So far, PDA has endorsed three folks running for seats not already their own: one is trying to take out Darrell Issa in Cal CD 49, another is working right next door, going after the CD 48 seat.
Now these are the two deepest repub seats in all of California -- both contain wooly mammoth-sized majorities with arch-reactionary, Sunbelt, turn-right-at-Nixon mindsets.
So what could this thrust be all about? are these Dem HQ orders: "Go ahead, run your St. Joans -- just stay out of real districts where the odds are close."
But then there's the third PDA-endorsed race, a real deal mentioned here more than once -- Illinois' 6th CD, where two demo contenders collide. One -- the PDA's and our favorite, the brave Christine Cegelis, who's facing a Rahm Emanuel figment, Tammy Duckworth, so gruesomely, cynically concocted that it would shame P.T. Barnum.
My thought -- focus on this race -- forget the other two -- or would that be stepping on toes?
Comments (3)
I doubt very much that the donk leadership cares one way or another about who the PDA does or does not endorse.
The PDA's only real function is to keep votes and money flowing into the party from liberals (mostly democrats of the "Monkeywrench" Medea Benjamin stripe) who would otherwise have bolted the party long ago. The PDA is allowed to make all the right noises that faux-liberal democrats find comforting to keep them safely in the fold and not running around outside the party causing trouble.
This isn't to say that the PDA has no clout inside the party. It's just so little clout as to make them a tolerable nuisance.
As far as IL06 goes, Rahm has pumped about $1,000,000 of the DCCC's money into Duckworths campaign, plus hundreds of staff work hours - which is why the IL primary will be more interesting than was the TX.
If homegrown Cegelis should upstage the RahmPuppet, no doubt the PDA will be there to take the credit and Rahm will still have two of his sockpuppets, John Laesch & Dick Auman (IL 14 & 16 respectively) to play with. And if Duckworth wins (which seems likely) the PDA will still have a couple uncontested CA candidates to use for drumming up the dollars.
Posted by AlanSmithee | March 16, 2006 1:39 PM
Posted on March 16, 2006 13:39
nice compression alan
whether by intent or just consequence
a patty cake outfit like
pda
serves as a honey trap
for reckless goo goo guilt donor dollars
"see to it
as many goo goo dollars
stay out of the wrong hands as possible "
Posted by jsp | March 16, 2006 5:22 PM
Posted on March 16, 2006 17:22
Benjamin ran once as a Green, but I guess those days are long gone. She's a comfortable cog now, working in the PDA harness. It's a damn shame, too, because having seen her on the lecture circuit, I can think of few more interesting and compelling people that could be running for a local post somewhere.
But that's how big corporations operate. Middle managers are seduced by the promise of stability and future prestige into hiding their own light under a bushel permanently. They do a lot of the hard, dangerous, or tedious-- but always necessary work that the board is too good to bother with. That big promotion never arrives because the CEOs don't really think of them as anything but useful window-dressing. Unless it's a completely symbolic promotion, like Dean's.
One of the most depressing spectacles in 2004 was seeing how many big-name progs. decided to content themselves with this form of glorified middle-management. Of course, Dean is the exception, since he was never anything anyway but Clinton with a down-East accent and a mercifully zipped-up fly.
Posted by alsis39.75 | March 17, 2006 10:45 AM
Posted on March 17, 2006 10:45