Does The Democratic Party Really Think It Will Beat MAGA With Candidates Like Angie Craig?
- Howie Klein
- Sep 8
- 2 min read
While I was stuck in a hospital bed last month, something else made me sick: a very progressive nonprofit I’m affiliated with endorsed Angie Craig for the open Minnesota U.S. Senate seat. Angie Craig— a careerist New Dem whose voting record belongs in a landfill.
This is a candidate we had no business touching. We’d already endorsed Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s progressive Lieutenant Governor [Contributions here]. That should’ve been the end of it. Instead, we’ve thrown our name behind someone who votes like a Blue Dog and fundraises like a K Street lobbyist.
Here’s the truth: Craig’s district (MN-02) isn’t even that tough. It’s D+3. Biden beat Trump there by 7.2 points. Even Kamala squeaked out a 5.8-point win. So why is Angie Craig’s Progressive Punch score a rock-bottom F— nestled in the muck with Jared Moskowitz, Josh Gottheimer, Henry Cuellar, and the other corporate apologists dragging this party into oblivion?
And if you think she’s a friend to working families, think again. She’s an AIPAC darling, cozy with the same pro-genocide lobby trying to purge progressives from Congress.
But the real kicker? While grassroots Democrats were sweating it out at Minnesota’s biggest campaign event, Angie Craig was at a crypto cartel retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming— warming up the stage for Eric Trump. Yes, that Eric Trump. Tim Scott, the GOP’s Senate campaign chief, was there too— bragging about how the industry helped them kill Sherrod Brown’s populist campaign in Ohio. Guess what? The crypto crowd spent nearly $1 million last cycle backing Craig.
So I’ll ask the question nobody else wants to: Is this really the kind of Democrat we need in 2025?
Some very wealthy, very out-of-touch Democrats think so. They live in the same alternate universe where it makes sense to toast Susan Collins at Hollywood fundraisers while she votes for 96% of Trump’s judges, including Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Jeet Heer nailed it: these donors aren’t moderates—they’re masochists. They bankroll the people who put Roe v. Wade in the shredder and then wonder why everything’s on fire.
Meanwhile, Republicans are busy turning Congress into Trump’s personal fiefdom. They’ve gutted congressional authority, rubber-stamped vaccine deniers, and surrendered the power of the purse to a wannabe dictator. And our answer to this existential threat is… Angie Craig?
No. Hell no. This is the moment for fighters, not crypto shills in New Dem clothing. If Schumer, Jeffries, and the donor class think this is the future, it’s time Democratic voters send a different message: We’re done with politicians who think bipartisanship means selling out the base to billionaires.
Because if we don’t fight now— against Trump, against authoritarianism, and yes, against corporate Democrats— then what are we even doing?
Howie,
Glad to see you posting again.
MN-02 had been pretty solidly Red through all of the 2000's, when it was gerrymandered in favor or Republican'ts. John Kline held the seat until he announced that he was not going to stand for election in 2016.
Meanwhile, when Angie Craig was the VP of Human Resources at St. Jude Medical in St. Paul, MN, prior to her first run for Congress in 2016 (which she lost to Jason Lewis, Minnesota's version of Rush Limbaugh), she was the head of the corporate PAC that was dedicated to raising funds for Mitt Romney's campaign for president in 2012. She signed a letter that claimed that, for all intents and purposes, Obamacare would be the death of American healthcare and s…
Centrists is a misnomer. These are extreme corporatists, pushing a vision of the world that drives most of the plot lines of the "Black Mirror" series. The horseshoe theory, mostly used to smear leftists, more accurately should be applied to the corporatists of both major parties. The neocons and neolibs have taken over both parties, and the only difference is in their PR. Unfortunately, Sanders took the tremendous nation-wide (and world-wide) energy of his movement, and channeled it into a party committed to crushing any possibility of a progressive future.