Only four members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted to authorize the war in Iraq. There was William ‘Freezer Cash’ Jefferson from New Orleans. There was Sanford Bishop, an appropriator from Albany, Georgia. There was the present chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Harold Ford Jr., of Memphis, Tennessee. And there was Albert Wynn, from the 4th District of Maryland.
After tonight, only Rep. Bishop remains in office. Oh sure, Reps. Jefferson and Wynn will get to serve out their terms, but Wynn has just been defeated in a primary by community activist Donna Edwards. With 51% of the vote in, Edwards leads 59%-37%.
Al Wynn didn’t earn the enmity of progressives for his war vote alone. He voted for Cheney’s energy plan, he voted for the Bankruptcy Bill, and he voted to repeal the Estate Tax.
Progressives acted with fury. Just through ActBlue alone, over 7,000 progressives donated $400,000 to Donna Edwards campaign. MoveOn.org lent their full support. And the result is stunning. This is literally a 2×4 across the head to the Democratic Establishment. It had to come to this. Chasing Lieberman out of the party wasn’t enough. We had to take an actual scalp and let people see firsthand that they are consequences for voting like a Republican. Rep. Wynn is only 56 years old and might have served for another thirty years in this district. But he got picked off for being a greedhead. Now we will have someone in Congress that is committed to social justice in Donna Edwards.
Update [2008-2-13 2:1:43 by BooMan]: Holy mother of Jesus. Maryland ditched TWO incumbent representatives. Wayne Gilchrest has succumbed to a wingnut challenge in the 1st District.
somehow it is poetic justice that this happened on the same day that the Senate caved on FISA.
I wonder what the reaction would have been here if Clinton (the candidate) had made an ugly remark like “we finally got a scalp”? For someone as on top of race baiting as you are, you sure can make some insensitive remarks of your own. You just insulted my Cherokee ancestors, BooMan.
And to be clear, I could’nt give a shit if Clinton wins or not.
whatever.
Scalping has a long pedigree amongst Europeans, going back to the preclassical era, Supersoling. Herodotus comments on the practice amongst the Scythians in the fifth century BCE, and the Visigoths, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons were doing it as late as the 9th century CE. It’s not a default reference to Native Americans.
You’re probably right. I’m just feeling a little off the reservation, so to speak.
Nice try though.
Peace
I wish you would try to cheer up. As the Dude says, life is full of strikes and gutters. We got both today.
Who’s this we?
I thought about Eodell’s comment and laughed my ass off in my dreams at the thought of the ancestors of the Visigoths rising in indignation everytime the word scalped is used. Then I thought, just like a democrat to parse the shit out of something to make it sound as if it’s acceptable. What did “we” win today? You feel like you have a country left? I sure as fuck don’t. What’s worse, I feel like I have no allies. All I see are people deluded into thinking any election will make a difference and people on all sides saying and doing whatever they need to say and do to win. And I see hypocrits…everywhere.
Don’t worry ss. You’re taking all this too seriously. None of it will matter when the next sizable meteor hits the earth, or the climate changes enough (due to us or not, that’s irrelevant) to kill us all off. There have been plenty of mass extinctions in our planet’s history, and there’s certainly no reason (other than pride or ignorance) to think we’ll survive the next one.
Really I think if people realized just how accidental it is that we’re even here in the first place, we could just hurry up and get along with the drunken mass orgies already.
It’s a start. Rome wasn’t built in a day, or, to bring it home, we didn’t go from McCarthyism to the Summer of Love in one election cycle. At the nadir of a political era, the choices are often between bad and worse. Our momentum matters a lot more than our current position.
The current antiwar effort, such as it ever was, has no comparison to the real action and commitment put forth during the 60’s. That effort actually made a difference because it was a true opposing force. This time around it’s been coopted by the goddamned democrats and absorbed into the party, with the exception of a few smaller and more dedicated groups like The World Can’t Wait. This movement that you’re describing is not in ascendency. It’s already failed. And the analogy to Rome just gives me so much hope. Aw shit! There’s that word, hope again. But you know, it just doesn’t have that certain uuumph to it lately.
Also, I have a question. How many Americans, besides you of course, would have Visigoths as the first thing that pops into their heads when they hear the word scalps? I’m fairly certain it would be next to none.
Yousee, Eodell, it really did offend me. I wasn’t trying to make some vague point. What I got though, was dismissal and snark. I know Ej, so I trust he’s meant it in good faith. But it’s still a dismissal.
One last question. And this will no doubt piss some people off, but what the hell, here goes. Can we determine if these scalps that were gotten had knappy hair on them? Thoughtfull people wanna know.
To clarify my post, ss, it was not directed at your thoughts and feelings about the ‘scalps’ remark, but your sentiment towards electoral politics at the end of the comment I replied to (which I largely share, but can’t help but getting caught up in sometimes ;).
I’ve learned better than to tell people what they should or shouldn’t be offended about. I satisfy myself with trying to gain some insight into why it is offensive, and failing that, just accepting and respecting the fact that it is so.
Y’all can’t know how happy I am!!! I live in this district, and I am SO happy his fool ass is gone.
GONE!!! Outta here. See ya!
I’m going to bed a happy woman. A VERY happy woman!! Give it up, y’all.
Assuming she wins in the general–which should be a foregone conclusion in our heavily Dem district–she’ll be the first African American woman elected as a Member of Congress from the state of Maryland. Woo hoo!!!!!
And she’s a real progressive. True blue, if you will.
Community discontent combined with a progressive push equals Donna Edwards.
Just call her Congresswoman.
She will need our continued support so she can consolidate her position to really be able to drive good legislation for the long term. CW is that she draws a challenger after her first term, but after fending them off, she should be OK.
she’ll be the first African American woman elected as a Member of Congress from the state of Maryland.
What?? How can that be? Goddamn, that one was a long time overdue.
Yep. And IIRC, she’d be only the 5th AA ever. Sleazy Al–back when he had promise–was the first ever from the district.
After the general, she’d be the only woman House member in the delegation; the other woman in the delegation is Sen. Barbara Milkulski.
The last woman elected to the House was Connie Morella–perhaps among this country’s last liberal republicans.
may actually have been Wayne Gilchrist.
Okay, okay, he’s not exactly liberal. But he’s a damned sight better than Harris.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/12/AR2008021201746_pf.html
A snippet:
Damned skippy. She was supported by people like me, dammit!
Interestingly enough, Al backed John Edwards in ’04 (another reason why I distrusted Edwards’ new populist progressive stance…you can’t tell me that wasn’t a good reason, among many others). He backed Obama because to do otherwise would have been suicide.
Or, more to the point, her win would have been even more lopsided.
And I bid you all a great night! Or morning! Yay!!!!!!
THIS makes me happy. (Al Wynn’s robo-calls were driving me BATTY over the last week….) Now at last we get a REAL Democrat representing us!!!
Thanks to everyone out there in the blogosphere and progressive netroots — we here in MD-04 are very grateful for all the support y’all gave to Donna Edwards over the past few months!
She’s going to do us proud!
…in the whole progressive world to primary-out the Nelsons, Landreau, Pryor, Jello Jay, etc????
I would quit my job and live in a tent to work on trading up from my scumbag Bill Nelson.
or op ed by somebody close to Bill Clinton’s administration. He said that the electorate was angry. Angry across the board! His conclusions I didn’t agree with, but the anger I certainly do. Why are we STILL waiting on impeachment? Why did they pass retroactive immunity for telcos in the senate? The house has actually done some better than the senate. Everything has to be wrung through that 60 vote lens there. If Reid would only make them really really DO the damn filibusters!
Is anybody running against the extreme wingnut?
The Democratic challenger to Andy Harris is Frank M. Kratovil, Jr.
I for one have never heard of him and can’t find a website.
2 years ago the Dems put up a pretty strong challenger to Gilchrist, but his non-wingnutty record and incumbency proved too much to overcome. It’s too bad Jim Corwin didn’t run again.
This one is unfortunately a gimme for the Republicans.
Maryland’s 6th, however, could be more interesting.
In IL-03, the challenge to Lipinski, an equally scummy little turd, failed.
That’s because the anti-Bush dog forces ran 3 opponents. 3 opponents. What did they expect?
We need to coordinate and ensure a clear, well-funded, SINGLE challenger runs. Otherwise the incumbent wins.
Yeah, Lipinski actually got less than 50%, didn’t he?
I remember thinking that if the anti-Lipinski vote wasn’t split he would be gone.
But how did the other 2 come in? Were they fake candidates, to split the anti-Lipinski vote?
Final results from http://www.voterinfonet.com/results/020508/SummaryReport.pdf
Lipinski 50.67%
Pera 29.63%
Bennett 10.21%
Caparelli 9.21%
I must have been thinking of early results when Lipinski was around 49%. I have no idea who Bennett and Caparelli are. The fake candidate idea is plausible because otherwise their candidacies seem so quixotic.
Does this leave Ron Paul the last antiwar Republican in the incoming House, presuming he survives his Primary?