It remains to be seen whether House Democrat Speaker Frank Chopp is worried enough to spend any of the July 4th holiday weekend campaigning for re-election, but he once again has drawn the only kind of opponent that can provide him competition in his beyond-liberal Capitol Hill legislative district – a socialist.
Jess Spear – the former 15 Now director who has been endorsed by City Council member Kshama Sawant, the fellow socialist who ran against the Speaker in 2012 – promises to “chop Chopp” in the 43rd District that gave Sawant 27% of the vote in the last campaign.
If nothing else, the race will be fun to watch just for the far-left rhetoric coming from the likes of Sawant (“It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight or gender non-conforming or not. All that matters is whether you’re fighting for social justice.”) and Spear’s campaign manager (and former Sawant manager) Philip Locker: “”If the labor movement gets off their butts, and doesn’t criminally support [Chopp] and supports an independent working class candidate, it will crush the argument that this (Sawant’s victory) is a one off fluke.”
Unfortunately for Spear and Locker’s hopes, the far-left SEIU Healthcare union has already “criminally” endorsed Chopp.
But that won’t stop Spear from spreading the gospel to the 43rd District Sawanticrats: “Look, Chopp’s got experience doing the bidding of corporations; I’ve got experience organizing movements – movements that win concrete gains for working people, not giant handouts for corporations that are already making record profits…His 20 years in the legislature have left us with the most regressive taxes in the country, while the biggest corporations in the world are again and again given massive tax handouts. Frank Chopp is clearly the king of corporate welfare.”
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