CA-36: PLEASE support Winograd because Harman HAS TO GO

Attention liberal bloggers: if you think we're wasting our time supporting Ned Lamont, this diary is not for you.  Just move along.

As for the rest of you--if you are among those who understand that Joe Lieberman is doing as much or more damage to the Democratic Party and to progressive issues at large as, say, Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe, then please read on.  Because your help is desperately needed.

Do you know which Democrat in Congress called themselves "the best Republican in the Democratic Party"?  It wasn't Joe Lieberman--it was Jane Harman.

Democrats in the House of Representatives have a problem--a problem in the House just as large as Lieberman is in the Senate.

That problem is Jane Harman.  She HAS to go.  And Marcy Winograd is our solution.

After talking with her for over 45 minutes in a face-to-face interview (I don't work for her campaign), I am convinced that this is one of the most exciting candidates we have right now--and that's saying alot.

In order to understand why Jane Harman is such a problem allow me to give you a little background:

As we know, the biggest reason that Lieberman is so much more infuriating than, say, Ben Nelson is that he is in Connecticut.  We need real liberals in places like Connecticut that absolutely despise most Republicans

In Jane Harman's case, her Connecticut is CA-36.  CA-36 includes Venice Beach and a number of very liberal and minority enclaves--and just got alot MORE liberal after the latest redistricting.  What this means is that the district is in absolutely NO danger of falling to a Republican--and that we have the opportunity to challenge a DINO here.

But what, some might say, is so bad about Harman?  She has a pretty reliable voting record!  Well, I respond, Joe Lieberman ALSO has a pretty reliable voting record.  That's not the point.

If you want to see a list of Jane Harman's repugnancies, please see this outstanding diary by hekebolos.  If you still aren't convinced, just examine this transcript of Jane Harman's interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT:  Congresswoman Harman, you were also briefed. Were you comfortable with the plan when you were informed of it?

REP. JANE HARMAN, (D-Calif.):  My briefings started in 2003 and have been in existence for about a year and a half, and I didn't join this group until I was ranking member on Intelligence. The briefings were about the operational details of the program. I support the program, I've never flinched from that. However, the briefings were not about the legal underpinnings of the program, nor were they about the appropriateness of the Gang of Eight process. I talked to absolutely no one, because I would have violated three different federal criminal statutes had I talked to anybody.

MR. RUSSERT:  When you say "Gang of Eight," you mean the four leaders of Congress--the majority leader, minority leader, the speaker, and Democratic leader in the House--and then the four ranking members of the Intelligence Committee...

REP. HARMAN:  That's right.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...two in the Senate and House?

REP. HARMAN:  That's exactly right. And I became a part of this group when I became ranking member in January of 2003. At any rate, I couldn't talk to anyone about this program, and did not until the president disclosed its existence. It's not the leak to The New York Times that triggered things--and by the way, I deplore that leak--but the day after that, President Bush disclosed the fact that the program existed, at which point I consulted constitutional experts, the former general counsel of the CIA, some of the excellent staff on the House Intelligence Committee, and then I learned, although I'm a trained lawyer, about some of the serious legal issues that I have been raising ever since. I still support the program, but it needs to be on a sounder legal footing, and I think the Gang of Eight process violates the National Security Act of 1947, which requires that, unless it's a covert action program--Congress, that means the two Intelligence Committees--have to be fully and completely briefed.

MR. RUSSERT:  Vice President Cheney gave an interview in which he said this, "The program has operated for four years. Congress has been informed, a few members of Congress, informed throughout that period of time, and everything was fine until there was publicity in The New York Times. And at that point now, we've had some members head for the hills, so to speak; forget, perhaps, that they were at the briefings and fully informed of the program." Is the vice president correct that Democrats went along with this program, and then when it became public, began to raise reservations?

REP. HARMAN:  Well, there was no way to raise any reservations before that. Jay Rockefeller's letter is a, you know, is a private cry. If he had shared that letter publicly, I think he would have been in violation of the Espionage Act, the disclosure of classified information regarding cryptology and the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. So he could not talk about it. And again, this Gang of Eight process is only under law for the revelation of covert action programs. This is not a covert action program, this is a very valuable foreign collection program, and I'm--I think it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers.

Do you understand what this means, folks?  This means that didn't know that the program was illegal when she was briefed on it.  It means that she didn't raise a peep about the program even when she DID know it was illegal.  And it means that once the program was leaked, she didn't abhor the program--she abhorred the leak!

And there's so much more where that came from.  She has voted to renew the Patrioat Act, to keep Guantanamo prisons, to oppose the ICC, to develop new nuclear weapons.  She has refused to investigate the White House Iraq Group.  She wears B-2 bomber lapel pins, for crying out loud.  Most importantly--this is the woman who knew about the NSA spying program from the beginning, and didn't lift a finger to stop it.

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And there IS an alternative.  An EXCELLENT one.  We have the ability to knock Jane Harman out, and put Marcy Winograd in.

If you want to know her positions on most of the major issues, please see her website at WinogradforCongress.com.  In Marcy, we have a candidate who:

a) supports a timetable for pulling out of Iraq.

b) supports resolutions for impeachment.

c) supports a resolution against permanent bases in Iraq.

d) Isn't connected to the military-industrial complex.

e) supports redirecting the war billions into deficit reduction, education and healthcare.

f) supports requiring a constitutional amendment for the right to vote, and voter-verified paper trails.

g) openly supports single-payer healthcare.

h) fully supports a woman's right to choose.

i) fully supports same-sex marriage.

j) strongly supports alternative energies and reinstating the environmental protections damaged by the Bush Administration.

k) paths to legalization for illegal immigrants with a no-nonsense approach.

And there's so much more where that came from.  My brother "hekebolos" and I conducted a 45-minute interview with Marcy on a wide range of subjects that are not necessarily covered on her campaign website--from campaign finance reform to Iran.

Not only did I love what I heard, I can tell you all that Marcy is a wonderful, engaging and charismatic person.  She can WIN an election.

And if you want to see a dose of this charisma, go ahead and check out any of her on-camera policy positions.

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Tomorrow evening I will be posting a transcript of my interview with Marcy on my blog, on Booman Tribune, on My Left Wing, and (of course) here: I hope you'll check it out.

In the meantime, please consider donating to Marcy's campaign, either here or at my brother's Act Blue page.

THANK YOU!