I agree in general, but you cant tell me a more mobilized establishment base doesnt make it harder for the AOC types.
I don’t think that this actually a thing that is possible to exist. The establishment became the establishment by having the most engaged voters already.
The central challenge is that the vast majority of districts are not like NY-14. Run hard progressives in moderate or swingy areas and see what happens.
from Huffpost POLITICS 06/24/2019 09:00 am ET Updated 1 hour ago Left-Wing Group Announces List Of House Democrats To Unseat Roots Action is targeting 15 centrist members of Congress at a time when primary challenges are becoming increasingly common. By Daniel Marans Press Association/Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) has earned progressive enmity in her capacity as head of House Democrats’ campaign arm. Roots Action is calling for a primary against her. Roots Action, a left-wing group led largely by supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), drafted a report on 15 House members it considers ripe targets for progressive primary challenges, arming the Democratic Party’s populist wing with a new organizing tool as it seeks to unseat a growing number of incumbents. Roots Action, which is calling its analysis “Bad Blues: Some of the House Democrats Who Deserve to Be ‘Primaried,’” hopes the report can serve as a road map and source of encouragement for individuals or groups considering a primary run. Spoiler REAL LIFE. REAL NEWS. REAL VOICES. Help us tell more of the stories that matter from voices that too often remain unheard. Subscribe Now The incumbent House members its identifies are: Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who chairs House Democrats’ campaign arm; Jim Cooper of Tennessee; Jim Costa of California; Henry Cuellar of Texas; Eliot Engel of New York; Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey; Jim Himes of Connecticut; Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland; Derek Kilmer of Washington; Dan Lipinski of Illinois; Gregory Meeks of New York; Brad Schneider of Illinois; Kurt Schrader of Oregon; David Scott of Georgia; and Juan Vargas of California. Below each of the Democrats’ names, Roots Action includes several paragraphs about their policy record making the case for replacing them and the districts they serve in, as well as information about existing efforts to challenge any of the lawmakers. The group plans to send the report to its 1.2 million-member email list, including activists in each of the 15 congressional districts. “It isn’t easy to defeat a Democratic incumbent in a primary. Typically, the worse the Congress member, the more (corporate) funding they get,” Roots Action co-authors Norman Solomon, Sam McCann, Pia Gallegos and Jeff Cohen write in the introduction. “While most insurgent primary campaigns will not win, they’re often very worthwhile ― helping progressive constituencies to get better organized and to win elections later. And a grassroots primary campaign can put a scare into the Democratic incumbent to pay more attention to voters and less to big donors.” Some of the figures in “Bad Blues” are familiar to progressive activists who follow the news. Bustos earned the enmity of the left as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for a March decision to blacklist consultants that work with progressive candidates challenging incumbents. Others, like Meeks, might be less familiar. Meeks, a corporate-friendly opponent of tougher banking policies like the financial transaction tax, succeeded former Rep. Joseph Crowley as chair of the Queens County Democratic Party after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ousted Crowley in a June 2018 primary. Meeks has used his perch as the new boss of the Queens machine to thwart the ascent of the most progressive candidate for Queens district attorney, whose high-profile backers he dubbed “patronizing” to the borough’s black residents. Some of the incumbents have already elicited spirited primary challengers, including Hoyer, Scott, Lipinski, Engel and Cuellar. Still, other members of Congress like Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, whose centrist records have earned them liberal ire, were not on the list of targeted incumbents. The report’s authors noted though that it is “by no means exhaustive ― only illustrative.” Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, a group that backed Ocasio-Cortez and now-Rep. Ayanna Pressley in their primary wins last year and has recruited challengers to run against Cuellar and Engel, described the advent of the report as a sign of the times. “The upset victories by Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have revealed more enthusiasm for more primary challengers and a different model of representation in the Democratic Party,” he said. “Everyone should be looking over their shoulder.”
In theory, yes. But in practice when you have a long standing incumbent like w Crowley where just about everyone views the election as a mere formality the establishment voters probably dont bother to turn out as highly as they would if they think their candidate's spot is threatened. It will be more difficult to catch a guy by surprise like AOC did. It was lightning in a bottle. That doesn't mean it cant happen, wont push the incumbent left and all the other benefits of having more progressive candidates in the election. Thankfully candidates like AOC will be much better funded to drive vote than they have in the past.
You can say she won because the incumbent wasn’t prepared for her but in reality she won because the constituents realized that the incumbent gave zero shits about them. She would have won if he had been prepared because he was still out of touch
For the record, there was some suspicious package near the WH but it's probably dealt with at this point.
Perhaps Im being pessimistic and I hope youre right and Im glad we dont get to test this hypothetical. Funding still disproportionately weighs heavily in these elections. Im less optimistic to think if Crowley had the full weight of the establishment at this back to campaign, it might have been a different story. If you think being dismissive and just showing up for token appearances and sending surrogates in your place for the debates was inconsequential then we just disagree. My comment about it being hard for AOC types, wasn't specific to AOC or her election. Its for the primary challenges from the left moving forward. Again, hope Im wrong
I think my point is that he sent surrogates. He put no effort into governing his constituents and it showed. Hell, he lives in VA
The fact that there aren't one million jokes about this is why I can confidently say there are no funny Conservatives.
There’s an example in this article. NJ-5 elected the first D since 1932 in 2016. Now they’re talking about primarying him.
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I feel like we're talking around each other now. Im not challenging he doesnt GAF about most of his constituents. My argument is that if he actually felt threatened by AOC he would have treated the primary as an election and not a coronation. He would have put up an appearance of giving a fuck, even if it was completely disingenuous. He would have had door knockers go out and get his people to the polls. This was a tough election for her to win. It would have been tougher, and I think it will be tougher going forward for primary challengers from the left. None of them will be taking the same laissez faire approach. They will all take the lessons learned from Crowley's awful campaign and not repeat those mistakes. Again, hope Im wrong
But he didn’t lose because of the election. He lost because he wasn’t doing his job. Everything you’re talking about is a snapshot in time while ignoring that he wasn't in touch with his constituents. If he was doing his job, AOC wouldn’t have primaried him.
Again Im not debating any of that. I dont know how else to communicate that he didnt do shit to campaign because he didnt think he needed to. Other establishment candidates will now feel the need to campaign in the primary and not be as dismissive, making challenges from the left more challenging.
I've been supporting Warren and Pete but this could flip me to Sanders. I fully expect to get blasted for this but I have $90k in loan debt from my business school loans and won't qualify for Warren's plan because my household income is too high. Warren's plan doesn't take into account cost of living, which in San Diego is extremely high. It was almost impossible to buy a 2200 Sq ft house and cash flow is tight in our household to where saving for our kids college and retirement is really difficult. Wiping out my student loan debt would make this possible and I consider us upper middle class in San Diego. I'm assuming there must be enough voters in swing states in my situation that Sanders plan appeals to in order for him to extend loan forgiveness for someone like me who relative to most Americans, is doing really well financially. I don't begrudge Warren for not including my situation but I would have to vote for Sanders in my best interest when it would make such a huge difference in my family's life.
It's not going to make me switch from Warren but I can certainly understand that viewpoint (my situation is similar). Let's hope this plan gets a lot of support among Dem primary voters and it pushes Warren even further left on the issue.
I just want loan forgiveness. I have like 105k-ish. One way or another, I'm going to never pay it all back (a Warren/Bernie plan or minimum payments for 25 years without missing = forgiveness, if I understand correctly).
"If they do it, we can do it!" is kind of a dipshit way to determine the validity of a policy and whether implementation is feasible. A better question is "how far in debt is the country willing to go to bring X policy into play." One of the big issues with MFA (the most expensive of all the currently proposed Dem candidate policies IIRC) is the 30T cost. Raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations won't cover it, unless I am mistaken. We as a country would have to basically just say "yep, we are willing to deepen the debt for this." I don't think COST should be the only determiner of worthiness, or even the first, but it has to be a factor, right?
The most transparent administration in history, take 237,619 Trump administration buried reports warning climate change could hurt crops: report thehill.com/blogs/...
explaining this to republicans has been the single most difficult and frustrating thing I've ever done in my life
Are you saying you make more than $250,000, or are you saying Warren's phase out for incomes in excess of $100,000 wouldn't be sufficient to make a dent on your debt?
Individuals saving money vs the government spending money. Not the same thing, and something that deserves further study. Again, each policy is worth analyzing but for someone to just glibly toss aside cost "because the Rs do" and something sounds sexy is silly.
Apparently a thing that is cheaper than what we currently have can still be too expensive although I have no idea how
It's basically the same thing. Fully fund MFA through taxes. Primarily on the wealthy and super wealthy but fill in the gaps with taxes on the middle class. They'll still come out far ahead with much better health coverage.
I tried to start a policy thread on MFA for all but I am not sure anyone really wants to get in the weeds about it.
I read Bernie's plan and IIRC it had some vague hand waving on specifics on tax raises. Again, if this is to be taken seriously such details need to be fleshed out. Especially if the aim is to be the biggest government program in US history. (or 2nd to SS? Something like that)
Mr. Thumb is again available for hire NEVER TWEET Ex-Trump Aide Jason Miller Leaves High-Powered Firm After Jerry Nadler ‘Fat F*ck’ Tweets The departure, Miller tells The Daily Beast, was ‘by mutual consent.’ Updated 06.24.19 2:13PM ET / Published 06.24.19 1:21PM ET Drew Angerer/Getty Jason Miller, a former top campaign aide and close adviser to Donald Trump, has left his job as a managing director at Teneo, a prominent consulting firm, days after launching a profanity-laced tirade directed at a top House Democrat. Spoiler “I have parted ways with Teneo by mutual consent and look forward to formally announcing my next move in the coming weeks,” Miller said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Teneo is an incredible firm and without a doubt the premier CEO consultancy on the planet. They have always been great to me and I’m proud to have called them teammates for the past two and a half years.” Miller’s departure from the firm comes just a few days after he went on a raging tweetstorm at House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY), in which he called the New York Democrat, among other things, a “fat fuck.” “He’s a fucking scumbag. Anyone obsessed with attacking innocent Hope Hicks should take a long walk off a short pier,” Miller posted to Twitter late last week. Miller’s anger had been sparked by Nadler’s questioning of former Trump aide and confidante Hope Hicks during closed-door testimony several days prior. During that testimony, Nadler had referred to Hicks as “Ms. Lewandowski.” The congressman later insisted it was a slip of the tongue, but his repeated use of the wrong surname led to the impression that he was referencing an alleged “affair” between Hicks and one-time Trump campaign chief Corey Lewandowski. Miller, who served as communications director for Trump’s presidential transition and who is a close friend of Hicks since the campaign, put up at least four tweets in which he repeatedly mocked Nadler’s weight and behavior. In one, he said people should “call Mr. Nadler ‘Mr. MuffinTop.'” He also tweeted, in reference to Nadler: “Fat fucks gonna fat fuck,” “You’re gross, you fat fuck,” and “You’re fat and nasty. Don’t harass Hope and then try to play nice.” All of those tweets were subsequently removed. Miller has since deleted his entire Twitter account. In years past, then- future president Trump himself would mock the Democratic lawmaker as “Fat Jerry.” Teneo did not respond to a request for comment on this story as of press time. It is unclear what Miller’s next move will be and whether or not his departure from the firm, which has close ties to the Clintons, will lead him back deeper into Trumpworld. Miller is still highly regarded by the president, who calls him "my Jas." Among other things, Miller is also currently engaged in a $100 million defamation suit against Gizmodo Media Group and Splinter reporter Katherine Krueger. The suit alleges that Splinter worked with Miller’s ex-lover A.J. Delgado, another former 2016 Trump campaign adviser, to plant a false story that Miller had slipped an abortion pill into a smoothie of a stripper.