Now HERE’S a Candidate We Can All Support…But Be Careful
WARNING: IF YOU ARE A DIEHARD HILLARY SUPPORTER, PLEASE SKIP THIS POST AND GO TO THE NEXT. I’M SERIOUS, GO TO THE NEXT.
Yesterday, the New York Post floated Caroline Kennedy as a possible Senate candidate from New York in 2018 and possibly president in 2020. Coming home after a successful Ambassadorship to Japan (and summarily fired by Cheeto Jesus on Friday), she is apparently weighing a Senate run and there is speculation she could run for president in 2020. In the article, the Post said that she could be the “next Hillary Clinton, but without the Clinton baggage”. For God’s sake, let’s not call her the “next Hillary”. Talk about jinxing her before she ever gets started.
I know this is going to piss off my Hillary friends (hence the above warning), but the last thing we need is to invoke Hillary’s name with a candidate who could very likely be a winner, especially against the clown infesting the Whitehouse for the last 4 days. Hillary not only has a trainload of baggage, she also sucked as a candidate. And I mean SUCKED. What highly qualified white woman could possibly lose the white female vote in a national election? Hillary. What woman candidate could possibly lose in labor states against a misogynistic narcissistic billionaire who’s never worked a day in his life? Hillary. What candidate could possibly lose a national election to the Worst Candidate in History? Hillary. The last goddam thing (sorry, Momma) we need is for Caroline Kennedy to be tainted with all that nonsense that followed Hillary around, a lot of it brought on, or made worse by her. The right will have enough ammo raising the ghost of Teddy Kennedy; we don’t need to give them more ammo by connecting her to Hillary.
Kennedy has the right last name, is HIGHLY qualified, and could burnish her record even more by a short stint in the Senate. She just needs to stay as far away from Hillary as possible to minimize the damage. Hillary would be great in those closed, high dollar geriatric Clinton-style fundraisers, but she’d be a gigantic liability on the stump for Kennedy, especially with millennials, with the possible exception of parts of California and New York.
So, please, please, please, when you talk about Caroline Kennedy, don’t shipwreck her by making comparisons to Hillary.
I’m begging you.
El Jefe, we’d be happy to support Caroline Kennedy. She has the chops, the experience and the intelligence to serve us well. She cannot “miss” in the whiny red districts either. CK has a wealth of grassroots street creds from which to draw. Her cousin Rory Kennedy knows Appalachia and Joe Manchin’s state better than he does.
Mrs. B. and ladies, can I say this? I mean it well. Really I do. But can a man say: “bring on the ladies with brains without sounding sexist?”
Really. Something all politicians should have learned. America wants change. President Obama offered change; Bernie offered change; Donnie faked chump change and won.
So, it stands to reason that more women in government is the change America needs and wants.
1I get that Hillary has baggage, but I think you are ignoring the huge obstacles she faced with Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts. Democrats need good candidates, but we also need to fix the system so that it is fair. Here is a good video:
2https://www.facebook.com/fusionmedianetwork/videos/1764531503572820/
Maybe the lesson we should learn from the improbable wins by President Obama and Hair Drumpf is that a lifetime of public service is not seen as overwhelming reason to elect one President. It that were true 100% we would not speak of Bush 43 not Hair Drumpf. So it is possible that a few years of activity, visible on television, with a leadership position – in these cases a short spell as Senator or short spells as a billionaire between bankruptcies – is the current prescription for POTUS success. Caroline Kennedy has expressed Senate interest before, and although I don’t vote in New Yawk I’d modestly support her in a Senate run with the Presidency as the goal. BTW the family relationship to Ted Kennedy isn’t necessarily an impediment. On balance, politico Ted Kennedy, did far more “right” than “wrong”.
That said the conservatives will immediately draw the Hilary parallel. Caroline’s kitchen cabinet should be prepared for that inevitability and remember, “it’s the economy’.
3Kennedy was going to run for Hillary’s senate seat in 2008 but dropped out for “family reasons.” She had a couple of cringe-worthy interviews that blew her chances.
“A TV interview with a New York cable station has become a YouTube hit, not for its political content but the sound of Kennedy, 51, using the phrase ‘you know’ 30 times.
In an interview with the New York Times she used the same phrase 142 times, leading to one political commentator urging her to seek elocution lessons. Other interviews contained a high number of ‘ums’.
Commentators pointed out her lack of speaking skills while one said she had used her married name of Schlossberg until recently.
Until announcing her Senate bid, Ms Kennedy, a mother of three, has shunned the limelight, preferring to concentrate on her charity work.
She had been accused of ducking interviews to talk about why she wanted Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat.”
4I don’t know anything about the lady other than that she seems like a class act. But so was Hillary. What would concern me is the hay that repugnantcans have made with the whole dynasty thing. And as fresh, or brilliant as she probably is, that seems like a link to Hillary. It’s a stretch. For us. But the 30% of our citizens who voted for Donnie are so conditioned to dog whistles the it doesn’t take much.
5Not gonna happen. She dropped out of the earlier Senate race when she was told that she would have to release her financial and tax returns to the public. Also, there were rumors about an alleged affair with Michael Bloomberg (and hints that there might be others).
She took her mother’s famous insistence on privacy to heart and she doesn’t want to give that up to the extent that she would have to in order to be elected.
6P.P. no one had baggage like Hilz, some deserved, some not. Hilz was a hefty lift and we lost. Donnie’s current 28% popularity and supporters are nothing we need to worry about nor any other feces the snacilbupeR care to fling.
Let’s elect fighters and not fall into the false “purity test” the snacilbupeR would ensnare us. If we like them, know they’re fighters, then let’s support candidates who can win to take back the Senate and House.
TexasTrailerParkTrash, piss on the snacilbupeR “purity test” and let’s focus on candidates who can win. I’m with you on ‘slaying’ blue dogs like Joe Manchin, but let’s not lose focus and inadvertently create openings for the snacilbupeR.
We lost ground in 2016, but we made progress, too. Maggie Hassan, Catherine Cortez Masto and Kamala Harris won Senate seats. Explore the potential and win. Just a guess, but maybe Cecile Richards and/or Jennifer Graham would be available to unseat a couple of snacilbuepR.
What ya think, Texas? Cecile Richards to unseat Teddie Crooze?
7Even President Obama had to learn to deal with the ‘uuums’ at first, but came to be a really great speaker.
So, yes to Caroline, but first I’d be an Elizabethan since she stands for stuff and is articulate enough to deliver it.
I guess you see I’m a leaner toward women, for no for sure reason, but if I had to make a gun-to-my-head statement of whether to trust women politicians or my own ruined sort, I’d say the ‘fairer” sex often seems to be more fairer. But, should that be the case, please take note we’ve had perfectly qualified women candidates in Kentucky, Louisiana and for the Presidency who lost important races because they listened and groomed their campaigns according to scairdy-cat political consultants and polls, and their messages were vanilla wafer neutral–all worried about offending somebody who probably wasn’t going to vote anyway. In the Kentucky and Louisiana senate races, the democrat candidates ran as if they were running against our sitting President and often adopted the republican position on issues.
If you want to win, you gotta stand for something, and be bold enough to say it.
8I think the Kennedy name is a big weight, as is the “dynasty” thing. I’m much more behind Elizabeth Warren, who’s brainy, a fantastic speaker, embodies integrity, and is beloved by the progressive wing of the party, which is the future.
9El Jefe. A harsh comment totally out of line. You sound like Trump on the campaign trail. Imperfect human beings expecting perfection from other imperfect humans.
10@Jane & PKM–I’m not sure how you got “purity test” out of my post, or references to Joe Manchin. I was only trying to point out that Caroline has not been especially articulate in the past as to why she wanted to run for the senate. Anyone who uses “you know” 142 times in one interview is going to be eaten alive.
I live in rural Texas, and Cecile Richards would have a snowball’s chance in hell of unseating Ted Cruz. Our new state rep., Kyle Biedermann, defeated the incumbent Republican by painting him as “too liberal,” which is laughable. Now Biedermann is out to find out if any Muslims living in Texas can be trusted. This is what we’re up against.
11My personal script is that Hillary, despite being possibly the most qualified person to be POTUS, ever, is the worst candidate to run for the office (I mean, look who she lost to). I believe that somebody, round about 30 years ago, decided she was the smart Clinton, and started tarring her with anything and everything that could stick. Starting with the cookie baking incident, and being so close to a scandal auto-generator only eclipsed by Weiner, it’s a wonder she can still move with the collective weight of all that innuendo. I admire her, truly, for all she has accomplished and attempted. BUT, she is simply poisonous to public attempts at furthering Progressive causes. It is sad that the Rethugs succeeded, but that, in my opinion, is her reality.
12@Old Fart—The tarring of Hillary began way before the cookie baking incident. I worked as a dental hygienist in a rabid right-wing office in California from 1989-1996. This was pre-internet. One day I was in our break room and came across a copy of the magazine “The American Spectator.” I could not believe what I was reading. All this crap about the Clintons murdering Vince Foster, etc., etc. At that time I had no idea this stuff was out there. So, yeah, this has been going on for a long time.
13I know you said not to read it, but you put it here in the Beauty Salon, knowing full well there are some customers who are REALLY weary of Hillary bashing. I do read what is posted here, including comments, because I like the different perspectives. But it is time for you to let go of your Hillary issues, or at least keep them to yourself. It’s not helpful.
14Caroline Kennedy? Really? Do we have no newer Democratic talent to offer? If not, we’d better start creating some, because I can already hear Republicans yawping about Democratic attempts to create a dynasty, again (Bush? Bush who? Never happened). We aren’t going to win elections by harking back to the past when our candidates bear the burden of so much baggage connected with their names. Please, look for TODAY’S best and brightest, and promote them! Getting rid of Republican gerrymandering would help, too; but that may be impossible before 2020, so we need a candidate with both talent and charisma. Start looking!
15TexasTrailerParkTrash, “purity test” rose from the number of “ums” or whatever CK might have said and was only meant as a suggestion that if that’s her worst fault, we can work with her. To a point, we can even work with Joe Manchin. Just sayin’ we can work with ‘less than perfect,’ to defeat the snacilbuepR.
Dunno about rural TX and not defeating Teddie Cruz. Seems even a portion of the snacilbupeR don’t care for Teddie. Distinct possibility that Ms Richards has no interest in running, too. But, the ever hopeful but, there is someone in TX with an interest in running who can defeat him. He is not popular, and the signs that people want change have been evident for a few election cycles.
Just sayin’ let’s float some candidates and run hard at the snacilbupeR.
16@ Jane & PKM–Certainly Ted Cruz is not popular with all Republicans here. But given the choice between a Democrat and an armadillo, they would vote for the armadillo.
17Whose Senate seat would she run for? New York already has 2 Democratic Senators & if you didn’t hear Kirtsen Gillabrand speak at the Washington Woman’s March see if you can find it on YouTube. She made this New Yorker proud. When Caroline Kennedy was running or thinking of running, she was amazingly unprepared. Even I would have had a tough time voting for her. She may have become more polished & knowledgable since but I’m not willing to trade in either of my Senators.
18If she does run, somebody tell her not to make the mistake her cousin did. Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend lost the governor’s race in Maryland in 2002 for the same reason Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown did in 2014: their only message seemed to be, “Vote for me, I’m a woman/African American and I’m the Democrat.” Even in a 2:1 blue state, you need more than that to get your people to the polls.
As for wanting women to run, I do tend to vote for the woman if the candidates’ qualifications are about the same, just as I tend to vote for the minority: because white males are over-represented in government and we need different voices. And we certainly need more women in the room when decisions about women’s health and lives are being made.
19Please do not disparage Secretary Clinton. She was the most qualified and did us proud in the debates, at the convention and all through her campaign.
20Despite major problems with voter repression and gerrymandering, FBI intervention and Russian collusion, she actually WON the election. In my humble opinion, no Democrat could have beaten Drumpf with those obstacles, baggage or not.
We are still doomed to failure if we don’t find a way to restore the Voting Rights Act, undo voter repression, voter ID laws and gerrymandering. We will never be able to convince the low information voters that they are voting against their own self interests. They are unable to see through the rightwing propaganda. So we have to take back the vote.
I seem to remember that
1) When she was “considering” an elected office previously she was completely unprepared and seemed to offer nothing more then her name as a justification of her apperent sense of entitlement.
2) if we don’t learn from the past we are doomed to never learn If we don’t realize how on earth hillary lost to this carnival barker then we are doomed to losse again for the same reasons.
21So to attempt to place hillary in a sacrosant position where no one can id what campaign ineptitude lost this election to a raging psychopath is to condem us to further loses.
First the elephant in the room, literally, misogny. Cannot be ignored and should not be accomadated. as for Hillary when ever someone mentions the “clinton” scandals I always ask that they name one, other then Bill’s dalliance’s, that were real. They never can.
I feel it was, in part, her attempting, like Allison Lundergan Grimes and Wendy Davis, to woo the whack jobs with positions that reeked of cognitive dissonce and hypocrisy.
In hillary’s case going on bended knee to kiss kissinger’s, a war criminal, ring. Hardly inspired confidence espaicially when combined with her reversal on the TTP while she would not publicly work against it.
For Ms. Lungren being seen, like Hillary, as a member of a insiders political dynasty and her cowardice on her refusal to say she voted for Obama.
Ms. Davis’s cowardly position on guns and other whackjob issues.
These positions raised doubts as to what any of them really stood for, if anything, and dampened enthusium of their supporters.
In at least the cases of Ms. Lundgren and Hillary seemed to get the nomination as a divine right.
In Kentucky they chased Ms. Judd out of the race because she was just too progressive and instititional D’s would rather have a tea party whack job then a progressive win. Then when she chased the progressives out she started sounding like a r with her choice of language and embrace of the murder agenda by embracing her guns.
Ms. Davis, who has admitted her mistake, made the same mistake on her embrace of the murder agenda.
If they can’t give the non voters a clear choice and the sense that some one will stand with them by waffling and surrendering on issues before even being elected why should anyone believe that they are going to stand up when elected.
Couple this with the refusal to call out, and make an issue of, crooked elections, voter suppression and questionable voting machines and you have a political possum frozen in the headlights of defeat.
Amen to that, Ken. I particularly like “political possum frozen in the headlights of defeat.”
22Pogo, we never knew ya! Time to start looking back only as a check to make sure we haven’t made a u-turn somewhere. We have 1457 days to make a new plan and get it rolling. We will have a pop quiz/progress check in 727 days. I suggest we start with issues, not candidates. If we can get some issues nailed into planks, candidates that can articulate those issues will start to stand out; you know, people that can take the ball and run with it, because it is their thing too and they are passionate about it. And it would be a really good thing to shake up the DNC and start shopping for new consultants. You may have noticed that Karl Rove has not reappeared since he failed to deliver the goods. We need a house cleaning, and a decluttering y’all. Get rid of the stuff that doesn’t fit and reorganize the rest! Onward, not backward, and be ruthless!
23You sound suspiciously like a clueless, out-of-touch CEO who can’t move forward with constructive ideas, preferring instead to re-litigate the last election just to prove how right he was.
I’m a data guy. I’m a pound on doors guy. I’m a put in the work, retail politics is hard, every office counts from dog-catcher to President kind of guy. My political heroes are pragmatic people who are willing to do the hard work of making the change, every week of every year, not just every 4 years for a couple of weekends, maybe.
Boy, was I wrong about the last election. I spent all of November and December in a brown study, a yellow fog, a blue funk and a purple haze… just one big psychic bruise.
But I have a plan, now, and I have a purpose. I don’t know if I’m the guy who can pull it off. But I’m going to try.
Gratuitous kvetching at the candidate who garnered more votes for President than anyone in history not named Obama is not a unifying political strategy I can respect as pragmatic in the least.
However, any ideas for respectfully healing the divisions within the progressive movement and WINNING – well, like POTUS44 once said, “I’m all ears.”
24Future issue that might pull in everybody: red lining. I bet you know what that is when t comes to real estate and banks. But its a one size fits all thing as well. It is thoroughly possible to red line education, employment, health care and whatever else you can think of. Draw enough red lines, thick as possible and higher than high and you have a society with lids on damn near everything that could make human existence worth living. One of the biggest reasons people immigrated to this country via Ellis Island was the fact that where lot of them came from they were stuck in political and cultural aspic. They couldn’t even leave or even marry without some damn bigwig’s permission. My husband had an acceptor who fled the Palatinate because he was refused the right to marry who he wished or even at all. Both of them fled at the risk of their lives and landed here. Have i said enough?
25That was”ancestor”before it landed on the blog and changed itself to acceptor!
26Enjoyable comments here, thank you all, or rather y’all. I seem to have lost my funnybone somewhere after November 8, so I am really not contribution-ready. However, I was not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I voted for her, or rather the democratic party. At least I do understand that republicans are stunningly unable to think very far ahead, and have brought ruination on us all. At least Hillary was workable.
27Yeah. I’m clueless. I also called this risk the moment they crowned Hillary and built a giant wall of money to keep others who were better out (Biden). I’m so clueless that when Cheeto Jesus got the GOP nod I really started to worry. I’m also clueless that I can actually understand how she lost the white female vote nationally. Think about it – how bad do you need to be as a white woman candidate and LOSE the white woman vote? Not to mention millennials and don’t get me started on the working class. It wasn’t gerrymandering, and voter suppression should have narrowed, but not lost her her margin of error. I’m so clueless that I believe that Hillary’s time is over except for her raising money in the circles who worship her and Bill (Old Clintonworld supporters). The rest of us have got to figure it out and at least run someone who won’t be so weak as to lose to the worst candidate ever. I get that she got the majority, but let’s be honest – that was in NY and California where she SHOULD have won by over 30 points. CJ won where he needed. Hillary didn’t. She ran a terrible campaign, and I don’t give a hoot who I piss off saying it over and over because it’s goddam true.
28To el jefe post # 28
Hear hear.
29I was talking about Dat Guy being clueless and out-of-touch, but by all means, keep digging.
Obviously, it wasn’t gerrymandering, that’s a straw man argument. Gerrymandering is drawing a district. Axiomatically, you can’t gerrymander an entire state.
Clearly, her time is over. She knows it. Another straw man.
My POINT is, I’m not hearing forward-thinking solutions. I’m not hearing anything but backward-looking I TOLD YOU SO. Again, allow me to reiterate: “Gratuitous kvetching… is not a unifying political strategy I can respect as pragmatic…”
You want to spend more time telling people how wrong they are over an inartfully written News Corpse’ NYP article? Or do you want to plan the work and work the plan?
You have the floor any time you want it.
Don’t waste it being so right.
30At the risk of butting into a private discussion here are some ideas
1) Stop the entire idea of triangleization. D’s are who you want to vote stop alienaiting your supporters in the search of mythlogical “sane” rethuglicans.
312) lay out a platform and stick to it. Do not comprimise during election. If compromise is needed it will happen after the swearing in.
3) get rid of fat cat consultants.
4) ban all corporate lobbyist’s and executive officers from the DNC and implement policy that if there is a “conference” or retreat paid for by corporate interests they must invite and pay for non profit liberal org.s to be there and have equal access.
5) disavow all wallstreet advisors and/or influence completely.
6) Incorporate a non compete clause in DNC, DSCC, DCCC and associated programs that not only bans corporate membership but bans any employee of these org.’s from working for ANY corporate influence shop/law firm whatever. Easy enforcement no access whatso ever for anyone violating ban plus endless legal costs to such turncoats.
7) make it official that any congressional D that votes for anything from the thuglicans that does not have significant input from the D’s will be cut off from party apparatus, fundraiseing, donors and mailin lists while publicly and actively recruit for primary challengers to be funded by the party.
There are a few ideas.
Basically show that the D’s have a spine and will fight.
Give those that are looking for a political party to support a reason to support the D’s other then they aren’t as bad as the R’s.
Did you actually READ the piece or just go off because I dared criticize Queen Hillary? The entire piece was about a candidate that we could back. I talked about millennials and labor. How forward thinking do you want? Would you like me to rewrite the Democratic platform and pick all the DNC members? Sheesh. You can sure dish it out but can’t take it.
32@ El Jefe
33Yep, I got it. You’re full of clues and fresh out of the milk of human kindness.
If you really want all Democrats to listen to you (you’re not just doing this to watch yourself type, are you?). it might be useful to knock off the “queen” garbage. Hillary was not crowned: she got the most votes in the primary. Most sane people would call that winning a primary election. And “queen” is used for women as “uppity” is used for African Americans.
Despite being much less talented at campaigning than Obama, she fell short in the Electoral College by a very narrow margin, due in part to Russian hacking and Comey’s thumb on the scales.
Yep, we lost and we need to learn from that. But I’m going to do it without kicking people when they’re down.
Thing is, Jefe, it smacks of looking past Clintonworld all the way back into the mists of Camelot. I’ve got nothing at all against Caro; let her pay her dues and we’ll see!
34Those were my suggestions, about the DNC and the issues not Primo’s. You wanna get in my face, c’mon, but I don’t see why? We need to rethink our whole approach, not just find a different warm body to plug in the machine. That’s our problem, the machine is broken, and we have two years to fix it before the midterms.
Msb, you must have mistaken me for one who cares what other people think. I don’t. I’m not a party operative and don’t care to be. On Hillary, her cheating, packing the DNC, and money laundering to get hundreds of super delegates before the primaries even started are well documented. Her “winning” the primaries is irrelevant. She made herself illegitimate by cheating. On top of that, she was a terrible candidate. You can make all the excuses you’d like, but the fact is that she was so weak that she lost in her bastion states. Was that a result of hacking and voter suppression? I think not. If she had simply carried white women, it would have been a completely different story. But you and Chipster continue to castigate me for my opinion of Hillary, trying to defend the indefensible, while I’m actually looking forward to 2020. It seems to me that you are the one trapped in the past while I’m looking at ways to dig out.
35Primo, why do you say the gerrymandering problem is a straw man? We have this problem with Republicans having cemented themselves into power, so to speak, especially in states like Texas, where they have drawn districts into the most convoluted damn maps to squeeze out a 60-40 ratio of them to us. They have worn down people’s hope in altering any result; they are wearing down our resolve, too. Here, people EXPECT Republicans to win; they EXPECT to be called names and sneered at; and the Repubs are using their power to further rob us of ours by legislation or solution while they are in the majority. That’s how all the voter suppression crap got rammed through here. That’s how women’s health got eviscerated. It’s how they kept the ACA from getting a foothold here-no Medicaid expansion here! So the Supremes sent their ID pkg back to a lower court to find “a solution” – but who is on that court now, after the red flood of November? And with everyone duped into EXPECTING a certain fraction of Republican victories, and having assured everyone that our voting system was secure and couldn’t be tampered with, the polls got our hopes up, but the reality didn’t change. So for the second time in 20 years, the Republican Party has participated in a scam to get their guy in, and this time there is even evidence of foreign skullduggery, and they, with their faked up gerrymandered majorities used the Electoral College to close the deal, as their newly minted crooked President would himself say. I don’t think gerrymandering is a straw man. Just ask Tom Delay: this is that sorry little ba$tard’s plan, dating back to the 1990s.
36God help me, that was “legislation and/or dilution” and dear little Siri iPhone autocorrected me. Again. That sound you hear is my teeth grinding!
37aggieland liz I meant as an excuse for Hillary having lost. Gerrymandering does not affect the Presidential race, or at least not this one. Theoretically, a gerrymandered Nebraska or Maine could change the electoral vote. And in an EV tie, the gerrymandered House would throw it to the Republicans. But throwing gerrymandering to a counter-argument is a strawman.
38Comes the dawn! YES, jefito, that’s EXACTLY what I mean. WHY HAVEN’T YOU YET?
Axiom: only one of two parties can win the Presidency and/or control Congress. Corollary: to effect change, you must elect candidates from one of those two parties. Corollary: to elect a candidate you must first elect or choose a nominee.
Axiom: each party controls its platform and nominating process. Corollary: at all levels of government.
Assumption: The character of party leadership is such that it inherently resists change as challenging to their continuation as leadership including an individuals path up the ladder. REGARDLESS OF CURRENT PLATFORM.
Conclusion: “what we need(uh) is a revuhlooshin indiscountry” as Bernie Sanders put it.
The current system is broken and needs to change. Stumbling semantically sideways into the concepts of “labor” and “millenials” is barely a list still less a goal. Ken’s cogent and workable solutions are also a goal state, not a means to getting there.
Assumption, arguendo: that the reason Bernie failed to win within the rules of the current system was that he couldn’t win because of the rules of the current system.
Argument:
Nothing is going to change through the heckling of people outside the power structure. The only way to effect change all the way to the top is to take over the party from the precinct level up. The only way to make it stick is to build for the long term, from the ground up.
Even electing Bernie Sanders President would not have effected the permanent change needed. The important elections over the next 4 years are not the House, Senate and President.
The important elections are the legislatures, the state houses and the county boards. The important elections are the secretaries of state, the attorneys general and the judgeships. In 2020 we have another census. We have to be in control by then in order to ungerrymander the Congress.
So why aren’t you running for DNC chair or County Dems Chair? Aggieland liz tonight and Opinionated Hussey the other night are IN THE RIGHT OF IT! Become a precinct committeeman.
If there’s something in your life that prevents you from doing so, fine. But if you’re not doing it because you might lose or you can’t start at the top, then you’re just a guy on a barstool with paintball gun. You’re either in the game, or you’re a guy on the streetcorner with a megaphone. A pundit.
I’m working on much more on this. Watch this space. But I’ll leave you with this with love and apologies to Barack: one precinct can change a ward, one ward can change a township, one township can change a county, one county can change a state, one state can change the DNC
and then you can write any damn rules you want, and change the world.
Peace out: da Chipster
39Having been a county vice chair and a candinate for local office I can say that to a large degree much of what the chipster has said is non functional.
40The inertia and back room control that the establishment has on the party is mind boggleing.
Even in the state I was in ( a progressive state) the state chair stayed in office by using party funds to essentially bribe those counties where the D’s were weak (rural farmlands that would have blown away except for Democratic programs). What D’s were there were republcrats who loved their guns, delusional fantasy’s of a magic man in the sky and rarely, if ever, supported D candinates except for state chair who would keep those pesky progressives in line.
The “bribes” were never so crude but consisted of, as an example among other things, the state party picking up the tab for those in the netherlands who would not part with a penny of their farm welfare payments, even as it made then “comfortable”. But heaven forbid if every one demanded the same payouts. Only safe republican counties were allowed to benefit from the State’s Party coffers.
So the state chair proceeded to run the state party into the ground while feathering his own nest and ensuring that the environmentalist’s, progressives and women never aicheved any real power within the party apparatus unless they were good republicrat’s from solid rethuglican districts.
I even, with help, recruited a large group of prcinct captains in an effort to take back the county party only to be slighted, diminished and isolated from the state party because we defeated one of the chairs tame pets for County Chair.
So no the days where one could move one precict at a time or even one county is past and an illusion.
Ken, I respectfully disagree. I’ve been a pct cmteman, and won public office, and seen entrenched party structures taken over by attrition and by plain old small d democratic surprise attack. I used the tactics to help a young guard take over an old guard in a youth football program, then they asked me to write their new bylaws. I’ve seen it happen in two different states, personally. And we’ve seen it happen here. It certainly has happened to the Republican Party.
Remember it differs from state to state and county to county. GOP rules and Dem rules are remarkably similar at times. And why not. What you say is correct in many places. Also we don’t have to win everywhere. Why displace a regime who agrees with us? Or take over when persuasive voices change minds?
As a part of OFA, I’ve seen a successful end run of the party structure wither and die. It’s the difference between a raid and an invasion.
I mean, what’s the alternative? Kick and scream during loss after loss until the other side says Hey you guys are right after all?
Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but to believe it can’t be done is just defeatist.
41Well, Fort Bend county, Texas DID go blue this time. So there is hope, but it’s a mighty small sliver.
42Your comment about being part of OFA shows how the institition and its insiders can diminish and destroy any challenges that arise.
43An important difference is that no matter the outrage R’s will vote for, and support, R’s no matter the differences. look at mccain and the usurper even after being personally attacked he still urged people to vote the national r ticket.
Compare that to the McGovern race where the instititional D’s did everything they could to sabotauge a progressive. look at the recent primary’s wher the National DNC lined up in blind support for hillary against a challenger who had the gall to make a coronation into a competition.
This is true up and down the line where ever a progressive d dared to stick their head up the national party and rahm’s acoltyes used party money to push losing republicrats in their place.
Florida and donelly who is/ and was a R until the national party bribed him with their support to squash any chance of a progressive.
Kentucky with Grimes v. Judd, Ill 6 in 06 when rahm parachuted ina a nice obedient woman to take our cegelis even at the cost of a winning seat. Pennslyvania is another example.
One must recognize that the institutional d’s would rather hold onto their power and status no matter the cost to the country and party then to allow a people’s agenda be put forward.
Hippie punching is a tactic perfected by the D’s not the r’s.
I also disagree that my ideas were nice “goals” separate from on the ground realitoes.
I present them as an agenda to motivaite people in first trying to take back the party.
No agenda and it is tough to tell people why you are running except that I am better then the other guy (or gal)
I lost my race was outspent 6 to 1 mailing’s are expensive.
Plus again the state party would rather let a rethuglican win ( State D legislator even ran fundraiser for the R candinate) then allow the smallest position fall to one who might challenge their authority.
Chip. TLDR.
44In the immortal words of Rodney King: “Can we all just get along?”
Kumbaya, my lord, kum-ba-ya….
[humming softly and swaying]
45I loved the back and forth. Learned a few things too.
46Thanks to El Jefe, daChipster, Ken and Aggieland Liz for the enlightenment.
I know this is going to piss off my Hillary friends (hence the above warning), but the last thing we need is to invoke Hillary’s name with a candidate who could very likely be a winner, especially against the clown infesting the Whitehouse for the last 4 days. ….. especially against the clown infesting the Whitehouse for the last 4 days. ARE YOU FOR REAL? ONCE AGAIN ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WHY JOURNALIST ARE GETTING RAGGED ON your article is great without the ‘wrongful analysis of what has gone on in the white house the past 4 days or did you miss the stock market closing yesterday?
47@nikki – 1. This is not a newspaper or television station. No journalists here, just people with opinions.
2. Cheeto Jesus and his cronies talk in a continuous stream of lies. He’s shutting off government agencies from the public and really pissed off the CIA by bringing in shills to cheer and applaud for him. He’s in direct violation of Article 1, Sec. 9 of the Constitution and should be immediately impeached.
3. If the stock market is your measure of effectiveness, you must love President Obama since the market tripled under him.
Any more questions?
48Before we start talking about Ms. Kennedy’s hypothetical presidential run, maybe we should see how she does in that hypothetical Senate race. Obama pulled it off. But he’s one of the best orators of his generation.
ElJefe, we get it: you’re really bitter about Hillary. But if you keep picking at it, it’s never going to heal. “Queen Hillary”? Exactly what my RWNJ DH called her. Nice. Let it go, for the love of God.
49