Reply #20: The Progressive Caucus

[Lydia Leftcoast]

is full of little-known but terrific Congresspersons who keep getting re-elected, and not always from Berkeley, either! The list contains names from some unexpected places, such as North Carolina (Mel Watt), New Mexico (Tom Udall), Mississippi (Bennie Thompson), Arizona (Ed Pastor and Raul Grijalva), Missouri (William "Lacy" Clay), Indiana (Julia Carson), and Texas (Sheila Jackson-Lee).

Kucinich and Kaptur are from working-class areas in Ohio. DeFazio is from Eugene (aka "Blue Jean"), the very liberal home of the University of Oregon, but the surrounding area is quite conservative/libertarian, and people who vote knuckle-dragging Republican for everything else vote for the nearly-socialist DeFazio. Wellstone also drew votes from typically Republican constituencies, such as farmers and the VFW.

DeFazio is the one I've had the most personal contact with. (Actually, he and Kucinich are the only ones I've met in person.) He's not much to look at, but he radiates approachability and friendliness.

The stremgth of the Progressive Caucus is their economic populism. It is also their weakness, in that it makes large corporate donors disinclined to fund them.

My opinion of the DLC is that it's the new home of the Rockefeller Republicans.