Andrew Romanoff Accuses Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Of Trying To Push Him Out

[Celerity]

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2019/08/29/andrew-romanoff-democratic-senatorial-campaign-2020-cory-gardner/

(Video at the link)

DENVER (CBS4)– Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff says party bosses in D.C. have blacklisted him. He accuses the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee of trying to push him out of the race.

The DSCC is a powerful political machine that spends hundreds of millions of dollars each election and Romanoff says it is threatening polling, media and other political consultants that if they work with him, it will cut them off. The DSCC has endorsed John Hickenlooper. Romanoff says helping Hickenlooper is one thing, sabotaging his campaign is another.

snip

CBS4 asked the other two leading candidates if they’d had a similar experience. Mike Johnston’s campaign wouldn’t comment. Dan Baer’s campaign said he had no trouble hiring.

A veteran political operative with a national firm backed-up Romanoff’s claim. He asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation but said he sent Romanoff a contract and the DSCC intervened and made him pull it, threatening to blackball the firm if he didn’t.


snip

Hickenlooper endorsement dividing Colorado Democratic Party, internal emails show Party officials hotly debate how to respond to a national Democratic announcement


https://www.denverpost.com/2019/08/27/colorado-democratic-party-hickenlooper-dscc/

[JI7]

1. isn't Hickenlooper leading by a huge amount among possible primary candidates ?

considering he was one of those people were begging to get out of the presidential race to run for Senate i'm glad they are supporting him .

[Celerity]

3. CO was the only one of the 13 (up from 12 after Isakson is retiring) flippables that multiple of our

candidates could win with some certainty. The DSCC, when there is no incumbent, threatening (and making it stick) vendors and consultants with a blacklisting just because they want to work for another DEMOCRAT is pure rot. That s a sure way to depress our turnout in the general. Hickenlooper also really pissed me off when he compared the progressive candidates (I am not a radical progressive btw) to Stalin and Marx during the primaries. That is just asinine and feeds the Rethugs red meat with which to broadbrush us all as 'commies, a broadbrush backed up with another Dem's (Hickenlooper's) words. Also, he is a total pro-fracking fanatic, he even bragged about drinking fracking fluid to a congressional hearing.

I am pretty moderate in my US politics, but those two things are just a no no no for me. IF he was the only chance, sure, he is the right one to go for, but it is still a shit look for the DSCC to be not only endorsing (I have less issues with that) but also and especially threatening blacklisting. We are better than that. That is undemocratic as hell, and lends credence to memes that cause alienation.

[JonLP24]

10. Now you understand how progressives feel

Progressives have the same complaints you do when it comes to the DSCC and "Frackenlooper".

I decided to donate to Andrew Romanoff

[Celerity]

13. I do not think anyone should put their finger on the scale for anyone, regardless of their distance

from centre or distance from the left. People are free to endorse who they want, but when there is no incumbent and the finger on the scale extends to threatening blacklisting consultants and vendors from doing the normal DEMOCRATIC jobs for DEMOCRATIC candidates, in an OPEN PRIMARY then a dangerous line is being crossed.

Romanoff is not some flamethrowing, firebreathing anarcho-syndicalist or Trotskyist, although I am sure Hickenlooper would love to play that label game, as he already has (in NH, with other POTUS primary opponents.)

I would vote for him in a flash over Hickenlooper. I like Joe Neguse, and the declined-to-run a month ago Jena Griswold too.

Romanoff was the Speaker of the House in Colorado. If he was some wild-eyed radical he never would have gotten within sniffing distance of that level of power.

[JonLP24]

17. Most progressives I know support Romanoff

I don't think anyone is a wild eyed radical except for the Republicans. We have facts on our side and moderate Dems like Steny Hoyer said cannabis is a gateway drug which is scientifically untrue. Also big money in politics is a concern for us. He takes money from Big Pharma.

[OnDoutside]

2. It will be interesting to see what they do if Joe Kennedy runs for Senate.

[Celerity]

4. big difference there is Markey is an incumbent

IF they side with Kennedy, they are asking for a shit tonne of trouble across the board. I have no dog in that fight between the two. Let the voters decide.

[OnDoutside]

5. Yes, it isn't as bad as the Romanoff one, but it would reflect even worse that they wouldn't touch

Joe's staff but scuppered Romanoff's staff.

[Celerity]

7. when Sestak entered the POTUS race I read up on him

I do not think we ever would have had Toomey as a PA Rethug Senator if the establishment Dems had just sucked it up after Sestak beat Specter in the 2010 Primary and fully backed him (he was outspent 3 to 1 by Toomey and still lost by only 2%.) They then still held the grudge and rammed in McGinty (who lost too) in 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Sestak#2010_U.S._Senate_election



Joe Sestak could be one of the Democrats' best Senate picks. They're trying to stop him

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/26/11479708/pennsylvania-senate-democrat-primary



Playing kingmaker can blow up in your face.

[brooklynite]

12. Wrong...

DSCC did support Sestak after he beat Specter. The problem is that Sestak would take any guidance from DSCC, and set up his campaign team with family members.

[Celerity]

14. then why was he outspent 3 to 1 by Toomey? Clearly they pulled many punches.

[brooklynite]

16. DSCC doesn't pay for Senate races

They can help, but it's the primary responsibility of a candidate to raise money for his/her own campaign, and Sestak refused direction to hire competent campaign staff and fundraisers.

[W_HAMILTON]

6. The voters will decide regardless.

I imagine the DSCC will endorse Markey because he is a current incumbent and the DSCC usually supports Democratic incumbents.

[MagickMuffin]

8. After hearing Hickenlooper at the debates

I really took to heart his quote "We've got to clearly show that we reject socialism,” Hickenlooper said.

or this one

“If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer,”

and this one

“We’ve got to clearly show that we reject socialism,” Hickenlooper said. “We’ve got to do that because Republicans will try to make us into socialists even if we’re not. If we’re not willing to draw a bright line and say we’re not socialists, we could quite possibly reelect this president.”

NEWFLASH: they are have been doing that for decades.

Sorry but he needs to embrace our side favoring socialism. He is using it the same way republicons use the word.

He also states the need to embrace and reform capitalism.

Ya know, John you could do the same thing concerning socialism.


I don't know the other candidates, but if they sound anything like this . . . hoo-boy.

[Celerity]

9. he really cranked it up in New Hampshire

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287105357

“You have to hand it to the GOP for achieving the near-impossible,” said Hickenlooper. “Just years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, their greedy mismanagement has revived the lure of socialism for a whole generation of Americans. Who would have imagined the Koch Brothers and Donald Trump could help resuscitate the discredited ideas of Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin?”

The apparent references to Sanders didn’t stop there, with Hickelooper going on to criticize elected officials in Washington who would “demonize the private sector to score political points,” and branding universal healthcare and guaranteed jobs, two policies supported by Sanders, as hazardous to the American people.

His calling universal healthcare (which does NOT need to be MFA to get there, the ACA itself's goal is universal healthcare, Biden, Bullock, hell, Delaney ALL advocate for universal healthcare) 'hazardous to the American people' is madness. Talk about feeding into a RW talking point.

Colorado is NOT West Virginia or South Dakota, we should not have an attempt at semi-forcing a man who is talking like someone 10 steps to the right of Manchin (and may vote that way if he walks the walk as he is talking the talk) into the Senate seat from there. Bennet certainly never says dross like that.

[MagickMuffin]

11. Indeed, Why put a fox in the henhouse???

When I heard him say that at the debate, it made my ears perk up and think: Is he really a democrat!!!

I had no idea he harbored those beliefs. Glad he decided to express those beliefs out loud.

[Celerity]

15. he is probably 90% likely to be the nominee (in a race where any of the top 5 Dems would win)

If he gets into the Senate and continues that level of histrionic posturing and vitriol and demonising it is going to cause systemic fracturing of the caucus and will certainly give the Rethugs a virtual treasure chest of soundbites to use against us.

There is a limit, most definitely, of how far to the right we need go with the messaging in a state like Colorado. They just elected an openly gay married (Polis) governor. It isn't like we are trying to pull stumps in Alabama or Arkansas. Hell, even in Alabama, Doug Jones (who I think is great Senator, all things considered) is far to the left of the image Hickenlooper is projecting.