Why Has Mac D’Alessandro Decided To Run A Primary Challenge Against Stephen Lynch (D-MA)?

[Ian David]

Why Has Mac D’Alessandro Decided To Run A Primary Challenge Against Stephen Lynch (D-MA)?

Stephen Lynch was the most conservative member of Massachusetts' congressional delegation until Scott Brown was elected. Lynch, an anti-Choice Democrat, has leaned in a conservative direction and now he can use Brown as an excuse, as he did when he became one of the only Democratic non-Blue Dogs to oppose the healthcare reform bill. If he thought no one was paying attention, he was in for a very rude awakening. Mac D’Alessandro, SEIU's New England political director decided to take him on. I spoke with Mac on the phone and asked him to introduce himself to DWT readers. If you like what you read, he's now on the Blue America Send The Democrats A Message page. Mac:


I'm Mac D’Alessandro and I’m a progressive Democrat running for United States Congress from the 9th Congressional district in Massachusetts.

Because I’ve decided to challenge a fellow Democrat in a primary, I’d like to share with you a little bit about who I am and why I’ve made this decision.

More:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-has-mac-dalessandro-decided-to-run.html

Mac D'Alessandro
Election: MA-09, 2010
http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/24404




Send The Democrats A Message They Can Understand
by Blue America
Supporters 510
Raised $29,308

Many of us have been disappointed in the Democratic Party (again) this year-- but electing conservatives in the form of Republicans or Blue Dog Democrats is NOT the answer. People with memories that go back beyond last November, though, probably remember just what 8 years of George W. Bush and a Republican Congress meant for our country. And, stretching out from there a bit, some progressives even remember what happened when we split our votes between Al Gore and Ralph Nader. There is a way to send a message to the Inside the Beltway Democratic Establishment. It's called primaries-- and it works better than blindly empowering crazed, angry, racist teabaggers. When Adam Nagourney, Cokie Roberts or Glenn Beck promote Democratic atomization, they're not pumping for progressive values, as Digby pointed out in the post that inspired this Blue America page. She asks how liberals can exert what power we have and have the results be interpreted the way we want them to be-- as a repudiation of corporatism and conservative governance, not as a repudiation of Democratic governance?

There is a fairly compelling theory in political science that says that after political parties come into power, fulfill some pieces of their agenda, get fat and bloated and are finally removed from office, they then tend to deny the reality of their loss and blame it on everything but themselves until they lose enough elections that they finally realize that their ideology has failed. The current GOP is not there yet by a long shot. They are still in the process of doubling down on their radical agenda at a time when the economy is still in ruins, the effects of globalization are being fully felt, the planet is in peril and about to reach a tipping point, and a radical fundamentalist movement is trying to blow people up. I don't think the world can take any more of the right's prescriptions for these problems right now: Lindsay Graham is considered too liberal and neo-Hooverism is their economic program. Yes, the Democrats are corrupt and inept. But the other side is batshit insane.

However, that doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do but wring our hands about how the system is broken and fret ourselves into inertia. The other way to send messages to the Democratic party is through the unsatisfying and often thankless process of primary challenges. Nobody can have any problem understanding that message, not even Adam Nagourney.

It's hard to find challengers and it's no wonder. It's expensive, time consuming and after all your hard work you will probably lose. It takes real commitment and a desire to not only win a seat in Congress but do it by way of unseating an incumbent of your own party with whom you disagree, an act which is guaranteed to make you an odd man out among the party hierarchy. But if you win, it can send shockwaves through the system.

And guess what? We are in the most favorable year for primary challenges in recent memory. The insane teabaggers aren't going to allow any rational Republicans to run and the anti-incumbent fever is going to be as high as it's been since 1994. The Democratic base has an energetic activist faction, the netroots can raise money and there is a burning desire to show the party establishment that they cannot take liberals for granted. It's a perfect environment for successful primary challenges.

More:
http://www.actblue.com/page/messagetodemocrats

[WhiteTara]

1. Go Mac! Bill Halter is within 7 points of Lincoln

so there is real momentum out there for change.