| Tom Lantos, who is one of the worst and most dangerous members of Congress with regards to Iran and Israel and one of AIPAC's top allies, is facing a primary challenge.
Looks like former Peninsula state Sen. Jackie Speier is indeed gearing up for what promises to be a big-money and highly charged Democratic primary run next June against 13-term Rep. Tom Lantos.
"It's Time!" declares an e-mail circulated by supporters to "friends" and "fans" this past week, announcing the first organizing meeting of the Jackie Speier for Congress Exploratory Committee on Tuesday at a home in Hillsborough.
Speier has been consulting with friends and supporters about a run since a poll conducted by allies in January showed her a 2-1 favorite among voters in the 12th Congressional District, which covers northern San Mateo County and parts of San Francisco.
Speier has since hired at least one staffer to start gearing up. Nonetheless, she told us late Friday that she hasn't made a final decision - and that when she does, we'll be among the first to know.
"The good news is Congressman Lantos has finally come back to the district," she said, a digging reference to his trip home this week for the holidays and to attend a congressional subcommittee hearing on the Coast Guard's role in the big bay oil spill.
Challenge or not, Lantos, who will turn 80 in February, said through his spokeswoman: "I fully expect to win the primary in June and the general election next November.
Lantos is the only holocaust survivor in Congress, and has been outspoken on issues of genocide. He's also the Chair of the House International Relations Committee, and the author of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act. Lantos is a member of the progressive caucus, and has a progressive record on domestic policies. On foreign policy, he is extremely right-wing, though he has distanced himself from the Iraq war after pushing aggressively for authority for Bush.
It's a fascinating and welcome development. I don't know Speier, and I don't know if Lantos has been taking care of business in his district, but the generational argument might work. You can expect AIPAC to dump money into this race, and for the antisemitism card to be used aggressively and repeatedly by older right-wingers rich and insecure Jewish men and defense contractors. Younger progressive Jews like me are willing to step up and organize on behalf of less insane representation for our community, as we did against Lieberman in 2006. I did enjoy being called a Hezbocrat during the Lebanon invasion, which took place during the Lamont-Lieberman race, as well as seeing Moveon and its mostly Jewish staff attacked by the American Defamation League's Abe Foxman because someone on an open forum they run made an antisemitic comment.
This might be one opportunity to organize again, this time more explicitly against AIPAC, though I'd need to learn more about the district and the race before doing so.
Anyone in CA-11 know anything about this? |
