Begich Admits What His Voting Record Proves: At Heart He's A Republican

Yesterday on CNBC Mark Begich (D-AK) admitted what people who watch Senate votes closely have already figured out: he's really a Republican calling himself a Democrat. Tied with the wretched Heidi Heitkamp, Begich has been voting more frequently with the GOP this year than any Democrats other than arch-conservatives Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Begich is constantly pulling the Democratic Senate caucus away from progressive policies and advocating against working families and for predatory corporations. But yesterday was the first time he publicly admitted that he's really nothing but a Republican.

"Probably a Rockefeller Republican," the Alaska senator told CNBC Monday morning when asked whether he was closer to identifying as that or as a Pelosi Democrat.

The comment signifies Begich's efforts to put some distance between himself and national Democrats in the libertarian-leaning state.

I recall that Rockefeller was governor of New York, then Vice President, for the entire time I was growing up. There's nothing I remember about him that could even vaguely be called "libertarian." Rockefeller was an icon of the corporate elite and represented the interests of the very wealthy against working families... just like Begich does. Most recently, though, Begich was one of the small handful of Democrats who voted with the Republicans against background checks for terrorists and criminals. He's since dug in on the issue and says he's not changing his mind. Big mistake-- unless he plans to run without any campaign contributions from Democratic donors. Will the NRA finance his shaky reelection effort?

Begich, a pathetic political coward, was actually doing well among Alaska voters before he jumped on the NRA bandwagon. A poll in February showed him as a nearly sure bet for reelection.

Voters approve of Begich’s job performance by a wider margin, 49% to 39%, and independents approve of Begich 54% to 32%. Begich also gets approval from 24% of Republican voters. If Parnell ran for Senate against Begich, the two would be tied at 48% each. Otherwise Begich leads Dan Sullivan by 6 points (47/41), Mead Treadwell by 8 points (47/39) and Sarah Palin by 16 points (54/38).

“Despite Alaska’s Republican tilt, Begich remains surprisingly popular going into his reelection campaign,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Begich and Parnell both have solid independent and crossover appeal with voters.”

Then came his cowardly vote for the NRA and against background checks and now he looks like he will probably lose his seat in the Senate. Just two months after the February poll, voters had soured on Begich because of his vote against background checks.

When we polled Alaska in February Lisa Murkowski was one of the most popular Senators in the country with a 54% approval rating and only 33% of voters disapproving of her. She's seen a precipitous decline in the wake of her background checks vote though. Her approval is down a net 16 points from that +21 standing to +5 with 46% of voters approving and 41% now disapproving of her. Murkowski has lost most of her appeal to Democrats in the wake of her vote, with her numbers with them going from 59/25 to 44/44. And the vote hasn't increased her credibility with Republican either-- she was at 51/38 with them in February and she's at 50/39 now.

Mark Begich is down following his no vote as well. He was at 49/39 in February and now he's at 41/37. His popularity has declined with Democrats (from 76/17 to 59/24) and with independents (from 54/32 to 43/35), and there has been no corresponding improvement with Republicans. He had a 24% approval rating with them two months ago and he has a 24% approval rating with them now.

60% of Alaska voters support background checks to just 35% opposed, including a 62/33 spread with independents. 39% of voters say they're less likely to vote for each of Begich and Murkowski in their next elections based on this vote, while only 22% and 26% say they're more likely to vote for Begich and Murkowski respectively because of this.

At this point almost any mainstream conservative Republican can beat Begich-- like Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell. His only hope for reelection would be if the Republicans nominate someone certifiably insane... like Joe Miller... which is likely. It's just another example of the Republicans moving out towards outright fascism and the Democrats moving right into the conservative space. And then we wind up with crap on two legs like Patrick Murphy and Charlie Crist in Florida, migrating over to the Democratic Party because it's now becoming as conservative as they are.

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Yes, There Are Still NRA Shills Among Congressional Democrats

Few are as blatant and tone deaf as John Barrow (New Dem/Blue Dog-GA), but there are Democrats firmly allied with the NRA in both the House and Senate. In fact, four of them in the Senate-- Mark Pryor (AR), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Mark Begich (AK), and Max Baucus (MT)-- just got unpleasant wakeup calls on the issue from Michael Bloomberg. He sent the letter below to hundreds of top Democratic donors urging them to stop writing campaign checks to NRA shills-- particularly these NRA shills. Heitkamp doesn't face the voters for another 5 years and Baucus is finally retiring. But Begich and Pryor are in tough reelection races for 2014 and if donors cut them off, they could be in trouble, although a case has been made that in both Alaska and Arkansas, being seen as someone not liked by the mayor of New York City does a candidate more good than bad in a general election. Last week we saw how billionaire Democratic donor Kenneth Lerer announced he would withhold contributions from NRA Democrats-- and possibly help fund primary opponents against them.

The move could inflame tensions that have simmered for weeks between Mr. Bloomberg, who blames the four Democrats for the defeat of the bill, and Democratic Senate leaders, who have privately told City Hall that the attacks can serve only to empower a Republican majority openly hostile to Mr. Bloomberg’s priorities.

By appealing to the Democrats’ financial base, Mr. Bloomberg is exploiting his relationships and prestige among wealthy New Yorkers to disrupt the flow of campaign money to key Democrats whose re-election next year will help determine whether the party retains control of the Senate. No state is more essential to the party’s fund-raising: Sitting Democratic senators and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised $30.4 million from New York donors in 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, more than in any other state.

...Mr. Bloomberg’s strategy creates a tricky situation for Senate Democrats. They do not wish to alienate the billionaire mayor, who has become increasingly aggressive and outspoken on the issue. But they say he should be more sympathetic, given that their party, with its fragile majority, has tried to take on the difficult subject of increasing restrictions on guns in the face of hostility from Republicans.

“What they are doing,” said one senior Democratic aide who, like many people interviewed for this article, declined to go on the record criticizing the mayor, “is increasing the likelihood of a 100 percent A-rated N.R.A. Republican being elected.”

For Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who was an architect of his party’s takeover of the Senate in 2006 and has aggressively built up the Democratic donor base in New York, and who is a close ally of the mayor, the notion that Mr. Bloomberg’s efforts could cost Democrats their majority is not an abstraction.

He praised the mayor’s effort, but added, “We should be mindful that pro-gun safety laws have a much better chance of passing under a Democratic Senate majority than a Republican one.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s idea to use his formidable resources against Senate Democrats was enough of a threat to the majority leader, Harry Reid, that he raised the issue with the mayor in Washington in February.

According to a person with direct knowledge of their conversation, Mr. Reid told the mayor that he thought any efforts to attack Democrats would be shortsighted, and could ultimately result in a Republican Senate majority.

“Do you think you’d be better served by Majority Leader McConnell?” Mr. Reid said, according to this person, referring to Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Mr. Bloomberg appears undeterred. In May, he financed a $350,000 blitz of tough television ads against Mr. Pryor, featuring the fatal shooting of a friend of the senator. Mr. Bloomberg said voters would reward the senators if they heeded the public-- which broadly favors background checks-- instead of the National Rifle Association and other groups opposed to the legislation.

“If Democrats want to keep control of the Senate, what I would suggest is that they have all of their members vote for things that the public wants,” he said in the interview. “And if they don’t do that, the voters should elect different senators who will listen to them. That’s what democracy is all about.”

If a background-check bill passes the Senate, Mr. Bloomberg said, he will seek to put similar pressure on the Republican-led House, including appeals to Republican donors in New York who favor more gun regulation. Some Senate Republicans have already found themselves targets of the mayor.

This is the counter-ad that Pryor ran in Arkansas. "No one from New York or Washington tells me what to do; I listen to Arkansas." (He mostly listens the Walton family-- and to talking snakes.)



Bloomberg's letter:

I am writing to ask you: the next time these four Senators want you to support them with donations to their campaigns, tell them you cannot. Until they show that they will stand up for the American people and not the gun lobby, tell them you cannot support their candidacy. These “no” votes were a slap in the face to Americans everywhere. Polls consistently show that 90% of Americans-- including 82% of gun owners and 74% of NRA members-- support requiring background checks for all gun sales. But instead of standing up for what’s right, and for a common-sense measure their constituents support, these Senators made a calculated vote designed to pander to the gun lobby in anticipation of their next election.

...Senators Baucus, Begich, Heitkamp, and Pryor sided with the minority, reminding us of why so many people are angry at Congress. Astonishingly, the four Senators did this even as they ask New Yorkers, who contributed a significant share of the funding for their last election bids, to donate to them once again. Their votes were an affront to the nation. Make no mistake: loopholes at the federal level undermine our efforts to keep our streets safe.

By voting against background checks, these Senators told us they would rather bow down to a special interest group than support a common-sense measure to help law enforcement fight gun crime. Now you can tell these Senators: by voting against background checks, they voted against your values and your family’s safety. And until they show they will stop bowing to pressure from the gun lobby, you should not support them.

Last year Bloomberg money defeated NRA shill Joe Baca in California. Baca is trying to get back into Congress next year. Bloomberg is likely to make sure that doesn't happen. He should also help end John Barrow's miserable, craven career in politics.

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A Memo To Tom Steyer-- And American Landowners

As we've mentioned before, San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, 'til now a dependable contributor to garden variety, Establishment Democrats, is deadly serious about saving the planet from environmental mayhem at the hands of corporate polluters, particularly, right now, the Keystone XL Pipeline. This week he warned Obama that there are no grounds whatsoever to approve the pipeline.

Dear Mr. President,

With Friday's announcement that the Canadian provincial government of British Columbia opposes the transportation of tar sands oil over their lands, the last of the arguments for the development of the Keystone Pipeline has collapsed.

It has been my belief all along that your Administration was not going to approve the Keystone Pipeline because it simply made no sense on the policy merits to allow a pipeline that would enable massive greenhouse emissions, do almost nothing for our economy and slow our own move to research-based advanced energy independence that will generate hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Now this announcement by British Columbia, coupled with the other information that has come out since the review of the project began, means the controversy should be over.

Over the last year, each of the policy arguments for the pipeline has cratered.

First fell the argument that the pipeline would support oil independence. The U.S. is now an exporter of oil, and the Keystone oil will be piped across the Midwest down to the Gulf of Mexico where it will then be shipped as a cheap source of energy to our economic competitors in Asia, including China. In fact, TransCanada, the company building the pipeline, refused to support guarantees that the Keystone oil would not be used for foreign export when asked by Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) during congressional testimony in December 2011.

Second toppled the argument that the pipeline is good for the U.S. economy. The pipeline will generate profits, but profits overwhelmingly for foreign companies. The project will generate as much as $3.9 billion in additional revenue for foreign oil companies. Jobs, of course, are critical, but for the billions that the American people will generate for foreign oil companies, we will only get 35 permanent jobs in return. In fact, it appears that among the few Americans who would actually financially benefit from the building of the pipeline are the Koch Brothers (they have already been storing a toxic byproduct of Canadian tar sands oil at a location in Detroit, and in Canadian regulatory filings one of their subsidiaries declared that it had a “direct and substantial interest” in the construction of Keystone).

And now, the argument that the tar sands oil was going to be delivered across Canada if the U.S. pipeline was not permitted has been demolished. The contractor hired by the State Department to prepare its Keystone XL environmental impact review is reportedly under investigation for an alleged conflict of interest. Based on that contractor’s report, the State Department declared that there will be no significant greenhouse gas emissions from Keystone because the oil would be exported by other means if the pipeline were not approved. That argument was always a flimsy rationalization, but it has now been completely undermined by the decision of British Columbia to oppose a route through that province. This decision shows that our Environmental Protection Agency was right all along: Transporting tar sands from Canada through the Keystone Pipeline will significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Given that none of the chief arguments being put forth by supporters of the pipeline remain standing, NextGen Action is going to be working with our friends and allies who are opposed to the development of Keystone XL to intensify our efforts in communicating what is the right policy choice to your Administration. On June 20, in Washington D.C. we will announce a campaign that will specifically focus on communicating to those Americans across the country that supported your re-election in 2012.

Respectfully,

Tom Steyer

As Steyer and his group fine tunes their strategy for holding Obama's feet to the first, I want to point out that every Republican in the House (except wacko bird Justin Amash, who voted "present") backed the plan to force through approval of the pipeline without Obama AND that 19 Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with the Republicans. These 19 Democrats:

• John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA)
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Cheri Bustos (IL)
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog/New Dem-TN)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Bill Enyart (IL)
• Al Green (TX)
• Gene Green (TX)
• Ruben Hinojosa (TX)
• Sean Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)
• Filemon Vela (New Dem-TX)
• John Yarmuth (KY)

And ultra-vulnerable, always worthless Blue Dogs John Barrow (GA) and Jim Matheson (UT) were co-sponsors of the bill. It wouldn't take much effort to defeat both of them next year-- and their departures would make the Democratic caucus a far better place. Not to mention how much better it would be for American landowners whose property is already being seized by Trans Canada for pipeline construction. Yes its already happening. This is what conservatives stand for today-- and we need a Democratic Party clear-minded and unconflicted enough to tell this story:



ALONG SIMILAR LINES

Yesterday, another Democratic billionaire, venture capitalist Kenneth Lerer, rolled out StopTheNRA.com. He has vowed to withhold contributions from Democrats who still support the NRA's reign of terror, like John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA). In the past he has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Establishment Democratic committees that funnel money from wealthy liberals to conservative Democrats who liberals are too embarrassed or ashamed to contribute to directly. If Lerer continues contributing massive amounts to the DNC and DSCC his threats will prove mostly toothless. He says he'll contribute to canddiates who are willing to fight back against the NRA and that's good. But he-- and others hoping to make a real impact-- should do that independently of the DNC, DSCC and DCCC. All Blue America candidates, for example, oppose the NRA.

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Rob Portman Has A Shovel And He Keeps Digging That Hole Deeper

Rob and Wayne's fabulous adventure

I suppose if one of Senator Portman's family members was bowling and some idiot with a gun in his shorts pocket accidentally shot him, Portman would change his mind on gun safety regulations... in a couple of years. Until then, Portman could just continue lying by claiming he did vote yes on background checks for criminals, terrorists and insane people wanting to buy guns. But Portman voted NO on background checks. Portman voted NO on deterring firearms trafficking. Portman voted NO on regulating military grade assault weapons. Portman voted NO on regulating large capacity ammunition feeding devices. In short, Portman just ignored what Ohio voters want to see and ticked off every single box the NRA demanded of Republicans in the Senate. But, unlike most other Republicans, who are proud of their NRA votes, Portman is now blatantly lying to his Ohio constituents about it.

He mislead a constituent who complained about his fealty to the NRA instead of to the 83% of Ohio voters-- across the partisan divide-- who say they want effective background checks, and said “the Grassley amendment I supported would have reauthorized and improved the National Instant Criminal Background Check System." But that isn't true.

The substitute GOP bill Portman voted for-- which was also rejected-- would not close any loopholes for buyers to dodge background checks. Instead it would enhance the amount of mental health reporting into the existing database. It would restore gun rights for recovered mentally ill people, those who are in a psychiatric hospital for observation, and those who commit themselves voluntarily. The National Rifle Association supported the bill but gun control advocates say it would make it easier for dangerous people to obtain guns.

So what's he going to do the next time background checks come up for a vote? Filibuster again, like teh NRA demands. His seat is up in 2016. He could be in for a very bumpy ride.

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NRA Shills In The Senate In Trouble-- At Least On Paper

Mark Begich will probably only win reelection if Alaska Republicans nominate Joe Miller

The Republican case for why the unpopular vote against background checks-- basically no one agrees with their position except hard-core Republican primary voters-- won't hurt them in 2014 is twofold: the House didn't vote on it at all, and in the Senate the GOP has only two vulnerable incumbents (the two closet cases, Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and Miss McConnell in Kentucky) and taking the NRA position won't hurt either of them in those states. So, yes, senators who voted no on Manchin-Toomey are taking a beating in polling, but most of them aren't up for reelection in 2014. Ironically, the most damage from the fallout over the Senate vote is likely to be among conservative Democrats who shamelessly shill for the NRA!

Jeff Flake (R-AZ) would get killed if he had to run in 2014... but he doesn't have to face the voters again 'til 2018. None of the Republicans who are losing ground with voters according to the PPP survey have to face voters while the vote is fresh in anyone's mind. Mark Begich (D-AK), on the other hand, may be in trouble.

New PPP polls in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, and Ohio find serious backlash against the 5 Senators who voted against background checks in those states. Each of them has seen their approval numbers decline, and voters say they're less likely to support them the next time they're up for reelection. That's no surprise given that we continue to find overwhelming, bipartisan support for background checks in these states.

Here's the state by state rundown:

• After just 3 months in office Jeff Flake has already become one of the most unpopular Senators in the country. Just 32% of voters approve of him to 51% who disapprove and that -19 net approval rating makes him the most unpopular sitting Senator we've polled on, taking that label from Mitch McConnell.

70% of Arizona voters support background checks to only 26% who are opposed to them. That includes 92/6 favor from Democrats, 71/24 from independents, and 50/44 from Republicans. 52% of voters say they're less likely to support Flake in a future election because of this vote, compared to only 19% who say they're more likely to. Additionally voters say by a 21 point margin, 45/24, that they trust senior colleague John McCain more than Flake when it comes to gun issues.

• When we polled Alaska in February Lisa Murkowski was one of the most popular Senators in the country with a 54% approval rating and only 33% of voters disapproving of her. She's seen a precipitous decline in the wake of her background checks vote though. Her approval is down a net 16 points from that +21 standing to +5 with 46% of voters approving and 41% now disapproving of her. Murkowski has lost most of her appeal to Democrats in the wake of her vote, with her numbers with them going from 59/25 to 44/44. And the vote hasn't increased her credibility with Republican either- she was at 51/38 with them in February and she's at 50/39 now.

Mark Begich is down following his no vote as well. He was at 49/39 in February and now he's at 41/37. His popularity has declined with Democrats (from 76/17 to 59/24) and with independents (from 54/32 to 43/35), and there has been no corresponding improvement with Republicans. He had a 24% approval rating with them two months ago and he has a 24% approval rating with them now.

60% of Alaska voters support background checks to just 35% opposed, including a 62/33 spread with independents. 39% of voters say they're less likely to vote for each of Begich and Murkowski in their next elections based on this vote, while only 22% and 26% say they're more likely to vote for Begich and Murkowski respectively because of this.

• We saw serious improvement in Rob Portman's poll numbers in the second half of 2012 following his consideration as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, but he's taken a nose dive in 2013. Portman's approval has dropped a net 18 points over the last 6 months from +10 (35/25) in October to now -8 (26/34) in April. Portman's popularity decline has come across the board with Democrats (from 15/39 to 8/50), Republicans (62/11 to 46/19), and independents (28/23 to 24/32) alike.

72% of Ohio voters support background checks, including 87% of Democrats, 73% of independents, and 56% of Republicans. 36% of voters in the state say they're less likely to support Portman in a future election because of this vote to only 19% who consider it to be a reason to support him.

• And in Nevada Dean Heller has seen a more modest decline in his approval numbers, from 47/42 right before the election to 44/41 now. However with the independent voters who were critical to his narrow victory in November, his approval has dropped from 52/37 then to now 42/42.

70% of voters in the state support background checks compared to just 24% who are opposed to them. That includes 87% of Democrats, 65% of independents, and 54% of Republicans. 46% say they're less likely to support Heller the next time he's up for reelection compared to only 25% who are more likely to because of this vote, and as we saw last fall Heller has very little margin for error.

Taken together these results make it pretty clear that this issue could be a serious liability for the Senators who opposed overwhelmingly popular background checks in the Senate vote earlier this month.

Begich could lose his seat-- especially if a remotely mainstream Republican (i.e., not Joe Miller)-- runs against him. It's a classic example of a Democrat abandoning his own base's values to curry favor with his enemies... only to have his enemies laugh in his face. Democrats and independents are looking at Begich as a spineless coward and Republicans may like that one vote he took out of fear but they'll vote against him anyway. He deserves to lose his seat and, unless Miller gets the nomination, he probably will. Mark Pryor (D-AR)-- the talking snake guy with the IQ problem-- probably faces the same problem, although I haven't seen any polling yet to back that up.

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Will Her Fealty To The NRA Cost Kelly Ayotte A New Hampshire Senate Seat?

Will McCain & Lindsey be able to find a third Stooge in 2016?

Half the voters in New Hampshire are telling pollsters they are less likely to vote to reelect Kelly Ayotte because she voted against the bipartisan background check amendment last week. And her approval rating is underwater, down 15 points since her blatant NRA asskissing. An editorial from Sunday's Portsmouth Herald" If you want gun control, vote Ayotte out of office:

New Hampshire voters who care passionately about sensible gun legislation can contribute to the effort by defeating U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the only senator in New England to vote against the Toomey-Manchin bill. Ayotte justified her vote by parroting the NRA, saying the measure would "place unnecessary burdens on law-abiding gun owners and allow for potential overreach by the federal government into private gun sales."

In a January poll, New England College found 88 percent of Granite Staters support background checks, so it would seem Ayotte is far out of step with voters on this issue. She's up for re-election in 2016, a presidential election year that draws large numbers of independent voters who tend to support gun control. And the state has leaned Democratic in the last two presidential elections, so it's hard to see this as a political move.

Perhaps she believes that by 2016 people will have forgotten how she voted. Or perhaps she's counting on the historic lack of intensity from voters who favor gun control. If we don't like how she voted Wednesday it's up to all of us who care about this issue to show Sen. Ayotte she was mistaken by voting her out of office.

Yesterday, the Concord Monitor had a story reporting on a "blizzard of mail," mostly attacking Ayotte for her vote against background checks that were meant to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and the clinically insane.

A tweet by domestic terrorist and Texas congressman, NRA shill Steve Stockman, caused me to look into Ayotte's standing with New Hampshire voters. Stockman, the violent militia movement's biggest advocate in Congress, was claiming not one Republican would be hurt politically for opposing background checks. He based his assertion on this crackpot post by David Freddoso. Both would rather just ignore a far more trafficked poll from Fox News and just hope no one remembers anything beyond next week or next year:

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NRA And K Street Lose A Powerful Senator-- Max Baucus Won't Run For Reelection

Helping the GOP filibuster background checks for the NRA made his reelection untenable

Max Baucus was certainly planning to run for reelection. His Glacier PAC has been collecting money from the special interests he serves and his campaign warchest already had $3,594,923 on hand by January 1 this year. Known as the Senator from K Street, last time Baucus ran (2008), special interest PACs contributed $4,959,391. Since then, he's further ingratiated himself to the big money groups that give the most, particularly the Medical-Industrial Complex and the banksters, who have contributed, respectively, $3,837,102 and $5,715,734 towards Baucus' shady career in politics.

And then came the vote on Manchin-Toomey, the very mainstream, very moderate commonsense background checks bill opposed by the NRA but favored by 91% of Americans (and 79% of Montanans)-- as well as by most NRA members and most gun owners. Bachus slipped... or his mask did. He voted wrong and ended his career in politics. There's nothing left for him now but the disgrace of working as a paid whore on K Street.




The last polling in Montana had already shown him losing popularity-- and vulnerable.

PPP's newest Montana Senate poll finds that the seat could be competitive next year...but Republicans are probably going to need a stronger candidate than Corey Stapleton or Champ Edmunds.

Max Baucus has a 45/48 approval rating, upside down numbers that reflect what we've found for him over most of the last couple years. Nevertheless Baucus would start out with pretty large leads over both Stapleton (45/38) and Edmunds (47/37) who have shown the greatest interest in the race to date.

Baucus would be in trouble if a stronger Republican candidate got into the contest though. He would trail by 5 point margins to both Congressman Steve Daines (49/44) and former Governor Marc Racicot (47/42). He would have a small lead over Attorney General Tim Fox (46/43).

The biggest threat to Baucus might actually be in a primary. Former Governor Brian Schweitzer would lead him 54/35 in a face off. Democratic voters like Baucus (76/18 approval) but he can't match up to Schweitzer's popularity with the party base (86/9 favorability). Schweitzer's up across the ideological spectrum of the party, leading by 34 with 'very liberal' voters, 17 with 'somewhat liberal' ones, and 15 with moderates.

Schweitzer would be a stronger general candidate than Baucus. He leads Stapleton by 10 at 49/39 and Edmunds by 15 at 52/37. It would still be competitive even with Schweitzer as the nominee if a top tier Republican ran though- he would lead Daines only 48/45 and start out just behind Racicot at 46/45. He leads Fox by 6 points in a hypothetical match up at 49/43.

Baucus, the ConservaDem best known as the person who wrecked Obamacare by killing the public option, could have never faced Schweitzer-- a single-payer populist-- in a primary. Perhaps he was aware Schweitzer was going to run-- even if Schweitzer is being publicly coy right now and allowing Baucus to save face. The Missoulian ran a story Baucus couldn't have missed about how Montana voters overwhelmingly prefer Schweitzer to him. Schweitzer came out as the most popular political figure in the state and Baucus came out as the least popular figure.

Schweitzer is helping make it easier for Baucus to retire from the Senate. "Max has served in the U.S. Senate longer than any other Montanan in history," he said yesterday. "Every Montanan would like nothing more than to spend another day in Montana and the sacrifice he's made with all that time in Washington...  If someone said, 'Well, I want to spend more time in Alabama; I want to spend more time in the Bayou.' What are you crazy?' But if they say to you, 'I just want to spend more time in Montana,' they mean it. It's real... God bless him for all his years of service... I'm the kind of guy that, when I see a broke-down pickup, I'll get out with my tools and try to fix it, and I can tell you looking at Washington, D.C., from Montana, there is no bigger broke-down pickup than the Senate in Washington, D.C."

Those polled were asked to rate the job performance of top Montana politicians and President Barack Obama in one of four categories: "excellent," "pretty good," "only fair" or "poor." The "excellent" and "pretty good" scores generally are combined to provide a positive job-performance rating.

Schweitzer, a Democrat, had a 60 percent job performance rating, followed by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester at 50 percent and Republican U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg at 48 percent... Baucus was last at 38 percent. His job performance rating has plunged from 67 percent in the last Lee Newspapers poll in May 2009, when he led the pack.

Polls by other groups have shown that Baucus' job performance scores have fallen drastically since his role in passage of the federal health care reform law in 2009 and 2010. The Montana senator was a leading architect of that bill.

Republicans hate Baucus because, among other things, they view him as having helped pass Obamacare. Democrats dislike him because he ruined Obamacare at the behest of his corporate allies. He's widely seen as one of the Senate's most corrupt members, more like a Republican in that regard than a Democrat.

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American Political Elites Are Really Bad-- Roundup

Painting by Attila Richard Lukacs

Ken's back in action and he'll be taking back this slot starting tomorrow. If you think you're happy, imagine how I feel!

Heidi Heitkamp-- Cowardly And Disappointing

You probably heard about the tremendous disappointment that 4 Democratic senators-- Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Mark Pryor (AR), Max Baucus (MT) and Mark Begich (AK)-- made common cause with the Republicans against the bipartisan background check amendment offered by Second Amendment fanatics Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Former Obama Chief of Staff, Bill Daley wrote a blistering OpEd this past weekend for the Washington Post about how Heitkamp betrayed him. She didn't only betray a wealthy and powerful contributor like Daley; she betrayed the Democratic values and principles that have propelled her into the Senate.

She voted to block legislation to make gun background checks more comprehensive. Her vote-- along with those of 41 Republicans and three other Democrats-- was a key reason the measure fell short of the 60 votes needed for passage.

Polling has shown that nine in 10 Americans and eight in 10 gun owners support a law to require every buyer to go through a background check on every gun sale. In North Dakota, the support was even higher: 94 percent. Yet in explaining her vote, Heitkamp had the gall to say that she “heard overwhelmingly from the people of North Dakota” and had to listen to them and vote no. It seems more likely that she heard from the gun lobby and chose to listen to it instead.

...The other two Democrats who voted against background checks are Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana [who announced today that he's throwing in the towel; more on that tomorrow]. Like Begich, they will be running for reelection next year. And no doubt they’ll come to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and other cities looking for money to fuel their campaigns. These cities, of course, are also too often the destination for illegal guns flowing in from out of state.

So I’ll have some advice for my friends in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles: Just say no to the Democrats who said no on background checks.

Far more progressive elements in the Democratic Party released this video about Heitkamp's betrayal yesterday:



GOP Fears Another Todd Akin Catastrophe In Georgia

Right-wing crackpots cheered when conservative Senator Saxby Chambliss announced he was retiring. After all, his lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 1.95-- tied for the 17th most right-wing Member of the Senate with neo-fascist crackpot Jim Inhofe (R-OK)-- and his score for this session is zero. But that wasn't good enough for the extremists... so now they're liable to get stuck with one of two congressmen who make Todd Akin seem almost mainstream, Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey.

In a recent fundraising letter, [Broun] boasted that he was the first member of Congress to call Obama "a socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies."

That makes Broun a tea party and evangelical favorite. To other Republicans, however, such comments stir memories of 2012 losses in Senate races in Missouri and Indiana where the GOP nominees, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, made controversial comments about women, rape and abortion.

"There's no question that the Republican Party in Georgia and the nation are concerned that we could have another Todd Akin-type scenario here," said Heath Garrett, a Republican campaign consultant and former top aide to U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson.

Not Sure If Fred Malek Is Still A Jew Hater, But If He Is, He's Now A Pro-Gay Jew Hater

Malek is a rich GOP fundraiser for extreme right-wing candidates and causes now but he's best known as Nixon's "Jew counter," who worked to make sure there weren't "too many" Jews working for the government. He told Think Progress yesterday that he's in favor of marriage equality. "I feel it’s overdue and I support gay marriage... It’s a free country. They ought to be able to get married and they ought to have legalization of that." The candidates he finances through the shady PAC he operates, the American Action Network, do not favor marriage equality. In the 2012 cycle Malek spent $11,689,399 on independent expenditures trying to elect vehemently anti-gay candidates like Daniel "Taliban Dan" Webster (R-FL), Jeff Denham (R-CA), Richard Mourdock (R-IN), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), Chip Cravaack (R-MN), and Jesse Kelly (R-AZ). But he supports gay marriage. And he likes the Jews too.

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How The NRA Prevents Law Enforcement From Catching Violent Terrorists

As voting patterns started emerging among the freshman class in the new Congress, I saw a lot of new Members who tried appealing to progressives during the election, voting regularly against progressive initiatives. Although Matt Cartwright (D-PA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) have 100% ProgressivePunch crucial vote scores, many more have abysmal scores. Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-CA), for example, has a dismal 52.63% score. Although she represents a solid blue district (CA-35- Pomona, Ontario, Chino, Fontana, where Obama crushed Romney 67.4- 30.6%), her conservative record in the state legislature predicted a conservative voting record in Congress. I asked one of her exasperated colleagues about her tendency to vote with Boehner and Cantor so often. He said she's old and feeble and probably wouldn't be around long. Small consolation! Mike Bloomberg, eager to rid Congress of one of the NRA's most dedicated shills, Joe Baca, financed the independent campaign against Baca that swept McLeod into office. Baca spent $1,162,457 in his failed reelection campaign, while McLeod spent $294,428. Bloomberg's Independence USA PAC spent $3,296,583 boosting McLeod and slamming Baca-- $3,036,181 in the last week. The NRA independent expenditure on behalf of Baca was $1,370. (The NRA also contributed $2,500 directly to Baca's campaign.) Baca wound up with a mere 44% of the votes.

What was odd about it, though, was that McLeod wasn't exactly an NRA enemy. In fact, she wrecked the plans of the Democrats in the state legislature to tag every bullet fired from an assault weapon so that they would be traceable (AB 352, Microstamping of Bullets) and earned a B- from the NRA that year. Tagging bullets makes a lot of sense. But did you know that there is also a way to tag the kinds of bombs that terrorists use-- and that the NRA has prevented that as well? Take a look at the Lawrence O'Donnell explanation in the video above. David Cay Johnston explained how the NRA hampered the police investigation in Boston last week.

The inability to quickly track the gunpowders in the Boston bombs is due to government policy designed and promoted by the NRA, which has found a way to transform every massacre associated with weapons into an opportunity for the munitions companies that sustain it to sell more guns, gunpowder and bullets.

The price for such delays was put on terrible display Friday morning when the two brothers, who had been caught on video placing the bombs, killed one police officer, wounded another and carjacked a motorist, creating conditions so unsafe that the 7th largest population center in America spent Friday on lockdown.

But for the NRA-backed policy of not putting identifiers known as taggants in gunpowder, law enforcement could have quickly identified the explosives used to make the bombs, tracking them from manufacture to retail sale. That could well have saved the life of Sean Collier, the 26-year-old MIT police officer who was gunned down Thursday night by the fleeing bomb suspects.

...Had the Boston bombers used a plastic explosive, it would have included identifiers that would have allowed a quick trace. Those taggants exist because the NRA does not oppose them.

Why is that? Why this breach in the NRA’s Maginot Line of defense against reasonable regulation of guns and ammunition?

The answer appears to lie in who makes plastic explosives like Semtx, which was used to bring down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The world’s main supplier was not a company that finances the NRA, but Libya under Moammar Khadafy.

That this one breach in NRA policy traces directly to the economic interests of the American munitions industry provides powerful evidence of what motivates the NRA-- profits.

That the gun makers have managed to turn each massacre into a spike in sales of both expensive rapid-fire weapons and ammunition adds to the evidence that the NRA should be viewed as the mass-murder lobby.

...Hobbling law enforcement, and attacking it, has long been an NRA strategy.

After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, federal agents had a tough time tracing the fertilizer used to make the bomb that killed 168 people and injured 680 more because the NRA had fought using identifiers for explosives.

...Let’s not forget what Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s CEO, said shortly after that terrorist act in Oklahoma City. LaPierre went on the attack against law enforcement, comparing federal agents to the Nazis and calling them “jack-booted thugs.”

Former president George H.W. Bush then resigned from the NRA in protest, but LaPierre kept his job, which speaks volumes.

As for taggants, the “study” the NRA cites to show that good science found taggants would make gunpowder less reliable and would not work was in fact only a review of the literature.

Anyone who actually reads the 1980 report, “Taggants in Explosives,” will find this revealing line by the Office of Technology Assessment: “Due to severe time constraints, OTA did little original research.”

Technology has advanced since that report, which is so old that it was prepared on a typewriter.

We can get identifiers put in gunpowders because of technological advances, just as reports get prepared these days on computers.  And if “good science” says existing taggants fall short, then Congress can fund research to develop taggants that work without degrading the quality of the explosive charge in bullets.

But as the votes in the Senate killing modest gun regulation and controls on gun trafficking showed this week, what stands firmly in the way of reducing mass murders and bombings is one organization and its backers.

We can change that, once the public understands that the NRA is not so much a defender of Second Amendment rights as a lobby for enabling mass murder.

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Lindsey Graham... Not Courageous

Lindsey Graham was the first of the Republican panderers to declare 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev an enemy combatant, unworthy of the trial that this country guarantees people accused of crimes. I'm sure he thought that kind of unconstitutional raving would play well in the upcountry where he's so very, very unpopular. And he certainly knows South Carolina better than I do. I mean the fact that a flamboyant, superficially closeted homosexual like Lindsey Graham can cultivate a political career in a stridently anti-gay state like South Carolina, certainly shows ole Lindsey has some political skills and a knack for effectively deceiving the rubes. So... shred the Constitution (except the Second Amendment, of course).

Not everyone agrees with Graham. Even a hawkish conservative like Adam Schiff D-CA) understands the importance of not throwing out the Constitution in a fit of fearfulness and politics.

Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, reiterated the importance of upholding due process for Tsarnaev. “This is not a foreign national caught on an enemy battlefield, but an American citizen arrested on American soil,” he said in a statement Saturday. “The Justice Department has demonstrated a far greater ability to successfully prosecute suspected terrorists in federal courts than the military commissions have thus far been able to show.  Nothing must be done to compromise the public safety, the ability of prosecutors to seek justice for the victims or our constitutional  principles.”

There were 7 amendments the Senate voted on last week, amendments to a gun safety bill since withdrawn. Graham, whose approval ratings back home are plummeting and who faces both primary challenges and a serious Democratic challenger, knew perfectly that none of those amendments were in any way related to the Second Amendment. By NRA propaganda on behalf of the weapons and ammo manufacturers has been so effective in permeating the politics of South Carolina that Graham dared not even join his normally joined at the hip compadre, John McCain, in supporting the bipartisan background check amendment (Manchin-Toomey) backed by 91% of Americans and healthy majorities of South Carolinians, NRA members and Republicans. Graham was one of the 42 Republicans and 4 ConservaDems who refused to even allow it to come up for a vote, joining the right-wing extremists in a filibuster. If you didn't watch the Maddow video clip up top, now would be a good time to do so.

As Rachel says, "Federal law says that if you are a felon you are not supposed to be able to buy a gun. If you have a severe mental illness... if a judge has declared you to be 'mentally defective,' you are not supposed to be able to buy a gun in the United States of America. That's the law. Of course you can't tell by looking at someone if a judge has declared that person to be mentally defective. You cannot tell by looking at a person if that person is a convicted felon. But if you are either of those things, the law says you cannot buy a gun." After that... you have to watch the clip to see what she's getting at.

What she was getting at, though, would come as no surprise to Lindsey Graham. He's not a stupid man. He knows the need for background checks and he knows the need for background checks is not any kind of impingement on the Second Amendment.

But what Lindsey Graham-- and many of his Republican colleagues-- are counting on is that Republican voters won't allow a vote like that stand in the way of reelection. Being tough on-- well, tough on... liberals, I guess... certainly not tough on crime, since every crime fighting organization in America backed the background checks amendment-- never hurts a conservative sniffing around for votes, especially not upcountry. Obama won Charleston last November. He beat Romney 81,027 to 77,248. People in Charleston overwhelmingly favor background checks. They may even favor background checks up in Anderson, where Romney beat Obama 48,493 to 22,315 and in Aiken, where Romney beat Obama 41,157 to 23,953. But it's in places like Anderson and Aiken counties where Graham is most vulnerable, where people don't like him, don't trust him and sense he "isn't one of us." Having the NRA seal of approval destroyed the political career of ConservaDem Debbie Halvorson on the southside of Chicago; that's not how it works in South Carolina.

Jay Stamper, the Democrat running for the Senate seat Lindsey Graham is occupyig, said he was "stunned" that Graham voted against Manchin-Toomey's background check amendment, "He can't possibly have opposed it on grounds of unconstitutionality; the amendment simply expanded background checks to private sales at gun shows and on the internet-- a common sense measure to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. In any event, having just called for the suspension of the Constitution itself, Senator Graham makes an unlikely constitutionalist."

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Nuggets-- Mostly Gun Control

Good news: Ken is out of the hospital and his operation was a complete success. Hopefully, he'll be back in this slot soon. Meanwhile: bit and pieces I missed the last couple of days

Arkansas ConservaDem Mike Ross Is Back

Corrupt Blue Dog Mike Ross is throwing his hat into the ring in Arkansas' gubernatorial race. The Republican in the race is right-wing fanatic Asa Hutchinson and the Democrat running is former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Ross hopes to position himself in between, just like his entire sordid career in Congress was, where he had the distinction of voting more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats-- and doing that more often than almost any other Democrat in history. Why doesn't he run as an independent?

Bipartisan Background Checks Defeated

Maybe if 92% of Americans supported the bill, instead of a mere 91%, it would have passed. But the NRA triumphed over the American people in the Senate yesterday. Democrats Mark Begich AK), Mark Pryor (AR), Heidi Heitkamp (ND) and Max Baucus (MT) joined the NRA voters and abandoned their own constituents. Voters in Arkansas, Alaska and Montana will have a chance to react in 2014. The amendment, which needed 60 to get through the GOP filibuster, only wound up with 54 votes (55 if you include Reid). I might add, that in 2008 Blue America endorsed Mark Begich and helped him raise money. Blue America won't be endorsing him for reelection and will leave him to the corporations and right wing interest groups he's been sucking up to to help him raise money. We'll look closely at any Democrat who decides to primary him (and Pryor and Baucus). The Blue America-backed Senate candidates for 2014 all favor serious gun control.

And Speaking Of Obstructionist Filibusters...

This was 2009 gem dug up by Ed Kilgore a couple days ago: "My personal feeling is that supporting a filibuster against your own party and your own party’s president should be treated as a serious and rare measure on major issues of conscience where the sacrifice of some of the prerogatives of seniority are a small price to pay. So maybe that price really should be paid. But at a minimum, the practice of thinking of cloture votes as identical to substantive votes, and tolerating defections on the former as just the same as the latter, needs to come to an end. There is no sixty-Senate-vote requirement for the enactment of regular legislation in the Constitution or in the Senate rules. We don’t need lockstep Democratic unity on policy initiatives. We just need unity on the simple matter of allowing the Senate to vote." Will there be any consequences? From Senate Majority Leader Reid? From the DSCC? From Obama? No, no, no. But from voters? We'll see, won't we?

DCCC Perfidy... Again

Moments after the 4 Democrats voted with most of the Republicans to kill background checks, the DCCC tweeted "GOP just blocked background checks. Disgusting. We can't let this stand. Stand with us now." They are hoping to make money on the vote-- money they will use to help reelect devoted NRA allies and gun control opponents on their Front Line list, particularly Blue Dogs Jim Matheson and Mike McIntyre, each of whom is expecting $2 million from the DCCC this cycle. If you contribute a dollar to the DCCC most of it will be skimmed off the top for the corrupt hacks who run it the operation from year to year. Most of the rest will go to support Democrats who voted with the GOP on issues like gun control, women's Choice, marriage equality, war, and economic justice.

Last Words On Senate Gun Votes

Gabby Giffords wrote a powerful OpEd for the NY Times immediately after the vote yesterday. She started like this:

Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms-- a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents-- who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

And she ends ominously: "Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way."


The most serious bill was Dianne Feinstein's amendment to get military-style assault weapons off the streets. It failed 40-60; the GOP didn't even have to filibuster that one because the NRA controls enough Democrats so it had no chance. Every Republican except Mark Kirk (IL) opposed it; the Democrats who crossed the aisle into NRA-land on that one:

• Max Baucus (MT)
• Mark Begich (AK)
• Michael Bennet (CO)
• Joe Donnelly (IN)
• Kay Hagan (NC)
• Martin Heinrich (NM)
• Heidi Heitkamp (ND)
• Tim Johnson (SD)
• Angus King (I-ME)
• Mary Landrieu (LA)
• Joe Manchin (WV)
• Mark Pryor (AR)
• John Tester (MT)
• Mark Udall (CO)
• Tom Udall (NM)
• Mark Warner (VA)

Kind of takes your breath away, huh? The anti-democratic, anachronistic Senate should be abolished or turned into an advisory body like the House of Lords. Members should wear powdered wigs.

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