Comment Rescue: Waking Up Carney & Coons
If ever a comment cried out to be rescued….
I feel like this fiasco has been a wake-up call; its time to fix citizens united, get campaign finance reform and strengthen the voting rights act. Help me, Delaware Liberal. How do we effectively get our three C’s to get this issue front and center, so that when the Dems pick up more congressional seats in 2014, they can move quickly to amend these laws? Carney, Coons and Carper have nothing to fear in their re-election bids and should be howling and screaming about this.
First of all, forget about Carper. He is a lost cause. Our only hope to get rid of the West Virginia Republican is father time, and father time don’t give a flying fuck about our parochial problems. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that Coons and Carney are both up for re-election this time. That means that they’ll be forced to get out from behind the phony baloney telephone town halls. Even though they have no real fears about re-election, they’ll still need to make a semblance of a case for why they should be Representing Delaware in Congress.
So I think the best we could do would be to make sure they are making the DEMOCRATIC case for governing – not the bi-partisan (if we just play nice with the teabags they’ll come around) case. So we have to take every opportunity to ask them about their level of zeal when it comes to fixing citizens united, reforming campaign finance and strengthen the voting rights act. We need to call them out LOUDLY when they go down the republican’s “Oh, the Debt…Oh my it is so BIG!” rabbit hole. (And they will go down the Republican’s “Oh, the Debt…Oh my it is so BIG!” rabbit hole at which time we need to remind that economists agree that boneheaded fiscal austerity has slowed down the economy, and cost Delaware jobs.)
Maybe even get involved in the campaign to ensure that we are getting face time. I don’t know. Those are some quick thoughts. I’m sure the DL community will have tons more.
Sen. Carper was a co-sponsor on McCain-Feingold and voted for it. And not only did he vote on it, but in no certain terms said it didn’t go far enough. – http://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=d041635c-745f-48da-8a06-906aa85067ef
On CU – “Not surprisingly, they don’t always work well together, and gridlock follows. Add to that the creation of Super PAC’s and the ability of wealthy individuals, corporations and others to donate almost unlimited amounts of money to impact federal campaigns – much of it anonymous thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 – and you have the makings of a democracy that’s on the ropes.” – from the 2012 Soles lecture
I understand attacking him from the left because he is one of the most moderate members of the Democratic Party, but on this issue he’s gotten it right for at least the past thirteen years.
Come to think of it, I don’t recall Carney doing his usual Concord Coalition deficit-scare show this year.
Yay!! I get a comment rescue! Thanks DL! I’m committed to showing up, asking the questions, and even working on campaigns and I hope others will commit too. I’m convinced that if we don’t fix these three laws, and soon, our chances of accomplishing anything else (say, major (or even minor) action on climate change) are zip and we risk a slow, painful dismantling of our representative democracy.
As much as fixing these laws would help our Democracy – their reform would (further) kill the GOP. It would be a pitched battle.