The Blue America Senate Primaries Contest

[Joanne98]

Yesterday we saw every single Republican-- including supposed moderates Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Scott Brown-- vote against allowing a debate on Wall Street reform to even begin. And the most reactionary Democrat in the Senate, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, crossed the aisle to vote for Wall Street and against the American people. It's another sign that there's an effective conservative coalition in control of the American government.


In 2008 Americans went to the polls and overwhelmingly voted for change and for hope, two of the things most anathemas to conservatives. Conventional wisdom is that after the fast-approaching November midterms, Congress will be even less likely to vote for change and hope. Conventional wisdom has convinced itself that the 30% of Americans who are die-hard right-wing Republicans, who relate positively to teabaggery, who embrace racism and hatred and bigotry and who think Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, not Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, wrote the Constitution, will replace Nancy Pelosi with John Boehner and Harry Reid with Mitch McConnell.

Yesterday was also the first day of a Blue America effort to combat that conventional wisdom with an assertion that-- corporate media and corporate pundits be damned-- we can force change and hope through the system. As April drifts into May, we have to make it clear to our friends and families that if we wait for November it will be too late to prevent a conservative resurgence. May has five crucial Democratic primaries pitting more progressive candidates against more conservative ones: Jennifer Brunner vs. Lee Fisher in Ohio, Jack Conway vs. Daniel Mongiardo (pictured above with his friend John McCain) in Kentucky, Bill Halter vs. Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, Elaine Marshall vs. Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, and Joe Sestak vs. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania.

Blue America contends that because the more progressive Democrats are eager to draw sharp contrasts between conservative Republican positions and progressive Democratic positions, only Brunner, Conway, Halter, Marshall and Sestak can turn or keep these seats blue. Why, for example, would voters in Kentucky bother voting for a homophobic reactionary who opposed healthcare reform and mouths GOP talking points whenever he opens his mouth, Mongiardo, against Trey Grayson or Rand Paul? Because they like their officeholders in blue jerseys instead of red ones? I don't think so. Conservatives are happy voting for Republicans, and the Democratic base is as likely to stay home for Mongiardo (or Fisher or Lincoln or Cunningham or Specter) as they did for fatally flawed candidates like Creigh Deeds in Virginia and Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-on-blue-america-senate-primaries.html