Democratic (Party) Direction

Meanwhile, this is sort of a small big thing: Rep Khanna backed out of his crowley endorsement and did this weird fence-straddling thing that I've never seen before where he claims to be endorsing both (which I can't take as anything other than "I endorse AOC but am terrified of actually endorsing AOC because of Crowley's pull")
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/13/ro-khanna-joe-crowley-endorsement-643663

Can we autoreplace all GG refs w “useful idiot”

The non endorsement endorsement was so weird lol

backing out of a Crowley endorsement in itself seems like somewhat of a big deal

Meanwhile here are some articles about our presumed successor to Pelosi

1) Trying to keep progressive upstarts off of local ballots:
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20170802/corona/corona-elmhurst-city-council-candidates-ballot-board-of-elections/
2) Securing lucrative court jobs and appointments for his family:
http://observer.com/2017/04/congressman-joe-crowley-family-queens-supreme-court-appointments/
3) backing a massive foreclosure apparatus (maybe I should say he's "signal boosting" them lol):
https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/05/18/the-queens-machine-that-turns-foreclosures-into-cash/
4) Directing campaign funds to his brother via office rent:
https://nypost.com/2017/05/10/dem-leader-paying-campaign-rent-to-lobbyist-brother/
5)getting lucrative and probably illegal appointments for his campaign treasurer
https://nypost.com/2017/06/12/joe-crowleys-treasurer-being-probed-in-possible-pay-violation/
6) Taking hundreds of thousands in donations from the RE industry immediately before selecting an anti-tenant council speaker
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180122/REAL_ESTATE/180129983/democratic-machine-pulled-in-real-estate-cash-while-deciding-council-speakership

I mean, not totally shocking, it's classic NYC corrupt machine politics shit

as much as I'm pessimistic about the party as a whole it would be fucking beautiful if she beat him

I was hoping those were about Tim Ryan.

xp I think she is a longshot, but I also think she is (1) a special candidate with an enormous amount of charisma and (2) the right kind of candidate to energize and activate a huge swath of Jackson Heights and Bronx voters who haven't even had a congressional primary to participate in in well over a decade. It's a very immigrant-heavy district that has been targeted a lot by ICE and there has been a lot of organizing there. Also, as a friend who is pretty involved pointed out to me, in the past the machine has been able to win elections in these areas by mobilizing like 50 people because there is so little opposition, so there's the potential to kind of overwhelm them by surprise.

I just saw she *is* endorsed by DSA nationally, so they clearly think she at least has a decent chance of pulling it off.

yeah, like I said above I'd compare it a bit to a tea party/eric cantor situation where the incumbent might just be so complacent that he is vulnerable to a blindside attack. Also, I hate for this to seem a bit cynical, but Crowley is in a pretty tight spot as a white guy representing the Queens of yore against a young and exceedingly likeable latina woman, like it's just going to be hard for him to find any way to go negative on her without seeming like a POS.

Is there any polling in the district? I think if you're relying on such a big and dirty machine flush with cash getting 'overwhelmed by surprise', then you're in for a tough surprise.

i want her to win so bad. she rules.

xp that's why I said it's a longshot, but thank you for your useful insight from across the ocean as always

man alive, it's not cynical to point out that women in general has exceeded expectations around the country, and that it should be even more so in a district that has diversified even more since his first election. No need to make it seem as if white men get's punished for going negative, that is seriously not what happens in general, lol. If Crowley is a big enough piece of shit, he will get sexism to work against such a 'shrill' woman.

If you don't want stupid advice from foreigners, don't post stupid ideas such as big political machines flush with cash thinking they can win a primary with fifty votes, lol.

If I could legally donate, I would!

The thing is, if she does lose, she's only 28! She can run again later or for another office and I hope she does.

TBQH he doesn't strike me as the vicious, snipey type. But I imagine he has plenty of surrogates to do it for him. She wasn't even on his radar until the last week or two, I imagine we'll start seeing smears soon but more of the "she's a crazy radical leftist" type, maybe with the gender aspect subtly playing into "crazy."

fwiw he is already getting shit for (reportedly) suggesting that she was "making the election about race," but i'm a district over and don't know exactly how this is playing on the ground. i will say that "shrill woman" may not play as well in this district as you are imagining.

(xpost to fred)

xp, didn't mean 50 votes, meant 50 people actively involved in organizing/canvassing/etc., which comes from a friend half-joking that queens machine people were impressed by a campaign that could mobilize more than 50 people

as far as polling I think it's probably just early but we should start to see some soon

She is his first primary opponent in 14 years, I find it hard to imagine she wasn't on his radar until a couple of weeks ago, lol. They're debating tomorrow, btw. And the election is in 12 days.

Right?

His campaign didn't think she would even get on the ballot, and the overall timeline from petitioning to primary is pretty short

Yep, the 26th xp

I'm kind of bummed that I have nothing exciting going on in my own district -- Grace Meng is a perfectly fine rep with no serious challenger, progressive enough that I don't see any point in primarying her, and my state senator is just kind of a run of the mill old school dem, a machine guy but not in a particularly bad way (and in the state senate this year the priority was primarying IDC people, and he was pretty staunchly against the IDC). Assemblyman is also relatively progressive. Good problems I guess.

They've known she would be on the ballot for at least a month. And when you have 1,5 million dollars on hand, you don't really need to 'mobilize' people, you can pay them.

All respect to Ocasio-Cortez for taking on a corrupt machine, and whatever happens, I hope she'll continue doing so. DSA would probably also be good for building up alternative networks in those kind of areas.

They've known she would be on the ballot for at least a month. And when you have 1,5 million dollars on hand, you don't really need to 'mobilize' people, you can pay them.

― Frederik B

that's not how money works

i mean 150 years ago if you had money you could just go around and offer people five dollars for their vote but now you have to use it for something. which requires, uh, mobilizing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/why-arent-top-democrats-acknowledging-the-black-women-running-for-office/562802/?utm_source=atlfb_test127_1

In this climate, the Democrats are trying to find a strategy that will help them win back the House. And right now, that strategy is to focus on battleground states and districts, and focus on offering an economic message: a strategy that inadvertently is leaving these black women out.

Thanks Bernie

Just kidding. That article is so frustrating, the party still doing things by the old playbook. “The DCCC’s sole mission is to win elections, and they make decisions on resource allocation, field staff, and other means of support based on one thing, and that is viability.” Even if we take them at their words - and I know many in this thread don't - this is just stupid. Long term rebuilding requires different strategies.

"Gerontocracy" is a great word

What often seems lost on Democratic strategists and politicians like Newsom, Villaraigosa, and McCaskill is that elections are more than contests to fill particular offices or seats. They’re opportunities for parties to organize and mobilize their activists, volunteers, and voters, promote their ideas to the public, and perhaps win over a few converts in the electorate. If you had asked an average Democrat in 2012, absent any action from the McCaskill campaign, whether it would be good for the people of Missouri broadly, and the women of Missouri specifically, for the Republican Party to nominate Todd Akin—a fanatical spreader of falsehoods about abortion and birth control—to the United States Senate, they probably would have said no, that it would actually be quite bad for the people of Missouri, especially the women of Missouri, for the Republican Party to further elevate one of the more unhinged disseminators of lies and poison about abortion and birth control, in our political discourse. They would have been right. McCaskill helped the Republican Party do just that anyway.

The Democratic Party is a gerontocracy driven primarily by careerism and convenience. The pathologies that make Feinstein’s return to the Senate a given and convince Democrats burning cash on the Republican Party’s Blankenships, Akins, and nobodies out in California are the dynamics keeping unambiguously corrupt New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez in the party’s good graces. They are the pathologies that encouraged Nancy Pelosi to resist asking John Conyers—an easily replaceable congressman representing one of safest Democratic seats in the country, a man who’d been in Congress for over a half-century—to step down for over a week after he was credibly accused of sexual assault and harassment by over half a dozen women. They are the pathologies that allow Bill Clinton to dismiss questions about his sexual misconduct with confidence that party leaders will never cast him aside. They are the pathologies that encouraged the Hillary Clinton campaign to consider, seriously and aptly, adopting “Because It’s Her Turn” as its slogan in 2016. The Democratic Party is a professional fraternity only secondarily interested in advancing the proposals in its grab bag of policy ideas—proposals that Democratic candidates are, in fact, free to oppose provided they can raise cash easily and appeal to voters who will inevitably tire of them and vote for the Republican candidates and policies they are likely to eventually prefer.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/californias-primary-showed-why-the-democratic-party-is-stuck-in-place.html

Defenders of Feinstein’s incumbency generally cite her competence and experience. Feinstein is indeed well-versed in the kind of transactional, collaborative, bipartisan politics that no longer exists in the United States Congress. This is something like being fluent in Esperanto. The primary responsibilities of a Democratic senator in 2018 are writing legislation that cannot pass and grandstanding in support of Democratic messaging. These are things that can be accomplished by political veterans and newcomers alike.

(piece goes on to point out that Feinstein sucks at supporting the messaging ... but hey, it's her seat til she dies)

Sorry to correct this from across the pond, but Feinstein is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and will become the Chair once the Dems retake the senate. Seniority still rules to a large extent, so a 26-year old incumbent is quite frankly more valuable to California than a newcomer, everything else considered. I'm of course still rooting for Kevin dé Leon, but that piece is stupid.

Of course it's stupid. It's on Slate.

jump out the fuckin' window plz Fred

This is also stupid:

Careerism and convenience are, of course, important forces in the Republican Party as well. But the Republican Party is about to select its third speaker of the House this decade. This is churn driven largely by internal debate and dissent about how the Republican Party can best advance its particular vision for American society—how it can more deeply empower the white, wealthy, and thus worthy citizens of this country. Every Republican politician is, really, no more than an instrument for that project, and the Republican Party is not terribly particular about who they hire to fulfill it: Accused pedophiles and mad reality show hosts are welcome to apply. The majority of Republican politicians live in constant fear that they’ll be canned for someone who might be more deeply committed to the party’s vision.

It's especially stupid coming right at the same time that Mitch McConnell becomes the longest serving Republican Senate Leader. The 'third house speaker' this decade only comes from Paul Ryan not wanting to do it, before him Boehner served for eight years and Hastert did the same.

I mean, again, if you don't want to be corrected by a fucking Dane, don't post things so stupid they can be taken apart by two minutes of wiki'ing.

I'd actually be curious to see a Boehner reappraisal - was he genuinely bad at the job or were the monkeys he was in charge of significantly worse that McConnell's? He was only there for four years (Fred has forgotten Pelosi, I'm afraid), and all post-Tea Party.

I mean bringing up bills that you don't win is a sign you're not cut out for that job, I get that.

He was bad at his job and he was one of the monkeys. Maybe in another era he would've been Bob Michel.

Yeah, sure. But he was Republican House Leader for eight years. Sorry for the confusion.

And the monkeys are worse. There's nothing like the Freedom Caucus in the Senate, and the leadership just seems to have more power, no?

They've known she would be on the ballot for at least a month. And when you have 1,5 million dollars on hand, you don't really need to 'mobilize' people, you can pay them.

― Frederik B, Thursday, 14 June 2018 13:37 (yesterday) Permalink

In about two dozen posts on the subject, which you have no up-close knowledge of, the sum-total of your insight into the Crowley-AOC race seems to be "she might not win," which was acknowledged up front. So, thanks for that.

I'm just going to say again, that if you want to posit 'up-close knowledge' is an important factor, you should post less stupid stuff.

Fred u need a new hobby

Oh, a prior unknown who had raised about $100,000 before her name started to get out there might have trouble unseating a longtime incumbent chair of the county party who already had a two-million-dollar warchest on gumption, viral ads and grassroots organizing alone? That might be an uphill battle? Where did you get your PhD in political science?

xxp we all do

Animus against Fred is so locked in at this point that he gets scolded even for saying that the Senate's worship of seniority unavoidably leads to irrational outcomes.

there are a lot of things wrong with the Senate that will probably never change