Can Carper and his cancerous moderation really be defeated in a primary?
It is self evident that Tom Carper’s loyalty is not to the people of Delaware who have constantly returned him to office while hoping for the best. His votes, his public statements, the things he shows concern over set him apart from the concerns of the people he “represents” in the US Senate. But can he be defeated? I have always answered “no” that question. But now that I take a good look at Carper and his club of insiders, now that I see Professional Dems being exposed for what they are all over the country, I’m putting my cynicism on the shelf.
Look at the simple fact that Carper has never joined the fight against Trump. Consider that the fact that Carper and his dwindling band of centrists in congress have actively helped Trump these past two years. If you look at where the country is now, relative to where it was when Carper and his gang of so-called “moderates” took over the Democratic Party you could be forgiven for thinking that they are actually working for the GOP, not working to oppose it. List the items that they’ve meekly accepted:
– A crazy and lawless Republican President,
– Off the rails conservative policy making at every level of government,
– A right wing Supreme Court majority,
This tiny sample is courtesy of Tom Carper and his “moderate” fellow travelers. For every major failure by Carper and his entrenched cronies you can think of, consider the thousands of downstream agency appointments each failure triggered. And for each of those horrendous appointments that Carper’s centrism facilitated, think about the millions of further downstream policy failures and fuck ups each appointment set in motion. The true scale of what they’ve done the the country will take 100 years to sort out, and may take another 100 hundred years to fix.
So, yes. I think Carper is beatable in a Democratic Primary. It will take a lot of work.
Fortunatly the people and groups that see Carper for what he is are not strangers to work. Kerri Harris knows what hard fork feels like. Every parent in Delaware who has struggled to keep their head above water knows what it means to work hard. He can be defeated, but it is going to take all of us. Every registered Democrat who sees Trump and the GOP prospering under the phony opposition of Carper and his centrists must join the fight.
It is on.
Did folks see they denied Diane Feinstein the Dem nomination at the party convention in California. (But Delaware is not California.)
Exactly. Not exactly apples to apples, because Feinstein is 84 years old – but a great sign that change is possible.
…and also because Diane Feinstein is still the favorite to win that race. In the California system the top two finishers, regardless of party, have a runoff. She’ll be one of those.
It’s not really about winning. It’s about dismantling the corrupt Democratic Party.
That’s as opposed to the Republican Party, which isn’t corrupt because corrupt means something good has been made bad. The Republican Party is a criminal enterprise. It’s shit from the skin down to the bone.
Yes, Its time for Carper to Move On.
As a gauge of how much my thinking has changed, I can say that I was once one of those Democrats who could be swayed by the argument – “If __X__ happens, then a Republican might win.”
That argument means nothing to me now. I find it laughable on many levels.
Delawareans like to think of their moderateness as a virtue, when it’s actually a sign that they’re…um, soft and squishy cowards.
viz.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tammy-baldwin-progressive_us_5a8f5c33e4b01e9e56b9ed11
Western Wisconsin dairy farmer and Trump voter Tony Bowe plans to back progressive Senator Tammy Baldwin’s reelection.
“Tony Bowe, a dairy farmer in Chippewa Falls, is the type of voter Baldwin needs. Bowe voted for Trump, but he said he’s also backing Baldwin, who has visited his farm in the past.
‘I think she’s been working real well, especially trying to get the Dairy Pride Act passed through,’ Bowe said after a roundtable discussion on dairy farming in Altoona with Baldwin.”
Why did he vote for Trump:
“Bowe, who said he backed Trump ‘because the Democrats didn’t have a good candidate,’* chuckled when asked how he thinks the president is doing.
‘It’s hard to say,’ he said. ‘One day he’s one way, the next day he’s the other way.’ ”
Things people thought were Conventional Wisdom were wrong. What people believed about electability was wrong.
(*N.B. Not Russian generated viral memes.)
Tom Carper has done more damage to the terms “moderation” “bipartisanship” and “centrism” than Dan Savage has done to the word, santorum.
Also, Alby is 100% correct. When we demand politicians take a stand the SPAs* look at us like cretins. They think “finding balance” and a “bipartisan approach” and never stating what policy you’d think would be best suited to tackle our problems is moral and ethical and nice.
This is total nonsense. Rather than fighting for what you believe SPAs think making deals are a end onto themselves even if the bipartisan solution actually solves nothing.
*Sober Pragmatic Adults
Demand that the near-brainless old fucker call for an assault weapons ban. Watch him dance.
Here’s how useless he is: The nicest thing Celia Cohen could find to say about him was that he was, at one time, handsome.
The best evidence of what Rob is saying can be found at That Other Site, where a certain writer thinks Democrats should expend their political capital making sure that we enact one timorous gun-control bill over another, even-more-timorous bill that has the backing of the Bloody Caucus.
This is exactly what they want — get the rubes all worked up over whether a gun can be taken on a “preponderance” of evidence or “substantial” evidence. This is pure chum for people whose competitive instincts easily override their reasoning abilities.
Fuck both bills. One will be just as frustratingly ineffectual as the other. Instead demand an assault weapons ban. They’ve never been used in a Delaware mass shooting? Good. Let’s keep it that way. It won’t solve a”real problem”? Then why are you defending it? Any asshat down there who voted to ban tongue-splitting (I’m not making that up) has no leg to stand on when denouncing “bills that address problems that don’t exist.” Just for the record, the scourge of tongue-splitting — a body-modification procedure that nobody in Delaware was offering — was made illegal by votes of 40-0 in the House and 20-0 in the Senate.
So much for not enacting bills that tackle non-existent problems.
Democrats in California did NOT deny Feinstein the nomination. They denied her the party endorsement going into the California primary.
@Paul: He’s a Republican. That’s as close to accurate as you can expect one of them to get.
Has anyone done the research disclosing Tom Carper’s donors?
Why bother? They’re the banks and a cornucopia of corporate sponsors. I believe the ones Jason portrayed on his fire suit are accurate.
Carper has always been on the take. Taking from every corporation with campaign funds. Even under George Bush Carper voted with him like 90% of the time. He was never a nice man (remember his abuse of his wife). Carper should have been challenged years ago..now is the time to do it. Alby is correct. All these corporate owned demoRATS need to be voted out just like the NRA owned republicans.
Yes we did disclose Carper’s donors, and how those donations impacted his voting record. Spoiler alert: He voted for his donors over his constituents every time.
“You never know until you try”, we should have tried long ago, Carper is an unapologetic corporatist that works for the big corporations. Besides, if we do get rid of Carper we can then train out sights on Coons.
You are right this is going to take all of us. So we all need to donate, volunteer and spread the word. We can do this together.
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00012508&cycle=CAREER