With a little more than 48 hours to go before her Congressional bid is decided, Summer Lee rallied her ground troops at a South Side union hall — an event that included a guest appearance by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. And both the rally and a WESA interview with Sanders reflected Democrats' sense of urgency about the race, and about the shape of politics to come.
“Western Pennsylvania is going to set the blueprint for how we save democracy,” Lee told an assembly of canvassers at the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers headquarters. While foes have sought to portray her politics — which draw heavily on themes of racial and economic justice — as divisive, she emphasized unity and common interest.
“If you live in a suburb, if you live in an urban community, they’re going to tell you that you’re different. If you’re progressive or moderate, they’re going to tell you you’re different if you’re Black or if you’re white. We’re going to cut through all of that and … reject every wedge that they will put between us.”
Responding to attacks on Democrats in general — and herself in particular — as being too soft on crime, Lee said “The party of insurrection would have us believe that they have the answers. … Who do you truly believe cares about public safety? The party of guns, guns and more guns? Or the party of public education, the party of health care … the party of social services. The party that knows that if we actually care about public safety, then we need to care about the public.”
For his part, Sanders began with a punning reference to the balmy weather — “it is a Summer day,” he joked — but quickly turned to the themes that have long been at the heart of his political agenda.
“We are moving toward an oligarchic form of society where multibillionaires control our economy,” Sanders said. “They control our political life. They control our media.”
Sanders offered up a list of progressive policy changes he said the country needs and that Lee would fight to accomplish: Among them are an expansion of Medicare, student-debt forgiveness and a hike in the minimum wage. But he warned, too, about a “corrupt political system, which is enabling billionaires to buy elections. And that is what Summer is up against.”
In the final days of the campaign, Lee has been slammed by a $1 million-plus ad campaign paid for by the United Democracy Project, a political committee tied to AIPAC, the country’s most visible pro-Israel political advocacy group. UDP spent more than $2 million attacking Lee in the spring before the primary election, and it was on track to spend more than a million dollars on TV ads and mailings targeting Lee in the final days of the general election campaign.
That spending has exacerbated Democratic anxieties about Lee’s bid to replace retiring Democratic Congressman Mike Doyle in the 12th District. Internal polls have shown Lee leading the contest by margins in the mid-single-digit range — closer than one might expect in a heavily Democratic district centered on the city of Pittsburgh. The fact that her Republican opponent is also named Mike Doyle has also contributed to the uncertainty.
On Sunday, the Republican weighed in with a statement that said Lee had “brought yet another D.C. socialist to try and save her campaign. This entire campaign, I’ve been talking to the people who have been crushed by the policies of Washington while she’s been palling around with the most radical members of Congress.”
In an interview with WESA after the rally, Sanders said that “what happens in Pennsylvania can determine the future of this country,” both in terms of which party controls the Senate and whether the House has “a real fighter for working people.”
And Sanders said it was especially important to support Lee amid the UDP attacks. While most of the group’s activities are backed by AIPAC, which has its own extensive network of donors, it also has been supported by individuals tied to a slew of hedge funds and other investment firsm.
"I think it is a sad state of affairs when a handful of billionaires are spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to defeat candidates like Summer Lee,” Sanders said. “In the next couple days, I hope people fight back and say, ‘You know what? This nation belongs to all of us and not just a handful of billionaires.’”
UDP ads don’t mention Israel — a subject that Lee has barely discussed in her political career — and Sanders said that proves “the Israel issue is not the issue. it's just a smokescreen. This is simply one more instance where billionaires are protecting their own personal interest."
Still, the Vermont Senator, who is Jewish, said he worries it may be bad for Israel if its advocates in the U.S. are used as cover for those other interests.
“I really do” worry, he said. He added that he has “strong concerns” about a rightward turn in Israel, where former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to assemble a new government with support from the far right. “We can have that debate. But the fact that AIPAC is now getting involved in issues and campaigns which have nothing to do with Israel … that’s bad news.”
But “our job right now,” he said, is to address the fact that “so many working people, so many elderly people, so many kids are hurting. Let’s stand with those folks.”
