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Democrats groan at AIPAC "overkill" against Jamaal Bowman (www.axios.com)

submitted 5 months ago by distantsounds to c/news

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[–] givesomefucks 40 points 5 months ago (3 children)

What AIPAC is doing here is they see a vulnerable member they don't like on their issue and they go after them," said a House Democrat.

The lawmaker added: "Whatever you think of [AIPAC], they're pretty intelligent. They've got some skin in this in the sense that if Bowman wins, that's egg on their face. They're very strategic."

This is how moderates act when a progressive incumbent loses...

But if it's a moderat incumbent, even as shitty as Manchin, the DNC protects them, and untill very recently opened threatened to blackball anyone that came close to a primary campaign against any incumbent.

Any "party unity" has always been one sided. "Moderates" prefer republicans to progress.

[–] retrospectology 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Technically Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Bowman and donated a couple thousand dollars, but he certainly didn't make much noise about it. I think that was more for deniability after the fact, Jeffries himself is on the AIPAC payroll.

[–] ralphio 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Interesting and surprising. TBH I have seen some signs that dem leadership is starting to get sick of AIPAC, lets see if it lasts.

ETA: He also endorsed Summer Lee who did sucessfully beat AIPAC

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/17/hakeem-jeffries-aipac-summer-lee/

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

He's carrying on a tradition for the House leader to endorse and support (with varying levels of "support") all House incumbents. It's not an indication of policy agreement or friendship, it's just if you're an incumbent, he supports you.

Which is... fine. It's probably good that the House leader isn't supporting primary opponents to people in his caucus. But of course some support will be a lot more substantial than others. Pelosi (when she was leader) went to the mat for Henry Cuellar in his previous close primary against a progressive, but would just give perfunctory endorsements to progressive incumbents. When most people know you endorse based simply on incumbency, it's not really much of an endorsement.

[–] ralphio 1 points 5 months ago

You're probably correct the more I look into this.

[–] Psychodelic 8 points 5 months ago

Yep. Just compare how they defended Henry Cuellar against Jessica Cisneros vs how they left Jamaal Bowman hanging.

Honest question to anyone possibly paying more attention. Was there any act from the DNC to defend Bowman? I might've missed it but it wouldn't surprise me to learn they felt differently about supporting one incumbent vs the other

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

You dumb son of a bitch! That "problem" you fixed has been our job security for the past 30 years! We could have had voters arguing over that platform for another seven terms if you had left well enough alone! Now what are we supposed to use for fundraising? Ideas???

[–] Altofaltception 30 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Couldn't we just outlaw foreign interference?

[–] givesomefucks 32 points 5 months ago (2 children)

We do...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act

AIPAC was created because it's predecessor had to register.

There's no logical reason AIPAC doesn't have to register, it's just one of those things where a company changes their name and claims they don't know who that old company was.

[–] barsquid 3 points 5 months ago

Oh, dang, too bad the former company went bankrupt from debts. Sure was lucky we got all these assets before the hammer dropped!

[–] cheese_greater 2 points 5 months ago

[old AIPAC name] He owes me money!

—AIPAC

[–] FlyingSquid 18 points 5 months ago

Citizens United would have made all of this a hell of a lot harder if SCOTUS hadn't ruled the other way. Now basically an unlimited amount of money can flow in from anywhere. It's more complicated than that obviously, but essentially, that's how it is now.

[–] Ghostalmedia 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Much of the spending came after a poll in March from pro-Israel group Democratic Majority for Israel showed Bowman trailing by 17 points.

So he was down 17 points pre-AIPAC money. Then after AIPAC spent a record breaking amount of money, he remained down 17 points and lost by that exact margin.

The ungodly amount of money probably didn’t radically change the opinion of what most of his constituents were going to do in the ballot box.

Maybe he would’ve closed the gap a bit, but he wasn’t in great shape to begin with.

[–] gAlienLifeform 6 points 5 months ago

You should definitely take the NY Post's summary of Democratic Majority for Israel's factual claim at face value, those are both highly reputable and trustworthy organizations /s

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Around the same time Bowman had his own poll (the DMFI poll is effectively a pro-Latimer poll) with him up +1. Also weak for an incumbent, but there's no reason to place the baseline at -17. AIPAC money almost certainly had a strong effect on the race, otherwise they wouldn't have felt spending $14.5 million was a good use of their donation money. That's fully half of all their expenditures reported thus far. The people with full time jobs focused on influencing US policy very much believe spending money influences elections.

[–] lettruthout 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"It might change how they talk about [Israel]," one moderate House Democrat said of their colleagues

So stealing land, committing genocide and syphoning a huge amount of dollars for military support (leaving other programs unfunded), isn't enough. But a heavy handed influence of our elections gets their attention?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

They dont know anyone being genocided personally. But losing elections, well that could happen to them personally. Sick fucks far too removed from the people they lord over to feel anything a human being may describe as compassion.