Has anyone asked AOC if Tim Ryan should be primaried?

[dansolo]

Most of the reps who are challenging Nancy Pelosi are much more conservative than she is. If AOC wants to shift the party leftward, maybe she should start with them. Somehow, I suspect she won't bother, because I think the real strategy is to pick off the easy seats that are already heavily Democratic.

[pwb]

1. I haven't.

[Celerity]

2. actually most of areas that the progressives won primaries in were ruby red districts

They went after less Democratic incumbents in completely safe Democratic seats than they did in more competitive and/or red districts. A couple got a lot of attention so it made the number seem larger.

The main one (probably the only one) I was most disappointed they (not just them, pretty much everybody else at a national and statewide level) failed at was helping Marie Newman win in Illinois. She was one of the few challengers who had almost universal support across the board, from Emily's List to Bernie, from National Organization for Women to Indivisible, from Our Revolution to Planned Parenthood, from Illinois Federation of Teachers to the SEIU, from Gloria Steinem to NARAL, From Justice Democrats to MoveOn.org, from the Human Rights Campaign to the Daily Kos, from LPAC to a bunch of sitting congresspeople.

She was running against arguably the worst Democrat in Congress, the pro-life, anti-immigrant (voted against the Dream Act and for Republican border security bills), anti Obamacare, anti LGBTQ (voted for DOMA and is openly against gay marriage), anti Obama himself (he refused to endorse him) anti stem cell research, etc etc Dan Lipinski. It is as safe a district for us as is almost possible, as it has been in Democratic hands since the 1950's, other than for 2 years after the Nixon 1972 massive landslide.

Lipinski eeked out a victory mainly because around 1 million dollars came flooding in at the end from No Labels and other Lieberman affiliated centre right groups (many of them supported with Republican money as well as centrist Democratic money) that hammered and smeared Newman with a shit tonne of adverts and direct mailings.

I so hope she (or anyone!) goes after Lipinski again in 2020. His views are repugnant to me, especially as a lesbian PoC.

[still_one]

3. The Lipinksi episode is a direct result of Open Primaries, which the "our revolution" gang

fully embraces. Open primaries encourage non-Democrats to participate in selecting the Democratic nominees in the general election, and that is exactly what happened with Newman. There is no doubt Newman would have won if not for registered republicans crossing over and voting for Lipinski in the primary

Open primaries leaves party nominations vulnerable to manipulation and dilution, and it is not unheard of where one party organizes its voters to vote in the other party's primary to help choose a candidate they most agree with, (Lipinski voted by republicans because of his R/W agenda), or help select a candidate they think their party could most easily defeat.

[Celerity]

4. I am for semi closed primaries and no caucuses

Semi closed bans Repuglicans and other trouble makers from playing spoiler but still allows actual unaffiliated (once they vote in a primary they cannot switch back and vote in another parties primary) to have a voice.

Caucuses and superdelegates both gotta go go go.

Was there actual evidence that rethugs crossed over in numbers large enough to swing it to Lipinski? Would love a link, if possible.

[still_one]

5. we agree

[Celerity]

6. Woot!

[Hortensis]

7. Also agree most things, but unfortunately can't be for semi-closed

in this era because it still leaves too much opportunity for pernicious interference. I believe we don't dare. Not now.

Political scientists say this pattern of very close races is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, promising intense competition for the minds of voters, if only temporarily.

Dysfunctional and destabilizing extreme partisanship will continue for some time, see above.

A large portion of the populace are not affiliated with either party but still vote reliably for one or the other. Many are still Republicans in the only way it really matters.

There are huge numbers of nonvoters, virtually all of whom have leanings just like independents, and some of them could be mobilized to act as spoilers in our primary by some event or, again, pernicious influence.

There must be studies on how semi-closed could be safely done. Perhaps simply disallowing all who voted against a Democratic candidate in the last election in which they voted would create an adequate balance between protection and open democracy. We have the electronics and the databases to implement that.

Agree, definitely lose caucuses.

Keep superdelegates. We're not them, and that's our first line of defense from a Trump-style event with a charismatic but obviously unfit and dangerous leader, but 2016 demonstrated that it could happen. It's far from guaranteed that the safety net they provide would save us, but in this era I really think we need to try to be safe.

We're in a new world of information that's being used to undermine, with intent to destroy, liberal democracies around the planet, and we're not only just learning, often afterward, what forms attacks are taking and what we need to do, but also still far from designing and implementing the new protections we must have. So itm keep what we have.

[Celerity]

9. i can see the point about semi closed without proper checks, but I am absolutely against

super-delegates. They are a priori undemocratic. One person's threat is another person's best candidate ever. If super-delegates were ever used to stop a clear front runner who was just short of the required number with no one else close, you would rip the party apart. The candidate who got SD'd out may bolt and run 3rd party, and even if they didn't many of their supporters will either not vote or switch and vote for the rethug. 2008 was very bitter, and SD's were a large part of the bitterness. 20% (and some studies showed even higher than 20%) of HRC voters went over to McCain. That was double (or more) the rate Bernie voters flipped, (around 10%) That 20% flip could have been disastrous.

Imagine the damage it would have done to our multi-ethnic coalition if the SD's had all, (or mostly) done what Hillary was trying to get them to do and denied Obama, who had a clear edge in pledged delegates. It would have been catastrophic. Why put a potential landmine like that as an option? It is asking for a massive schism.

We have no Trump style maniacs, its extraordinarily unlikely we would ever come close to nominating a true monster like that fucker. I just have to side with one person, one vote. It is literally the essence of democracy. Giving more power to some over the others reeks of the horrific 3/5ths compromise that involved people of my partial racial background that only ended after the Civil War, with the 13th Amendment.

[Hortensis]

10. Again, we really agree. We do see ourselves at different

points in history.

Our children have to live in the nation we leave them, and we've not only seen what people are capable of but how shockingly and quickly we've become a nation that will support or remain ineffectual while our government commits genuine, previously unthinkable atrocities. Authoritarianism is the right's solution to their problem of the demographic progression, and the cowed and helpless survival stage would not be far ahead at this speed.

The vote is our power. If it became meaningless, what would happen then to the newly empowered 13% of black Americans? Or to women? The 2% who are Jews and the <1% who are Muslim?

Remember when Dr. Franklin told a woman friend who asked him what kind of government the constitutional convention had given them and he told her, "A republic, if you can keep it?" I believe we are at another "if we can keep it" moment.

[bigtree]

8. so you make the point that almost all of the opposition to Rep. Pelosi is coming from centrists

...but you bend backwards to blame AOC.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, btw, is supporting Nancy Pelosi as speaker.

TPM:

Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a freshman representative belonging to the progressive faction of the House delegation, said Monday that she currently backs Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for speaker, since Pelosi is the “most progressive candidate” running.

“Right now, out of the field, I would say that she is the most progressive candidate,” Ocasio-Cortez said on her Instagram Live where she often takes questions from constituents. “All of the rebellion for the speakership are challenges to her right, and so I think it’s important to communicate that.”

“My standard in this is: I’m going to support the most progressive candidate that’s leading the party and right now that is Nancy Pelosi, in terms of running,” she continued. “I would like to see new, younger leadership, but I don’t want new leadership that’s more conservative.”

OOOOPS!