From what I've seen it's the two factions that each blame each other for the loss in the general, doing their utmost to apply those same opposing ideologies to Perez and Ellison, and mostly use them as proxies while they bicker about the same things they've been bickering about for 18 months
I really haven't seen that acrimony coming from the Clintonians, its mostly the Sandersnistas who are who are trying to paint Perez as some kind of corporatist shill.
But then, i don't get exposure to the really corporatist end of the Democratic party, but from what i've seen, the angst is one-sided.
As Enlightenedbum said, now it seems like the Sandersnistas have lost faith in Ellison after the incident with TYT in the tweets above. Ellison's gone full shill now too, according to them...
Which leaves me with a touch of despair that his victory might not make a difference when dealing with the hard-left end.
Anyone that far gone can't be someone we worry about at this point. Sanders did real, irreparable damage to the democratic party with his rhetoric last year, but there isn't anything to be done about it now. We have to move forward and hope these people come back to us as we do good things.
Anyone who takes their ball and goes home with Ellison or Perez has no real interest in big tent democratic politics, because these are both great DNC chair candidates, much better than anyone we've had in some time.
Let me posit instead that Summers and Geithner did the real damage to the Dem party. If a 70 year old socialist wrecks your party with an upstart campaign, your party was probably fucked already.
Let me posit instead that Summers and Geithner did the real damage to the Dem party. If a 70 year old socialist wrecks your party with an upstart campaign, your party was probably fucked already.
This doesn't make any sense but there's a topic for discussion of the 2016 election and it's not this one. A very popular grassroots candidate with appeal to people who are on the fringes of the party can do a lot of damage to a party if he/she wants to and that's not a sign of a party being "fucked already".
Let me posit instead that Summers and Geithner did the real damage to the Dem party. If a 70 year old socialist wrecks your party with an upstart campaign, your party was probably fucked already.
Nah, it doesn't take much to harm the Dems when they're at full strength. All it takes is a few choice slices off the voting base for key regions (effecting the EC) and that's all it takes to cede a win to the GOP. The party is strong, what it isn't is perfect from inside or outside attacks - literally no party is.
The DNC straight up murdered OfA because they were worried Obama's base would want single payer:
There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.
The DNC has, for a very long time, basically relied on leftists to tilt at windmills during primaries and then fund more conservative candidates while relying on the selfsame leftists to show up because the alternative is worse. The strategy has been to risk "fringe" voters in order to keep getting the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors for business as usual. Why do you think Clinton was running ads at "sensible republicans" instead of marketing her policies to lower class folks in the Midwest?
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
Let me posit instead that Summers and Geithner did the real damage to the Dem party. If a 70 year old socialist wrecks your party with an upstart campaign, your party was probably fucked already.
Nah, it doesn't take much to harm the Dems when they're at full strength. All it takes is a few choice slices off the voting base for key regions (effecting the EC) and that's all it takes to cede a win to the GOP. The party is strong, what it isn't is perfect from inside or outside attacks - literally no party is.
I could see the argument that the Dems were at full strength in 2008, but they've lost historic ground in the 8 years following, and I don't know where else you could put the blame than the people running the party for that time.
The DNC straight up murdered OfA because they were worried Obama's base would want single payer:
There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.
The DNC has, for a very long time, basically relied on leftists to tilt at windmills during primaries and then fund more conservative candidates while relying on the selfsame leftists to show up because the alternative is worse. The strategy has been to risk "fringe" voters in order to keep getting the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors for business as usual. Why do you think Clinton was running ads at "sensible republicans" instead of marketing her policies to lower class folks in the Midwest?
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
You are confusing your own argument. It's not just about "the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors", it's about votes. The Democratic Party has long run on the idea that the far left alone can't win you elections. You need to pull in the centrist vote too. It's a relic of the post-1968 era and the party losing hugely at multiple levels. You can't understand what is going on if you can't see, say, Bill Clinton as a reaction to Reagan's victories. Hillary Clinton was running ads to centrist republicans to try and run up the score and secure larger victories for the party. The core ideology here you are missing is the same it's always been: you need to centrist voters to win. Remember Obama's "I'm voting for the n-word" types?
Whether this remains true anymore is questionable and all the people currently running for DNC chair (at least the ones that matter) seem to be of the opinion that the energy seen during this past month is what the Democratic party needs to focus on.
The DNC straight up murdered OfA because they were worried Obama's base would want single payer:
There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.
The DNC has, for a very long time, basically relied on leftists to tilt at windmills during primaries and then fund more conservative candidates while relying on the selfsame leftists to show up because the alternative is worse. The strategy has been to risk "fringe" voters in order to keep getting the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors for business as usual. Why do you think Clinton was running ads at "sensible republicans" instead of marketing her policies to lower class folks in the Midwest?
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
You are confusing your own argument. It's not just about "the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors", it's about votes. The Democratic Party has long run on the idea that the far left alone can't win you elections. You need to pull in the centrist vote too. It's a relic of the post-1968 era and the party losing hugely at multiple levels. You can't understand what is going on if you can't see, say, Bill Clinton as a reaction to Reagan's victories. Hillary Clinton was running ads to centrist republicans to try and run up the score and secure larger victories for the party. The core ideology here you are missing is the same it's always been: you need to centrist voters to win. Remember Obama's "I'm voting for the n-word" types?
Whether this remains true anymore is questionable and all the people currently running for DNC chair (at least the ones that matter) seem to be of the opinion that the energy seen during this past month is what the Democratic party needs to focus on.
It's about votes, and yet the DNC keeps running away from incredibly popular policies because it is clearly scared of those policies chasing off big name donors. Higher minimum wage, hell higher total employment numbers, single payer healthcare, better social security, all end up on the chopping block or at least at the bottom of agendas when power is actual gained. Obama was straight up willing to offer social security cuts for a grand bargain. That would have been utterly disastrous for democrats if it had happened.
As I mentioned earlier though, I am hopeful that both of the primary DNC candidates can regain the momentum of the party by focusing on their voters, and the policies that will bring those voters to the booth in Novembers to come.
The DNC straight up murdered OfA because they were worried Obama's base would want single payer:
There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.
The DNC has, for a very long time, basically relied on leftists to tilt at windmills during primaries and then fund more conservative candidates while relying on the selfsame leftists to show up because the alternative is worse. The strategy has been to risk "fringe" voters in order to keep getting the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors for business as usual. Why do you think Clinton was running ads at "sensible republicans" instead of marketing her policies to lower class folks in the Midwest?
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
Yeah, the DNC has done very shitty things which I disagree with, including that. However, I don't think single payer was really on the table regardless, the Dems had to get past the centrists, and conservatives like Lieberman (which weren't going to go to for single payer) then water it down again for the GOP to sign off on it.
Can you clarify what you mean by "tilted at windmills?" That are you referring to here? Your ire should be aimed at the groups who operate within the DNC (which is a neutral organization, if the left were in control they'd have their own agendas to implement and influence candidates) and yeah, they* fund more "conservative**" candidates because that's how the system runs, and yeah, the reason why they run on the laterite is worse canard is that it's true. No other faction in the party has been able to step up as a capable rival to the centrists. One thing you're omitting here is that the left is decentralized and bad at funding its candidates, who are few and far between. The centrists don't have to do much to squeeze them out of races, and like all factions they're in it to win and vice versa. The difference is they have gotten and maintained a strong power base with money from donors, and strong allies within the party - including from the liberal faction. It's not impossible for them to put up a fight, but in elections like this they're going to always be facing an uphill battle just to get to the finish line.
Running ads to get Republicans off the bench is good sense since Dems need as many votes as they can get, and this would apply to any left candidates in the same position, who would be angling for rust belt votes.
I'm going to disagree with the rest, which I've commented on in previous primary and election threads anyway and I don't want this to get locked.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
I think they go after the donors first because that's a bigger priority and once they're on board they can focus on the general voters. Without being able to get the donors on board leaves their campaigns seriously weakened structurally no matter how good their message is. It sucks, but politicians careers rely heavily on money to do anything, the donor base is not to be taken lightly. Without them the Dems would be in worse shape nationally.
* again, the factions themselves I don't the DNC does this as such, this isn't the left equivalent of ALEC
** which is pretty much anyone who isn't on the far left, which leaves a lot of wiggle room on the spectrum without going full Liebermann
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
This is kind of misleading, since it only counts official money.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Then I agree, the Dems need to work on that post haste.
+1
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
I've seen frothing at the mouth from both sides about the DNC race. You know how 9/11 broke some people? The 2016 election did about the same.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Then I agree, the Dems need to work on that post haste.
But that's primarily due to a single moment of lost focus from 2008-2010 where we didn't realize what a gerrymandered disaster we were allowing the republicans to create. That's the error the dnc made.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Then I agree, the Dems need to work on that post haste.
But that's primarily due to a single moment of lost focus from 2008-2010 where we didn't realize what a gerrymandered disaster we were allowing the republicans to create. That's the error the dnc made.
One of many errors. Let's not lose sight of all the stupid, unforced errors we made that allowed this to happen.
lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
But these errors are not irreparable. They might take time and effort and a lot of anxiety, but the DNC as a whole can still be fixed.
The party can still be fixed.
I'm disappointed in a lot of things that happened in 2016. But I'm still considering myself a member of the party. I live overseas and being a member of the party actually affords me more influence through the Democrats Abroad groups.
And if there's ever an irate group of left-center democrats, it's the expat community. I've seen more info given out about resisting and protesting by the Dems Abroad Facebook page than I have from anybody not already full on anarchist.
The party is a great tool for us to use to help save the country, both residents and expats alike. This election is just another step.
That being said, it's just a small step. Yes, the head of the DNC had some influence, but not as much as some people seem to be focusing on the position. We're not electing a shadow parliament.
The DNC straight up murdered OfA because they were worried Obama's base would want single payer:
There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.
The DNC has, for a very long time, basically relied on leftists to tilt at windmills during primaries and then fund more conservative candidates while relying on the selfsame leftists to show up because the alternative is worse. The strategy has been to risk "fringe" voters in order to keep getting the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors for business as usual. Why do you think Clinton was running ads at "sensible republicans" instead of marketing her policies to lower class folks in the Midwest?
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
You are confusing your own argument. It's not just about "the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors", it's about votes. The Democratic Party has long run on the idea that the far left alone can't win you elections. You need to pull in the centrist vote too. It's a relic of the post-1968 era and the party losing hugely at multiple levels. You can't understand what is going on if you can't see, say, Bill Clinton as a reaction to Reagan's victories. Hillary Clinton was running ads to centrist republicans to try and run up the score and secure larger victories for the party. The core ideology here you are missing is the same it's always been: you need to centrist voters to win. Remember Obama's "I'm voting for the n-word" types?
Whether this remains true anymore is questionable and all the people currently running for DNC chair (at least the ones that matter) seem to be of the opinion that the energy seen during this past month is what the Democratic party needs to focus on.
It's about votes, and yet the DNC keeps running away from incredibly popular policies because it is clearly scared of those policies chasing off big name donors. Higher minimum wage, hell higher total employment numbers, single payer healthcare, better social security, all end up on the chopping block or at least at the bottom of agendas when power is actual gained. Obama was straight up willing to offer social security cuts for a grand bargain. That would have been utterly disastrous for democrats if it had happened.
As I mentioned earlier though, I am hopeful that both of the primary DNC candidates can regain the momentum of the party by focusing on their voters, and the policies that will bring those voters to the booth in Novembers to come.
No. Again, you are making the exact same mistake I was just trying to correct here. They aren't (just) scared of chasing off donors, they are scared of chasing off voters. They are still terrified of ending up too far to the left to pick up the votes they believe exist in the centre. You can see this in their strategies at the federal level all the time.
You keep wanting to make this about the "big name donors" being the boogeymen here and are ignoring how the Democratic party has viewed the electorate for decades now.
The DNC straight up murdered OfA because they were worried Obama's base would want single payer:
There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.
The DNC has, for a very long time, basically relied on leftists to tilt at windmills during primaries and then fund more conservative candidates while relying on the selfsame leftists to show up because the alternative is worse. The strategy has been to risk "fringe" voters in order to keep getting the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors for business as usual. Why do you think Clinton was running ads at "sensible republicans" instead of marketing her policies to lower class folks in the Midwest?
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
You are confusing your own argument. It's not just about "the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors", it's about votes. The Democratic Party has long run on the idea that the far left alone can't win you elections. You need to pull in the centrist vote too. It's a relic of the post-1968 era and the party losing hugely at multiple levels. You can't understand what is going on if you can't see, say, Bill Clinton as a reaction to Reagan's victories. Hillary Clinton was running ads to centrist republicans to try and run up the score and secure larger victories for the party. The core ideology here you are missing is the same it's always been: you need to centrist voters to win. Remember Obama's "I'm voting for the n-word" types?
Whether this remains true anymore is questionable and all the people currently running for DNC chair (at least the ones that matter) seem to be of the opinion that the energy seen during this past month is what the Democratic party needs to focus on.
It's about votes, and yet the DNC keeps running away from incredibly popular policies because it is clearly scared of those policies chasing off big name donors. Higher minimum wage, hell higher total employment numbers, single payer healthcare, better social security, all end up on the chopping block or at least at the bottom of agendas when power is actual gained. Obama was straight up willing to offer social security cuts for a grand bargain. That would have been utterly disastrous for democrats if it had happened.
As I mentioned earlier though, I am hopeful that both of the primary DNC candidates can regain the momentum of the party by focusing on their voters, and the policies that will bring those voters to the booth in Novembers to come.
It's very important to understand that what you consider popular policies to you are not necessarily actually popular policies that are easy to implement.
We can run on Universal Healthcare and then - inevitably - when the rubber meets the road we end up having to compromise and the economic leftists don't bother to show up anymore because they feel betrayed.
It is harder for Democrats to please the needs of their various constituencies than it is for Republicans to please theirs. Running off the donors isn't really the concern as much as it is scaring off the centrists or Socially Liberal but Economically Conservative (SLEC) types.
The DNC straight up murdered OfA because they were worried Obama's base would want single payer:
There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.
The DNC has, for a very long time, basically relied on leftists to tilt at windmills during primaries and then fund more conservative candidates while relying on the selfsame leftists to show up because the alternative is worse. The strategy has been to risk "fringe" voters in order to keep getting the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors for business as usual. Why do you think Clinton was running ads at "sensible republicans" instead of marketing her policies to lower class folks in the Midwest?
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
You are confusing your own argument. It's not just about "the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors", it's about votes. The Democratic Party has long run on the idea that the far left alone can't win you elections. You need to pull in the centrist vote too. It's a relic of the post-1968 era and the party losing hugely at multiple levels. You can't understand what is going on if you can't see, say, Bill Clinton as a reaction to Reagan's victories. Hillary Clinton was running ads to centrist republicans to try and run up the score and secure larger victories for the party. The core ideology here you are missing is the same it's always been: you need to centrist voters to win. Remember Obama's "I'm voting for the n-word" types?
Whether this remains true anymore is questionable and all the people currently running for DNC chair (at least the ones that matter) seem to be of the opinion that the energy seen during this past month is what the Democratic party needs to focus on.
It's about votes, and yet the DNC keeps running away from incredibly popular policies because it is clearly scared of those policies chasing off big name donors. Higher minimum wage, hell higher total employment numbers, single payer healthcare, better social security, all end up on the chopping block or at least at the bottom of agendas when power is actual gained. Obama was straight up willing to offer social security cuts for a grand bargain. That would have been utterly disastrous for democrats if it had happened.
As I mentioned earlier though, I am hopeful that both of the primary DNC candidates can regain the momentum of the party by focusing on their voters, and the policies that will bring those voters to the booth in Novembers to come.
It's very important to understand that what you consider popular policies to you are not necessarily actually popular policies that are easy to implement.
We can run on Universal Healthcare and then - inevitably - when the rubber meets he road we end up having to compromise and the economic leftists don't bother to show up anymore because they feel betrayed.
It is harder for Democrats to please the needs of their various constituencies than it is for Republicans to please theirs. Running off the donors isn't really the concern as much as it is scaring off the centrists or Socially Liberal but Economically Conservative (SLEC) types.
I'm not even saying the DNC was actually correct about these positions scaring people off. I'm saying they think they are. The post-1968 Democratic party spent a long time trying to figure out how the fuck to win a Presidential election and it was (Bill) Clinton who pulled it off, both using and cementing a blue-print for how the Democratic Party would view the electorate.
And I think it's pretty understandable for them to have viewed the situation this way when you consider a lot of these people were around for, like, the Reagan waves and also have to work with Congress where you end up needing guys like Manchin out of WV to get shit done.
The good thing is though that all the major candidates running for DNC chair seem to be aware that shit changed at some point and now there's a real need and a chance to build a populist and more progressive movement that can (hopefully) win more elections.
Improved labor law is the biggest hole that the dems should be trying to fill in.
I'd be real nice to have some federally mandated time off. Holidays, sick days, vacation days. God forbid parental leave. Every other country in the world requires this of their employers and they're doing just fine. The actual costs are minimal, too. Outside of the most basic labor drudgework, if your employee is off for three weeks a year doesn't mean you lose three weeks of productivity. Their work gets shuffled around and is done better anyway by a happy employee.
Ofc an increased minimum wage and stuff like mandatory severance would be good as well, but are a harder sell. Sadly.
Aioua on
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
The DNC straight up murdered OfA because they were worried Obama's base would want single payer:
There was plenty in Movement 2.0 to inspire heartburn in that crowd. In Silicon Valley terms, Obama 2008 had “disrupted” presidential campaigns, demonstrating how an underdog candidate could defeat a more experienced opponent by changing the terms of the game and empowering millions of people in the process. Now, it seemed, the Obamaites and their tech wizards wanted to disrupt the Democratic Party, diverting money and control from the DNC into an untried platform, while inviting “input,” and possibly even organized dissent, from Obama’s base. Earlier that summer, activists unhappy with Obama’s flip-flop on warrantless surveillance had used MyBO to build a group of more than 20,000 vocal supporters, earning national press and compelling a response from the candidate. What if Obama’s base didn’t like the health care reform he came up with, and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don’t reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves. For insiders like Tewes, Movement 2.0 was a step too far.
The DNC has, for a very long time, basically relied on leftists to tilt at windmills during primaries and then fund more conservative candidates while relying on the selfsame leftists to show up because the alternative is worse. The strategy has been to risk "fringe" voters in order to keep getting the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors for business as usual. Why do you think Clinton was running ads at "sensible republicans" instead of marketing her policies to lower class folks in the Midwest?
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
You are confusing your own argument. It's not just about "the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors", it's about votes. The Democratic Party has long run on the idea that the far left alone can't win you elections. You need to pull in the centrist vote too. It's a relic of the post-1968 era and the party losing hugely at multiple levels. You can't understand what is going on if you can't see, say, Bill Clinton as a reaction to Reagan's victories. Hillary Clinton was running ads to centrist republicans to try and run up the score and secure larger victories for the party. The core ideology here you are missing is the same it's always been: you need to centrist voters to win. Remember Obama's "I'm voting for the n-word" types?
Whether this remains true anymore is questionable and all the people currently running for DNC chair (at least the ones that matter) seem to be of the opinion that the energy seen during this past month is what the Democratic party needs to focus on.
It's about votes, and yet the DNC keeps running away from incredibly popular policies because it is clearly scared of those policies chasing off big name donors. Higher minimum wage, hell higher total employment numbers, single payer healthcare, better social security, all end up on the chopping block or at least at the bottom of agendas when power is actual gained. Obama was straight up willing to offer social security cuts for a grand bargain. That would have been utterly disastrous for democrats if it had happened.
As I mentioned earlier though, I am hopeful that both of the primary DNC candidates can regain the momentum of the party by focusing on their voters, and the policies that will bring those voters to the booth in Novembers to come.
No. Again, you are making the exact same mistake I was just trying to correct here. They aren't (just) scared of chasing off donors, they are scared of chasing off voters. They are still terrified of ending up too far to the left to pick up the votes they believe exist in the centre. You can see this in their strategies at the federal level all the time.
You keep wanting to make this about the "big name donors" being the boogeymen here and are ignoring how the Democratic party has viewed the electorate for decades now.
I believe the best way the DNC can deal with this issue is to build back up the party in state and local elections because allowing all the arch alt-right douchebags, that claim to be conservative, to run unopposed creates an illusion that voters are more to the right, than they actually are.
Granted, some of this also falls on voters, plenty of people in the left and center left that foolishly choose to stay home for most or all elections. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the DNC is in a position to encourage them to possible consider running, since a number of offices below the federal level run on this idiotic notion that political jobs should be party time, when only makes holding an office feasible for the well to do.
Whatever happens the DNC has to move fast and be able to push out candidates for the 2018 elections immediately. Start really hitting back hard, and tearing up the streets with their ground game.
Whatever happens the DNC has to move fast and be able to push out candidates for the 2018 elections immediately. Start really hitting back hard, and tearing up the streets with their ground game.
That's great for the surface level, but they're going to have to do a lot more to win the presidency and congress going forward. To either win over the Rust Belt when a centrist runs, have various states far left candidates will have trouble winning over, capture the media and combat GOP propaganda (this is especially vital for the Rust Belt and a huge operation needs to be made yesterday if Dems want to be able to put a dent in them* with centrist candidates as well as working on back up strategies for the EC if they can't rely on the Rust Belt in a presidential.)
In other words, the party needs as much money as possible to build these operations at all levels, including building infrastructure and supporting local candidates in the South.
* which may take many years, minimum. They're not going to be do this in two years.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Also a huge problem for them is a lot of the whip out comes from simply not actually running candidates. I know in wisconsin a lot of seats are simply uncontested. They can't possibly win if they won't even try.
There was a lot of agreement there needs to be support for local campaigns. When asked about purity tests, they said that it wasn't the place of the chair to decide primaries.
Was akward when they were asked about skipping the women's march to meet with donors.
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Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Also a huge problem for them is a lot of the whip out comes from simply not actually running candidates. I know in wisconsin a lot of seats are simply uncontested. They can't possibly win if they won't even try.
And the Republicans started with a local first strategy since Bill Clinton. 20 years of working the state legislatures and local races, set the stage for proper gerrymandering and voter suppression.
It was a very effective strategy, but it required long term thinking, and a bottom up mentality. They also fund governor races better than senate races too. I did some googling around a bit, and the GOP fund their lesser races significantly better than Dems who fund the federal, senate and house campaigns well, but aren't sending money to the lower races. There are should not be 33 republican governors.
I hope that this becomes a focus of the DNC. They need to win local elections, and money is needed to make that happen.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Also a huge problem for them is a lot of the whip out comes from simply not actually running candidates. I know in wisconsin a lot of seats are simply uncontested. They can't possibly win if they won't even try.
And the Republicans started with a local first strategy since Bill Clinton. 20 years of working the state legislatures and local races, set the stage for proper gerrymandering and voter suppression.
It was a very effective strategy, but it required long term thinking, and a bottom up mentality. They also fund governor races better than senate races too. I did some googling around a bit, and the GOP fund their lesser races significantly better than Dems who fund the federal, senate and house campaigns well, but aren't sending money to the lower races. There are should not be 33 republican governors.
I hope that this becomes a focus of the DNC. They need to win local elections, and money is needed to make that happen.
I'm not entirely certain that the GOP can claim full credit for their local stranglehold; the gerrymandering, certainly, but it works because everyone even slightly liberal left for more urbanized areas of the country. The Dems can throw as much money as they want at <rural bumfuck nowhere district> but there is no one living there that would vote for them. Thus, does our governmental system's odd preference for land area grant them an advantage that can only be mitigated by literally moving people away from where they want to live, and into districts where they will have to suffer shitty quality of life in the best cases, or fear for their lives in the unfortunately all-too-common worst.
Vote is in just a few days. AP reported count for committed votes is Perez: 205, Ellison: 153. There's 447 votes, so Perez only needs 19 more votes to win. Seems like he's been the pick of the party apparatus. Ellison has gotten a lot of votes from elected Dems (who don't get a say), but most of the Obama administration has endorsed Perez, it seems to be an open secret that Obama himself prefers Perez, and that's trickled on down.
The AP count needs to be taken with a grain of salt, though. Different outlets are giving different numbers. AP seems like it's the most accurate and inclusive count (some other places, like the Hill, show Ellison winning in a landslide but they only got responses from a small number of members). Ellison in particular doesn't seem to think the count is accurate, but of course he wouldn't. Perez is probably the strong favorite right now, but it's not a guaranteed victory.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Also a huge problem for them is a lot of the whip out comes from simply not actually running candidates. I know in wisconsin a lot of seats are simply uncontested. They can't possibly win if they won't even try.
I don't know about Wisconsin, the DCCC head Rep Denny Heck told the National Journal in an interview that;
So, maybe we're gonna see a turnaround on some of that. Normally, recruiting for most districts to run against an incumbent is like trying to get a football through a tailpipe.
The Dems are at the worst place they've been in a century despite raising double the money of their opponents. I think you can stand to eject a few shitty donors and get some policies that get people to vote for you at that point.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Also a huge problem for them is a lot of the whip out comes from simply not actually running candidates. I know in wisconsin a lot of seats are simply uncontested. They can't possibly win if they won't even try.
I don't know about Wisconsin, the DCCC head Rep Denny Heck told the National Journal in an interview that;
So, maybe we're gonna see a turnaround on some of that. Normally, recruiting for most districts to run against an incumbent is like trying to get a football through a tailpipe.
They need to give these candidates support and money. Starting like now. I really hope they do.
2018 federal races are important but overfocusing on that map is going to deal a blow to the grassroots movements going on.
Vote is in just a few days. AP reported count for committed votes is Perez: 205, Ellison: 153. There's 447 votes, so Perez only needs 19 more votes to win. Seems like he's been the pick of the party apparatus. Ellison has gotten a lot of votes from elected Dems (who don't get a say), but most of the Obama administration has endorsed Perez, it seems to be an open secret that Obama himself prefers Perez, and that's trickled on down.
The AP count needs to be taken with a grain of salt, though. Different outlets are giving different numbers. AP seems like it's the most accurate and inclusive count (some other places, like the Hill, show Ellison winning in a landslide but they only got responses from a small number of members). Ellison in particular doesn't seem to think the count is accurate, but of course he wouldn't. Perez is probably the strong favorite right now, but it's not a guaranteed victory.
I hope Ellison manages to squeak this one out because:
Joe Biden is a friend of mine and I have a lot of respect for Tom Perez. In terms of the next chair of the DNC, however, the question is simple: Do we stay with a failed status-quo approach or do we go forward with a fundamental restructuring of the Democratic Party? I say we go forward and create a grassroots party which speaks for working people and is prepared to stand up to the top 1 percent. That’s why we have to support Keith Ellison.
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Anyone that far gone can't be someone we worry about at this point. Sanders did real, irreparable damage to the democratic party with his rhetoric last year, but there isn't anything to be done about it now. We have to move forward and hope these people come back to us as we do good things.
Anyone who takes their ball and goes home with Ellison or Perez has no real interest in big tent democratic politics, because these are both great DNC chair candidates, much better than anyone we've had in some time.
This doesn't make any sense but there's a topic for discussion of the 2016 election and it's not this one. A very popular grassroots candidate with appeal to people who are on the fringes of the party can do a lot of damage to a party if he/she wants to and that's not a sign of a party being "fucked already".
Nah, it doesn't take much to harm the Dems when they're at full strength. All it takes is a few choice slices off the voting base for key regions (effecting the EC) and that's all it takes to cede a win to the GOP. The party is strong, what it isn't is perfect from inside or outside attacks - literally no party is.
Instead of building a constituency of people benefiting from their policy, they were trying to capture some mythical political center that has evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
The DNC going forward has to strategize around working for big, popular policy that can directly benefit the people it wants to vote for its candidates, and then focus on getting a donor base from that.
You are confusing your own argument. It's not just about "the sweet cash from lobbyists and major donors", it's about votes. The Democratic Party has long run on the idea that the far left alone can't win you elections. You need to pull in the centrist vote too. It's a relic of the post-1968 era and the party losing hugely at multiple levels. You can't understand what is going on if you can't see, say, Bill Clinton as a reaction to Reagan's victories. Hillary Clinton was running ads to centrist republicans to try and run up the score and secure larger victories for the party. The core ideology here you are missing is the same it's always been: you need to centrist voters to win. Remember Obama's "I'm voting for the n-word" types?
Whether this remains true anymore is questionable and all the people currently running for DNC chair (at least the ones that matter) seem to be of the opinion that the energy seen during this past month is what the Democratic party needs to focus on.
As I mentioned earlier though, I am hopeful that both of the primary DNC candidates can regain the momentum of the party by focusing on their voters, and the policies that will bring those voters to the booth in Novembers to come.
Yeah, the DNC has done very shitty things which I disagree with, including that. However, I don't think single payer was really on the table regardless, the Dems had to get past the centrists, and conservatives like Lieberman (which weren't going to go to for single payer) then water it down again for the GOP to sign off on it.
Can you clarify what you mean by "tilted at windmills?" That are you referring to here? Your ire should be aimed at the groups who operate within the DNC (which is a neutral organization, if the left were in control they'd have their own agendas to implement and influence candidates) and yeah, they* fund more "conservative**" candidates because that's how the system runs, and yeah, the reason why they run on the laterite is worse canard is that it's true. No other faction in the party has been able to step up as a capable rival to the centrists. One thing you're omitting here is that the left is decentralized and bad at funding its candidates, who are few and far between. The centrists don't have to do much to squeeze them out of races, and like all factions they're in it to win and vice versa. The difference is they have gotten and maintained a strong power base with money from donors, and strong allies within the party - including from the liberal faction. It's not impossible for them to put up a fight, but in elections like this they're going to always be facing an uphill battle just to get to the finish line.
Running ads to get Republicans off the bench is good sense since Dems need as many votes as they can get, and this would apply to any left candidates in the same position, who would be angling for rust belt votes.
I'm going to disagree with the rest, which I've commented on in previous primary and election threads anyway and I don't want this to get locked.
I think they go after the donors first because that's a bigger priority and once they're on board they can focus on the general voters. Without being able to get the donors on board leaves their campaigns seriously weakened structurally no matter how good their message is. It sucks, but politicians careers rely heavily on money to do anything, the donor base is not to be taken lightly. Without them the Dems would be in worse shape nationally.
* again, the factions themselves I don't the DNC does this as such, this isn't the left equivalent of ALEC
** which is pretty much anyone who isn't on the far left, which leaves a lot of wiggle room on the spectrum without going full Liebermann
This is kind of misleading, since it only counts official money.
The Dems aren't that lost, their main contention was losing the EC voters. As long as they get that and the popular vote they win the presidency, I've heard contradictory things about whether the losses in congress, so I'll leave that up to someone else more knowledgable to defend. Yeah, Dems lost despite having Scrooge McDuck money, but that means they shouldn't get complacent not that money shouldn't be a big priority going forward. It depends on how valuable those donors were and how much money they invested, if they are the biggest donors the party will go back to having less of a money advantage over the GOP (plus Citizens United), what happened last year wasn't normal on that front. Usually it's the opposite. We need that edge for as many elections as possible.
edit: Dems shouldn't be crippling themselves financially for ideological purity.
Dems are wiped out in the states and locally. That's where the party is the weakest it's been since before FDR.
Then I agree, the Dems need to work on that post haste.
But that's primarily due to a single moment of lost focus from 2008-2010 where we didn't realize what a gerrymandered disaster we were allowing the republicans to create. That's the error the dnc made.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
The party can still be fixed.
I'm disappointed in a lot of things that happened in 2016. But I'm still considering myself a member of the party. I live overseas and being a member of the party actually affords me more influence through the Democrats Abroad groups.
And if there's ever an irate group of left-center democrats, it's the expat community. I've seen more info given out about resisting and protesting by the Dems Abroad Facebook page than I have from anybody not already full on anarchist.
The party is a great tool for us to use to help save the country, both residents and expats alike. This election is just another step.
That being said, it's just a small step. Yes, the head of the DNC had some influence, but not as much as some people seem to be focusing on the position. We're not electing a shadow parliament.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
No. Again, you are making the exact same mistake I was just trying to correct here. They aren't (just) scared of chasing off donors, they are scared of chasing off voters. They are still terrified of ending up too far to the left to pick up the votes they believe exist in the centre. You can see this in their strategies at the federal level all the time.
You keep wanting to make this about the "big name donors" being the boogeymen here and are ignoring how the Democratic party has viewed the electorate for decades now.
Marijuana legalization?
It's very important to understand that what you consider popular policies to you are not necessarily actually popular policies that are easy to implement.
We can run on Universal Healthcare and then - inevitably - when the rubber meets the road we end up having to compromise and the economic leftists don't bother to show up anymore because they feel betrayed.
It is harder for Democrats to please the needs of their various constituencies than it is for Republicans to please theirs. Running off the donors isn't really the concern as much as it is scaring off the centrists or Socially Liberal but Economically Conservative (SLEC) types.
I'm not even saying the DNC was actually correct about these positions scaring people off. I'm saying they think they are. The post-1968 Democratic party spent a long time trying to figure out how the fuck to win a Presidential election and it was (Bill) Clinton who pulled it off, both using and cementing a blue-print for how the Democratic Party would view the electorate.
And I think it's pretty understandable for them to have viewed the situation this way when you consider a lot of these people were around for, like, the Reagan waves and also have to work with Congress where you end up needing guys like Manchin out of WV to get shit done.
The good thing is though that all the major candidates running for DNC chair seem to be aware that shit changed at some point and now there's a real need and a chance to build a populist and more progressive movement that can (hopefully) win more elections.
Improved labor law is the biggest hole that the dems should be trying to fill in.
I'd be real nice to have some federally mandated time off. Holidays, sick days, vacation days. God forbid parental leave. Every other country in the world requires this of their employers and they're doing just fine. The actual costs are minimal, too. Outside of the most basic labor drudgework, if your employee is off for three weeks a year doesn't mean you lose three weeks of productivity. Their work gets shuffled around and is done better anyway by a happy employee.
Ofc an increased minimum wage and stuff like mandatory severance would be good as well, but are a harder sell. Sadly.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I believe the best way the DNC can deal with this issue is to build back up the party in state and local elections because allowing all the arch alt-right douchebags, that claim to be conservative, to run unopposed creates an illusion that voters are more to the right, than they actually are.
Granted, some of this also falls on voters, plenty of people in the left and center left that foolishly choose to stay home for most or all elections. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the DNC is in a position to encourage them to possible consider running, since a number of offices below the federal level run on this idiotic notion that political jobs should be party time, when only makes holding an office feasible for the well to do.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
That's great for the surface level, but they're going to have to do a lot more to win the presidency and congress going forward. To either win over the Rust Belt when a centrist runs, have various states far left candidates will have trouble winning over, capture the media and combat GOP propaganda (this is especially vital for the Rust Belt and a huge operation needs to be made yesterday if Dems want to be able to put a dent in them* with centrist candidates as well as working on back up strategies for the EC if they can't rely on the Rust Belt in a presidential.)
In other words, the party needs as much money as possible to build these operations at all levels, including building infrastructure and supporting local candidates in the South.
* which may take many years, minimum. They're not going to be do this in two years.
Also a huge problem for them is a lot of the whip out comes from simply not actually running candidates. I know in wisconsin a lot of seats are simply uncontested. They can't possibly win if they won't even try.
There was a lot of agreement there needs to be support for local campaigns. When asked about purity tests, they said that it wasn't the place of the chair to decide primaries.
Was akward when they were asked about skipping the women's march to meet with donors.
Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding.
It was a very effective strategy, but it required long term thinking, and a bottom up mentality. They also fund governor races better than senate races too. I did some googling around a bit, and the GOP fund their lesser races significantly better than Dems who fund the federal, senate and house campaigns well, but aren't sending money to the lower races. There are should not be 33 republican governors.
I hope that this becomes a focus of the DNC. They need to win local elections, and money is needed to make that happen.
I'm not entirely certain that the GOP can claim full credit for their local stranglehold; the gerrymandering, certainly, but it works because everyone even slightly liberal left for more urbanized areas of the country. The Dems can throw as much money as they want at <rural bumfuck nowhere district> but there is no one living there that would vote for them. Thus, does our governmental system's odd preference for land area grant them an advantage that can only be mitigated by literally moving people away from where they want to live, and into districts where they will have to suffer shitty quality of life in the best cases, or fear for their lives in the unfortunately all-too-common worst.
The AP count needs to be taken with a grain of salt, though. Different outlets are giving different numbers. AP seems like it's the most accurate and inclusive count (some other places, like the Hill, show Ellison winning in a landslide but they only got responses from a small number of members). Ellison in particular doesn't seem to think the count is accurate, but of course he wouldn't. Perez is probably the strong favorite right now, but it's not a guaranteed victory.
I don't know about Wisconsin, the DCCC head Rep Denny Heck told the National Journal in an interview that;
So, maybe we're gonna see a turnaround on some of that. Normally, recruiting for most districts to run against an incumbent is like trying to get a football through a tailpipe.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They need to give these candidates support and money. Starting like now. I really hope they do.
2018 federal races are important but overfocusing on that map is going to deal a blow to the grassroots movements going on.
I hope they've learned that lesson at least
That's like the opposite of the lesson everyone is saying should be learned here.