The "D" Halo

Mission Impossible:  Trying to Get Democrats to Disaffect from Corporate Democrats

I was a little shocked when the Young Democrats from Pierce County invited me to be a part of their endorsement process for the 9th District Congress office.  Imagine, Democratic activists, of all people, not giving the corporate incumbent congressman, who has a "D" next to his name, a free pass to another two years in Congress.   I got over my shock and answered their questionnaire, and now I'm waiting for their decision.

Little has been more nerve wracking in this campaign for Congress than for Democrats in this now overwhelmingly Democratic district to tell me they're effectively going to vote for Adam Smith because he has a "D" next to his name, the party-line vote.  Smith votes for more bad legislation that ordinary Democrats would disagree with than you can shake a stick at, but he gets a pass because most people don't know how he votes; in other words, the benefit of the doubt because he has a "D" halo.  Smith, whose current campaign is funded by bankers and oil magnates, as doubtless in years past, helped to get rid of the Glass - Steagall Act by voting for the Gramm, Leach, Bliley Act, and thus ended the sensible controls on banks (that kept them from gambling with people's money) and led to the October Panic of '08 and the resulting depression.  Smith also voted for Wall Street Bailout No. 1 in '08, and probably voted for No. 2 in '09 (I can't say anything definitively about '09 until I do more research). 

These bad economic votes don't even begin to touch on Smith's apparent nonchalance about the undermining of civil liberties in this country by, among other things, his National Defense Authorization Act vote or votes, which retains the proviso that effectively nullifies Habeas Corpus (right to judicial review), an integral part of the Bill of Rights.  That is clearly unconstitutional legislation.  Nor touch on his vote to let President George W. Bush give the order to invade Iraq a decade ago (most of Smith's Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives voted against Bush, seeing that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and had already given up their WMD stockpile to the international authority before the Autumn, 2002 vote).

Yet, Progressive Democrats rarely challenge Corporate Democrats, like Smith, especially once the latter assumes power.  It's one of the big curiosities of contemporary politics in America of why the Tea Party, despite their overall unwholesome laissez faire economics, will at least challenge Wall Street Republicans, like the recently defeated Eric Cantor, but the so-called progressives in the Democratic Party can't even so much as criticize Wall Street Democrats in Congress, let alone challenge them.  The "D" halo effectively nullifies challenges from progressives on their left and pretty much ensures that the rank and file won't pay attention to the details.

-- Mark Greene, Candidate for Congress, Washington 9th District (Revived Citizens Party)

[revised on 6/14/14]

Note:  the other Democrat in this year's primary, Don Rivers, filed with the Federal Election Commission as being in the 7th District even though he currently lives in the 9th District.  That signifies one of two things: he either recently moved to the 9th District since filing with the F.E.C., or he is so out of touch with politics that he didn't realize, at the time of his F.E.C. filing,  that his precinct was redistricted into the 9th a little more than two years ago.  The best bet for non-Smith Democrats is to join the Revived Citizens Party coalition and vote for Mark Greene.