ST. LOUIS—Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., the leader of the congressional campaign for a ceasefire and negotiations in the Israeli war on Gaza, faces two foes in the Democratic primary in Missouri’s First Congressional District tomorrow August 6: a so-called centrist, Wesley Bell, and AIPAC. But not necessarily in that order.
For Bush, AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is both the more notorious and the more dangerous foe. Bell has become AIPAC’s puppet in its $100 million drive to unseat Bush and other lawmakers whom it falsely claims are anti-Israel.
In Missouri, AIPAC’s dark money campaign finance committee—funded by big givers who also back Donald Trump–has spent at least $15 million. That’s more than Bell himself and Bush have spent, combined ($5.57 million).
Bush emphasizes that she and her constituents stand for democracy. They have sent in small-dollar donations and reached out to people around the country who are backing them by digging into their wallets to send in what they can.
Get Big Money out
“There’s a need to get Big Money out of politics,” Bush says. “Our voices, our votes, and our values are not for sale.” Bush says she and St. Louis “stood up for abortion rights and democracy, for lower costs and Social Security, good-paying union jobs, and Medicare For All.”
Bush, who also was known for being a Black Lives Matter activist, has in her favor a widely praised constituent service operation and success in bringing money and jobs to St. Louis. She relies on people power, precinct organization, and her deep ties to the district. Her father, Errol, is a one-time mayor and current council member of the suburb of Northwoods.
But unless Bush can overwhelm AIPAC’s negative and expensive multi-million-dollar campaign against her, she may well lose her safe Democratic seat in the U.S. House. She’s seeking a third two-year term.
AIPAC demands lawmakers grovel to U.S. support of the extreme rightist Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu—indeed of all Israeli right-wingers, regardless of who leads the government there.
Cori Bush does anything but grovel, and that puts an AIPAC bull’s eye on her.
She’s the lead crafter of the original House resolution demanding a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the opening of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The Israeli attacks on Palestinians did not just begin with their current war on Gaza. They extend back at least 76 years, if not over an entire century.
The Israeli war on Gaza has been a massive campaign of bombing, resulting in the almost total destruction of the area, widespread starvation and famine, and the deaths of more than 40,000 people. Even President Joe Biden has condemned the extent of the Israeli attacks though he hasn’t cut off U.S. aid to the Israeli military.
“Cori’s facing some pretty steep opposition from a centrist and maybe a right-wing opportunist Democrat,” says St. Louis activist and community leader Tony Pecinovsky. “Every day, for two and a half months, our mailboxes are full of campaign pieces from Bell or AIPAC.”
Some of the mailers aim to scare voters with an image of Bush that makes her look menacing, the Working Families Party says. The literature “makes her forehead look bigger and elongates her features while also altering the color of her skin.” Bush is African-American, as is Bell.
The result of the campaign against her, Pecinovsky predicts, will be “a close race” in the Democratic primary. Two of the three most recent polls, all taken in early to mid-July, give Bell a lead, but within the margin of error. Both candidates poll in the mid-40s. That includes one poll done for AIPAC. The third poll, by an unidentified group called CCA, gave Bell a double-digit lead.
The winner is virtually guaranteed a U.S. House seat in the safe Democratic district carved out to contain Democratic-leaning voters in one district. Missouri’s Republicans run the state legislature that carved out the districts to dilute the power of Black voters. There are two other candidates in the race, Maria Chappell-Nadal and Ron Harshaw. They’re virtually ignored. Chappell-Nadal has raised $18,695 and spent $13,711. Harshaw hasn’t raised enough to file campaign reports.
Emphasizes pro-worker record
Bush emphasizes her pro-worker voting record and her personal history, as well as bringing federal aid back to the district, which includes poor and working-class neighborhoods in St. Louis. She also reminds listeners she can empathize, having gone through tough times herself.
Bush and outside supporters such as the Working Families Party and Our Revolution—the organization Bernie Sanders’ supporters formed eight years ago—emphasize AIPAC’s right-wing cash.
Those AIPAC supporters also ladle out cash to Republican presidential nominee Trump and Josh Hawley, the right-wing Republican senator famous for egging on Trumpites who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6. He seeks re-election, too.
“AIPAC’s racist revenge campaign against Cori Bush is getting worse. Its pro-Netanyahu super-PAC was just exposed for sending out mailers featuring photo-shopped pictures of Cori that distorted her face,” says Our Revolution, “It’s despicable.”
“After AIPAC declared war on anyone who dared to stand against the horrors unfolding in Gaza, it pledged $100 million of right-wing billionaire cash to unseat pro-peace Progressive leaders like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush.”
It spent $14.6 million to unseat Bowman in a New York primary last month, in another safe Democratic seat. It’s spent $8.8 million so far on TV, radio, phone banking, and billboard ads against Bush.
The uproar over AIPAC has pushed other Missouri races into the shadows. They include the re-election campaign of Hawley who became infamous for a Capitol Hill speech—complete with a clenched fist—urging the Trumpite insurrectionists to invade during that January day three and a half years ago. There are also multi-candidate primary races in Missouri for top state offices, including the governorship.
St. Louis area unions are split on the Bush race. As a result, the state AFL-CIO did not endorse either Bell or Bush. Building trades unions, plus UFCW Local 655, St. Louis’s biggest union, and the Letter Carriers local support Bell.
National Nurses United, the Service Employees, the Communications Workers and its District 6, Unite HERE Local 74, the Government Employees, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and the Fire Fighters support Bush, her website says. So does the entire House Democratic leadership and Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., Congress’s longest and strongest supporter of unions and workers.
So do the Progressive Jews of St. Louis, defying AIPAC, too.
The St. Louis Labor Tribune reported the UFCW local’s endorsement, but a thorough inspection of its website, other St. Louis media, and the local’s website produced no formal statement.
Starting in February, the building trades unions endorsed Bell. They cited Bush’s vote against the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, disregarding her explanation that it didn’t go far enough to help all workers.
Bush voted the way she did to protest pressure from the House’s ruling Republicans and two turncoat Senate Democrats that forced the Biden administration and its allies to cut from the infrastructure bill programs to aid women with children and childcare workers.
The Bush campaign and its allies are offering opportunities to come to her aid, up to and including Election Day. https://www.mobilize.us/coribush1/ has canvassing opportunities the evening of August 5, in South St. Louis, starting at Gravois Park, 3200 Potomac St, and in North St. Louis, starting at the Gregory J. Carter Park, starting at 5800 Lillian Ave, both from 5:45 p.m. – 8 p.m. CDT.
Working Families Party has set up phone banking from anywhere for Bush. Here is the link:
Our Revolution seeks last-minute money for ads to defend Bush this week, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, DFL-Minn., in next week’s primary there. Omar, like Bush, faces an AIPAC-funded foe. Here is the link:
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