Tommy Thompson

Bold progressive Tammy Baldwin is on the cusp of history — she may soon be the first openly-gay Senator in American history.

Her opponent Tommy Thompson — who spent the past few years getting rich working at a D.C. lobbying firm — made a crass joke last night on the eve of the election. He joked that a deer one of his campaign cars hit was “named Tammy Baldwin”:

Thompson joked while talking to workers at the La Crosse steel fabricator that he got a deer even before the season opener. Actually it was one of his campaign cars; he said he was riding in the bus behind it when the crash happened early Sunday near Shawano. ai???Nobody was hurt,ai??? he said. ai???It did a lot of damage. I think the deer was named Tammy Baldwin, but Iai??i??m not sure.ai???

Are you voting in Wisconsin today? If you witness any election irregularities or voter suppression, send us a tip about it at tips@boldprogressives.org. Or tweet it at us @boldprogressive.

We’re making final phone calls to voters to elect bold progressives like Elizabeth Warren. Click here to sign up.

Alan Grayson must defeat one far-right radio host before he returns to Congress.

Bold progressive Alan Grayson’s on the verge of returning to Congress. The only thing that stands between him and the House of Representatives is Todd Long, the far-right radio host who is the Republican nominee opposing Grayson.

We here at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) checked out Long’s 2010 book, The Conservative Comeback: How To Win The Battle For The Soul Of America. The book serves as a peek into the mind of Long, and it reveals that his ideology is even more extreme than that of a typical House Republican. Here’s some highlights from the book based on Long’s thoughts on various subjects:

He’s avowedly anti-science: Long calls evolution a “false, misleading teaching” and relates an anecdote about a “wise friend” telling him, “If you teach kids they come from monkeys, do not be surprised if they act
like monkeys.ai??? [pages 88-89]
He degrades Social Security as a “Ponzi Scheme”: “It is ironic, to the point of being amusing, that the many Americans who are shaking their heads
today about how so many of their fellow citizens could be so gullible as to be taken in by Madoff are themselves participants in the worldai??i??s largest and longest-running Ponzi schemeai??i??welcome to the US Social Security program.” [pages 134-135]
He wants the federal government to end its involvement in Medicare: “I believe all health care programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, should be funded by each state with local control and oversight.” [page 141]

And as we reminded you last month, Long said that he thinks House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is far too progressive. He instead proposed that Republicans make Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) House Speaker.

Now’s your chance to stop Long from …

Brown’s latest quip involves fearmongering by touting a “study” by one of his major donors.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) must be getting nervous, with poll after poll showing that bold progressive Elizabeth Warren will likely defeat him tomorrow.

In an election rally yesterday, Brown told the audience that they should “look to the leftAi?? and look to the right,” and one of them may be losing jobs if Warren wins:

BROWN: She wants to raise taxes 3.4 trillion dollars! More regulation, more government interference with your every day lives. With all due respect even the respected the Ernst and Young, they say 17,000 jobs, look t the left and look to the right if it’ll be one of you, maybe not having that job.

Watch it:

Here’s something Brown didn’t tell the audience. Ernst and Young (EY) is not just some accounting firm providing independent and objective analysis. EY has been neck-deep in its ties to corruption on Wall Street. Recall that it was sued in 2010 by then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for its alleged role in assisting fraud at Lehman Brothers.

EY also happens to be a huge political donor. It has given $10,000 to Brown’s campaign and is giving 65 percent of its funds to Republicans this year. Its employees have also given three times as much money to Mitt Romney as they have Barack Obama.

Brown is shamelessly touting far from impartial numbers from one of his major donors to scare voters.

Don’t let Brown get away with it. Click here to sign up to make phone calls to Massachusetts voters to elect Elizabeth Warren.

Can’t make calls? Click here to chip in $3 to Warren’s campaign.

We’ve just released a new video featuring a group of celebrities and political icons who want you to vote for Elizabeth Warren.

“I believe she’ll stand up for the working person, the everyday person, the people who have been taken advantage of by the system,” says Ben Affleck in the video. “I love Elizabeth Warren…She cares about people. Not corporations ‘people.’ People people,” says comedian Sarah Silverman.

“I support Elizabeth warren because she works tirelessly for the people,” says Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead. “She understands that economic issues and women’s issues are one in the same.”

Former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis has this to say about if her opponent Sen. Scott Brown (R) wins: “Karl Rove will be running the Senate of the United States. That’s the last thing in the world we need.”

“I know that she’ll work so hard, day in and day out in the Senate, on behalf of working families,” says Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Stephanie Taylor.

Watch it yourself:

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We’re making calls to Massachussetts voters over the next few days asking them to vote for Warren on Tuesday. Click here to join our Call Out The Vote effort.

Can’t make calls? Chip in $3 to help elect Warren to the Senate.

The president’s former advisor and the conceptual founder of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren is now the Democrats’ candidate for senate in Massachusetts. Her campaign has become a second rallying point for politically-concerned celebrities — and in a new spot from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Massachusetts native Ben Affleck sings the Harvard professor’s praises.

It’s no secret that the right is trying to suppress the vote. In Massachusetts, Democratic voters are getting robo-calls telling them to vote for Elizabeth Warren and President Obama on Wednesday — one day after the election.

Here’s a craigslist ad we found that’s up in Sacramento telling Obama voters to vote on the 7th, not the 6th:

You can access the ad here.

We don’t know yet who exactly is behind these dirty tricks. But we do have our own way to counter them.

Click here to sign up to tell voters to get to the polls on Tuesday to elect bold progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Alan Grayson to Congress.

Help defend Warren against this dirty trick. Sign up to make calls for her.

It appears that somebody in Massachusetts is trying to use dirty tricks to prevent Elizabeth Warren from being elected.

Patch.com’s Susan Manning reports that at least one voter got a robo-call telling them to vote for President Obama and Warren on Wednesday — the day after the election. The calls apparently are claiming the election date has been changed due to Hurricane Sandy:

The call said “Hi, I’m one of your neighbors in Holliston and … I want to urge you to vote for Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama on Wednesday, November 7.” The date, said the call, had been changed because of Hurricane Sandy.

Manning was unable to ascertain the origin of these calls, the caller ID listed it simply as Massachusetts 000-0000.

We don’t know who’s behind this dirty trick, but we do know how to respond. We’re making calls to Massachussetts voters over the next few days asking them to vote for Warren on Tuesday. Click here to join our Call Out The Vote effort.

Josh Mandel

President Obama’s historic endorsement of marriage equality earlier this year is just one indication that America is moving towards giving full rights to its citizens of all sexual orientations.

But most of the Republican Party continues to oppose equality. Ohio Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel is one of these Republicans who opposes marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

Eight members of Mandel’s extended family have just written him an open letter condemning his anti-equality views. These family members note that two of Mandel’s cousins are lesbians, and that he is failing to support their rights. Below is the letter in its entirety:

Open Letter to Josh Mandel, Republican Candidate for U.S. Senator from OhioDear Josh,

Four years ago you came into our family. We still remember the excitement surrounding your wedding, and how happy our family members were as they described it afterwards. So we were deeply saddened when you announced during your October 18th debate with Senator Sherrod Brown that you believe only some people should share this right to marry the person they love, while others should not.

Your cousins, Ellen Ratner and Cholene Espinoza, are among the many wonderful couples whose rights you do not recognize. They were married almost eight years ago in Massachusetts, at a time when it was the only state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage. Their wedding, like yours, was a beautiful and happy occasion for all of us in our family. It hurts us that you would embrace discrimination against them and countless other loving couples in Ohio and around the country.

We are equally distressed by your belief that gay men and women should not be allowed to serve openly in the military. Like you, Cholene spent many years in the …

But ultimately, Obama cannot implement a deal alone. He has to get members of his own party to vote for it in Congress—so regardless of the president’s disposition, there are many pressure points in Congress for progressives who want to keep Democrats from cutting the safety net. To that end, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has been seeking out Democrats running in tough races and getting them on board with a no-cuts agenda, in exchange for valuable financial and logistical support. At least eight House candidates are receiving PCCC support, along with four Senators or Senate candidates: Sen. Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, and now Representative Shelley Berkley, whom PCCC endorsed on Monday. On a call with volunteers this week—joined, quite notably, by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid—Berkley re-stated her position on safety net cuts: “I will promise you without fear of contradiction, I will do everything in my power to strengthen and protect Medicare and Social Security and it’s going to be a cold day in the middle of August in the Nevada desert before I do anything that’s going to harm those two essential programs.”

Tommy Thompson

Wisconsin Senate Republican candidate Tommy Thompson made a lot of money since formally leaving the government. Shortly after leaving the Bush Administration, he went to work for a major lobbying firm advising health care corporations, essentially selling his government connections.
At a recent campaign stop, Thompson offered a condescending explanation for why he decided to pass through the revolving door and sell his government experience to corporations after leaving office:

THOMPSON: I left the government after 4 years after George Bush got elected the first time. And my wife likes to shop. And she said, ‘You know, Tommy, you’ve been in politics for 38 years. Why don’t you go out and see if you can make some decent money so I can go shopping without having to put everything on a credit card.’

Watch it:

It’s offensive for Thompson to blame his wife for his decision to join a powerful lobbying firm after leaving office.

Wisconsin needs a Senator who can own up to their own decisions.

Click here to sign up to make calls for Tammy Baldwin, his bold progressive challenger.

Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN)

As millions of Americans continue to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, they expect their government to be there to respond to the effects of the storm. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s solutionto the federal response to the super storms is to simply devolve the Federal Emergency Management Administration and let the states take care of themselves — a disastrous plan that would be particularly destructive to poorer states without the resources to respond to emergencies.

Embattled Republican congressman Chip Cravaack (R-MN) was asked about Romney’s plan during a debate with his bold progressive Democratic opponent Rick Nolan. He

MODERATOR:Where do you stand on Mitt Romney’s stand on turning over FEMA and federal government disaster relief to the individual states?

CRAVAACK: I’d have to take a look at that proposal a little bit more. There’s nothing really hard in stone, what now of course with the Dulluth floods FEMA responded pretty well. […] I’d really have to defer and wait until I see some hard language […]

MODERATOR: Mr. Nolan?

NOLAN: No, I’d be strongly opposed to that. What we’re witnessing here in the northeastern united states, what we witnessed here in northeastern Minnesota, what we witnessed in Louisiana, New Orleans, clearly requires a federal government response.

Watch it:

Minnesotans deserve a congressman who can clearly condemn a radical plan like dismantling FEMA and turning its responsibilities over to individual states.

Click here to sign up to make calls for Rick Nolan.

Tommy Thompson

Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Tommy Thompson loves the Keystone pipeline. He always promotes it at campaign stops and debates. But what he doesn’t tell you is the D.C. lobbying firm he worked at was quietly paid to lobby for it.

In January of this year, Thompson resigned his position at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP (known in shorthand as “Akin Gump”). While there, his chief duty was to provide public policy advising to health care corporations. Essentially, he was an unregistered lobbyist corresponding with many of the same corporations that he regulated as Bush’s Health and Human Services Secretary.

But Akin Gump is a huge law and lobbying firm. It has many clients in every sector. One of the firm’s clients that signed on one month before Thompson resigned his position was Houston, Texas’s Qanta Services.

Qanta services was selected one month prior (in November) to be Canadian energy company TransCanada’s partner in building the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Qanta’s contract specifically lists the Keystone XL Pipeline as the issue that it hired Akin Gump to lobby on. Here’s a screenshot from the disclosure document (click it to get a larger version):

As we noted earlier, Akin Gump is a huge lobbying firm. It has literally hundreds of clients and many of them that are not asking for registered lobbying do not have to disclose their connection to the firm at all.

We have no idea what other corporate interests Thompson’s former firm may be asking him to advocate for. We just know that he spent all of his time between his service in the Bush administration and now working for various corporate interests, helping …

Linda McMahon

Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon — the wife of World Wrestling Entertainment’s Vince McMahon — has tried over and over to simply buy Connecticut’s Senate seat.

In 2010, she reportedly spent $50 million of her own money trying to win the state’s open Senate seat. In the primary this year, she defeated Chris Shays — one of the national Republican Party’s last supporters of campaign finance reform — by outspending him twelve-to-one.

Now, recently released campaign finance records show that she is outspending her bold progressive opponent, Chris Murphy, five-to-one. She’s reportedly spending $28 million of her own money for the campaign, which means she’s spending around three times all the money that Murphy has accumulated for his campaign altogether.

McMahon is trying once again to do what she failed to do previously — buy a seat in the U.S. Senate.

We don’t have tens of millions of dollars of personal wealth to spend on the race, but we do have all of you. Help us stop McMahon by clicking here to sign up to make calls for bold progressive Chris Murphy.