Democratic (Party) Direction

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)

from a friend whose org did a lot of ground game for el-sayed:

How many votes did Ocasio-Cortez win in her primary? 15,897.

How many votes did Abdul win last night? 339,102.

She won. He lost.

Lesson: Bigger races with bigger win numbers mean tougher organizing challenges and more advantages to the establishment. Abdul's team was masterful but the left needs more infrastructure to win at this scale.

wasn't the progressive vote also split in MI? i didn't know much about the other contenders but i saw something suggesting that the prog alternatives added up got 50.5% or whatever. boy do we need a ranked-choice/instant-runoff scheme for these.

yes, i've seen others talking about that too

cynthia nixon's policy director:

It’s clear that Abdul El-Sayed has a very bright future in front of him in politics.

He’s such a good soul and one of the most inspiring speakers I’ve ever heard and one of the few who truly understands the promise of this country.

If the Democratic Party establishment was smart and forward-thinking they would embrace amazing leaders like Abdul. But they are not.

Last night, Linda Sarsour said it was the most inspiring campaign she'd ever worked, recalling so many elderly aunties and uncles getting involved and organizing and fundraising, people coming together across difference for a common purpose. Claire Sandberg and Adam Jacob Joseph really put in the work on this one.

Last night, I too witnessed a burgeoning, beautiful coalition of young, bright-eyed leftists alongside communities who were tired of being demonized, taken for granted, and wanting to finally elect "one of our own." That's the
future of this movement.

And I do not want to forget: HUGE shout-out to Rashida Tlaib for winning her race and becoming the first Muslim woman and Palestinian American ever elected to Congress. Rashida is going to be such an amazing voice for the movement and a great representative of her constituents in Detroit. 💙

By the way -- how did Abdul close his statement last night? “We’ll be back.”

totally -- i feel like ranked-choice/runoff would likely have a more profound effect on primaries than it would general elections, and that as an actionable goal is more likely to happen, too

xp

it's weird reading stuff that talks about El-Sayed's candidacy without mentioning that Michigan has a large Arab American population

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/07/us/elections/results-michigan-primary-elections.html

Gretchen Whitmer got 52% of the vote, so no, ranked-choice wouldn't have changed that much. Also, Shri Thanedar was a self funded millionaire who has donated to Republicans in the past. A bit weird to call him 'progressive' instead of Whitmer?

https://thinkprogress.org/progressives-won-d365103f8f49/

The way to realign the Democratic Party isn’t just to run insurgent candidates who occasionally upset the party’s establishment. The way to move the Democratic Party to the left is for progressives to become the party’s establishment.

The way we put it in my org's strategy doc a couple of years ago:

It means setting a standard and putting forward demands that will unify democratic voters and polarize politicians and party leadership, forcing them to either shift with their base or risk losing their primary races to progressive challengers willing to prove they will represent everyday people instead of wealthy campaign contributors.

*constanza voice* seize the levers, baby

People seem to think the radical right just walked into the Republican Party one day and took it over, but the fact is that it took decades of struggle. The notion that you could just issue a verdict on this fight among the Dems on the basis of one night's elections is absurd. https://t.co/wstc7ktVGq

— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) August 9, 2018

yup

3 years ago the story was "A socialist will never get more than 5% anywhere outside of Vermont."

Now if socialists don't win absolutely every primary we run in, we're sputtering? It's obvious to everyone that this is the biggest political shift in generations. C'mon now. https://t.co/1RQNaLcTbX

— Lee J. Carter (@carterforva) August 9, 2018

idk about "biggest political shift in generations" - the implosion of the GOP into a nihilistic cult-of-personality is surely bigger

I honestly think it's fine and even good if the centrists are in denial. Let them think that, let DSA and other groups do the quiet work to take over county committees and state assembly seats and that sort of thing under the radar.

Read your reassuring Politico article and feel smug as you go back to brunch.

idk about "biggest political shift in generations" - the implosion of the GOP into a nihilistic cult-of-personality is surely bigger

― Οὖτις, Thursday, August 9, 2018 12:52 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok good point, it's in the top 2.

if anything it's sustainability/growth is a reaction to the first, and the extent of it remains to be seen. feels v much in its infancy to me at this point

"biggest political shift in generations"

The Dem lurch to the left will remain superficial until things like Medicare For All and minimum wage increases get implemented. Until then, it's nothing but a brainstorming session (one I'm pleased is happening, for sure, but one that's still more theoretical than practical).

IDK, the radical right has had a pretty successful incrementalist approach to a lot of their goals.

And, because this country is so jumpy, the moment Dems regain legislative power (and hopefully executive power), they'll have to act fast on this stuff. People want to see tangible results fast because people are kinda dumb, tbh.

the material conditions that are engendering greater acceptance of socialism are only going to continue.

“feel smug as you go back to brunch.“

Why don’t you just call him a “wine mom”?

the failing bernie/aoc narrative is so weird about a primary where dsa member rashida tlaib won and will become a member of congress

I think the right has more liberty to be incrementalist in a lot of areas. From birth, messaging to Americans is all about conservative bullshit like suspicion of non-white folks and our "exceptionalism," et al. Unless you have the coolest parents in the world, you have to get more unconservative as you grow as person. Perhaps not every place, but in the US for sure. So far right messaging is easily absorbed where left of center ideas require digestion.

You'd think the opposite would be true, but here we are.

the problem w/ incrementalism in the current era is we are roasting to death

the failing bernie/aoc narrative is so weird about a primary where dsa member rashida tlaib won and will become a member of congress

― the bhagwanadook (symsymsym), Thursday, August 9, 2018 12:16 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right. Also as has been pointed out Gretchen Whitmer is not exactly a centrist.