In January 2008, Andrew Romanoff was named DLC Man of the Week. The reasons given for the honor were all laudable, but the DLC doesn’t lavish praise on people from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. In 2009, Romanoff was an official DLC Fellow. Unsurprisingly, Romanoff endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and also unsurprisingly, he was rewarded by Bill Clinton’s endorsement in his race against incumbent Senator Michael Bennet. The Coloradans that know him best do not think Romanoff is a progressive.
Now, he’s not terrible. I don’t want to tear the guy down. He may very well be the better of two lamentably average candidates. But for David Sirota to say that Romanoff is a progressive and that there is something wrong with Obama for endorsing Bennet? Well, that’s just the kind of rancid dishonesty we’ve all come to expect from him.
The White House has thrown everything into propping up the candidacy of Sen. Michael Bennet (D) – an appointed senator who has never run for office in his life; who has barely lived in the state of Colorado; who has cast repeated votes against progressive legislation (cramdown, credit card interest rate crackdowns, ending Big Oil tax breaks, etc.); who has raised among the largest truckload of corporate cash in the Senate; and whose major claim-to-fame is making millions of dollars for himself as a corporate raider working for right-wing billionaire Phil Anschutz. And the White House is not backing Bennet in a vacuum – it is backing him against Andrew Romanoff, who has helped build grassroots infrastructure in taking back Colorado from Republicans, who has served as Colorado House Speaker, who has sworn off PAC money, who has run a genuinely grassroots campaign, and who polls have shown would likely be a stronger general election nominee against Republicans.
Romanoff is no Bernie Sanders, of course. But there’s a clear progressive-versus-corporate-conservative choice in this race. And rather than sitting out and letting Colorado Democratic voters make their decision without the White House thumb on the scales, Obama has, once again, made clear it is prepared to try to destroy whatever progressive forces may exist inside the Democratic Party.
But it is not at all clear that there is a clear choice in this race. One man is the darling of the DLC who once “voted in favor of a resolution ‘honoring’ George W. Bush for ‘protecting America from Saddam Hussein,'” and the other is a former corporate raider who rakes in corporate dough. I don’t care who wins the primary, and neither should you. If you live in Colorado, you might choose Bennet just because he has a little seniority advantage. Other than that, it’s a toss-up from a progressive’s point of view. But that’s not what Sirota wants you to believe. Once again, it’s all about Obama-bashing. The president is going to endorse incumbents. Someone runs to the right of Bernie Sanders or Barbara Boxer? Obama will support Sanders and Boxer. So will the DSCC. So will the DNC. That’s why incumbents pay dues to those organizations. It’s how it works. But go ahead a believe that Andrew Romanoff is a real progressive. Just don’t say I didn’t tell you different.
