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Please consider digging this story.
 On Friday, I was on the phone with Darcy Burner, who told me that she got a call from people affiliated with the conservative Jewish political group AIPAC. They told her to distance herself from the new pro-peace group J Street, which they said is full of radical leftists who believe in capitulation to the forces of the Arab world who would overrun and destroy Israel. Like most conservative arguments, it is utter nonsense backed up by a political threat designed to suppress alternative legitimate political views.
J Street is engaging in such controversial anti-Israel stances as praising the Israeli government for negotiating a Gaza ceasefire and using diplomacy to achieve security. AIPAC is silent on the negotiations, focusing on supporting the use of force and sanctions against Iran. Rather than a pro-Israel group designed to back the policies of the Israeli government, they are, to be blunt, acting as warmongers and using the shield of a Jewish ethnicity to push their own far right views. This has provoked a reaction in the form of J Street, which thousands of Jews support, including me (I am an advisor).
AIPAC's people are backing Darcy's opponent, Dave Reichert, so if they are calling her up and arguing with her, it shows just how confident they are politically at intimidating the opposition. A J Street endorsement is clearly a very risky and scary thing to take, because you'll bring down the wrath of a powerful and well-organized group. I know of several candidates who have refused J Street's endorsements because they don't want to become targets for AIPAC. Darcy Burner, Steve Cohen, Dennis Schulman, Debbie Halvorson, and Mary Jo Kilroy are all showing incredible bravery in doing so; they are not just running as Democrats, they are running as leaders.
And this is how change happens. What's important to understand in calculating where we should direct our resources is how much candidates are willing to lead as candidates, so that we know what kind of risk profiles they will take as office-holders. Every House candidate was offered the opportunity to endorse a Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, despite substantial institutional opposition. Every House candidate could seek the endorsement of J Street. Every House candidate could come out for net neutrality. Every candidate could associate themselves heavily with the internet left.
And yet, very few of them actually do this. It's far easier to take PAC money and AIPAC money and telecom money and say 'change' and 'Obama' and fill out some questionnaires. It's easy to go through existing power centers, existing networks, rather than support new ones that are competitive to the ones dominating the status quo. Of course, the cost to the politician of using existing networks is that they have to pretend like attacking Iran is the right thing to do, that the lies the telecom companies tell us have merit, and that liberals are crazy. They have to, in other words, sell their soul and become part of an incredibly corroded establishment process.
I'd be remiss if I didn't push our Actblue page of 'Better Democrats' as changing this dynamic. Merkley, Massa, Burner, Perriello and Donna Edwards have all come out for a Responsible Plan to End the war in Iraq. All of them are out on net neutrality. And Darcy Burner and Donna Edwards are also endorsed by J Street. This is a powerful group of candidates who reinforce each other and new centers of power through their campaigns, explicitly and overtly. So supporting them with donations strengthens the whole network and weakens the conservative side, whereas just giving to random Democrats, the Presidential ticket, or establishment parties like the DSCC or DCCC may not do so.
If you follow me on to the flip, I'll discuss how this relates to our project on mapping Congress.
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