Maxine Waters sounds off about Blue Dogs...says Rahm recruited them.

[madfloridian]

Run time: 01:56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUnOFtFk9NI   Posted on YouTube: July 28, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 28, 2009 By DU Member: madfloridian Views on DU: 7856

 
Here is more from Daily Kos.

Maxine Waters says Rahm's Blue Dogs chickens have come home to roost

Waters stated the following in an angry tone:

1. Emmanuel, when in Congress recruited conservatives to run as Democrats, and promised them that they would not be strong armed into voting with the caucus. Now "those chickens are coming home to roost."

2. Giant blocks of population in these Blue Dog districts are impoverished and are clearly "not being represented by their Congressmen."

In response to a question about whether the Blue Dogs should be primaried, Waters stated:

1. She didn't want to make empty threats on things she could not deliver, but she wanted to get the message out about what Blue Dogs are doing so that someone in their district gets angry and motivated to run in a primary.

In response to a question about the Senate Finance Committee bill, she stated that:

1. The progressive caucus wanted a single payer plan, and that the progressive caucus has compromised enough.

2. The SFC plan is unacceptable.

3. She is regularly meeting with the progressive caucus, the black caucus, and the tri-caucus to stategize against the Blue Dogs and keep a robust public option.

The Blue Dogs were given blanket permission to screw us by the WH CoS.

That same person lost us a house seat here in Florida by kicking a good real Democrat out of the race and recruiting a millionaire Republican to appeal to the fundamentalist groups. He had two affairs and the seat went Republican again. Kudos to Dave Lutrin, the good Democrat who posted here and told me he might run again. They dried up his funding, even the teachers union turned on him because of the DCCC pressure.

Go Maxine.

Here is an article about more of the DCCC's shenanigans in recruiting wealth conservatives to run as Democrats. It is by Matt Renner at Truthout. Read it all. From 2007

Special Report: Democratic House Officials Recruited Wealthy Conservatives

How Emanuel came to his decisions about which candidates to support against Democratic opponents is known only to Emanuel and his staff. Emanuel declined direct comment on this story. But an examination of individual races reveals a pattern of financial and political support for wealthy conservative candidates and an assault on their grassroots-supported opponents who were running on platforms that included a full withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

Here is only one example from the article, a candidate we donated to and supported through DFA, one who helped build up grassroots Democrats in that area of IL.

A well-documented instance of interference by the DCCC during a Democratic primary occurred during the contest between Christine Cegelis and Tammy Duckworth. Cegelis, a strong proponent of withdrawal from Iraq, encountered unexpected and effective opposition from the DCCC.

Cegelis challenged former 16-term Republican Congressman Henry Hyde in 2004. An information technology specialist, Cegelis had no previous experience in politics, but decided to face off against an entrenched incumbent Republican. Her 2004 campaign, run on a meager budget with mostly volunteer staff, was able to create a tightly knit grassroots infrastructure in the Illinois 6th Congressional District. In 2004, Cegelis received just over 44 percent of the vote. The 82- year-old Hyde decided to retire rather than face another reelection campaign in 2006. This seat became a top target for the Democratic leaders and a microcosm of a much larger battle for the future of the Democratic Party.

Emanuel, himself a congressman from the neighboring 5th District of Illinois, apparently tried to recruit six different candidates to run against Cegelis. According to Kevin Spidel, campaign manager for the Cegelis campaign, all of Emanuel's attempts failed because the potential candidates "all said 'hell no!' They knew the resentment they would face. If you were in the district, you knew how much Cegelis was loved. She built her own machine."

Eventually, Emanuel found a candidate who lived just outside the district, Tammy Duckworth. Duckworth, a helicopter pilot who was severely injured in combat in Iraq, was convinced to run against Cegelis by Emanuel and two Democratic heavyweights, Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama.