From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Darcy Burner LIVE!
On Wednesday progressive champion, Netroots Nation keynote speaker and true-orange Kossack Darcy Burner announced her candidacy for Congress in Washington's First District. Tonight we're changing up our usual format for two Friday C&J EXCLUSIVES: an interview with Darcy under the glare of the klieg lights, and then some open liveblogging with her down in the comments.
Darcy's resume makes my head spin: graduated from Harvard, spent a decade at tech companies including Lotus and Microsoft, President and Executive Director of ProgressiveCongress.org and the Progressive Congress Action Fund, principal author of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, and member of the Afghanistan Study Group. She's on the Progressive Ideas Network Advisory Board, chairs the Netroots Foundation board, and is a former board member of NARAL Pro-Choice America. And now she's taking on the challenge of winning an election. But before any lawn signs go up, she has to endure a grilling in the latest installment of our C&J interview series, Yes, We're All Staring at YOU!
Cheers and Jeers: Congratulations on your decision to run for Congress! If I asked you to outline your major campaign theme on a cocktail napkin, what would you write?
Darcy Burner: Americans deserve to have people in Congress who will fight for them. I will fight for them---and I never give up.
You ran in the reddish-leaning 8th District in 2006 and 2008. Now you're running in the 1st District in Washington, which is going to look different after re-districting. Tell us about that.
The redistricting process is changing district lines. It appears they’re going to take the most Democratic parts of the old 8th district and smoosh them together with a bunch of Democratic areas from the 1st district and call them WA-01, which is the district I’m running in. So instead of running against a Republican in a Republican district, I get to run for an open seat in a Democratic district. Yay redistricting---I think this will be way more fun!
What are the top concerns of the folks who live there?
The biggest issues on the minds of folks here are how we make our country work again. It’s clear that our economy is messed up; it’s clear that our government is broken; it’s clear that we face the real possibility of catastrophic climate change. People here want those things fixed. They know that things were deliberately broken, and they understand that there are people who are profiting a great deal from those problems remaining broken, including a whole bunch of immoral jerks on Wall Street who are pocketing roughly half of all of the profit generated by our economy despite not actually doing anything productive, and who have decided that destroying the country in order to extract its wealth is a splendid idea. They want somebody to go fight those people, to wrestle them to the ground, to lock them up, and then to make our country work again.
The economy is front and center right now nationally, especially unemployment and income inequality. How would you rate the Republican-led House in terms of fulfilling its promise to focus like a laser on jobs and the middle class?
They fail on every possible count. "F." "F minus!" Zero credit. In fact, I believe they’re actively trying to keep the economy in the tank in order to damage President Obama’s re-election chances. It’s not just that they’re wrong on policies, it’s that their intentions are actively evil with respect to helping America recover.
What's been going through your mind as you've watched the Occupy Wall Street movement unfold?
I’m thrilled to see brave Americans willing to put themselves on the line to reclaim our government of, by, and for the people. We’re at the beginning of a long struggle over power in this country, and the corporate titans who have rigged the system aren’t going to give it up easily or quietly, but a genuine movement can change everything.
You’re a former board member of NARAL Pro-Choice America. How alarmed are you about the way women’s reproductive rights are being chipped away at in states all over the country?
I’m horrified. I take it pretty personally---I’m really very bad at being pregnant, and nearly died both times I managed not to miscarry early. When my doctor came to me and said that continuing my pregnancy meant risking my life, that was a really tough decision for me---but it was mine to make, not some politician’s in Washington D.C.
I’m tempted to start a mandatory organ donor registry for all members of Congress. If it turns out that by donating one of his kidneys Eric Cantor can save a life, he should be required by law to do so. After all, the risk is small to him, and it’s only an inconvenience, and it would save a life that would otherwise be lost, right? Then I’ll feel like he has a real understanding of why the right of every person to control their own body matters.
What kind of music makes you feel invincible to the GOP horde?
I have a playlist on my phone called "Triumph" which includes Mannheim Steamroller’s The Third Door, Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, the third movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and a handful of other songs which put me in the proper fighting mood.
What can people do to get involved in your campaign?
First they should go to DarcyBurner.com. If they’re local they should sign up to volunteer---we just opened a campaign office in Bellevue---and to host a house party, because it’s critical we reach as many people as possible. It would also be really helpful if folks wanted to contribute through ActBlue to help me get phone lines installed, our first mailers out the door, and to pay the health insurance bill for my first few staffers.
This is a seat we can win with people-powered politics, and one that should unambiguously send someone to DC who represents the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. I promise to do my very best to be a better Democrat.
Read the rest of the interview, including thoughts on Elizabeth Warren, Afghanistan and her list of must-read books below the fold. Then drop by the comments to let us know what you're cheering and jeering about today...and chat with Darcy live. First rum and Coke's on me and last one there's a rotten egg.
Darcy Burner in the hot seat, cont'd...
You were the principal author and organizer of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, which was endorsed by more than sixty candidates for the U.S. House and Senate. How did you react when you heard the news that President Obama was pulling our remaining troops out by Christmas? Should we do the same with our troops in Afghanistan?
First: it’s about damned time. Now let’s end the war in Afghanistan, too. We defeated al Qaeda in Afghanistan; we killed Osama bin Laden. Mission accomplished. Done! What are we waiting for?
We have no strategy, no mission, no clear objectives, and no vital national interest in Afghanistan. We’re spending more than $120 billion a year on our military presence in a country that has a gross domestic product of $12 billion per year. We sometimes say that we’re doing counterterrorism, but we have way too many troops there to do effective counterterrorism. We sometimes say that we’re doing counterinsurgency, but we have way too few troops there to do effective counterinsurgency. Whatever it is we think we’re doing, we’re not doing it right!
To be clear: how we withdraw matters. We have a moral obligation to do the work we can to bring about the political reconciliation which is necessary for the future of the Afghan people. But that’s a political issue, not a military one. We have to figure out the least destructive way to give Afghanistan back to the Afghans, and we have to end the war. Now.
What's the one book every Kossack must read?
There’s no way I can possibly limit it to only one. I love reading. Here are a few that I highly recommend:
- Come Home America by William Greider, which is funny and inspiring and sad all at once, laying out an alternative vision for how we might live.
- Soul of a Citizen by Paul Rogat Loeb, for the inspiration to keep at this.
- Nixonland by Rick Perlstein, which made me go “aha!” or laugh out loud on nearly every page. It traces the origins of the modern right.
- Influence by Robert Cialdini and The Political Brain by Drew Westen, to help understand how we can better bring other Americans to our way of thinking.
- Winner Take All Politics by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, for an insightful look at just how rigged things are---and what we might do to fix it.
- My bookshelves have a few hundred more that I could gladly recommend, but I’m already a trifle over my quota so I’ll stop. (It’s like when you give a politician three minutes to stump to a crowd and fifteen minutes later you’re wondering how to get them off the stage…)
Finish this sentence: In the kitchen I make a mean…
Cup of green tea. It’s a really, really good thing that Mike cooks, because otherwise I expect we’d all starve to death here.
You have a degree from Harvard College. Republicans in Massachusetts are currently talking smack about your alma mater to try and score points against Elizabeth Warren, who is running for the Senate against Scott Brown. Do you believe attacking Harvard is a winning strategy in Massachusetts?
Um, no. People in Massachusetts are, in my experience, proud that they can call the best college in the world their own. But, hey, Republicans appear to oppose everything that education is about, like being able to think critically, come up with real solutions to problems, understand the world, have a coherent philosophy, and have an educated populace in a functioning democracy. It’s not merely that they oppose Harvard---they also oppose public schools, science, and reality.
What words of wisdom would you give President Obama during the proverbial 30-second elevator ride?
The American people want and deserve someone who will fight for them. Fight for them tooth and nail. Fight for them whether you can win or not. Fight for them because they deserve it, and because you promised to, and because it’s the right thing to do. Fight for them until you can’t fight any more, then dust yourself off and fight for them again.
They will elect someone who will fight for them---and if that’s not an option, they’ll settle for someone who will at least claim to fight for them. If the Republicans run a candidate who says he or she will fight for them and they see no sign that you will, you’re toast. So fight.
No waffling here: dogs or cats?
Both. If you stick to one, you’re missing half the fun!
Ohhhh....very diplomatic. Okay, let the liveblogging commence.
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