I choked on my Bloody Mary this morning when I saw a diary headline entitled "Victory for Cynthia McKinney as important as Victory for Ned Lamont". What the fuck???
It's an insult to Ned Lamont to be compared to Cynthia McKinney. Comparing Lamont to McKinney is like comparing Jimmy Carter to Bozo the Clown. It is indeed confounding that so many pro-McKinney folks seem to have difficulty with the concept that McKinney is OUR Joe Lieberman. Yes, she votes the "right way" most of the time, and her progressive credentials are solid. Like Lieberman, however, McKinney has neglected her home base, and has chosen instead to embrace the role of a national cheerleader and clown on issues that are either not important or are an anathema to her constituents.
More below the fold...
THE OPPONENT
Before I share the reasons so many local progressives are opposed to McKinney, let me give you the background on her opponent. First, most progressives in GA-04 would support McKinney, warts and all, against a Rethug challenger if she had won the primary. She didn't, and now there's a viable candidate that provides us with distinct choices. Hank Johnson is a known quantity with many years of public service. He is a lawyer, has served as a magistrate judge, and elected member of the Dekalb County Commission.
Yes, he did experience financial troubles many years ago and filed for bankruptcy. He repaid all of his debts. So what? How many of us have experienced difficult financial situations at some time in our lives?
He is not Ned Lamont by any stretch of the imagination, but he's a respected and effective leader with solid progressive credentials. Go here to see his positions on the issues.
15 REASONS WHY CYNTHIA MCKINNEY SHOULD BE DEFEATED
(Please bear in mind this is from a local perspective. Feel free to add others in the comments.)
(1) She is an embarrassment to her constituency. In the words of an African American constituent posting in a recent GA-04 thread:
She's an embarrassment to the party and to Black people trying to make a difference and hold their self respect. When someone is a minority, judgment is always placed on character as much as it is on job performance. Is it fair? Not at all, but it's reality and the reality is, Cynthia McKinney looks incompetent for having a bad character in a job where character is a part of the job."
(2) She is not a consensus builder and doesn't "play well with others". She evidently doesn't even have solid support among the Congressional Black Caucus. Here's what a CBC colleague had to say in an interview with *The Hill July 20:
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) predicted that most of her congressional colleagues would not rally to her aid. "Some will, but a great majority will distance themselves. It's called `avoidingitis,'" he said. "We avoid her. Cynthia won't approach people beyond her real friends."
(3) She failed to obtain the endorsement of the highly respected civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis D-GA, her colleague in neighboring GA-05.
(4) Perhaps in retaliation mode, she proceeded to attack John Lewis is this weeks debate in a blatantly misleading attempt to portray herself as more effective in Congress than Lewis. This is false. According to the Congress.Org overall congressional power ratings she ranks 408 out of 432, second worst of the Georgia Delegation. Lewis ranks 277
.
As the respected and progressive (and Black, I might add) AJC Editorial Page Editor Cynthia Tucker has so succinctly put it:
She doesn't have the prestige or power to pass a resolution in support of sweetened ice tea.
(5) She is beholden to special interests outside the state of Georgia. 65% of her campaign contributions are from out of state. This is in stark contrast to her opponent, who has generated 94% of his campaign funds from in-state sources. (Source: OpenSecrets.org)
(6) Keeping her in office benefits the Republican Party. Here's what the Atlanta Journal Constitution's token wingnut gasbag, Jim Wooten, had to say about the GA-04 race in today's paper:
In this contest, Republicans and conservatives have nothing to gain from her defeat and a fair amount to lose. On legislation, Johnson and McKinney will vote the same. They're both liberal Democrats. The difference is that Johnson is less likely to do and say things that strike reasonable people as nutty. That's not a good swap for Republicans.
(7) She has falsely and ludicrously claimed that her opponent is being funded by Republicans. To date, only a handful out of over 1400 donors to the Johnson campaign have been identified as Republicans. One is Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus. Like his politics or not, he's done great things for this area, and few can argue that he doesn't have the best interests of Georgia at heart.
(let's see how many McKinney supporters label me in the comments as a Faux Dem, Republican, Israel apologist, blah, blah ad nauseam for, GASP, making references to Bernie Marcus and Wingnut Wooten)
(8) She has alienated and insulted Atlanta's large Jewish community with positions and statements on Mideast Policy diametrically opposed to her constituent's views. Her father's anti-Semitic comments are legend, and she has never renounced his distasteful slurs. She is to Atlanta's Jewish community what Joe Lieberman is to the Connecticut citizens who oppose the Iraq war and Lieberman's abandonment of many core Democratic values.
(9) She has alienated and insulted the once-loyal and sizeable gay and lesbian community in her district. Here is an editorial excerpt from this week in the progressive *Southern Voice, Atlanta's gay/lesbian newspaper:
McKinney dumped us all like a rock in the river. She was angry that too many gays have voted against her, so she decided that gay rights are no longer a principle worth supporting. Just as I did in 2004, gay organization leaders now find themselves talking to Billy McKinney, Cynthia's father.
I don't know how many people I have told over the years that Cynthia and her father are two different people, but in the end, I have to admit that Billy has always managed Cynthia's campaigns and done a huge amount of speaking for her. Billy now wants to know what gays will do for his daughter if she votes for us.
(10) She is perceived by many voters to provide poor constituent service. She is far more interested in theatrical performances on the national stage than tending to the basic needs of GA-04 citizens.
(11) She fans the flames of racism. In the first debate with her black opponent this week, she accused him of being "white"...and she has never refuted her father's legendary but disgusting and public anti-Semitic comments. In an area known since the 1960's to be "The City Too Busy to Hate", McKinney's continuous playing of the race card is offensive to most GA-04 citizens of all ethnic backgrounds. Her style follows a similar pattern to that of George W. Bush...she's a divider, not a uniter.
(12) Her opponent has been strongly endorsed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, one of the most progressive media voices in the US.
(13) Her attendance record in Congress is spotty, as evidenced by her failure to be present to vote for the extension of the Voting Rights Act. Missing this critical vote on an issue so important to the black citizens of GA-04 is a flabbergasting display of ineptitude.
(14) Her legislative accomplishments are dismal. Her sponsorship of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Records Collection Act, which attempts to legislate that "all Government records related to the life and death of Tupac Shakur should be preserved for historical and governmental purposes." is typical of her sadly misguided focus. She has failed to collaborate and display leadership on issues of vastly more importance to her constituency, such as expansion of light rail mass transit and the inadequacies of the No Child Left Behind Act.
(15) She is incapable of taking responsibility. Every self-inflicted bump in her political road is always the fault of anything or anyone but Cynthia. Whether it be big bad Republicans, Jewish citizens, Gays, voter fraud, Faux Dems, White suburbanites, Oil Money, McKinney has yet to find a conspiracy theory she didn't like.
Bottom line, a great many local progressives want to oust her. She represents us poorly and has harmed the Democratic Party by providing constant fodder for Rethug attacks.
Yes, Cynthia. We can quit you.
PS: Apologies for the block printing errors and inconsistencies. The writer is obviously technologically challenged.