Things have been headed downhill fast for Congressman Grayson the past few days. DFA and PCCC abandoned him. He's experienced a second round of staff resignations. The Sanders Campaign's media vendor, Revolution Messaging, cut off all ties with him. Now, a member of the House Progressive Caucus wants him out of their group too:
“Alan Grayson gives progressives a bad name and he’s an embarrassment,” said Huffman, who is trying to collect votes on the caucus to have Grayson banned. “Having served with him for the past four years, it has been like watching a dumpster fire that would not stop burning. His political style is over-the-top and provocative. It extends to things like personal grudges in his votes, erratic behavior, and his efforts to hijack the progressive caucus.”
Huffman said that “in isolation,” he would give Grayson the benefit of the doubt on the domestic abuse claims form his past. But Grayson has repeatedly shown himself to be a “bully,” Huffman said, including in the run-in with the POLITICO reporter. He said the video of the encounter helped make the battery claims against Grayson more believable. "Fits like a glove," the congressman said.
In other, important and related news, we begin to see the details about how Grayson's 'progressiveness' operates in practice. His district director, Susannah Randolph, straight outta ACORN, literally the 2011 Netroots Activist of the Year, announced she would run for the seat he was vacating to run for Senate. Grayson, however, wanted to hand the seat to his girlfriend, biotech lobbyist Dena Minning:
When Randolph refused to bow out, Grayson began vilifying her and trying to force her out of the race, according to numerous fellow Democrats.
...
At the time, she said, Grayson was trying to get the Florida Democratic delegation to pressure Randolph to run for another congressional seat. He promised to defeat Randolph and state Sen. Darren Soto thanks to the Grayson name, which is well known in the district, Frankel said. ...
“She’s going to have my name and I’m going to spend a lot of money on television,” Grayson said, according to Frankel.
Randolph told others that he called her at one point and leveled the same threat.
At a March meeting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which he is a member, Grayson argued that the group should not endorse Randolph and instead support his girlfriend.
“It was unseemly: Alan definitely tried to torpedo Randolph’s endorsement. He kept calling her a liar and said she spread lies. It was awful,” said one of two witnesses who relayed the same story but didn’t want to speak on the record for fear of retribution from the congressman.
Grayson said Randolph “would have no chance to win,” the source recalled, adding that Grayson said of his fiancée: “I’m going to marry her. She’s going to have the Grayson name. And she’s going to win.”
Minning, now Dena Grayson, has never lived in the district, been politically active in the district or anywhere else except for being a corporate lobbyist, nor has demonstrated any progressiveness at all. He trashes the progressive stalwart Randolph who worked for him to put his new wife in the seat. How's that for a 'true progressive?'
Notably, he doesn't cite his new wife's progressive values or stance on the issues. Nor does he promise she will wage a grassroots campaign on her own in her own right. He's going to spend a lot of money on TV. That's why she's going to win, he says. Because of him. Very progressive.
Worse, she's apparently as ethically challenged as he is:
She is falsely presenting herself as a practicing medical physician, even donning a white doctor’s coat and a stethoscope in her first TV ad, which is narrated by Alan Grayson. She has a medical degree but has not practiced in almost two decades, and is not licensed to practice – a fact first reported by Christopher Heath, an Orlando TV reporter for WFTV9.
Dena Grayson was a lobbyist for a biomedical firm, but she doesn’t mention that on the campaign trail.
Of course, she's a lobbyist. We should expect this kind of thing from her.
Here's the bottom line on Grayson: Beyond being a wife beater, offshore hedge fund owner, an ineffective ethically bankrupt Congressman, and an angry bully... Grayson’s commitment to progressivism is just a bunch words. He says progressive things. He gets no respect in Congress, not even long time committed progressives. Finally the activists have begun to abandon him as well.
We should all be very pleased that come 2017, no matter what we will finally be rid of a scumbag wife beating bully.