Two races make the point that you can't fake grassroots no matter how much Pacifica Radio, Democracy Now! and others whore for you and pretend you are grassroots. Back before he went completely nuts, back when he did NOW with Bill Moyers, Moyers used to take you inside a race to show you who was funding and driving it and, rightly, when that money and push came from outside the state, he would point out it wasn't 'grassroots.'
There are genuine grassroots efforts around the country and the spirit of those actual efforts is something we applaud. We don't applaud faux grassroots.
On Monday, Jim Dean could be heard on many Pacifica Radio outlets insisting, "Lt. Governor Halter is somebody to us that doesn't necessarily represent an ideological point of view as much as he represents a culture of activism, uh, that's going to fight against what I call the the culture of incumbency. We have great incumbents who behave like activists but we have others, like Blanche Lincoln, who basically go away for six years and take a lot of campaign money from big lobbyists, big business lobbyists, and those days are just over. If Obama's election was the beginning and not the end and we're going to realize real change, we've got to undue this culture."
Blanche Lincoln is one of Arkansas two US senators and she now runs for re-election having won her primary. Arkansas voter Jim Dean preferred Bill Halter and felt Hatler's views were in keeping with his own and that's certainly . . .
Huh?
Jim Dean is the useless brother of the equally useless Howard Dean? Jim Dean lives in Connecticut? Jim Dean doesn't live in Arkansas?
Why the hell's he talking?
Let's go back to his comments.
"Lt. Governor Halter is somebody to us [. . .]"
"Us"? People from out of state?
Bob Somerby's the only one we've seen make the point that 'conservative' for one area may not be 'conservative' for another. He's made that point repeatedly when addressing criticisms of various representatives on the national stage. Jim Dean, of Connecticut, is unhappy with Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas? And?
Who cares. The issue is whether or not the people of Arkansas are unhappy with her and, as they demonstrated on Tuesday, Democrats in that state are okay with her performance or at least not impressed with Halter.
The drive to dump Blanche Lincoln was an out of area effort. It did not speak for Arkansas, it did not speak from Arkansas. If you ever doubted that, you only had to catch Connecticut Yankee Jim Dean on Pacifica Radio Monday (and Tuesday) 'explaining' why he wouldn't vote for a candidate that he couldn't have legally voted for if he'd wanted to.
In 2006, Ned Lamont staged an insurgent campaign in, of all places, Connecticut. He did an incredible job and he won the Democratic Party primary. He did that by speaking to the interests and needs of voters in Connecticut. This allowed him to defeat incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman. Lieberman then decided to run as an independent and he could have been easily picked off as such with a few comments of, "Connecticut said 'No' to Joe but he just won't take the point." Similar messages were floated on victory night by his statewide staff. They knew Lamont could deftly swat Lieberman away.
Too bad that, following Lamont's victory, all the usual national staff poured into the state and took over the campaign. Nationally, it was declared, Iraq wasn't a good issue to run on. Forget that Connecticut's mood on the illegal war had long been strongly against it, forget that running on that issue had helped Lamont draw a clear difference between himself and Lieberman. The issue must be dropped because state-outsiders said so. They saw a lot to 'fix.' And, to no one's surprise, when November 2006 rolled around, Ned Lamont went home a loser and Lieberman retained his seat in the Senate.
After Tuesday's election, the White House angered some activists and 'activists' by declaring that unions wasted millions of dollar trying to defeat Blanche Lincoln. We're not fans of the White House; however, they were correct. An out-of-state effort to oust Lincoln was not a grassroots effort and that's why it failed.
The other faux grassroots campaign was the one insisting Marcy Winograd should be the US House Rep. from California's thirty-sixth district. This was not Marcy's first run. Despite the lies she and Amy Goodman told last week on Democracy Now!, this was not her second time running against Jane Harman.
From SourceWatch's Winograd page:
Bio
2006 elections
Winograd challenged Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) in the June 6th 2007 California primary. Harman won the nomination.
2008 elections
Winograd was challenging incumbent Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) in the Democratic primary.[1]
Those are called facts. Lies are what Goody and Marcy served up on Democracy Now! last week:AMY GOODMAN: And what is different between this campaign, Marcy Winograd, and the campaign that you ran four years ago?
MARCY WINOGRAD: Amy, last time that I ran, in 2006, I had just seen Jane Harman on Meet the Press attack [. . .]
Last time Marcy ran was 2008. Maybe she feels she looks less like a loser if she takes away one of those failed bids? Amy and Marcy weren't the only ones lying. PDA sent out an e-mail Wednesday morning announcing, "Despite an all-out effort by Progressive Democrats of America members and an energized grassroots campaign, Marcy Winograd was defeated in the California primary by eight-term incumbent Jane Harman, who represents the 36th congressional district in Los Angeles. This was Winograd’s second attempt to defeat Harman. " No, this was her third. And PDA wonders why they're seen as so damn pathetic?
Marcy had a lot of support . . . from outside District 36. For example, Norman Solomon was forever explaining in text and over the airwaves why everyone should support Marcy the way he did. Left out was the fact that he didn't vote for her.
Because Norman's two-faced?
We'll let someone else determine that and just note that as gerrymandered as California has sometimes been, residents of Inverness, California (or any surrounding area in Marin County) have never, ever voted in the same Congressional district race as western Los Angeles. Sidebar: It should be noted that Mr. Up With People Normy elects to live in an overwhelmingly White region (less than six percent of the population is non-White Anglo in Inverness).
Yeah, Norman was one of those 'grassroots' supporters who couldn't actually vote in the race he was insisting you vote for Marcy in. Marcy had a lot of those 'supporters.' They were, in fact, her base. As was more or less noted in the e-mail Winograd sent out on Wednesday, "I thank Progressive Democrats of America and its chapters for making thousands of calls and sending a field team to our door." Yes, PDA has many chapters all over the country (and even "Americans Abroad"). Marcy couldn't have done it without the help of those chapters -- plural. Those out-of-district-thirty-six chapters. She also thanked "Peace Action and Peace Action West" for all their help with "mailers and fabulous field organizers" -- again, out of district.
But what really took the cake was her let-them-eat-cake take on the actual voters of district 36:
I did not run to make Harman work harder. I ran to bring real reform to Congress: Jobs, not war. Your street, before Wall Street. These aren't just slogans--they are part of our hopes and dreams for America. Unfortunately, the majority of voters chose to maintain the status quo.
Hey, Marcy, we were never impressed with you but who knew you'd go out like Tricky Dick? "Unfortunately, the majority of voters chose to maintain the status quo," she huffs sounding a lot like Richard Nixon after he lost the 1962 California's governor's race: "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference [. . .]"
