This will send a shiver throughout the DNC. I expect shenanigans to follow. If you think the DNC has changed at all in the past 50 years, you are fooling yourself.
Fienstien is and has always been an old school LBJ styled Dem. There is nothing she will not stoop too to retain power. Fire-up the fat cigars in the back room, it’s game-on.
Fat cigars? Will Bill Clinton be there?
If in spirit only. It is right up his alley…
This Boomer would like to point out the Bernie is not a Millennial and that not all of us Boomers are right-of-center.
I would agree. Based on his age, Bernie would be considered a Silent. And while all Boomers are certainly not right of centre, those in the Dem establishment have been since the early 90s.
Wow is definitely it. I’m totally shocked she lost the endorsement being Senator as long as she have I assumed she had the relationships/pull needed to get the endorsement. I have no idea how she’ll fair in the general election, though.
You would have preferred Loretta Sanchez?
Feinstein and Brown supported Harris in 2016, but so did Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. There isn’t much of a separation between Harris and Leon on issues, and surely that – and not the age of the people who endorse you – is what matters.
As for Feinstein, I’m not crazy about her (or the triangulation school of politics in general), but let’s remember that when she took office hers was a traditionally Republican seat, that she was the first woman to serve as senator from California, and that and while the state has swung to the left she was one of people who set that pendulum in motion. Even today she’s probably not much if at all politically to the right of the state average.
Our government is currently dominated by actual monsters, I don’t see the point of postulating granfalloons like “old guard”.
Surrender Dianne!
that’s definitely one of the factors that’s kept her in office. Cali’s approach to primaries often leaving more moderate conservatives without a republican to consider. But she’s become something of a shibboleth for a certain part of the right. Not Nancy Pelosi level. And not as much as for the Bernie end of the left. But I could see that capping her cross over appeal in certain sections of the state.
At the same time you’ve got a left that’s at the very least not happy with her. And an electorate that’s getting less old and less white. For a candidate whose base is in the older, whiter, wealthier sections of the state.
I don’t think any of those factors alone could tilt it. But I could see a confluence of them causing some weird.
And wasn’t her election initially celebrated as a success for the rise of a newer, younger progressive movement within the DNC. I’m pretty sure I saw plenty describing her as a “Bernie style” democrat. Even though they don’t appear to have much association. As is now standard when anyone on the progressive end of the DNC has some success. And of course the hand wringing response about how she may not be a real progressive because she’s been involved in politics for more than 15 minute.
And now Obama is emblematic of the shitty pseudo conservative DNC old guard typified by Feinstein.
You don’t generally gain influential position and high elected office in a particular political party with out participating in that political party.
de Leon has a pretty typical political career for a congressional candidate. Not all that dissimilar from Harris’. It’s very likely he has the same sort of associations with the establishment.
The minimum age requirement to serve as a senator is 30. The average age of the Senate is currently more than twice that. While there is certainly a lot to be said for institutional knowledge and experience, Congress looks less and less like America and more and more like a (very white) old person’s retirement home every session. Given the opportunity to safely support someone who is younger and more proactive in their support for left-wing initiatives (as opposed to Feinstein, who has largely been reactive in embracing the platform being pushed by younger Democrats) when there’s now absolutely no chance of spoiling the race and accidentally ending up with a Republican in that seat, why not take it?
Further, to your point that one party is populated by actual monsters: Feinstein has been more willing than most to try and find common cause and compromise with them. And again, while there is much to be said for compromising with your political opponents to accomplish your goals, this is demonstrably not one of those times. (She’s started to change her tune and has been voting against Trump’s nominees more frequently lately, but there’s no reason to think she’d have done that if she weren’t suddenly facing the prospect of actually being held accountable by the people of her state.)
True. I was pointing out that Harris’ association with the party old guard long predates her election to the Senate. To get where she is she had to join the ol’ favour bank, but I’m hoping she sees that it’s not 1992 any more and that taking their advice on triangulation and shifting right is a bad idea if she wants to win with Millenials.
In fact, that’s the job. Ideological purists don’t tend to accomplish much, though of course their existence does have the important effect of moving the Overton window and of resisting the purists on the other side. I agree that compromising with Trumpian policies is suspect, but in fact Feinstein hasn’t done much of that, and claiming that her recent votes are caused by fear of losing the election is a little post hoc ergo proter hoc, not to mention that she has very little to fear, she will almost surely win the general by a solid margin.
The agism on this thread really bugs me. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is only 2 months younger than Feinstein, do you think she’s too old to do the job?
Well given that she was elected by staying with pretty standard and solidly left policies I doubt she’d be willing to buy that advice.
I’m just not sure how anyone gets elected to office. At any level. Under a political party. Without having associations with people who were already in that political party when they started. And participating with said people doesn’t neccisarily equate to “the favor bank” or being owned by them.
For all the hand wringing about Harris’ associations. As with other rising left wing politicians. I don’t think I’ve seen anything specifically bad on the table. It’s not like she was beholden to people with odious politics. That she shares people’s positions that are bad. Or is being accused of doing anything to help them push bad policy. We’re not seeing claims that she’s involved in graft, or has betrayed constituents over particular issues.
The complaint amounts to “she is member of the Democratic party” and a successful one. And has associations entirely typical for a politician at that stage in her career. The establishment she’s accused of being too close to is the California Democrats. What are one of the more liberal state Operations too.
It just increasingly strikes me as an odd complaint. And I didn’t really notice it until I started seeing people like Harris go from new face of the DNC progressive wave. To establishment crony inside of a few months. The press’s favorite story line of the bernie/progressive faction vs the establishment increasingly seems to peg the same people as members of both. Depending on which side of the divide is “winning” in the particular pitch.
It’s a nice horse race story to hang a think piece on. But looking at all the many surprises and upsets during primary and special election season. I think what’s going on is more a younger generation of Americans finally breaking out into high level politics.
And as the voters that put them in that spot are more liberal, as are their own peer groups. Than the voters and generation that gave us Feinsteins. They’re further left than the old guard.
People tend to forget that when the “old guard” were first seeking office. The population in general was far more conservative. And the full on left wingers of the time just didn’t get elected. A Moderate DNC with a strong center right faction is what people wanted and voted for.
As I said above, I think she sees where the demographics are going and will likely break permanently with the party’s Boomer establishment when it comes to running on the kind of triangulating neoliberal-lite policies that worked for a time back at “the end of history.” It’s one of the reasons I like her and see her as viable presidential candidate in 2020.
My sense is that it’s a reflection of younger people’s anxieties about the DNC establishment’s complacency and arrogance and reluctance to adapt during the 2016 primary and general election. No-one, especially not Millenial Dems, wants to see a repeat of that, so it’s kind of a warning signal: the stakes are too high to continue supporting the likes of Feinstein and her Third Way policies.
This is what I came to say too. Even if she died before the election she would probably still win. Sorry Kev.
The party endorsement (and Feinstein’s failed and borderline corrupt attempt to attain what was once a sure thing) is still important, though.
This is what I was driving at when I talked about the average age of the Senate. The people who have been in office for decades are (generally; there’s always exceptions) from a more conservative time in American politics, and they’ve been slow to embrace the shift in ideology within their base. I don’t want to vote out old people just because they’re old. If Ginsburg manages to make it to 100, I’d be fine with her being on the Supreme Court because she’s demonstrably one of its most progressive voices. I don’t mind if Elizabeth Warren runs for re-election for the same reason. But I think that long-term incumbency (and by extension, age) can result in representatives who are out of step with the electorate, and get re-elected because that’s pretty much always what happens for incumbents. I don’t think it’s ageist to suggest that, in general, older people don’t share the same priorities or beliefs as younger ones, and right now the beliefs and priorities of older people are vastly over-represented in Congress.
If you look at progressive causes like Medicare for All, or Fight for 15, or Abolish ICE, or criminal justice reform, these things aren’t being spearheaded by people like Feinstein, Schumer, or Pelosi. Instead, we get patronizing talk-downs about how universal health care just isn’t realistic, or why raising the minimum wage to match its 70’s-era spending power is just too dangerous, or that free public college tuition is ludicrous (“How would we even pay for it?” they demand, as they shovel hundreds of billions of dollars into the Pentagon’s furnace). Hell, Clinton compared agitating for these kinds of progressive causes to demanding ponies. This shit is only impossible because people like them say it is.
(Speaking of criminal justice reform, that’s what I see Harris getting hit for the most, because she’s a former prosecutor and doesn’t come out looking terribly good on that particular issue as a result.)
Precisely. Even if the only goal is winning, the Dems need to recognise that demographic clout in the electorate is shifting from Boomers to Millenials and that they have to consider the latter’s priorities at least as much as the former’s.
The age of the politicians or officials themselves doesn’t matter as long as they’re willing to adapt and be straight with young people about how they’ve been screwed over by older generations on everything from the environment to the economy to the future of liberal democracy. RBG gets it and so does Sanders – that’s why young people consider them both cool even though they’re both grumpy olds.
I think it’s less about age than when they entered politics. If you look at the group of more progressive candidates that have risen since 2008 there’s a mix of late boomers. Gen xers and millenials. Even the group storming the gates now has that mix. Though they seem to be skewing younger and way more female.
And that rightward shift happened within the baby boom generation. It’s a subset. Came to head in the 80s. I think I’d have to look at the dates but it might be better to think in terms of political generations.
So as an example while you can pin point the early inklings of that rightward shift and the modern conservative movement to the dixiecrats, George Wallace’s presidential runs and Goldwater. You didn’t have any of that neccisarily building sustained national success until Nixon. The initial peak of it all came with Reagan’s election.
But if you look at the actual behind the scenes people on the right. The campaign people, the sub cabinet secretaries, the fundraisers, speech writers, diplomats, etc. And later often as elected officials. A freakishly large proportion of them had their first entry into politics, or first job in politics. As part of Nixon’s campaigns or during his presidential administrations. And these guys stayed largely in control of the GOP until pretty recently, when they basically started to die off. Huge amount of Bush II electric boogaloo’s campaign and administration were connected to these guys. A lot of them were involved with every administration from Nixon up till Obama. Including Carter and Clinton.
So it’s helpful to think of that set as “the Nixon generation” in American politics.
I’m willing to bet you can pin point an exact administration or series of campaigns where the bulk of these people started out, or followed on from.
It wasn’t McGovern, as he was the hopeful blinkered progressive that failed spectacularly. And most highly visible DNC members who started in and around his campaign seem to track at least center left. Even if they spent a long time hiding it. Doubt it would be Carter as his influence wasn’t lasting and he’s considered the last true liberal president between then and Obama. And there was a lag between increasing GOP far right success and DNC shifts. Both McGovern and Carter are considered first failures that started to drive the DNC away from their left wing. Maybe could be pegged as a response to Reagan. Or Bill Clinton’s early campaigns as his success in the face of a rightward shifting nation really seems to have had an effect that built out from those campaigns for Governor.
I’m willing to bet that’s a bigger predictor than actual age. Elizabeth Warren is almost 70. But she only entered government work in the 90’s as a regulator. And more political work in the 00’s, only running for office for the first time 5 years ago. Before that she had a pretty full career as a law professor (and she was a Republican). Sanders is 76, but started in politics all the way back in the 60’s. First seeking office in the late 60s. Well before the conservative shift (and also doesn’t seem to have ever really held down a job that wasnt and elected office).
They’re both certified boomers. But their involvement in politics brackets the period where it was exceedingly difficult to get votes on the left. Baring very limited places.
I really think we’re looking at a group of people, whatever age. Who entered politics in the very late seventies to very early 90’s. Probably in response to something specific that drew them in or gave them a job. Either because the political tenor of the era demanded it, or the people they were working with convinced them of a particular outlook.
ETA: Feinstein seems to have started in politics in 1969. And first got a major political seat in the late 70’s. As mayor of San Francisco. First after the assignation of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Mascone, then by election.
Given the state of US politics, anyone with her policies, who talks like she does, seems infinitely preferable to yet another corporate stooge who’s between two and five decades behind the zeitgeist.
I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about her lack of experience; at least she’s inclusive, and smart enough to take advice from experts. Above all, she plainly considers herself a public servant, and is totally fired up about justice.
