Another brave candidate in WI. I’m knee-deep in work today, so let’s get right to it.
From MazeDancer:
Running in the Red – Hope for the House with Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin-3
Derrick Van Orden is a two-term incumbent GOP Rep with a built-in villain name. Proudly representing Wisconsin-3, he shouted “Lies!”, on camera, at Joe Biden during the president’s 2024 State of the Union address. And, importantly, he feels that Wisconsin dairy farmers who are about to lose their cows, and rural folk who have already lost their healthcare, are really concerned about New York City.
As part of his screed against his Democratic opponent Rebecca Cooke, he uses footage of her saying she would support not just the most popular mayor, but the most popular politician, in America, Zohran Mamdani, to be elected in New York City. Skipping over why Ms. Cooke did not answer “NYC can choose its own mayor, I am focussed on helping people survive in Western Wisconsin”, the Van Orden move continues to illustrate MAGA ain’t got nothing.
And Rebecca Cooke seems to have everything.
A self-described “Blue Dog and New Democrat” who has also been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, Ms, Cooke is a Big Tent Dem unto herself. (Brief aside to, knock wood, Soon-to-be-Speaker Jeffries – Those are the words you are looking for when asked about DSA. Big Tent.)
It is unclear what is so Blue Dog about Rebecca Cooke. Other than, despite her being aware that the future of our Democracy, and the planet, rests on Democrats winning the gavels this year, she can’t resist sniping at them.
Like all good Dems, she is pro-Roe, anti-pollution, and aims to reduce the spiraling cost of living. She calls Farmers “The Original Entrepreneurs”, which is a nice line. She wants to lower costs on healthcare and childcare, She is all for empowering strong unions.
Maybe it’s Medicare?
She wants to add dental, hearing, and vision to Medicare coverage. Up reimbursement rates to help rural hospitals. And cap drug prices for Seniors. But instead of one fell swoop, she suggests lowering the age of Medicare eligibility every year.
Maybe she thinks that’s a way to sneak in broader coverage? Or maybe Blue Dogs prefer clumsy timetables? (Are people supposed to wait years to achieve the “for all” part?) Or she sticks with insurance-based Medicare instead of “Universal Healthcare”?
Is leaving room for insurance company profits what makes a Blue Dog?
She does like to sing those “We have to meet in the middle to get things done” lyrics. Though, like most crooners of that tune, never identifies who, exactly, is the not hate-filled, ready-to-take-action GOP with whom she would meet. Maybe Jared Kushner?
Wisconsin-3 is a very rural, very Red district. If Cooke is trying to reassure skittish, but hurting, voters she is not the Communist Pinko Liberal Socialist Van Orden wants her to be, well, so what if she likes to bark Blue Doggy style?
Born on a dairy farm, she was working chores since she ”could hold a halter”. Her parents lost their cows to financial crunch, and not being able to compete against big, corporate dairies. Rebecca Cooke has to know her state. When asked by professional Dem smearers James Carville and Al Hunt, on their podcast, what makes her a “Blue Dog”, she took the bait.
To her, Blue Dogs are “folks that are fiscally conservative, socially liberal, that are really working from, like, a place-based perspective.”
Place-based perspective? As opposed to those free-floating Reps who never visit their district? That’s the GOP, Ms. Cooke.
She continued “They’re people that understand rural Democrats, working-class Democrats, that are showing up in rural communities and working-class spaces that historically our party has left behind.”
Here’s the point, she is wrong about Democrats. The only abandonment of rural and working-class voters has been done by the GOP, supporting billionaires since Reagan. And Bernie Sanders consistently leaving Black people out of his vaunted “working class”.
Saying she is both a Blue Dog and a New Democrat – not sure what in the FDR, Ann Richards, John Lewis, and Paul Wellstone is wrong with the Old – feels more like a gimmick than a creed. But if it reassures beleaguered WI voters, and stops MAGA Derrick Van Order from continuing to tie women to railroad tracks, then, say it together, class, Big Tent.
This is Rebecca Cooke’s third try for Congress. She lost to Van Orden in 2024, when he got 51.4% of the vote. But Cooke got 9K more votes than Kamala Harris and 5K more votes than Tammy Baldwin in her district.
Though, this time, she’s running with $8.6 million in funding to Van Orden’s current $7.5 million. A likely fleeting advantage. Because the tighter a House race gets, the more GOP money will show up. (Long-lasting aside to Donald, please continue to hold on to all GOP Campaign PAC moola. What if you need it for legal defense? Or fleeing the country?)
Rebecca spent her early career operating in the Dem political trenches, before coming home to Wisconsin. Where she founded a non-profit that helps women run for office in the state.
She has a small retail business, as well, called “Red’s Mercantile”. And, sometimes, waits tables to make ends meet.
Derrick Van Order, cp-author of “Book of Man: A Navy SEAL’s Guide to the Lost Art of Manhood” (2015) sits on the Armed Service Committee in the House. He has not asserted his manhood to stop Trump and Hegseth from destroying our military, short-changing our Veterans, or waging harmful forever wars.
He has yelled at Senate pages and turned up drunk in public. He is an extreme Trumper. He uses deep fake AI videos to spread malarkey about Ms. Cooke. Though, apparently, he has developed a recent concern about Flock cameras, as manly men, who are out and about, often do.
Political Report calls the race a “Toss-up”.
Here is Rebecca’s Hopium Chronicles interview with Simon Rosenberg.
It is one of her strongest. Sometimes, she comes across as a freckle-faced, light-voiced teenager. But not here. With Simon she sounds smart, prepared, and ready to fight. And gets in her requisite Dem disses.
Big Tent, people, Big Tent.
Rebecca Cooke’s campaign website.
We will be featuring all of the candidates endorsed by both the DCCC “Red-to-Blue” and the Hopium Chronicles “Winning the House” programs. Or as we call it, “Running in the Red with Money”.
But would love to also include candidates from every level running in RedZones. So please send names to TaMara at Balloon-Juice.com
***
Keep those candidates ideas coming.
