This is the sort of thing that is almost inevitable when we worry more about identity than ideas. When we separate ourselves and build power around who we are, rather than focusing on what we want to do.

And oh yeah, Kate Brown, just got $5K more from Emily's list 3 days ago, bringing her total take from Emily's List in this election cycle to $20,000, $15,000 of that to run against pro-choice Democrats in the primary.

Diane Rosenbaum $1000 Regan Gray $4500 Jackie Dingfelder $2000 Linda Brown $5000 Cyreena Boston $5000

Still waiting on your Charlie to call on Brown and the rest to denounce Emily's list and return the money, as well to as to call out Cowan. Otherwise what's your point except stroking your ego? Or do you have another agenda?

Kevin, it is you who misses the point.

EL's reasons for existence are irrelevant. As an activist political organization it is their overall pattern of behavior, including their lack of judgement, in their grasp for power that matters because that behavior is what plays out in real-life politics. The same is true for those like Brown who willingly consort with them, and who seek their money and endorsement given their actual record.

Stunted minds like yours and many Blue Oregonians just do everything you can to excuse the pattern of moral abdication we have seen over the last decade or so by focusing on individual (although typically successive) incidents to draw attention away from overall pattern of arrogance, low-integrity and poor political behavior.

So long as Brown doesn't vigorously publicly denounce, and that includes returning the money, she condones. It's that simple.

The ball is in your court Charlie: You chose to make this an issue, now you have the responsibility to carry through.

Charlie, no one said anything about (possibly sometimes misled) EL donors. But your rationalization will play well with a community that obviously mainly looks for excuses to evade responsibility for holding even the groups, much less the politicians, they support fully accountable.

So Charlie, I'll bet there are a lot of silent Democratic readers of personal integrity who are at least as concerned about what happened here as you, but a little less about their preserving their own opportunities as a paid political flak like you (you thought about getting EL to hire you to help them with this PR mess?), and who are still waiting for you to quit bobbing and weaving. You have been a paid flak for numerous pols including Republican-lite Ted "I support the war" Kulongoski though, so I think we know what the real score is.

The question remains on the table: Are you going to call on Brown and the rest to do the right thing? In the meantime, I'm having a really hard time seeing how your double-talking to evade what you have now devoted three posts to doesn't put you in the same class as EL.

"The bottom line here is that Emily's List played a central role in the most disgraceful, low-life Democratic primary in at least a decade. Their money financed the ads. And from what I can tell, there's no meaningful evaluation happening to ensure future screw-ups of this magnitude."

And this is why some of us will only give money directly to a candidate (Obama seems to be doing OK with some donations well below $100 ) because of the "powergrab" aspect of people who run these operations.

Like the time an environmental group gave money and endorsement to Bruggere over 2 qualified candidates who had actually been supporting the causes important to the organization long before anyone ever heard of Bruggere. The smart-aleck then in charge (wasn't in charge for much longer) made a crack about "green in the wallet" being more important than "green in their background".

It would be a great public service if someone would do an evaluation of such groups, who they endorsed, what the money contributed paid for, win/loss record, etc.

...in their grasp for power...

Politics is inherently a grasp for power.

Kevin - try to keep up here now since you insisted on responding haphazardly: No one criticized anyone for their desire to grab for power. EL is criticized for their particular pattern of behavior in pursuing that desire, and their supporters and beneficiaries like Brown for not finding that unacceptable by welcoming EL support rather than holding them accountable. Brown got her last $5K, if the reports filed with the State are correct, well AFTER the whole chain of events Charlie is trying to spin like a top here.

Seems to me that you are as damned by your own rhetoric as you think Charlie is for his.

I would just observe you might want to remember Charlie, the guy who threw this out there three times but evaded the real questions about Brown and others who court EL's support, like Kari is a paid political PR professional. You might want to consider what HE, like Kari, actually thinks about his own rhetoric. The positions I've expressed consistent with our supposed shared values as Democrats are clear and above board.

Remember, Brown and the others are being asked to distance themselves from an organization that opposed Cohen, a Congressperson who Charlie himself says is one of the most important progressives in the Congress. The "lapse of reason" in just one case doesn't pass the smell test, as Charlie's bobbing and weaving to this point doesn't when he could just come out and say Brown and the others should renounce EL's support.

The solution is for EL members to leave EL. Who cares if EL apologizes?

Emily's List is like so many other politically-oriented organizations that are obsessed with some particular agenda and pursue it without regard to ethics or state and national interests. The same can be said for the Democratic and Republican parties that routinely place party interests ahead of the nation's.

To repeat a story from the JFK election and the question of dead voters in Chicago, a visitor ask a Chicagoan how the people of that city could elect a crook. The answer was, "Because he is our crook." On a national level it helps to explain the charge that the U.S. Capitol is the biggest and most expensive whorehouse in the world.

EMILYS List plays for keeps and going negative is always on the table. Case in point was the Rahm Emmanuel vs. EMILYS List cand. primary in Chicago in '02. The story I heard was that Rahm showed up at the EL office after it was over, demanding to see Ellen Malcom and let her know what he thought of her after they went negative on him.

Further, I am disappointed in Plhut's tiresome call for Charlie to call on Kate Brown for accepting $$$ from EL

paulie, you're not disappointed, admit it. The choice of the adjective "tiresome" belies that you are ticked off because the people you want to identify with are being called out for their failure of principle and you know you don't have any defense for Brown or Charlie.

Frankly, I'm tired of the low-class hypocritical face superficial Democrats like you, Charlie, and Kevin present to the people who should be Democrats, but who have rightly lost respect for our Party.

The issue isn't that EL gave money

Yup, Kevin you're right even as you dig yourself a deeper moral hole. The issue is that Brown at least so far with her cowardly silence shows she apparently doesn't care about the political company she keeps, just so long as they give her money. In this case, it includes people who Charlie has repeatedly accused here of being anti-semites.

And it isn't just that she has just taken the money and has remained silent (the ugly TN campaign was going on as she accepted EL's money), but even as Charlie has chosen to beat the drum as the political hit man he is, he doesn't call on those like her whom he claims to share his values to do the right thing.

To be accurate, I'm sure Charlie is going to splutter he hasn't accused EL of being anti-semites, he has in fact stated EL members and leaders have financed "anti-semitic and racially-charged voter appeals".

The real question is what relevant moral distinction justifies Brown's silence, Charlie's refusal to call on her to disassociate from them (talk is cheap and "we're sorry" doesn't cut it until they prove they have changed and re-earned the right to be welcome in polite political society), and the debased rationalizing of people like paulie and Kevin?

Why won't you purity trolls stop your whining? All that matters is women winning. You're either with us or you're with the misogynists.