I’m not going to call it a pattern because it isn’t, yet, but more and more frequently candidates endorsed by the conservative Democratic National Committee and it’s conservative legislative cousins the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (House) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (Senate) are losing Primaries to candidates who bill themselves as “progressives” (there is no such thing, either you’re Left or you’re not) and Washington (meaning D.C. and not the State with the Weed surplus) outsiders.
About damn time!
Ever since Truman these moronic hacks and grifting consultants have been doing everything they can to make sure Harry’s Dictum is proven true- “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.”
Too bad “centrist” Villagers, at least I hope so. D.C. seems to exert some kind of alien mind control (my secondary theory is that they put something in the water which is why I only drink Grave’s 180 proof straight grain alcohol and distilled water when I’m there, saps your precious bodily essence otherwise) that turns once straight shooting, truthful legislators with a popular agenda into spineless, brainless pod people.
Democratic voters reject tradition, choosing outsiders in their quest to regain power
by Michael Scherer and David Weigel, Washington Post
May 22, 2018
Fresh faces with compelling life stories prevailed in Democratic primaries across several Southern states Tuesday, beating candidates with deeper political pedigrees and more governing experience in several key races.
The results marked an ongoing embrace by Democratic voters of non-politicians, women, veterans and nonwhite candidates to lead the party’s effort to take back control of the House and governors’ mansions this fall.
Voters in Kentucky nominated Amy McGrath, the first Marine woman to fly an F-18 fighter jet, for a key House seat in Lexington over the candidate favored by party leaders, a two-term mayor who ran on a promise to bring “adult supervision” to Washington.
In Texas, Democrats nominated two lesbian candidates with military or law enforcement backgrounds, one Latina and the other Filipina, for key races. And Georgia voters gave former State House minority leader Stacey Abrams a shot to become the first black, female governor in the country.
For Democrats, the results marked a reassertion of the party’s fealty to the rising American electorate — unmarried, young and racially diverse voters. The Democratic contention that it is the party of the future was muddled in 2016 by a presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, who first arrived in the White House 23 years earlier and campaigned to continue the policies of the sitting president.
Now, Democratic primary voters are looking to candidates who claim to embody the changing face of American politics.
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The victory of McGrath in Kentucky’s 6th District delivered a second defeat in two weeks for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Another first-time female candidate, Kara Eastman, won the nomination for Nebraska’s only competitive House race last week, over the DCCC’s chosen candidate, former congressman Brad Ashford.
But those successes also carry some risk, putting the Democrats’ fate into untested hands. Indeed, Republicans jumped on both defeats for the Democratic establishment an example of liberals putting forward a weaker general-election candidate.
Democratic strategists say they feel good about McGrath’s chances in Kentucky, despite having recruited her rival to the race. Internal party polling conducted before the primary gave McGrath a lead over Rep. Garland “Andy” Barr (R), in a district that Trump won by 15 points in 2016.
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In Georgia’s 6th District — where Rep. Karen Handel (R) had prevailed in a pricey 2017 special election — and the neighboring 7th District, black gun-control activist Lucy McBath and Asian American education CEO David Kim led in early counts.
The winners in Texas included a Filipina Air Force intelligence officer, Gina Ortiz Jones, and a black civil rights attorney who once played in the NFL, Colin Allred. Both emerged from crowded primary fields that included rivals with deeper experience in government and party politics.
The victorious Democratic candidate for governor, former Dallas County sheriff Lupe Valdez, is running to become the first Latina in the position if she wins. Her opponent, Andrew White, the son of former Texas governor Mark White, said he planned to “continue my dad’s legacy.”
Both Ortiz Jones and Valdez are also openly lesbian and saw little backlash to their identity even in more conservative parts of the state.
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“They came up with the support of their community, doing it the old-fashioned, retail politics way, as opposed to someone who might feel coronated because they have been part of the party,” said Ilyse Hogue, the president of the pro-abortion-rights political group NARAL. “It’s why primaries matter — people get a chance to fully participate in the process.”
The trend has held in other states as well. On May 14, at the Connecticut Democratic Party’s convention, two-time statewide candidate Mary Glassman nearly lost the endorsement for the state’s open House seat to Jahana Hays, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, who had never run for office before.
The next day, Pennsylvania Democrats ousted a one-term lieutenant governor, blocked a three-term congressman’s comeback run in favor of a female state legislator, and backed an Allentown-area attorney over a longtime county district attorney who had begun the race with high name recognition.
Top takeaways from Tuesday’s historic primary night
By STEVEN SHEPARD, Politico
05/23/2018
The primary between Stacy Abrams and state Rep. Stacey Evans was always a curiosity: two women named Stacey who had served in the state House — one black, one white.
But it also pitted two contrasting strategies against one another. Evans had argued the road back to the governorship in Georgia — the last Democratic governor, Roy Barnes, left office after the 2002 election — was through moderates and blue-collar white voters who supported politicians like Barnes and Zell Miller, the late former governor and senator.
Abrams is making a different bet — one that is about to be tested on a massive stage — on expanding the electorate. She’s looking to register and engage more black voters, who turned out at a lower rate in the last midterm elections in 2014, when 40.6 percent of African-American voters turned out, compared to 47.5 percent of whites.
Abrams isn’t the only Democrat making that argument: Progressives across the map have insisted that running to the left, especially on economic issues, could access a well of untapped voters.
But Abrams’ strategy goes beyond ideology. And she’ll have no shortage of surrogates with potential 2020 ambitions swinging through the emerging presidential battleground state, which Trump won by just 5 points in 2016.
Democrats nominated Abrams, an African-American woman, in Georgia. In Texas, the nation’s second-most-populous state, the party nominated Lupe Valdez, a gay Latina, for governor.
In a closely watched Democratic primary for a House seat in Kentucky, former Marine fighter pilot (Amy) McGrath, a first-time candidate, defeated Gray.
Democrats chose women for two of the three Texas swing districts: Fletcher in the 7th District, and Gina Ortiz Jones in the 23rd.
Women are winning lots of Democratic Party nominations, and the party will be relying on them heavily in the fall. The latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, released Wednesday, shows Democrats with a 9-point lead among female voters on the generic congressional ballot, compared to a 1-point advantage among male voters.
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McGrath in Kentucky wasn’t national Democrats’ first choice. The party recruited Gray to run, even after McGrath’s viral announcement video brought her big money from small, online donors.
If you are looking for optimism there’s also the fact that even ConservaDems are starting to get behind populist programs like Single Payer, Gun Control, Criminal Justice Reform, Net Neutrality, and Recreational Marijuana Legalization.
Me? I’ll believe it when I see it and they start pushing Civil Liberties and Privacy Rights, and move against Monopolies and start busting Banksters.
