Minnesota’s Angie Craig Lines Up With Crypto at GOP-Heavy Conference
Midterms are upon us, which means the fight inside the Democratic Party over its role in the unfolding Israeli genocide and its allegiance to the U.S. oligarchy have a forum in the form of party primaries. As usual in our less-than-perfect democracy, only a handful of races offer anything close to a clean contrast. One of those contests appears to be in Maine, where a new Democratic Senate candidate, oysterman Graham Platner, has called out American complicity in the Gaza genocide and vowed to take on the billionaire class. His Republican opponent, incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, has already attacked him for criticizing Israel, and has spent her career claiming to be pained by her endless votes on behalf of corporate America. His Democratic opponent, Jordan Wood, turns out to be one half of a power couple that has been at the innovative edge of the Democrat’s fundraising practice of carpet-bombing your inbox with their uniform message that the sky is falling.
In the Minnesota Senate race, centrist Rep. Angie Craig is facing populist Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. The big campaign event up there is the State Fair, and Craig missed the opening day, apparently to be in Jackson Hole hobnobbing with the crypto crowd. She was the only elected Democrat to speak, and she warmed up the crowd for Eric Trump, who spoke just after her. Tim Scott, the head of the GOP’s Senate reelection efforts, made news there by thanking the industry for defeating populist Sherrod Brown in Ohio’s 2024 election. (He may now be running again.)
The crypto industry spent nearly $1 million last cycle backing Craig. Flanagan rallied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren last week, the bane of crypto’s existence.
In St. Louis, AIPAC spent more than $10 million last cycle to oust Cori Bush, who was one of the early, leading critics of Israel’s genocide. A recent town hall descended into chaos as Wesley Bell’s security and local police beat constituents who challenged Bell over his support of the genocide. (Bell’s allies tried to deny that the assailant in the green shirt was with Bell, but here’s video of the man getting into a car with Bell after the event.)
Now, Bell is out defending his acceptance of so much AIPAC money, speaking to a nearly empty room:
If people wanna support what we’re doing, hey, we’ll take it, because we gotta get our message out, and the bottom line is, in our politics, you know they are expecting a couple billion dollars in these elections coming out, and so that money is flowing everywhere and until we address that issue and get campaign finance reform, if you want representation that’s gonna represent your district, those people can’t just go in there with empty pockets and just hopes and dreams. We gotta understand there’s a game being played. Politics is a game that’s being played and we can be righteous and say, Nah, we not gonna do it that way, and we can keep losing. And you know what? That’s what we’ve been doing.
In Texas, Republican redistricting has attempted to cram Democrats into primaries against each other, and a backroom fight played out in Texas. Austin Rep. Greg Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a critic of Israel, was jammed in with Texas icon Lloyd Doggett, who initially said he’d run no matter what Casar did, pointing to his $6 million war chest. His first mistake came when he suggested that Casar should run in a different district, because he was Hispanic and so were many of the voters—a tone-deaf move that inspired fence-sitting Texas pols to voice public support for Casar. Then David Hogg, who was booted out of the DNC over his plans to support lefty challengers to incumbent Democrats, vowed that he would raise and spend outside money to back Casar dollar-for-dollar against Doggett. Seeing the writing on the wall, Doggett announced he’d instead be running in a Republican-leaning district. That’s great news for Democrats, as Doggett may actually be able to win there, and it means Casar more than likely returns to Washington.
Texas Democrat James Talarico, a state House member running for Senate, has been showered with money by Miriam Adelson, one of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s most generous financial backers. She also funds the free paper Israel Hayom, which is considered in Israel effectively to be Netanyahu’s newspaper. Talarico is facing Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker and member of Congress who has regularly voted to arm Israel, but doesn’t take money from Adelson. (She gave at least a million dollars to Allred’s 2024 opponent, Ted Cruz.)
In Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, a left-center battle is playing out. Pittsburgh populist Chris DeLuzio and Sen. Bernie Sanders have gotten behind the head of the local firefighter union leader, Bob Brooks, who is squaring off against a centrist candidate backed by groups like EMILY’s List, a political action committee that works to elect Democratic pro-choice women.