the race: "Congressman Mike Honda's life has been a tribute to the quintessential American ideals of equality and opportunity for all. From a childhood spent in an internment camp, Mike has risen to the heights of American leadership-- as one of the top Democrats on the powerful Appropriations Committee and a critical voice for fairness, the rights of LGBT couples and all families. Mike is a bold and effective leader who understands the needs of Silicon Valley and the 17th District, ensuring American competitiveness and fighting for American manufacturing, comprehensive immigration reform, STEM education and technological innovation. We need his continued leadership for our nation in the House of Representatives, and I am proud to endorse him."

What's especially interesting about the Obama and Pelosi endorsements, is that Honda is considerably further left than either of them. A representative of Silicon Valley with it's giant tech corporations, he's always been an unstinting champion of working families anbd ordinary Americans, not of tech multimillionaires and billionaires, which is something Khanna is trying to take advantage of. Honda, who was the principal author of the Progressive Caucus budget in 2011 and one of the authors of their budget this year, has been an outspoken critic of Chained CPI and has pledged to oppose it (and all cuts to benefits for seniors and veterans). He signed the Grayson Takano No Cuts letter and can be counted on to help counter the extreme right... rather than compromise with it's predatory designs-- which is what Khanna and his backers believe in as an article of faith.

Oh, sure, Khanna is pro-Choice and pro-gay and anti-gun but that's just because of where he's running and because he wound up as a "Democrat" rather than a Republican for some reason. He's a free trade fanatic and a political hack wannabe with as much interest in economic justice as anyone rich enough to be clueless about the entire concept. The way Joshua Green painted it in Businessweek last week, this is a replay of Eric Swalwell's race against Pete Stark last year. Stark, a liberal war horse from decades past, was doddering and senile. Honda is at his prime-- one of Congress' biggest brains. Green got the analysis all wrong, without even understanding that Swalwell has been one of the worst Democratic freshmen elected last year. Everything in his analysis is naive and right from Khanna's extraordinarily well-oiled propaganda machine:

As Khanna’s race against Honda plays out, it will not only bring a clash between young and old, insurgent and establishment, but also test Obama’s brand of politics in a new arena. Most traditional Democratic interest groups are lining up behind Honda. But early indications are that the new coalition that emerged to elect Obama is going to side with Khanna, including many tech titans whose support was instrumental when Obama first took on that same establishment as a long-shot presidential candidate in 2007.

In Washington, Obama’s idea of a post-partisan America has gone stale. Khanna and his advisers believe that its power endures. His own flourish is recasting that idea as the pathway to economic salvation. “I believe there are ways of cutting past some of the ideological logjams in Washington when it comes to issues of American economic competitiveness and a pro-growth agenda,” he says. By implication, Honda, the reliable party man, is part of the problem-- a message that doubles as an appeal to the independents and Republicans who will vote in the open primary.

“The Obama vision is still in demand,” [Larry] Grisolano says. “I think you’ll hear candidates across the country trying to meet it. When you listen to Ro, you’ll hear it. It’s very Obama-like in its echoes of challenging Hillary.”

What will be more intriguing, though, is the attempt to build a new network modeled on the one that delivered such a resounding victory to Obama. “The goal in bringing together the best talent from the Obama team,” says [Steve] Spinner, “is to run a campaign in a strong Democratic district that operates like a battleground state in a presidential election.” That entails a paired focus on grass-roots organizing and technology in a district primed for both. “We’re going to be driven by analytics,” says [Jeremy] Bird. “That means everything from building models to having really smart feedback on what we’re doing and being able to track it and base our decisions on metrics. We’ll be very digitally sophisticated where it makes sense-- to get votes, get volunteers, and raise money.”

...While Bird and his staff dismiss the notion that the Obama campaign was “magic in a box” that can be franchised like some sort of Applebee’s, that’s exactly what they’re attempting to do in Silicon Valley. If anything, their expertise may be more valuable at this level. “Data is more important in House races than in presidential races,” [Jim] Messina says, “because midterm elections are all about turnout and data makes that easier.”

If the experiment works, it could be a harbinger of things to come, and an important part of institutionalizing Obama’s influence over the party. “There’s a whole generation of Democrats inspired by the Obama campaign who will go run for office,” says Bird. “Not just candidates, but managers and field directors that know how to do this.”

Substance-free politics isn't going to work in California's 17th CD-- too many savvy people to be taken in by a 36 year old huckster with an Ivy League degree and his band of paid party whores. Maybe he should try Bucks County, PA, where he's from-- and where there are plenty of Republicans who will love his powdery message.

UPDATE: Mike Honda Will Not Tolerate Cuts To Social Security

After publication, Congressman Honda told us that he wants to see Social Security strengthened, not weakened. "I believe, as millions of other Americans do, that our deficits are a problem that deserves our attention, but Social Security spending is not the cause of our deficits. Any attempts to draw down our debt should be done in a sensible, responsible way, and not on the back of those who can least afford it-- struggling American families, seniors, veterans-- including our 3.2 million disabled veterans, individuals with disabilities, and children on survivors’ benefits.

  "I’m eager to see what protections the President’s proposal has for vulnerable populations, but I am wary because every chained CPI proposal I’ve seen would affect veterans, people with disabilities, seniors on fixed incomes, and would institute compounding benefit cuts that would hurt future retirees harder as time goes on. The average annual Social Security benefit for retirees amounts to a very modest $15,000, yet one-third of seniors rely on Social Security for 90 percent of their income. These seniors cannot afford any reductions. As we face a looming retirement security crisis, with the majority of our workforce lacking private pensions and over one-third of all workers unable to save any money at all for retirement, we should be working together to make Social Security stronger, not weaker, to make our future retirees more secure.

"Americans all over the country depend on every single dollar they get from Social Security for the food on their table, and the roofs over their backs. At a time when so many of our Americans are already struggling, I strongly oppose benefit cuts to Social Security and will work with my colleagues to ensure that our government fulfills its promise to its future retirees."

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