The any-blue-will-do drumbeat has begun— from the DCCC and from the DCCC-minded. Most of the candidates in the DCCC’s Red to Blue program are just plain horrible. Congress would be better off without most of them. I’ve talked with many of them and there is just one— of the 20— who would likely be a great member of Congress, Sue Altman (NJ). Michelle Vallejo (TX), Kirsten Engel (AZ), Josh Riley (NY) and Mondaire Jones (NY)— based on his past record, not on the way he’s talking now— are also worth supporting. Meanwhile, five are endorsed by the Blue Dogs: Adam Gray (CA), Rudy Salas (CA), Will Rollins (CA), Lanon Baccam (IA) and Adam Frisch (CO) and 13 are endorsed by the New Dems: Curtis Hertel (MI), Tony Vargas (NE), Kirsten Engel (AZ), Will Rollins (CA), George Whitesides (CA), Janelle Bynum (OR), Josh Riley (NY), Mondaire Jones (NY), Monica Tranel (MT), Adam Gray (CA), Christina Bohannan (IA), Rudy Salas (CA), and Derek Tran (CA).
We’ve seen the case against corrupt California conservatives Rudy Salas and Adam Gray before. They were the worst Democrats in the state legislature, which is why they lost when they ran for these same seats in 2022. Their constituents know they would make Congress worse, not better. Because the DCCC continues to recruit and finance them, two solid blue districts are represented by Republicans!
They’re not the only one with legislative records that clearly indicate they will be net negatives if they make it to Congress. Dave Min in Orange County may be even worse. When I interviewed Derek Tran, another Orange County candidate, I found it hard to believe anyone at the DCCC would knowingly want so Republican-lite a candidate in the caucus. Just one shit candidate after another.
What does it matter, you ask, as long as they’re not MAGA Republicans? Good question. Let’s start by taking a quick look at Dan Diamond’s Washington Post piece about what a political winner ObamaCare has become. “Biden’s celebration and Trump’s grudging acceptance of the ACA,” he wrote, “underline a striking reality: a law once derided as ‘Obamacare’ and demonized as a big government power grab is becoming a politically untouchable part of the American safety net, like Social Security and Medicare before it. More than 45 million people now rely on the ACA and its provisions for health coverage, according to a federal report released last week, and the law’s protections for people who have preexisting conditions have transformed many Americans’ experience of health care. Yet for nearly a decade, Republicans like Trump successfully ran on pledges to ‘repeal Obamacare’— and Democrats sometimes ran from it, scarred by the law’s bumpy rollout, the constant political attacks and the struggle to communicate its benefits… If voters initially responded to GOP alarms that the ACA was “socialized medicine,” many are now more swayed by its popular provisions, like one that lets young people stay on their parents’ insurance policies through age 26. That evolution reflects a political reality: while voters often resist sweeping government changes in theory, they tend to become attached to individual programs and concrete benefits. The ACA’s current popularity seems to bear out former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s oft-mocked 2010 insistence that once Americans found out what was in the law, they’d want to keep it.”
If not for corrupt, paid-off conservative Democrats— Blue Dogs Mike Ross (AR), Heath Shuler (NC), Dan Boren (OK), Bobby Bright (AL) in the House and rotgut sell-outs Joe Lieberman (CT), Ben Nelson (NE), Max Baucus (MT), Mary Landrieu (LA), Mark Pryor (AR), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Jim Webb (VA) and Mark Begich (AK) in the Senate— the Affordable Care Act would really be something to fight for and campaign on. During the debate, corrupt conservatives kept whittling away the benefits— the public option ( that would have allowed individuals to buy into a government-sponsored health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurance being the most important). The public option would have provided individuals with an additional choice beyond private insurance plans that was meant to pressure private insurers to lower premiums and improve coverage to remain competitive, leading to lower healthcare costs for consumers.
Also killed by conservative Democrats aligned with Big Insurance and the GOP: the individual mandate, meant to expand the risk pool and ensure that healthy individuals participate in the health insurance market. By requiring most Americans to have health insurance coverage or pay a penalty, the mandate was supposed to prevent adverse selection, where only sicker individuals enroll in insurance, leading to higher premiums for everyone. Conservatives basically gutted this as well as the original robust plan for subsidies to help individuals and families afford health insurance coverage purchased through exchanges.
Without the corrupt conservative Democrats the ACA would have come much closer to achieving universal coverage. Because of them, today millions of people remain uninsured, either because they are ineligible for ACA subsidies, live in states that did not expand Medicaid, or cannot afford coverage even with subsidies. Even for individuals with insurance coverage, underinsurance remains a significant issue. Some plans offered through the ACA exchanges have limited provider networks, restrictive formularies, and high cost-sharing requirements, leaving enrollees with inadequate coverage. Also because of corrupt Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats working with the GOP, the e ACA did little to address the rising cost of prescription drugs, which continues to be a significant burden for consumers. Lack of price regulation and transparency in the pharmaceutical industry contributes to high drug prices (and fat campaign contributions to Republicans and conservative Democrats).
No doubt, the ACA made significant strides in expanding access to healthcare coverage and implementing consumer protections... but its flaws compromise what could’ve been—should have been— a truly great piece of legislation for the American people, offering universal coverage, addressing affordability and ensuring equitable access to high-quality care. Moving forward, there’s a need for continued efforts to strengthen and improve the ACA, addressing its shortcomings and advancing towards a more equitable and comprehensive healthcare system. That will never happen with corrupt conservatives in Congress like Rudy Salas, Adam Gray and the other crap candidates endorsed by the Blue Dogs and New Dems and financed by the DCCC.
Alternative, of course, is putting your energy into electing solid progressives— especially in primaries against conservative Democrats. After the primaries, let the DCCC and its corporate partners finance the campaigns of the crap candidates they back. Progressives should only be supporting candidates who will make a positive contribution to the good of the American people in Congress— not more like the ones who wrecked the promise of the ACA, more like these House candidates and these Senate candidates. Let’s learn from a needlessly painful past— no more Joe Liebermans, Kyrsten Sinemas, Joe Manchins and Blanche Lincolns. Instead more like Jamie McLeod Skinner (OR), Jen Perelman (FL), Sarah Klee Hood (NY), Conor O’Callaghan (AZ) and Sue Altman (NJ).
By the way, there are only 77 Democratic incumbents— and no Republicans (not even one in either chamber— on record opposing U.S. connivance in Israel’s genocide against Gazan civilians. Genocide is the kind of crime against humanity that a member of Congress is either for or against. Jen Perelman, the progressive Democrat taking on pro-genocide, anti-Medicare-for-All New Dem Debbie Wasserman Schultz, told us that “It has not gone unnoticed here in Broward, that during the month of Ramadan, and now on Easter, our ‘representative’ would prefer to spend her time celebrating genocide with Bibi Netanyahu.”