Democratic (Party) Direction

lol mine is always like "all we want is life beyond thunderdome."

promising new direction for the party:

My opponent Denver Riggleman, running mate of Corey Stewart, was caught on camera campaigning with a white supremacist. Now he has been exposed as a devotee of Bigfoot erotica. This is not what we need on Capitol Hill. pic.twitter.com/0eBvxFd6sG

— Leslie Cockburn (@LeslieCockburn) July 29, 2018

dying

Also that's not a real name.

call out culture has gone TOO FAR, what's next, alien fetishists in camps?

When will leftists wake up and listen to tombot

Well, NYC DSA did endorse Nixon (sigh) so maybe Tombot was the deciding factor

https://splinternews.com/the-democratic-socialists-of-america-s-cynthia-nixon-di-1827894468

at which point do leftists figure out that the reason their “organizers” always act suspicious of “outsiders,” especially “leaders,” is almost always territorial bullshit and almost never to do with beliefs or principles?

so many punchable college politics stereotypes in NYC

― El Tomboto, Sunday, July 29, 2018 9:09 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, I followed the DSA Nixon endorsement debate about as closely as you could from outside and I thought there were pretty strong arguments in both directions, and even reducing it to two directions is unfair since there is a "we shouldn't be endorsing anyone" camp and a "we should only be endorsing a very small select few committed socialists" camp on the anti side (people who might have been pro-Salazar and pro-AOC endorsements but anti-Nixon, or pro-Salazar but anti-AOC and anti-Nixon). I mean this goes back to my post above, which you said was helpful. They are an extremely democratically organized group that gets consensus on fucking everything, they have limited resources, and their primary purpose is not as a PAC or electoral organization. If they took sides in every race it would suck up most of the energy of the group and dilute its meaning. And Nixon says a lot of the right things but it is reasonable to question her bona fides imo. She has said some things about labor that have raised an eyebrow for me. I have misgivings about her but Cuomo is a snake.

Also, "we're not going to endorse Nixon" does not mean "don't vote for Nixon" or "stay home" or "Nixon isn't the best option here." It just means the organization isn't going to put its force behind her.

btw Indivisible just endorsed Nixon, that seems kind of big

imagine, the DSA might have a different collective will than El T

xp

massachusetts attorney general maura healey just endorsed the challenger in my district’s congressional race, ayanna pressley, a black city council member who is very much viewed as an up and coming face in the national party. i haven’t decided which candidate is getting my vote yet but i’m very curious to see how this race turns out, because mike capuano (incumbent, elected 20 years ago, has raised double the funds of pressley) has been pretty vocally opposed to trump and his policies and people really like him.

i hope that whatever happens both stick around on the national stage, because the last thing we need is more charlie baker types to rise up in either one’s absence. this globe piece talks about their subtle differences

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/07/22/capuano-pressley-grapple-with-same-question-what-makes-you-different/64Uffu4cVVpWZVMYwH4jwL/story.html

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-is-the-trump-campaign-attacking-senator-kirsten-gillibrand

Gillibrand attended Dartmouth College and the U.C.L.A. Law School, then, in 2006, after several years as a corporate lawyer, at Boies Schiller Flexner, she decided to run for Congress as a Democrat in a solidly Republican upstate district, against a four-term incumbent named John Sweeney. She had no name recognition, and friends and advisers warned her against it, but she recognized that city people were moving upstate. She tied her opponent to George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, and raised huge amounts of money. She advocated for an expansion of Medicare, a proposal that Sweeney derided as “a government-run universal health-care system.” She also, however, adopted conservative positions on immigration and guns (earning an A rating from the National Rifle Association). Then, a few days before the election, a personal scandal derailed Sweeney’s campaign. Gillibrand won by six points.

In the House, she joined the Blue Dog Democrats and took a conservative Democratic line, including embracing efforts to make English the national language. But, in a preview of her later populist stance, she voted against the 2008 bank bailout, over the objections of other members of the New York delegation. A year later she became the youngest member of the U.S. Senate, when Governor David Paterson appointed her to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat after she became Secretary of State. Once Gillibrand represented the whole state, she became a strong supporter of same-sex marriage and a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and she shed her previous positions on guns and immigration, saying that she needed to speak for a broader swath of constituents. In a competitive Presidential primary, she would face hard questions about those stances. In February, in an appearance on “60 Minutes,” she said she is “ashamed” of her previous positions. “I just think, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned more about life, and sometimes you’re wrong,” she said. “And you’ve gotta fix it. And if you’re wrong, just admit it and move on.”

She has also proved to have an apt sense of issues that were not receiving the attention they should. In 2014, more than three years before the #MeToo movement, in a memoir and in interviews, Gillibrand spoke of sexist remarks from male lawmakers, including a member of Congress who told her, “Good thing you’re working out, because you wouldn’t want to get porky!” (Her reply: “Thanks, asshole.”) The next year, on The New Yorker Radio Hour, she broadened the point, recalling subtler forms of sexism that she had encountered as a lawyer: “When a partner said to me, when we’re having this big, congratulatory dinner, after years of work, ‘Don’t you just love Kirsten’s efforts? She’s worked so hard. And don’t you just love her new haircut?’ That felt like a shot in the gut.”

Gillibrand’s zeal can alienate potential backers. When Senator Al Franken was accused of sexual misconduct, she was the first Democratic senator to call on him to resign; to some in the Party, that haste was in error. Despite years of political support from the Clintons, Gillibrand said that President Bill Clinton should have stepped down over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a decision that has led some Clinton allies to keep their distance from her in the run-up to 2020.

I wouldn't want Clinton allies swarming around me at this late date either

"why-is-the-trump-campaign-attacking-senator-kirsten-gillibrand"

huh i can think of one reason... there's a word for it...

I wouldn't want Clinton allies swarming around me at this late date either

― devops mom (silby), Monday, July 30, 2018 1:59 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I'd say this is savvy more than zeal

yup

And Trump's strategy has been to enact preemptive strikes on anyone remotely considered a threat. It's Cheney Doctrine politics.

Which, I'd also have to say, is savvy. He tries to poison any possible challenger well in advance. He understands media and knows that a bad narrative is stronger if it's been around for a while.

Or that you can try to define your opponent before they get a chance to define themselves.

hey look, a fucking organizer

We’ve got about ONE WEEK LEFT until a whole slew of elections come up across the country.

From @KanielaIng & @SaadforCongress to @AbdulElSayed & @CoriBush, it’s time to leave it all on the field.

Check your state primary date & VOTE August 7th + 11th.

pic.twitter.com/sjQK0AkLtF

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 31, 2018

coworkers saw her in SF last night

maura otm

man alive very distant from tm

“The swing voter is not red to blue. The swing voter is non voter to voter. That’s our swing voter.” - @Ocasio2018 pic.twitter.com/z3XyJ5GUdd

— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) August 5, 2018

Otm

This has been Dem campaign conventional wisdom forever and I hope it works this time

I mean OK that's not fair. If Ocasia-Cortez means "the swing voter is somebody who was going to be a lifetime non-voter and thinks politics is bullshit, but this time is going to show up at the polls because they actually have something to get behind," that would be authentically different from Dem campaign conventional wisdom, which is more like "the swing voter is the college student / union member / city voter who shows up to vote for President but not for midterm / governor / state leg elections and we want to swing them to voting all the time"

It’s both imo

But Dem campaign conventional wisdom is definitely NOT "let's get people who are mostly Republicans to vote for us," at least not in any campaign I've ever been involved with.

I think the Wisconsin governor primary raises interesting questions about Democratic party direction. I'm not sure the party is particularly backing anyone in this race at all. Tony Evers, the old sorta boring white guy, current state superintendent of schools, who seems very likely to win, is the "centrist" I guess (has not made free 2-year college part of his platform, wants to renegotiate Foxconn deal rather than promising to cancel it on day 1.) Kelda Roys (young progressive, foundered in earlier congressional campaign) is endorsed by EMILY's List and Kirsten Gillibrand, is the only one who seems to have any internet zing. Mahlon Mitchell (young African-American firefighter, the labor candidate) is endorsed by Kamala Harris. I don't think anybody's spent a ton of money. Mike McCabe is the guy whose shtick is wearing bluejeans everywhere and making a play for disaffected folks who think politics is bullshit and his campaign says he's the favorite among the Our Wisconsin Revolution people and he doesn't take donations over $200 (Roys is heavily self-funded.)

It could easily be that Evers runs away with it (he leads in all polls and he crushed his Republican challenger in his last statewide campaign, so he knows the basics of how to do this.) But most voters are undecided and a lot don't know who any of these people are (none of them has significant statewide name recognition) so something surprising could happen, too.

Evers does have endorsements from former Dem senator Herb Kohl and former Dem rep Steve Kagen.

Not sure you can call that "Dem campaign conventional wisdom" - it might be said on some parts of the left but the actual Democratic apparatus has been more along the lines of "for every blue collar worker we lose we'll gain two suburban Republicans" view of swing voters.

Kelda Roys (young progressive, foundered in earlier congressional campaign) is endorsed by EMILY's List and Kirsten Gillibrand, is the only one who seems to have any internet zing.

I followed her social media for a few months just to see what happens, and then I looked at a poll this week and was shocked to find out she's in single digits. Not this year, I guess.

Oh yeah Roys is also endorsed by Diane Ravitch and Bon Iver

The campaign conventional wisdom I've been exposed to concentrates on identifying as many voters as possible who know they will vote for you or else lean your direction. Then you do everything in your power to make sure they vote. To do this, you need to attract activists and other volunteers who'll work phones or canvas neighborhoods for you. You also go out to meet and talk to as many voters as will listen to you.

If you are flush with money or volunteers, then maybe you can fiddle around with consultants, or buying a lot of mailers or tv ads to persuade swing voters or non-voters that you're a wonderful person and your opponent is a shitheel.

Aimless's experience matches mine exactly, so if I sounded like I meant anything other than that, then no, that's what I meant

But Dem campaign conventional wisdom is definitely NOT "let's get people who are mostly Republicans to vote for us," at least not in any campaign I've ever been involved with.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, August 4, 2018 10:22 PM (yesterday)

hmmm. I wish

all this talk of wisconsin makes me miss russ feingold

Conventional Wisconsin Dem opinion is that Feingold ran a half-assed race in 2016 for a Senate seat he saw as his property.

guess he wasn't the only prominent democratic candidate to do that in wisconsin

No I mean I think there was a pretty big gulf between the Feingold effort and the Clinton effort, in Clinton's favor. Feingold is popular here and lost by 6, HRC is not and basically tied. If you're like "but all Clinton had to do was beat a dumb rich guy" you don't know much about Ron Johnson!

Actually the Randy Bryce - Cathy Meyers primary in WI-1 is another interesting one for Democratic party direction -- or maybe just Democratic party tactics, since i'm not sure there's a big difference between the two on policy, both are Medicare for All proponents, etc., but one is much more "I'm mustached labor man" and the other is more like "I'm business-owner school-board mom"

aimless & eephus are otm about how things run operationally, but there's a bigger strategic question that those operations almost always tend to elide, which is the degree to which expanding the electorate is prioritized by the party in advance of the mobilization of GOTV efforts. this is imo where outside advocacy/pressure orgs (RIP ACORN) play a necessary role in a successful pressing-leftward ecosystem. and otherwise, the advertising departments of campaigns & the comms depts that craft their messaging are often-as-not engaged in a wholly different campaign from the ground game, which is to say that while Ossoff's field organizers might have been working the phones & doors of likely Ossof voters, the team writing his speeches & crafting his ads was taking those voters for granted and working a message that appealed to persuadable undecided likely voters in hopes of using that to win their 50+1

the swing voter is actually "person who would like to vote but has been soft or hard voter suppressed against it"

hell yeah

Actually the Randy Bryce - Cathy Meyers primary in WI-1 is another interesting one for Democratic party direction -- or maybe just Democratic party tactics, since i'm not sure there's a big difference between the two on policy, both are Medicare for All proponents, etc., but one is much more "I'm mustached labor man" and the other is more like "I'm business-owner school-board mom"

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, August 5, 2018 4:42 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iron stache getting blown up for not paying child support is also a deserved self-own. idc about your politics, thats some disqualifying shit.

and now I read this and feel like a dick

UPDATE May 3, 2018, 10:22 a.m.: After the publication of this story, the Randy Bryce campaign provided a statement from his ex-wife Faye Boudreaux on the topic of his delinquent child support. It reads in part:

Randy is a loving father. Randy has not hidden from the public that he fell on hard times in the past. And when he did fall a little behind on child support, he reached out to me and we worked things out among ourselves, just like millions of other families do.... I ask that this be the last attack regarding this issue and that instead we move forward all focus on issues that will affect us all.

way to take the bait there lol

Menendez remorse could lie ahead

https://splinternews.com/wow-propping-up-bob-menendez-might-not-have-been-the-d-1828134971

lol that is some lazy "journalism", reporting nothing new or of note.

(obviously Menendez is a shitbag)