— News and Commentary —
UH OH: California Democrats Won’t Support Sen. Dianne Feinstein For Another Term
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein learned the hard way this weekend that the Democratic party is becoming more progressive and leaving longtime, slightly-more-moderate lawmakers like Feinstein behind in favor of hardcore leftists.
The California Democratic Party, which held its state convention Saturday, decided by an overwhelming majority not to endorse Feinstein for another term in the Senate. And they were so determined to boot Feinstein from the event that they cut off her speech with music, leading her to admit, “I think my time is up.”
Her progressive opponent, California State Sen. Kevin de León, led the crowd in chanting, “Your time is up!” in response, according to a National Public Radio report.
In fairness to Feinstein, California’s Democratic Party, according to NPR, is more liberal than California’s voting Democrats (if that were possible) and the “grassroots activists” who showed up at Saturday’s event were prepared to send a message to Feinstein about her “compromise” with the White House on immigration and her “support” for President Trump.
Although the bill did not succeed, and Feinstein claims that she would be vigilant on the issue in the Senate Appropriations Committee, Feinstein sinned against her progressive supporters by agreeing to pay $25 billion for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexican border if President Trump agreed to extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and grant conditional amnesty to some parents of DACA enrollees.
National progressives were quick to lend their support to the California effort to unseat Feinstein, claiming that she’d been no better than a Republican during her time in the Senate (though that, of course, would be news to Republicans).
Dianne Feinstein, 84, has spent her 4 full terms in the US Senate with great loyalty & servitude to the CIA & NSA & various wars. She now wants her 5th full term. But the California Dem Party just refused to endorse her; they prefer her opponent by 54-37% https://t.co/IwE9o0cqC0
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 25, 2018
My face when I hear the California Democratic Party declined to endorse Dianne Feinstein:#DianneFeinstein pic.twitter.com/M0rmBKNsNQ
— #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) February 25, 2018
Her opponent, de Leon, was clear in his own speech that he would not be so conciliatory to the opposing party. “Democrats, you’ll never have to guess where I stand,” he said, stressing his support for far-left programs like single-payer health care and “clean” amnesty.
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