Corporate Democrats lost in Oregon yesterday

That tidal wave of Big Money donors swept away any potential progressive gains in North Carolina yesterday, but Oregon wasn't buying what they were selling.

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As Oregonians awaited the final vote tally early Wednesday morning, former Blue Dog Coalition Chair Kurt Schrader appeared poised to lose to his primary opponent, Jamie McLeod-Skinner.

A Schrader loss would be stunning: The incumbent pulled in $2 million in outside super PAC support, half of it from the pharmaceutical industry he served in Congress, compared with McLeod-Skinner’s roughly $340,000 from the Working Families Party and Indivisible. Adding in his own spending, Schrader outspent his opponent 10 to 1 — and will likely still lose.

Schrader, whose opponent dubbed him the “Joe Manchin of the House,” joined last year with Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., to push for decoupling the bipartisan infrastructure bill from the Build Back Better Act and cast the deciding vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee to kill prescription drug price reform. Nevertheless, he had the endorsement of both President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

So he's in bed with Big Pharma, he has the full-throated support of Nancy Pelosi, and he a total piece of sh*t.
AND HE LOST! To someone he outspent 10-times over. LMAO.

Schrader also benefited from massive independent expenditures from PACs tied to Democratic Majority for Israel (which has consistently targeted progressives from marginalized backgrounds)

The same PACs that worked so well in Ohio and North Carolina didn't work in Oregon.

Justice Democrats stayed out of the race, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not make endorsements.

I'm starting to see a pattern here. an AOC endorsement can be a net negative sometimes.

Schrader’s district, by contrast, is a swing seat that stretches from the southern Portland suburbs to midsize working-class towns like Bend and large swaths of rural central Oregon.

McLeod-Skinner said that attention to messaging is especially important when reaching out to rural and working-class voters who may be sympathetic to progressive ideas but wary of national Democrats. “Sometimes we’re talking about the same ideas in different ways. … To message correctly, you really have to show up, build relationships, and show a commitment to understanding people’s perspective,” she explained.

That messaging strategy appears to have made a decisive difference. McLeod-Skinner notched a long list of local endorsements for a primary challenger. In an unprecedented move, four of the six local county parties that constitute the district overcame daunting procedural hurdles in order to endorse her.

Meanwhile, right next door is Oregon's 6th district. This race was slightly different because it was an open seat, and because who the villain is.

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The Democratic primary for Oregon’s new congressional district saw unprecedented spending—with more than $13 million spent by national super PACS to try to elect an outsider, Carrick Flynn.

As of Tuesday night, Flynn appeared to have lost. Early returns showed him trailing state Rep. Andrea Salinas 41% to 19%, although only a portion of ballots cast had been counted. Cook Political, a nonpartisan outlet, called the race for Salinas.
...
Protect Our Future PAC spent more than $11 million, much of it from cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, to support Flynn, a political newcomer. In the race’s final days, the super PAC spent more than $800,000 to attack Salinas.

Flynn’s apparent loss was also a defeat for national Democrats’ House Majority PAC linked to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which invested nearly a million dollars on Flynn.

Nancy Pelosi losses another one!

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shaharazade's picture

Sadly the worst candidate for governor won. Glad Oregon is rejecting the nasty big money DNC candiates. Think people here are fed up with corporate Dems. Bet in the election more people vote. Is that a good thing or will the centrist Dems. show up to vote the party line. My district in SE Portland is pretty gentrified. A house on our block just sold for 985,00000. Rich hip techies abound.

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@shaharazade
(for governor) also won on the Republican side - Christine Drazan, who was clearly the corporate candidate of choice. Like the obnoxious Jeff Merkley she flogs her small town background and alleged conservatism but doesn't (as far as I can tell) stray off the corporate reservation.

Guess I have to seriously consider a vote for Betsy Johnson - running as an independent.

On the Republican side of the CD-5 contest, the corporate RINO candidate (Crumpacker) also failed, losing to Lori Chavez DeRemer - mayor of the Portland exurban small community of Happy Valley.

Must be a disappointment to the uni-party to not have even one of their picks nominated.

Not at all unhappy to see Schrader gone (if he is). He is a disgrace to the memory of great Blue Dogs gone by (although he poses as one). Among his 'qualifications' is being the 10th-largest recipient of Big Pharma $$$ in the entire US Congress...

Macleod-Skinner is one of about two Democrats I've voted for in the last ten years or so, four years ago when she was running against Greg Walden - had to admire her taking her kind of butch shitkicker lesbian show on the road all around the Red vastness of Oregon's 2nd District - she is at least serious about getting out and meeting people, even in what most Oregon Dems regard as strictly flyover country.

Now, M-S and myself have been re-districted into CD-5. If she wins, she should at least be an improvement over Schrader although I'm hoping that Chavez-Deremer will more than give her a run for her money.

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Shahryar's picture

unless...well, unless Flynn was a pawn.

Meanwhile let's examine how the Oregonian characterizes the McLeod-Skinner/Schrader race. Let's see if we can detect bias in the reporting.

First, the headline: "Kurt Schrader, Jamie McLeod-Skinner locked in Oregon 5th District battle"

so, you figure, it must be pretty close, like 50-50 or something of that sort. Then we read this..."still-partial returns showed fellow Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner mounting a robust challenge to the seven-term incumbent U.S. House member". Oh...so Schrader must be slightly ahead, I guess. But no, as they report "Preliminary returns as of Wednesday afternoon showed McLeod-Skinner with 61% of the vote compared to 38% for Schrader". Well, wait. How are they "locked"? Isn't that more than just a challenge? Read on!

There's been a "snafu" in Clackamas County and counting is going to go on for awhile because they're incompetent there and the Oregonian tells us "Results from the 1,300 Democratic ballots Clackamas officials have managed to tally show Schrader far ahead of his opponent -- 57% to 42%". (which means Schrader is ahead by 180 total votes there. That's enough for the Oregonian to declare it significant)

You might wonder how McLeod-Skinner's lead means they're "locked in a battle" while Schrader's smaller edge in Clackamas has him "far ahead".

Anyway, Clackamas County has a history of shenanigans. This time the supposed cause is blurry printing that nobody noticed! So the election workers are transferring the votes to fresh ballots without the blurring so they can be scanned. And, hey, there aren't enough workers because the incompetent (? or cheating?) County Clerk says "they didn't come in. You can't force them to work." And, she says, counting might go on into mid-June.

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snoopydawg's picture

the republican candidate won no matter what position they run for. There’s a few democrats in the senate but they are just paper weights for republicans to pass whatever they want.

Republican voters can’t see how their party has sold them out any better than dem party voters can. People love to say that republicans respect the constitution, but fail to see how quiet republicans have been when both sides vote against it. Mike Lee for one.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

But corporate democrats never lose. They just come back with bigger lies, emptier promises and better primary shenanigans. The Clinton Obama Biden machine just gets keeps chugging along.

Also Tankies, the newly resurrected insult aimed at the left.

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Don't know how this will play out in OR, but overall R's are looking highly motivated this time around.

From the NY Post:

So far in 2022, overall voter turnout is up 13% from 2018, JMC Analytics has found. That number is driven by an approximate 30% increase in Republican voter turnout, while Democratic turnout is down 6%.

Of the 10 states that have held primaries so far, the only one where Republican voter turnout has dropped from 2018 is Oregon, where JMC reported a 23% decrease. Democratic voter turnout increased by 12% in North Carolina and 15% in Pennsylvania, but was dwarfed by Republican increases of 44% and 32%, respectively.

Democratic turnout also dropped 29% from four years ago in the former battleground state of Ohio.

For months, the GOP has predicted a so-called “red wave” in the 2022 midterms, taking advantage of an unpopular president, decades-high inflation, record-setting gas prices, and spikes in violent crime and illegal immigration. Perhaps sensing an uphill battle, 32 House Democrats have opted not to contest their seats again this fall.

Source

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Democrats kettle them in as a fringe wing of their side of the aisle rather than have them running around loose attempting to form a viable third party threat. Republicans openly vilify them as commie rats and traitors. R’s and D’s are both loyal servants of the capitalist economic system, real progressives are much more likely to question fealty to the God of Mammon (a.k.a. the God of Excess).

Making sense of our political party system is much simpler if we think in terms of the economic system being served and discard the artificial divisions that we are presented with to give the illusion that we have a meaningful choice to make at the polls.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

@ovals49 Our politicians liken themselves to servants of the people. They're servants all right, just to a certain 1% of the people. In fighting the left for truth, justice and the American way the republicans and democrats come together as true bi-partisans.

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orlbucfan's picture

You guys/gals in OR have a decent candidate in McLeod-Skinner. Try being a Futurist political activist in Floridumb where I live! My area has been so gerrymandered, it's a real BAD joke! Our so-called (closed and how) 'primary' is in August. Talk about corrupt, institutionalized shitsville...this state invented it. I'm on my 4th campaign as a volunteer. At least I will have decent people to vote for in the FL House and U.S. Senate races. I notice that MS followed her version of the 50-state-strategy. That simple process works! Very good news, gj. Smile Thanks and Rec'd!

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