Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Accountability Now MUST run a primary against Arlen Specter

By: Harry Waisbren

I have been a major fan of the Accountability Now PAC ever since I first heard rumblings of its creation during the height of the Fisa Fight. This is in large part considering they describe themselves like this:
Accountability Now is an organization built around a single guiding principle: challenging the institutional power structures that make it so easy, so consequence-free for Congress to open up the government coffers for looting by corporate America while people across the country are losing their jobs and their basic constitutional rights while unable to afford basic health care.
Anyways, I am writing this post believing that some of the most prominent members amongst the network of progressive bloggers that make up this coalition (including me) must already be discussing their quickly developing plans to launch by publicly announcing our goal to oppose Arlen Specter in a Pennsylvania Democratic primary battle. A variety of of these prominent bloggers have already been openly discussing supporting a primary against Specter, but they have been curiously silent about the prospects for Accountability Now to make him our main target. However, Accountability Now's suggestions page is empty still, but there is an email address posted soliciting for such suggestions.

Just in case I really am the first person to decivisely make this connection (or at least the first to blog about it), I sent an email to Accountability Now which I am pasting in its entirety below:
I am hoping that many of these messages are flooding your inbox right now! Many prominent Accountability Now bloggers have been openly advocating a primary for Specter, but I'm hoping they go all in and begin openly advocating for him to be the main target for Accountability Now.

He certainly would be the most news-making opponent to go after, and the timing couldn't be better to announce such support! Furthermore, his flip flop on the Military Commissions act and support of the repeal of habeus corpus couldn't be a more important---or timely---issue to jump out in front of with the release of the torture memos! The MSM loves conflict...and man would they love a story about open warfare between the base dems and the feckless dem leadership! Even if we get villified, it will keep the issue of torture in the news and it will provide a tooooooon of pressure on Specter to move leftwards. Plus, it'd be quite the display of netroots power that might force establishment news pundits take pause and realize how quickly they are falling behind in the media space amongst the most engaged citizens (on both sides of the aisle)!

I'm not even really asking----this is so perfect that it must be done and I am presuming talks are rapidly moving forward to make sure this is the case. Please though, when the decision is made, let me know and we can talk more about what I am planning on doing to help!

Even if I am the first to suggest this openly and vociferously (highly doubtful, but it'd be cool if I'm the first to blog about it), I really do believe this is so perfect that it has become a necessity. When it does occur, I will post more about how I can utilize my activism in various capacities and my media work the WYOU TV station (which airs my program Mad Progress TV) in particular to help this integral cause!