Tuesday, Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) received praise from the far-left, progressive group Democracy for America.

Speaking with the Huffington Post, Democracy for America spokesman Neil Sroka spoke highly of Jones, saying he has “more guts” than some of his other Democratic colleagues.

“On issues from choice to Trump’s racist border wall, he’s had more guts and shown a greater commitment to justice than Joe Manchin,” Sroka stated. (more…)

Southern Progress Action Fund (SPAF), an Arkansas-based liberal group bent on returning Democrats to power in the South is spending over $100,000 to swing Alabama legislative races in the final week of the election cycle.

The group, which Bloomberg reported “hopes that the South will rise again — for Democrats, that is,” was launched by former Democratic governor of Mississippi Ronnie Musgrove and has ten former Democratic elected officials on its board of governors. The most notable name on the group’s leadership team may be Howard Dean, whose résumé includes stints as the governor of Vermont and chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He’s also a former presidential candidate — if nothing else, you probably recall the “Dean Scream” — and has since then become one of the preeminent progressive activists in the country.

In addition to its spending on political ads, the group also opposes what they refer to as “onerous voter ID laws,” including the one Alabama put into effect for the first time this year.

On Tuesday, Alabama Republican Party chairman Bill Armistead sharply criticized SPAF for running “dishonest negative ads against Republican legislative candidates” and for not disclosing its donors.

“The Southern Progress Action Fund is a cloak-and-dagger group that is purposely hiding its contributors from the media and voters in Alabama,”Armistead said in a statement released to the press. “Much of the content of the ads is outrageous, offensive and untrue and attacks our conservative Republican legislative candidates with no accountability in return for those funding them. This out-of-state group is flagrantly avoiding Alabama’s campaign finance laws and trying to mislead Alabama voters by hiding its donors with sleight-of-hand tactics.

“These dishonest tactics may work elsewhere, but I believe the people of Alabama will recognize the Southern Progress Action Fund as a group of liberals being funded by liberals to elect liberals,”Armistead continued. “The group’s website lists ultra-liberals like Howard Dean, a former chairman of the National Democrat Party, and former California Gov. Gray Davis among its founders and leaders, which is all of the evidence you need to know that it opposes the conservative beliefs and values that most Alabamians hold.”

The SPAF ads began airing in the Montgomery and Huntsville media markets on Tuesday, and the amount of the buy was culled from advertising logs at the television stations running them. They are scheduled to continue through Election Day on November 4.

This is the second time this election cycle that a Howard Dean-affiliated group has become a player in Alabama politics. In preparation for the 2014 election cycle, Alabama Education Association (AEA) political operatives, including AEA chief Henry Mabry, attended  Dean’s “Campaign Academy,” a workshop for liberal-progressive community organizers, hosted by Dean’s flagship organization, Democracy for America.

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Alabama Education Association (AEA) political operatives, including AEA chief Henry Mabry, spent this past Saturday and Sunday in Birmingham attending Democracy for America’s “Campaign Academy,” a workshop for liberal-progressive community organizers.

Democracy for America (DFA) was founded in 2004 by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

According to Wikipedia, “Democracy for America has helped elect over 600 progressives into office, including President Barack Obama, while building their membership to over a million like-minded progressives across all fifty states.”

Other candidates DFA has heavily backed in the past include Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, who narrowly missed being named the U.S. Senate’s most liberal member by the National Journal, and the U.S. Senate’s first self-proclaimed socialist, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Here is some background on a few of the DFA representatives who were brought in to train the AEA:

Matthew “Mudcat” Arnold:

According to his bio, Mudcat has “designed sophisticated organizing operations for MoveOn.org, the Sierra club, and a host of other non-profit and labor clients.”

Michael Cook:

Cook is a former member of Bill Clinton’s campaign staff. He has also been executive director of the Arkansas Democratic Party and chief of staff to a Democrat Lt. Governor of Arkansas.

Franco Caliz

Caliz’s bio proudly states that he was “a passionate progressive even at age 14,” at which point he cut his teeth in the “world of political organizing with John Kerry’s presidential campaign.”

Breakout sessions during the workshop included finance strategy, developing a campaign message, targeting your universe, get out the vote (GOTV).

The AEA’s partnership with Democracy for America comes on the heels of their decision to work with Obama’s political operation to help them turn out voters in legislative races in 2014, even in Republican primaries where AEA is actively recruiting and funding candidates.

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