Progressive Ann McLane Kuster Cruises to Victory in NH

By Nick Baumann
Mother Jones
September 14, 2010 - 7:57 PM PDT

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/09/progressive-ann-mclane-kuster-wins-primary

Some liberals are celebrating the victory of Christine
O'Donnell in Delaware's GOP Senate primary, hoping that her
candidacy will hand the seat to Democratic candidate Chris
Coons. But elsewhere, progressives have a primary victory of
their own to cheer. In the Democratic primary to replace
Rep. Paul Hodes in New Hampshire's second congressional
district (Hodes is running for the Senate), liberal-backed
Ann McLane Kuster clobbered more conservative Katrina Swett.
(Swett committed the ultimate crime in progressive-land: she
was the co-chair of Joe Lieberman's presidential campaign.)
Kuster was backed by major pro-choice groups, who worried
that Swett could not be trusted on abortion rights issues.
That mattered. But the race was also a chance for liberals
to flex their political muscles.

Kuster was supported by all the big progressive activist
groups - especially Howard Dean's Democracy for America
(DFA) and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC).
I recently spoke to PCCC's Adam Green about the race. He
said Kuster's win showed "maturity" in the progressive
movement's ability to affect primaries. "A few years ago
blogs would raise small amounts of money for candidates but
not really have an ongoing relationship with their
campaign," Green said. "But now we're at a point where we're
helping campaigns find staffing, run cutting edge online
campaigns, and also raise a ton of money online from lots of
people." There's no doubt PCCC had an impact on the race: it
mobilized its 2,800 New Hampshire members to assist her
campaign, it helped her find her communications director,
and it raised around $100,000 - real money in a primary
contest - for Kuster. The candidate called the organization
a "real partner."

Liberal groups haven't won all their primaries this year.
Their candidate in Arkansas, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, lost to
incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln in June. But they've notched
some important victories. Joe Sestak beat party-switcher and
White House-backed Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania
Democratic Senate primary. Liberal- (and Daily Kos-)backed
candidate Manan Trivedi (a doctor and Iraq war vet) won a
tough House primary race against a more conservative, self-
funding opponent in May and will face incumbent GOP Rep. Jim
Gerlach in the fall. The night Trivedi won - May 18 -
Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway beat a more
conservative opponent for the Democratic Senate nomination
in that state. And on June 22, liberal favorite Elaine
Marshall beat establishment-backed Cal Cunningham (the pick
of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) for the Dem
Senate nomination in North Carolina.

The real question, of course, is whether any of these
progressive candidates can win in November. Swett attacked
Kuster during a debate as unelectable and too progressive.
She'll certainly have a hard race against former Rep.
Charlie Bass - if he can survive a tough primary race of his
own. (Swett would have had trouble with Bass, too.) But
Green, unsurprisingly, thinks his group picked the right
horse. "A lot of people have been saying Democratic voters
don't vote for a progressive candidate because they can't
win," he says. "We want to prove that wrong in 2010." He
sure picked some year to test that proposition.

UPDATE: Reshma Saujani, who ran a Wall Street-backed
campaign challenging incumbent New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney
from the right, lost badly on Tuesday night. That should
probably count as another victory for liberals. 

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