DNC selects convention committees, signals that progressives aren't wanted.

[crimson5pheonix]

Find a state by state breakdown and we can talk, remember the DNC already won NYC and CA, they need to win the mid west/Florida.

Also it sounds like that poll was conducted with a two step question, ie Q1 "do you support national health plan" and Q2 "why/why not?" which is not the same as having the first question being "do you support national heath plan in exchange for a large increase in taxation".

Pssst, I don't know if you know, but the "centrist purple candidate and platform" lost everywhere except NY and CA, it's why we have Trump right now, because liberalism lost everywhere.

Also that is some absurdly loaded phrasing, that also is misleading since it can be paid for through closing loopholes and the only people getting a serious tax hike are those earning more than 10 million. Misinformation by the uninformed is a greater threat than Republican voters.

 

[Revnak]

Burning down a precinct building has higher national support than Biden and we’re still arguing whether centrist Dems are actually unpopular.
Edit- please do not go into detail on the poll that is used to make this argument, I’ve read it several times and understand this is not the literal case I am just being hyperbolic for effect.

 

[meiam]

Pssst, I don't know if you know, but the "centrist purple candidate and platform" lost everywhere except NY and CA, it's why we have Trump right now, because liberalism lost everywhere.

Also that is some absurdly loaded phrasing, that also is misleading since it can be paid for through closing loopholes and the only people getting a serious tax hike are those earning more than 10 million. Misinformation by the uninformed is a greater threat than Republican voters.

Look at every governor who won state that Trump won, their pretty much all centrist, no progressive there.

Saying something can be paid by closing loophole make no sense, if loophole were easy to close it would have been done long ago (problem are either technical or political). And anyway, you could formulate the question as: "If a large amount of money is saved by closing loophole, do you believe this money should be spend on medicare for all or lowering tax?". People like free stuff, but lots of people, at least in the state that need to flip, don't necessarily want money to go toward. If a policy is only supported if you act like it's free, it'll never survive a real political test.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Look at every governor who won state that Trump won, their pretty much all centrist, no progressive there.

The enthusiasm, however, is for progressive candidates. The centrist dems are losing primaries across the country as we speak. Right now there is a very good chance that McConnell will be running against a black progressive in November and I'll bet the progressive will do better than McConnell's previous opponents. That hardcore Republicans have to be catered to is a misinformation campaign by centrist Dems who would rather cater to them than to their own base, because it's more profitable.

Being a mouthpiece for them isn't a convincing stance.

Saying something can be paid by closing loophole make no sense, if loophole were easy to close it would have been done long ago (problem are either technical or political).

Wow, and people call me cynical. You are however correct that there is a problem with closing loopholes. The problem is that centrist candidates keep getting in and jacking them wide open. So quite simply, having the people in charge who would institute progressive policies, will also close loopholes.

And anyway, you could formulate the question as: "If a large amount of money is saved by closing loophole, do you believe this money should be spend on medicare for all or lowering tax?". People like free stuff, but lots of people, at least in the state that need to flip, don't necessarily want money to go toward. If a policy is only supported if you act like it's free, it'll never survive a real political test.

This is inane. Your first point was "M4A is unpopular when you lie to people about it", which is a silly ass point, and when I point out that it's a lie you have to change how it's framed.

How about this, if your objection relies on lies and deliberately misframing the facts, maybe you don't actually have a real political point to make?

 

[Eacaraxe]

I'm curious about what's going on here. Could you give me some context on who many of these people are? Aside from AOC and Clinton, I don't recognize those names.

Well, AOC won NY-14, obviously.

The other key race was NY-16, where Eliot Engel (a corporate, war hawk Dem who has held the seat for 31 years and was ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) was successfully primaried by progressive challenger Bowman. Engel wasn't particularly popular among his constituents and progressives writ large, because he actually lived in MD and just had a residence in the district for the sake of eligibility, and spent practically zero time in the district let alone to listen to constituents. Moreover, he recently planted his foot right in the shit being caught on a hot mic basically saying he only gave a shit about BLM protests because it was an election year.

NY-17 gets a special notation, because it was an open seat and the candidate field was basically a clown car of usual suspect Democrats, the big three being a prosecutor, an Obama admin official, and a state senator. The progressive candidate, Jones, basically blew everyone else out of the water.

The VA-1 primary was noteworthy because Rashid is a Muslim immigrant lawyer, and a Justice Democrats/DSA candidate (more or less) running against an "anointed one" Democratic candidate.

The CO primary is a strange pickle. Romanoff was a Clinton Democrat, and if anyone remembers he's the one who was involved in the pay-for-play scandal with the Obama administration back in '09 (he was offered a position in the administration to not challenge Michael Bennet); since then he's "drifted left", which really means "he stayed in place while the Democrats yeeted right". He's not a perfect candidate, but on the other hand he's hardly a corporate Democrat neck-deep in corruption allegations who's pledged to block the GND.

The KY Senate race is the one to watch, and that's where Booker comes in. He's running against Amy McGrath, to challenge McConnell in November. McGrath's cunning "plan" is to run to McConnell's right as a pro-Trump Democrat, because national Democrats "have it in their head" the only way to beat McConnell is to out-moron him and try to undermine his support in rural and eastern Kentucky. And as you'd expect, basically all her support and funding is coming from out of state and from corporate/conservative/GOP donors, and in-state Democrats are pretty much all behind Booker especially once people started noticing he had startlingly-high approval ratings in rural and eastern Kentucky.

In other words, national Democrats have no intention of actually beating McConnell, and prefer having him around to keep the campaign cash flowing, while having a convenient bogeyman to blame any time Democratic Senators shit the bed. If you're a corporate Democrat, the very last thing you want is anyone but McConnell's ass in the Senate Majority Leader's chair. Which is exactly why McConnell's opposition in every Senate race since '96 has been a laundry list of the most wet noodle, piss-rag, electoral lost-causers they can find in the state. If you're up against McConnell, having the party's support basically means you're jobbing; you're not there to win, you're there to convince people you're trying to win.

Why establishment Democrats are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Booker, is because of two things. First, for the party elites, he has zero intention of throwing the race if he's nominated and if he makes it past McGrath he can easily beat McConnell. Second, for everybody else is the fact he's black, and not just black, from "the wrong part of Louisville"; Booker has a bigger shot of bringing eastern and rural Kentuckian voters back into the fold because he'll bring populist fire to the race and that's going to play well in coal country, and most of the racists in Kentucky are straight-ticket Republican voters nowadays and wouldn't punch a (D) ticket if you ran Nathan Bedford Forrest's corpse on it.

 

[Revnak]

Well, AOC won NY-14, obviously.

The other key race was NY-16, where Eliot Engel (a corporate, war hawk Dem who has held the seat for 31 years and was ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) was successfully primaried by progressive challenger Bowman. Engel wasn't particularly popular among his constituents and progressives writ large, because he actually lived in MD and just had a residence in the district for the sake of eligibility, and spent practically zero time in the district let alone to listen to constituents. Moreover, he recently planted his foot right in the shit being caught on a hot mic basically saying he only gave a shit about BLM protests because it was an election year.

NY-17 gets a special notation, because it was an open seat and the candidate field was basically a clown car of usual suspect Democrats, the big three being a prosecutor, an Obama admin official, and a state senator. The progressive candidate, Jones, basically blew everyone else out of the water.

The VA-1 primary was noteworthy because Rashid is a Muslim immigrant lawyer, and a Justice Democrats/DSA candidate (more or less) running against an "anointed one" Democratic candidate.

The CO primary is a strange pickle. Romanoff was a Clinton Democrat, and if anyone remembers he's the one who was involved in the pay-for-play scandal with the Obama administration back in '09 (he was offered a position in the administration to not challenge Michael Bennet); since then he's "drifted left", which really means "he stayed in place while the Democrats yeeted right". He's not a perfect candidate, but on the other hand he's hardly a corporate Democrat neck-deep in corruption allegations who's pledged to block the GND.

The KY Senate race is the one to watch, and that's where Booker comes in. He's running against Amy McGrath, to challenge McConnell in November. McGrath's cunning "plan" is to run to McConnell's right as a pro-Trump Democrat, because national Democrats "have it in their head" the only way to beat McConnell is to out-moron him and try to undermine his support in rural and eastern Kentucky. And as you'd expect, basically all her support and funding is coming from out of state and from corporate/conservative/GOP donors, and in-state Democrats are pretty much all behind Booker especially once people started noticing he had startlingly-high approval ratings in rural and eastern Kentucky.

In other words, national Democrats have no intention of actually beating McConnell, and prefer having him around to keep the campaign cash flowing, while having a convenient bogeyman to blame any time Democratic Senators shit the bed. If you're a corporate Democrat, the very last thing you want is anyone but McConnell's ass in the Senate Majority Leader's chair. Which is exactly why McConnell's opposition in every Senate race since '96 has been a laundry list of the most wet noodle, piss-rag, electoral lost-causers they can find in the state. If you're up against McConnell, having the party's support basically means you're jobbing; you're not there to win, you're there to convince people you're trying to win.

Why establishment Democrats are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Booker, is because of two things. First, for the party elites, he has zero intention of throwing the race if he's nominated and if he makes it past McGrath he can easily beat McConnell. Second, for everybody else is the fact he's black, and not just black, from "the wrong part of Louisville"; Booker has a bigger shot of bringing eastern and rural Kentuckian voters back into the fold because he'll bring populist fire to the race and that's going to play well in coal country, and most of the racists in Kentucky are straight-ticket Republican voters nowadays and wouldn't punch a (D) ticket if you ran Nathan Bedford Forrest's corpse on it.

I want Booker to win so goddamn bad. Honestly may be the most important race to me at this point.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Well, AOC won NY-14, obviously.

The other key race was NY-16, where Eliot Engel (a corporate, war hawk Dem who has held the seat for 31 years and was ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) was successfully primaried by progressive challenger Bowman. Engel wasn't particularly popular among his constituents and progressives writ large, because he actually lived in MD and just had a residence in the district for the sake of eligibility, and spent practically zero time in the district let alone to listen to constituents. Moreover, he recently planted his foot right in the shit being caught on a hot mic basically saying he only gave a shit about BLM protests because it was an election year.

NY-17 gets a special notation, because it was an open seat and the candidate field was basically a clown car of usual suspect Democrats, the big three being a prosecutor, an Obama admin official, and a state senator. The progressive candidate, Jones, basically blew everyone else out of the water.

The VA-1 primary was noteworthy because Rashid is a Muslim immigrant lawyer, and a Justice Democrats/DSA candidate (more or less) running against an "anointed one" Democratic candidate.

The CO primary is a strange pickle. Romanoff was a Clinton Democrat, and if anyone remembers he's the one who was involved in the pay-for-play scandal with the Obama administration back in '09 (he was offered a position in the administration to not challenge Michael Bennet); since then he's "drifted left", which really means "he stayed in place while the Democrats yeeted right". He's not a perfect candidate, but on the other hand he's hardly a corporate Democrat neck-deep in corruption allegations who's pledged to block the GND.

The KY Senate race is the one to watch, and that's where Booker comes in. He's running against Amy McGrath, to challenge McConnell in November. McGrath's cunning "plan" is to run to McConnell's right as a pro-Trump Democrat, because national Democrats "have it in their head" the only way to beat McConnell is to out-moron him and try to undermine his support in rural and eastern Kentucky. And as you'd expect, basically all her support and funding is coming from out of state and from corporate/conservative/GOP donors, and in-state Democrats are pretty much all behind Booker especially once people started noticing he had startlingly-high approval ratings in rural and eastern Kentucky.

In other words, national Democrats have no intention of actually beating McConnell, and prefer having him around to keep the campaign cash flowing, while having a convenient bogeyman to blame any time Democratic Senators shit the bed. If you're a corporate Democrat, the very last thing you want is anyone but McConnell's ass in the Senate Majority Leader's chair. Which is exactly why McConnell's opposition in every Senate race since '96 has been a laundry list of the most wet noodle, piss-rag, electoral lost-causers they can find in the state. If you're up against McConnell, having the party's support basically means you're jobbing; you're not there to win, you're there to convince people you're trying to win.

Why establishment Democrats are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Booker, is because of two things. First, for the party elites, he has zero intention of throwing the race if he's nominated and if he makes it past McGrath he can easily beat McConnell. Second, for everybody else is the fact he's black, and not just black, from "the wrong part of Louisville"; Booker has a bigger shot of bringing eastern and rural Kentuckian voters back into the fold because he'll bring populist fire to the race and that's going to play well in coal country, and most of the racists in Kentucky are straight-ticket Republican voters nowadays and wouldn't punch a (D) ticket if you ran Nathan Bedford Forrest's corpse on it.

Thank you very much. That was very informative.

 

[Kwak]

where Eliot Engel (a corporate, war hawk Dem who has held the seat for 31 years and was ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) ...Moreover, he recently planted his foot right in the shit being caught on a hot mic basically saying he only gave a shit about BLM protests because it was an election year.

You made me google.

(CNN)Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel was caught on a hot mic at a news conference on Tuesday following civil unrest in New York City, appearing to tell another speaker that he only wanted to speak because of his primary race.
In the video, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. appears to be telling Engel, the Democratic chairman of the influential House Foreign Affairs Committee, that he has a list of other people who need to speak regarding civil unrest that took place in the borough the previous day.
Diaz told Engel appreciates the congressman being there. Engel is then heard saying, "if I didn't have a primary, I wouldn't care."

 

[Agema]

That one's hard. The ongoing theme is that progressive policies are widely popular even among Republicans, until you call them what they're called in the media. For example expanding Medicare to cover everyone is popular among all voting groups, but Medicare for All loses support among Republicans.

Sort of. But having better policies doesn't necessarily win elections, as UK's Labour Party found out in 2015 and 2019. (In 2017-19, the Conservatives had shifted electoral promises significantly leftwards, realising they were taking a beating in that area.)

I think a substantial number of voters don't primarily vote on policy. When we say that people support policies but not when they have a certain name in the media, it means they don't vote on policy. Some people will look at the policies, and their heads will say one party is a better choice. But they've always voted for the other party before now, they walk into the voting booth vote with their heart instead. Some look at the candidates and think "Who seems like my kind of person?", which perhaps includes that a voter might like a candidate X's policies, but won't support who they perceive to be a feminist, BLM-supporting, hand-wringing liberal. Then there's the phenomenon where majorities of the population both want lower taxes and more government spending - does the entire policy package actually add up holistically, particularly when the question may arrive of how it's all paid for.

Again to go back to the UK, one of the persistent attitudes in the UK is that the Conservatives are better at running the economy. Why? I'm not remotely convinced this is true. The Conservatives for instance blame Labour for national debt, except it turns out that postwar, the Tories have a worse record on running up national debt than Labour does. By 2016, the Tories had run up about ~67% of the UK's postwar debt despite being in power for only ~63% of the time, which works out as running annual deficits 20% higher on average. Labour has had some major economic problems whilst in power, for instance the pound devaluation in the 60s and the three day week in the 70s. But so have the Tories - stock market crashes, massive unemployment, the ERM debacle. But the Tories seem to have a Teflon-like coating when it comes to economic foul-ups: it seems to be "Oh well, these things happen", where for Labour similar problems are proof of their inherent incompetence. Thus the Tories can run the country, drive it into a dtich, and then successfully argue "Hey guys, you need us to get out of this mess!" even with less popular policies.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Sort of. But having better policies doesn't necessarily win elections, as UK's Labour Party found out in 2015 and 2019. (In 2017-19, the Conservatives had shifted electoral promises significantly leftwards, realising they were taking a beating in that area.)

I think a substantial number of voters don't primarily vote on policy. When we say that people support policies but not when they have a certain name in the media, it means they don't vote on policy. Some people will look at the policies, and their heads will say one party is a better choice. But they've always voted for the other party before now, they walk into the voting booth vote with their heart instead. Some look at the candidates and think "Who seems like my kind of person?", which perhaps includes that a voter might like a candidate X's policies, but won't support who they perceive to be a feminist, BLM-supporting, hand-wringing liberal. Then there's the phenomenon where majorities of the population both want lower taxes and more government spending - does the entire policy package actually add up holistically, particularly when the question may arrive of how it's all paid for.

Again to go back to the UK, one of the persistent attitudes in the UK is that the Conservatives are better at running the economy. Why? I'm not remotely convinced this is true. The Conservatives for instance blame Labour for national debt, except it turns out that postwar, the Tories have a worse record on running up national debt than Labour does. By 2016, the Tories had run up about ~67% of the UK's postwar debt despite being in power for only ~63% of the time, which works out as running annual deficits 20% higher on average. Labour has had some major economic problems whilst in power, for instance the pound devaluation in the 60s and the three day week in the 70s. But so have the Tories - stock market crashes, massive unemployment, the ERM debacle. But the Tories seem to have a Teflon-like coating when it comes to economic foul-ups: it seems to be "Oh well, these things happen", where for Labour similar problems are proof of their inherent incompetence. Thus the Tories can run the country, drive it into a dtich, and then successfully argue "Hey guys, you need us to get out of this mess!" even with less popular policies.

Well that is the question being faced here right now. Decades of failed policy is being taken to task, and one of the parties at fault for it want an electorate that flat out ignores policy entirely to just vote on brand. That's their message, strategy, and structure. And at the most charitable, an extremely extensive part of the voting base absolutely will not let that slide and want actual policy.

 

[Eacaraxe]

I want Booker to win so goddamn bad. Honestly may be the most important race to me at this point.

It pretty much is, in more ways than I can account for off the top of my head. There's the fact the PMC/labor divide in the post-civil rights party has grown irreconcilable after nearly two decades of unsustainability; there's the rural/urban and coastal/heartland divides in the party, and the incapacity of Democratic party elites to communicate with rural and Rust Belt voters; growing structural and organizational incompetence in the party; generational and racial divides in Democratic voters; and more. Kentucky's been the shadow bellwether for the future of Democratic politics for damn near thirty years, and unless you're a Kentuckian or from the Ohio valley, you're not going to see it because you're not permitted to see it.