this morning’s San Jose Mercury News had a couple good political articles.
[former Congresswoman Ellen] Tauscher has launched the “California 7 Project” to unseat seven Republican House members who won last year in ticket-splitting congressional districts that also backed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president.
To pull this off, Tauscher and her campaign manager from two decades ago, Katie Merrill, plan to tap into the pool of anxious Democrats searching for a way to get politically involved in the wake of President Donald Trump’s election.
…the numbers show the seven Republicans are potentially vulnerable.
They are Jeff Denham of Modesto, David Valadao of Hanford, Steve Knight of Palmdale, Ed Royce of Brea, Mimi Walters of Irvine, Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach and Darrell Issa of Vista.
I probably won’t like much about any candidates picked by Ellen Tauscher and her PAC. We’re going to see Business Dems. Bleah. But they have a plan that makes sense, and I’m gratified to see Democrats with any plan at all.
speaking of Business Dems, there was also a long piece on my new congressman
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/23/ro-khanna-wants-to-be-silicon-valleys-ambassador-to-middle-ame
rica/
…Khanna is the only member of Congress to join Justice Democrats, a liberal organization backing primary challenges to moderate Democrats. As someone who defeated an incumbent, Khanna said he believes competitive primaries lead to more effective representatives.
This ducks the fact that he was the moderate challenging a progressive Democrat.
The “Justice Dems” make a big thing out of not taking PAC money. Khanna has lots of money, whether or not it comes from something defined as a PAC.
it’s interesting how newspapers position articles in print vs online.
In the dead tree, the Khanna article is on the front page (below the fold), and the Tauscher article is the top of the main commentary page, above the syndicated columns from Krauthammer and Robinson.
Neither is among the headlines on the main web page, I had to search on the names.
Khanna was the corporate Democrat in his primary with Mike Honda in 2014. Interesting evolution.
yeah. Kind of a weaselly evolution IMO.
I’m intrigued (that’s one possible word) by his effort to establish a national profile immediately on arrival in DC.
Mr. Trump Goes to Washington! Obdtructionists? Welcome to the real world inside de bubble.
○ DCCC Targets Trump Districts in 2018 | Roll Call – Jan. 2017 |
Seven of the 23 districts Clinton won are seats that former President Barack Obama did not carry, the DCCC pointed out. Sena thinks this may indicate “a potential Trump-driven problem” for them.
○ California won’t be passing a single-payer healthcare system any time soon — the plan is dead for this year
○ The Honorable Ellen O. Tauscher
○ Fight Back CA PAC
At a time when grassroots energy on the left is largely directed against Trump, Merrill warned that winning the California seats will depend upon focusing on local issues. In other words, don’t expect much Trump-bashing.
“You can’t nationalize it,” Merrill said. “If you start talking about Trump and domestic issues, you’re going to lose.”
thanks, I don’t read The Hill. WTF? A whole week later, the local CA sources decide this is news.
that first link is to an article on this topic, but your headline and the blockquote are about something else.
Shows the transformation from anger at Trump earlier this year to focusing on the local issues in the California districts today. Change of tactics after the losses in SC-5 and GA-6?
maybe. Seems to me that tactics will always be different in a special election than in the normal cycle. And they shouldn’t try to define a narrative now for an election in November next year, when the election finally gets here things might well look different.
Tauscher is quoted talking about health care, that’s really a national issue not a local one, but it’s also an issue she can use against against repub congressmen who will have voted for repealing ACA. Or at least that will probably have happened by then. There will be specific votes to call them on, not just a vague “anger at Trump”.
We’ll have specific voting records on health care and probably several other issues that can be used against incumbent Republicans between now and November 2018. Even if some of the efforts to transfer wealth from the public to the richest few do not succeed (expect the worst, but hope for the best, I suppose), those votes can be used to tar them in debates, ads, social media, and so on. Something tells me that health care is going to be a national issue that has such powerful local implications that it cannot be avoided.
You write:
“Change of tactics after the losses in SC-5 and GA-6?”
Precisely.
AG
If only Issa goes, this bunch’s effort is worth it. If all 7 go and Democrats take back the House, it depends on what Speaker Pelosi does with that victory. History is not very kind on that point.
However, I remain sceptical of this bunch.
I am waiting to see who will step up to the plate to conduct a full-court press of Republicans in California. And who can put together the strategy to turn California from a plum state into an actual blue state. (As much as I hate the red state-blue state meme.)
If California is a plum state then there are no blue states.
Even Vermont couldn’t pass single-payer.
There are no blue states. Let that stoke just a little bit of anxiety.
But there are no red states either. Let that expand your map a bit.
It still takes around 180,000 votes to win a Congressional seat outright. If you have those in hand it doesn’t matter what the PVI of that district is. If you have less than 120,000 of those in hand, it doesn’t matter either. The job of a campaign is to have a good idea of how many votes you have in hand and figure out how to get all of them plus some to actually vote the name of your candidate.
Do the good centrist politicians know where the 1,260.000 votes they are counting on are coming from? How many of the Democratic voters who voted against these candidates can be taken for granted? Where does the margin of victory come from? How in a year and four months (16 months) are they going to get from nothing to winning?
Who is going take on the folks in eastern California?
This all sounds good and there’s absolutely nothing stopping qualified candidates from running in every district. Hopefully they get the support they need.
Who in the districts determines who is “qualified” and who isn’t?
Literally every single Constitutional office in California (Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner, etc.) is held by a Democrat. The State Senate and Assembly is also just over 2/3rds Democratic.
The last few legislative sessions have piled up a number of accomplishments, including the best and highest minimum wage with guaranteed paid time off and yearly COLA’s in the years after it reaches $15 an hour for all workers, and undocumented children being given access to Medicaid health insurance. We also have by far the best election laws and regulations in the nation, making it easier and easier for citizens to access the franchise.
Both Federal Senators are Democrats, and Democrats represent 39 of the 53 Congressional Districts. A dozen of the State’s House representatives are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. In a State which does not have gerrymandered Districts (we have a voter-approved redistricting commission which functioned pretty cleanly in its first run-through), it’s saying something about the strength of the California Democratic Party that we can publicly contemplate reducing the Republican representation in the 53 House Districts into less than 10 GOP-held seats.
California’s politics are the most liberal of any State in the Nation. We’re not without problems; I’d identify the Assembly as being our biggest one, with a close second being a Governor who is reluctant to sign onto some progressive policy innovations. We will elect a new Governor to replace the termed-out Jerry Brown next year; that will be a very important election.
What minimum wage does it take to live in California?
When does that $15/hour minimum wage kick in? Does it include agricultural and hospitality workers in the minimum wage? Does it deal with the dodge of “tip income”?
How are Democrats going to win those remaining 14 Congressional districts?
Don’t forget that without benefits showing in all parts of the state, that command on power can go away very quickly.
Are you putting up two strong Democrats in every district? That system can be an Achilles heel if it is not played properly.
And most importantly, why has the Assembly become a problem? And how many voters do you have to convince in every Assembly district in order to win?
I hope you’re asking these questions in good faith. We’ll see.
No minimum wage in the United States provide an ideal living wage. I think you know this. What comprises a “living wage” varies significantly between the State’s urban and rural regions. That the State’s minimum wage will soon be superior to all others, and that it covers all regions equally, is a sign of its strength. California’s Law avoids the dilutions of the split state enforcement of the New York State law. Many California Cities with higher costs of living have passed their own minimum wage laws which get to $15 more quickly and have additional compensation elements.
The current State hourly minimum wage is $10.50. It goes to $11 next year and another full dollar each year until it gets to $15 an hour. It increases each year afterward, tied to the California Consumer Price Index. Additionally, the same Law requires all public and private employers pay for a minimum amount of sick days, which starts with one and soon will get to three sick days a year.
The law protects all workers in the private and public sector, save for a sub-sector of farm workers and shepherds who are barred from minimum wage protections by Federal law. The law covers literally 99.9% of our workers.
Tipped employees are protected by the Law identically to all other workers.
I agree that California’s top two primary system presents challenges. Among them is one of the things that has been a primary cause of our Assembly problems. Support for the Republican Party has cratered so badly that a GOP-registered candidate is not viable in many of our Legislative and Congressional Districts. The business and plutocratic community has responded by withdrawing financial support for Republican candidates and instead are funding DINO’s, which leads to two Dem candidates running against each other in the general election.
I don’t mean that entirely rhetorically; in some cases, candidates have changed their Party registrations to run as “problem-solving Democrats” or what have you. These DINO’s have not been endorsed by our local or State Dem Parties, but some have won anyway in Districts with more moderate electorates by burying their Party-endorsed opponents with shock-and-awe-funded Bullshit Mountain campaigns. It’s harder for the Speaker to enforce Caucus discipline in all votes when Assemblymembers weren’t brought to the Capitol thru his support.
I’ll leave your other questions on the table for now. I think we’ve got enough to deal with here.
Why the rhetorical “I hope you are asking this in good faith.”?
Why would someone who has been a yellow dog Democrat for 45 years not be asking questions in good faith?
A federal law bars farm workers and shepherd from minimum wage? Really? There is a law that insists that those workers never be covered in minimum wage laws? Or is that a sop to California’s huge agriculture industry?
Tipped employees now get $10.50 an hour plus tips?
Top-two primary system presents challenges, but Democrats passed it out of a sense of strength. They should use that strength to make it work for them. Two Democratic candidates running in a general election is a good thing if they are both strong candidates and of different wings of the party.
I fully understand the difficulty of a Speaker holding together a large majority, especially with DINOs.
The biggest issue that Democrats have to deal with in campaigns is shock-and-awe Bullshit Mountain campaigns. Electing people on the basis of outright lies does not serve anyone’s interests but those who bought the seat.
A different, more personally connected style of campaigning that does not cost gobs of money is what is required. It uses reference personal networks and involves discussion of actual issues instead of reliance on focus groups and high-saturation media. But it has to deconstruct what is going on with the Bullshit Mountain media campaigns and the shock-jock free campaigning in the process. The principle is create rapidly diminishing returns on expenditures as the money in campaigns gets larger. And find some way of connecting with voters that treats the media as toxic as it is. And especially reducing media buys so that you are not subsidizing the enemy of your own campaign. I’ve made suggestions but I don’t have clarity yet on what needs to be done. We need an Agincourt moment of tactics on this; money has become armor and elevates the knights of finance. How do you organize ordinary people as the counter-tactic and win so that armor is now useless?
We can never leave stuff on the table because with Trump in power and the Republicans money-dominant, we have to deal with it all or that we don’t deal with comes back to bite.
I have no illusions that Democrats will figure this out by 2018, but figuring it out by 2020 is almost a necessity for survival of the Republic. And that clarity must include what Democrats do out of the starting block the moment they gain national power again. In a changed world, it will be dramatically different from what Democrats were doing up to November 8, 2016, or we all are in deep trouble,
I feel like what you’re looking for is evidence for your case that the Democratic Party is uniformly terrible. While there are quite evidently significant weaknesses in and challenges for the Party, I don’t agree that it and its leaders are uniformly terrible, and I didn’t like the idea that you were asking me to supply evidence for your case.
Yes, tipped employees now get a minimum of $10.50 an hour plus tips in California. In many Cities, they get a minimum of more per hour plus tips. No, it’s not a living wage. It’s minimum wages which are well superior to other minimum wages, though.
It’s important to understand that Democrats did not pass the top two primary system. It was placed on the ballot as part of a budget deal (!) with a Republican State Senator whose vote we needed to pass a budget which was already well past due and was about to start causing catastrophic problems in the lives of Californians with middle and lower incomes. What we have found is that on balance it’s not superior or inferior to the old Party primary system, just different.
I left your questions about how to run campaigns in Republican-held Districts in California on the table not because I consider them unimportant, but because I don’t know all the answers. I don’t live in the Districts or know all the factors which must be considered, and I’m not a campaign manager.
Your premise that we need to have a more personally connected style of campaigning is one I agree with. That style is personnel- and training-intensive, though. To persuade enough voters in these Congressional and Legislative District to win, the training has to be effectively constructed, nimble and willing to be altered when it meets with evidence in the field. Most pertinently, such campaigning costs a lot of money. Money to hire not just all the canvassers you need, but to attract skilled canvassers. I’ve supervised canvassers in past years who the campaigns paid at a mediocre to poor rate, and I ended up trying to get the best out of canvassers who just didn’t bring optimal skills or enthusiasm to the work.
This is one thing the conservative movement more frequently gets right: they often pay campaigners and organizers more. This isn’t uniformly true, but it seems largely true. I don’t want them to continue to derive this advantage.
It’s one of the reasons I’m not down with the call to defund the Democratic Party by rejecting large contributors. There are some contributors who actions and demands are beyond the pale and should be rejected. But, for example, labor Unions are among the chief funders of many State Parties, and I’m wary of losing the money of individuals and organizations who want to support a strong party platform which fights for civil rights, economic strength by empowering lower- and middle-income people, and the other values we share. Frankly, this can even be true of wealthy people and interests. If they want to fund my strong State Party and not the conservative Dems who sometimes defeat Party-endorsed candidates, then I welcome their money.
People want a 50-State strategy. It’s going to cost a ton of money to pull that off. This remains true even though we agree that some of the money currently being used for media buys and mailers could be more effectively spent on qualified, well-supervised canvassers.
On the contrary, I’m asking that the strongest of the state parties step up to the plate and shape the message for the rebuilding nationwide.
If it takes “a ton of money”, we are essentially screwed. I don’t know a lot of Democrats in North Carolina who have “a ton of money” and those that do use that as leverage over legislation (now with the state level gone, they’ll pay the GOP) and local ordinance that they want.
Thanks for clarifying the top-two primary system.
The notion of paid canvassers staggers me. Locally, we’ve had volunteer canvassers organized by temporary local county staff. It’s as stunning as the nextdoor neighbor in a mountain county of NC who said that she only votes when she gets paid for voting. I’m not sure that she ever understood why that did not serve her political interests. The same issue goes with paid canvassers.
Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy provided DNC funds for the state party to hire (I think) six field organizers to get county parties going again. For a state of 10 million. Of course in 2008, there were more active county organizations than there are now. The field organizer got the county Democrats on record to come out, get training, and start running a regular organization again, syncing up with OfA in the 2008 general election. In North Carolina, it delivered a Presidential vote and made some gains in Congress (with a couple of DINOs who could not support Obama, by the way). Having one field organizer for each Congressional district could restart things, but there would not be strong results until 2020. So how much are 13 field organizers and support staff in a state office? Their job is to generate lists and commitments of volunteers for all sorts of local roles, including canvassing. IMHO, effective field organizers and trainers who can stand up long-term volunteer networks independent of particular candidates and who have a role in vetting candidates are more useful than paid canvassers. Good field organizers can get more funds generated in small donations from the local people they organize and obviate sources of large donations.
This time it will be tougher, going over burned-over territory. But more people will understand the urgency.
Yes, union support tends to be helpful. In this area, it tends to be limited to the CWA and the teacher’s union. The state employee’s PAC makes endorsements that lately tend to be of Democrats and back them with PAC contributions. It’s not a union, but it has similar clout with Democrats. It is the business owners and especially the “entrepreneurs” whose money to the Democratic Party quickly becomes problematic.
The Democratic party is in no way uniformly anything. Will Rogers had a famous quote about that. The problem is that in too many of the 3080 counties in the US having a (D) by your name is toxic to getting elected the day you register your candidacy. And yet there are faithfully voting Democrats in every one of those 3080 counties. Who are these people that high-paid consultants keep writing off as lost in red areas? Most are yellow dog Democrats like me, with little say in the local party, not a whole lot of time or energy to volunteer any more, and watching the geography in our state continue to shrink. And having Democrats in general think this is normal and business as usual. And that we can afford to do the same old same old for another two years or four years and that will bring the Democratic Party back to power. After three failed elections, it is clear that business as usual does not work, and Democrats must try a new approach that can deal with media bias and rural information landscaped dominated by shock jocks and politicized preachers.
You cannot build trust with media; it has to be done in person.
In the Legislative campaign experiences I was thinking of, let me be clear that those campaigns received plenty of help from volunteer canvassers as well. We had more volunteers than paid canvassers. However, volunteer canvassers aren’t enough to make for winning State Legislative District campaigns here. Our State Senate Districts have more residents than Congressional Districts, and our Assembly Districts hold nearly a half a million residents.
This is true of every State’s Congressional Districts as well, which all hold over 700,000 residents. You simply can’t cover that population effectively with only an army of volunteer canvassers, particularly in Districts you are trying to flip, many to most of them in rural areas which require canvassers to have money for a dependable car and gas. Many of our supporters claim they don’t have enough money and time to do that consistently, and an effective campaign needs some canvassers that work with voters at their doors day after day so they and we can perfect the messages that work best.
Thank you for mentioning your experiences in North Carolina, and for caring to search for solutions to our challenges. I have sympathy for your vision of more consistent use of volunteer networks. We need to figure out ways to keep them motivated to stick around; I’ve seen tons of great volunteers drop in and out.
And, finally, this:
“Electing people on the basis of outright lies does not serve anyone’s interests but those who bought the seat.”
This premise haunts me. We are quickly leaving the day when our governments in the United States are run by the consent of the governed. We haven’t lived under those circumstances in a broad way in a half-century. What will the reaction be if this continues and sinks in, when the voter suppression, information theft and propagandistic manipulations, and redistricting methods are made to oppress the masses in a more explicit and permanent way?
Recall John Mitchell’s statement to the Senate Watergate Committee:
“But Mitchell admitted under oath that in 1972 he knew about the subsequent Watergate cover-up — the high level administration effort to thwart the investigation of the break-in — and said nothing about it to then-President Nixon, “so he could go on through the campaign without being involved.”
When chastised for placing the “expediency” of Nixon’s election above his own responsibility to inform the president about what was happening, Mitchell responded, “In my mind, the reelection of Richard Nixon, compared to what was on the other side, was so important that I put it in exactly that context.”
We recall that Mitchell was both the Attorney General and the head of Nixon’s re-election campaign. He was the chief law enforcement official in the country, was revealed to have been part of a conspiracy to break the law and obstruct justice, and when asked about it said, effectively, “Keeping our political opponents out of power made my actions justified and necessary.”
The current group of movement conservatives who control Congress and the Presidency are effectively fine with conspiring with a foreign adversary to subvert our elections. They’re willing to do anything. They’re our real enemies. While I’m fully invested in creating and maintaining a better Democratic Party, less-than-ideologically-pure Democrats pale in comparison to the wrecking crew in control of the Federal Executive and Legislative branches. And now they aim to control the Judiciary as well.
You are correct that we haven’t lived in a mostly truthful environment (or at least one that could be trusted) for 50 years.
And your concerns are exactly on target. We have been in a Constitutional crisis since November of 2000 (unless you want to go back to November of 1994, when the Republicans took out a contract on America).
I keep seeing this “ideologically pure” notion pop up as an excuse for ineffective (in the long term) Democrats. It keeps excusing business as usual which has lost how many legislatures, how many Congressional seats, and how many governors offices in the past 20 years.
As for the threat to the judiciary, a decade ago some of us were livid that Harry Reid chose to “keep his powder dry” instead of blocking Roberts and Alito– and that given clear evidence of torture and warrantless wiretapping, Nancy Pelosi with a House majority was going to take impeachment off the table. Now a Democratic President has failed to remedy the first (Guantanamo is still open) and has signed onto the second. (Well, Congress passed a law making it legal.) And consistently the judiciary has sapped Constitutional protections. Trump’s deportation order of Muslims got partially through this week.
I understand the current panic over the judiciary, but where were the lists of judicial appointments to slam through in 2009 before McConnell could begin his policy of obstruction? Those are the positions that Trump is now filling, those that McConnell held open for eight years.
That’s not a matter of ideological purity. That’s a matter of the failure of smart politics. And it gives me no pleasure to notice that Steny Hoyer is waiting in the wings.
The Affordable Care Act was not “business as usual”.
Dodd-Frank was not “business as usual”.
The achievements in the few States and greater number of Cities under Democratic Party control are not “business as usual”.
President Obama and the 111th Congress saved us from the second Great Depression and accomplished many other things. They deserve our gratitude and fact-based criticisms, not personal slagging for their imperfections or hatred for the “failures” some create through specious historical reconstructions.
The fiscal stimulus was difficult to shepherd thru Congress, but they managed to get just enough Republican votes to get it through, and it and other policies brought success. Nine years after the 1929 financial crash, the national unemployment rate was 19%. Nine years after the 2008 financial crash, which caused initial job losses at a Depression-level rate, the national unemployment rate is at 4.7%.
What wasn’t brought back in this recovery was the wealth and previous income of those with middle- and lower-incomes. I recognize that this has caused many Americans to feel extremely vulnerable and in search of a villain. That an unfortunate number of leftists and others have chosen to join racists in labeling President Obama as a villain explains something about the outcomes of recent elections.
What explains much more about the outcomes of recent elections have been the Citizens United, McCutcheon and Shelby County SCOTUS decisions and their impacts, along with the scandalous, anti-democratic gerrymanders of legislative and Congressional seats in the several States. This has created an extremely uneven playing field.
We must react to this new reality, which is why I support your search for new solutions. However, I look at some recent outcomes in States where gerrymandering delivered not just majorities, but supermajorities of Republican seats despite the fact that more total voters in that State voted for Democratic Party candidates than their Republican opponents. I find it more than a bit inappropriate to fume at Democratic Party leaders in States which suffered outcomes like these and dismissively label them as failures.
We were having a discussion earlier about how much money our movement needs to win elections. I agreed with you that some of the work can be done on the cheap through motivated volunteers, but I call on you to consider how much money we need to have any real chance against operators like this:
“”We are seeing a once-in-a generation renaissance of freedom and prosperity policies being enacted at the state level, said Tim Phillips, one of the top Koch network strategists, in an interview. “The untold story is the dramatic policy advancements that are actually helping people at the state level.”
Koch network leaders credited the investment at the state level for their successes — one that rivals, if not exceeds, the investment made by the Republican Party at the national and state levels.
What made the difference, the leaders told donors at a strategy session, was the ability to define candidates on positive terms early in the race and and mobilize voter outreach efforts to boost turnout.
“This network is the only group that can engage this way because you support us with significant resources all year round,” said Emily Seidel, a top political strategist at Freedom Partners, a Koch network organization.
But the pitch to donors — all of whom gave at least $100,000 to attend the event — included a sobering message for 2018.
“Make no mistake, this midterm election cycle is far more difficult than in recent years,” Seidel said. “For one, we are facing a reinvigorated progressive left. Their activists are energized and their donors are giving at unprecedented levels.”
The Kochs aim to spend $300 million to $400 million nationwide in the 2018 cycle, the most ever for their organization, and suggest the spending is “headed to the high end of that range.”
Keep in mind, this isn’t the Republican Party talking here. The GOP has about as much money to spend on campaigns, but this is just one of their strongest, best organized auxiliary forces.
We can’t beat this sort of organizing by defunding our movement. I say these things not to be defeatist. I think we can, and eventually will, win. I just want to paint a big hazard sign around the arguments made by many in our movement who call to reduce fundraising for our campaign work, or that revenue from ideologically aligned wealthy people and interests should be rejected and that the middle and lower classes can be counted on to fill the gap.
I worked on a State Senate race a few years ago where one multi-millionnare who lived hundreds of miles from the District spent over $600,000 on this single race. Sure, we ran that fact against the anti-Union Democratic Party candidate he was supporting, so that we could elect the candidate endorsed and supported by the State Party. But the plutocrat-supporting Dem won anyway, a result which was duplicated in a subsequent Assembly race in the same region.
Money buys elections more frequently than it does not. Great money differences, when combined with the other factors in the uneven playing field, are sometimes near impossible to overcome. We can overcome smaller campaign financing deficits, but our ability to overcome such disadvantages does not stretch into the horizon.
OK, money with no strings attached is acceptable, but K Street handcuff money is not. I’m not sure how the rank-and-file voter knows which is in play. For Liberman, for health care, and for Dodd-Frank, it was almost exclusively K Street money shaping the legislation. At least President Obama introduced us to the players as he signed them up. I remember that the AMA was a big sign of support for him as it is a failure for Trump, but the AMA has prevented health care reform since the days of Harry Truman and ecouraged its physician members to go into politics (mostly Republican). That is a horrible Catch-22 for ordinary voters.
“Money buys elections more frequently than it does not.” is why people do not show up to vote. They figure the fix is in, whether it is or not.
Where my thinking has been going is toward what exactly is all that money buying that the GOP and the plutocrat-Dems find useful to ensuring political victory. Increasingly, it’s negative media and opposition research, both of which turn off voters and suppress turnout. But finally its the ability to get people to turn out at a polling place and vote for our candidates that is the bottom line, not the cost of doing that.
We are in those terms late for 2018, no introductions of candidates on positive terms in new challenging districts, no mobilization yet of voters in areas of challenging Republicans. Just at the announcing intentions point for established politicians and their efforts. We need to start on 970 (two primary candidates) recruitment for 2020 already in the House and 33 in the Senate (counting challengers and bench warmers for changing of the guard in leadership). Thad Cochran, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis, and Lamar Alexander should be on the aging-out challenger list. Mitch McConnell should be on a high-priority challenger list. And Dick Durbin should be on a changing-of-the-guard list.
The peanut gallery needs to be setting up candidates for 2020 while the big money folks weigh in on 2018. And while the peanut gallery works on 2020, they can also do field work on 2022–a 50 state/3980 county strategy. Our ability to do stuff depends on what organizations have presence in each county. Due to the current point in the cycle, 2018 is going to be done on a minimalist swing district/swing state basis again by the pro’s and their consultants. The peanut gallery should focus on building relationships outside of that secure geography in areas that are key for 2020. At the same time, the peanut gallery could work on some small-population state legislatures that are highly gerrymandered.
The vast majority of K Street money was in bitter opposition to everything President Trump and the 111th Congress worked on.
I’m in agreement with much of what you propose here, including the view that many Americans have been fooled into believing that there is no difference between candidates and political Parties because money dominates campaigns like never before. This is one of the things canvassers absolutely need to accomplish: to educate the public that it is the conservative movement/Republicans and only the conservative movement/Republicans who have taken the actions which have created the horrible political universe we are in now: Citizens United, McCutcheon, Shelby County, the anti-democratic gerrymands, the whole nine yards. These are the elements which have led to Congress attempting to take health insurance from over 20 million Americans.
Some of this education can and should happen during voter registration drives and other campaigns which are not connected to candidate campaigns. But I will repeat: you can’t do this work effectively on the cheap.
We need to effectively chop away at the current system. We won’t accomplish it by claiming that President Obama and Democrats are completely controlled by regressive billionnaires. It’s not true, and it’s incredibly crippling to our movement to cause people to infer that they are.
“We won’t accomplish it by claiming that President Obama and Democrats are completely controlled by regressive billionnaires. It’s not true, and it’s incredibly crippling to our movement to cause people to infer that they are. “
It’s not? Who negotiated TPP?
Whose movement? The regressive billionaires movement?
Check out the dollar amounts for these districts. 10th Denham, 21st Valadao, 25th Knight, 39th Royce, 45th Walters, 48th Rorhrabacher, 49th Issa. These aren’t among the cheapest seats.
Democrats only put serious money into two of those races in 2016 — the 25th (with their helicopter candidate) and 49th (Applegate (no prior political office) is preparing for a rematch with Issa in ’18). Regardless of how much the D raises and spends in the 49th, Issa will spend three times that amount.
Here’s what I see. The past race maxed at roughly $5 million for the most expensive seat or about $28/vote to win.
The primary system now in place in California means fielding two strong candidates for office who can play tag team in the primary and hold their defining attacks on each other until the general election (assuming both win). That doubles the amount needed in the primary.
At the same time, Democrats need to have a communication strategy that does not focus on money spent but votes delivered. And it must be capable of putting Issa quickly at the saturation point that the more he spends the fewer votes he holds. There likely is someone in California who can figure out how to do that — possibly 53 someones who can figure out how to allow the GOP candidates to waste their own money and their supporters’.
And someone needs a draft of a solid single-payer health care reform bill that does what it promises and can be slammed through in the opening of the legislature. And model legislation for the other progressive policies to enact. Something that California can pass, test, and other states can imitate with an argument based on California’s performance.
You’re making the argument for a progressive version of ALEC. Sounds good.
I am indeed. And the argument that some good strong progressive folks in California should prototype it for pressure on their legislature.
My vision has to do with (1) Substantial infrastructure that includes non-privatized services for all of public transportation, renewable energy, rural telecommunications, rural and urban medical “desert” health care providers, basic liberal education (in the old common school sense), employment-directed general training, income maintenance during periods of unemployment, state level social security supplement program to hedge against austerity at the federal level. (2) Election protection that ensures honest counts, possibly eliminating registration altogether if there is some other way of establishing proof of residency. That one needs thought. Paper ballot primary record that is available for recount. Suspension of ads 30 days before the election. Shortened campaign season. Essentially ways of getting campaigns out of the marketing frame of selling bullshit. Protections for minority communities against harassment, misallocation of election day assets, caging campaigns with strong evidentiary rules and penalties for violation. (3) Hold harmless taxation that expands state taxes to provide state funds to offset cuts in federal funds that provide cuts to federal taxes. (4) Putting state finances on something more realistic than a year-by-year balanced budget. Separating finance for infrastructure (construction and maintenance) accounts from infrastructure operating accounts. End attempts to finance infrastructure out of user fees. Establishing a contingency fund for weather emergencies. Establish a state bank like the Bank of North Dakota for public finance. Pull back funds from risky assets (especially CalPers use of private funds). (5) Severance taxes on natural resources (including timber) stripped from the state. This is a supply-demand mechanism to protect natural resources; revenue generation is a by-product. (6) End to water subsidies for non-drinking uses. Begin transition of water systems to prioritizing drinking water. (7) Public participation in managing stormwater on their own property as part of overall stormwater management strategy.
That’s part of my general template for any state. It assumes and forces devolution of power and responsibility to the state level on progressive terms. It creates state institutions that can be recipients of funding should the federal government once again get generous with domestic funding. It works to protect natural resources by pricing them in private accounting systems. How to deal with reserves and carrying capacities is something to think through on a state-by-state basis.
And an end to early voting. At least voting a month or more out. I could go with a week of voting. But voting before a campaign gets off the ground is ridiculous.
I have argued that Comey’s remarks had little effect because few people paid attention. A better argument might be that most votes were already locked in.
Few people paid attention to Comey’s remarks plastered all over front pages and news cycle right before the election? How can you possibly believe this?
Because most people tune out political news. Sports on the other hand…
Ask a random sample who Comey is. Don’t forget, 17% of them think chocolate milk comes from brown cows and 42% don’t know where chocolate milk comes from.
Public funding of elections? Maybe debates that are not orchestrated press conferences but actually debates where candidates present a platform and attack the others’ platform then rebut the rebuttal?
The Presidential debates are a joke. I saw much better debates for High School Class President.
Nope. CA 23 was just over $8 million, and all but $35 thousand of that was spent by the incumbent McCarthy.
CA 49 spending totaled $8.3 million (Issa $6.3 million and Applegate $2 million.)
Huh? Who is going to field those “two strong candidates” and where are they going to get them from? Except in the most lopsided districts (ie CD 12 and 17), it makes zero sense for either party to split its primary vote unless they don’t want to make it to the general.
Because it should be of interest to readers here and it’s current and news:
The Week – How the Supreme Court just dangerously undermined the separation of church and state
Sotomayor keeps hitting it out of the park.