Is the anger and energy to challenge Melissa Bean when there is a perfectly good target for the primary in a safe Democratic Seat: Dan Lipinski.
John Sullivan is running against him and will be on Public Affairs
What I don’t get about the anger towards Lipinski and the anger that has faded towards Lipinski is that Bean has her faults–primarily the bankruptcy bill for me, but she is pro-choice and moderate on gay rights issues. Lipinksi is a fucking cave man on both. I get the Speaker’s support of Lipinski’s son. It’s how business is done and there are long time ties there, but why the hell would regular Democrats work or vote for this Lipinski?
Lipinski seems to be at least as conservative on social issues as his father and perhaps more conservative. Yet the District had a 58% vote for Gore in 2000 and was the same or more in 2004.
Lipinski overall ties Bean in progressiveness according to Progressive Punch’s numbers for 2003 and yet challenging Bean in the primary hurts the party far more than challenging Lipinski who is in a safe seat.
Absolutely. Besides the issues, the scam that got him the seat last year should move more voters against him, but most people don’t seem to care.
Arch,
Here’s a hypothesis.
Bean was a key vote on CAFTA. Here’s my analysis of Bean.
On the close votes the swing Republicans vote with their party, but the swing Democrats vote with the GOP.
My concern is that on any close vote–minus the vote for Speaker–Bean is gonna be a hostile. So, if you don’t believe the Dems will gain a slim majority, Bean is worthless.
Someone like Lipinski doesn’t support Dems on social hot button issues, but he’s not as much of a threat to screw the Dems on a close vote.
So there is a kind of logic in being more annoyed with Bean than Lipinski.
Carl,
I know a lot of people were angry about Bean’s CAFTA vote, but I don’t think that’s the overall issue. Like Arch said here,
http://www.archpundit.com/archives/012947.html
Our district swung 56-44 Bush. Bean is clearly a Democrat and votes Democratic (which is something a lot of people have been lying about) it’s just that she’s stuck trying to maintain a portion of her record that will appease the 56% of the 8th that’s republican.