Cue the people complaining that Sanders and his supporters are somehow being assholes by engaging the process.
I hope he succeeds.
Would be good to note he’s not the only congressional candidate Sanders has endorsed.
Surprised you haven’t mentioned Zephyr Teachout running for New York’s 19th district, since I think you did when she was running for NY Gov?
Also Lucy Flores in Nevada’s 4th district and Pramila Jayapal in Washington’s 7th district (i.e. Seattle). Jayapal in particular interests me (not least because she’d be my congresscritter, but also because that’s a very safe Dem seat that’s being vacated, so winning the primary is basically a guarantee of winning the seat).
Any chance of an article on the people Sanders has got onto the DNC platform committee? (inc. Cornel West, Keith Ellison)
I think it’s a little sketchy though fair. But imagine if Hillary announced that because some official had opposed her she would now support their primary challenger (and directed her donors to do the same).
Would Sanders supporters still think it was fair play?
Tim Canova should just drop out now. It’s the principle of the matter, party unity, blah blah blah
I’d side with the person taking numerous small donations over the ones taking large amounts from wealthy donors. If money is speech, then more money means having more speech, which is antithetical to having a fair system.
That kind of dodges the issue I brought up. Sanders basically said the motive for supporting Canova wasn’t because Canova was better on the issues or anything, but that he felt that Wasserman was favouring his opponent, Hillary.
That’s the kind of retributive hard-ball politics that Sanders and his supporters usually criticize Clinton for.
Do you really think he’d be supporting Canova if he was a centrist pro-Wall Street type of Democrat?
When he says political revolution, he means political revolution. You don’t achieve that by bowing to the powers that be.
“Well, clearly, I favor her opponent,” Sanders told Tapper. “His views are much closer to mine than as to Wasserman Schultz’s.”
Oh no, I’m being inappropriate again.
Wait, wait, wait…Did Sanders ever announce his reasoning as "…because DWS had opposed him"?
Considering her abysmal voting record, her being in the pocket of big money donors, and the blatant partisanship she’s shown in her leadership role in the party, I think there’s PLENTY of other reasons he can cite than your strawman one.
There’s lots of challengers that match his views, is he supporting all of them to the same extent?
He’s not just saying he’d want a different DNC chair who matched his views, he’s trying to put her out of her seat, I think it’s fairly clearly retributive.
The job of a legislator is to craft legislation-legislation that actually solves important problems without causing more problems. Given that legislators are expected to raise money for their campaigns, and for the national committees, it is more difficult to raise the requisite amount of cash from many small donors than it is to rely on large donors. Less time spend fundraising implies more time doing one’s job.
I wonder if Sanders will do any better to bring in anti-establishment candidates than Larry Lessig did, with the [#MaydayPac] (https://mayday.us/).
Be hard to do worse, I’d say.
This hypothetical isn’t even interesting in a sense. If you had told me she had been doing this all along, I A) Wouldn’t have been surprised and B) Wouldn’t have cared. At most, I’d have talked about how her clout with establishment Dems and big money donors helps her to that end, but to me the biggest issue has been the existence and Clinton’s acceptance of both establishment DNC politics and big money donors, and less how Clinton plays the horse race. So pretty much all the problems I’d have with Clinton would be exactly the same with no change attributable to a decision to support a primary challenger.
See also:
Progressive circles have not been happy with DWS’s chairing of the DNC. I’d have been happy to see her go long before Sanders even thought of running for president. If she’s a casualty of this election cycle, I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t take it as a victory, regardless of how the larger races turn out. You support payday lending? Then you’re scum. That alone is enough.
I mean, that’s kind of what this woman already is, given that she ran Hillary’s campaign last time. Neither are exactly neutral parties, so it’s a matter of which you prefer. Frankly, each party in the US needs to standardize how they elect their candidates. All the conflicting systems make the process confusing and easy to corrupt.
Canadian system works WAY better, especially given that becoming a party member costs less than $20 per year and signing up takes about the same amount of effort as buying something online. All the parties have basically eliminated the direct influence of special interest groups on the choice of leader as well. The NDP used to have union reps as super-delegates, for example, but has since moved to a strict one-member, one-vote system. Other parties convert the vote percentages in a riding into a point value so that each riding has equal weight.
Ideally they wouldn’t have to spend any time raising money because there shouldn’t be any private money in politics.
But small donations from individuals rather than large donations from the wealthy don’t come with the implied or inferred expectation of consideration for the donor’s interests - the same way a single vote is not more influential than any other single vote in an election.
If having more time to do your job also involves having to do your job wrong (i.e. by giving more consideration to a lobbyist or a donor than is appropriate), then I’d prefer you have less time to do your job.
Have you heard or read this episode of This American Life:
Take the Money and Run for Office
Alex Blumberg
Jeff Flake, the Republican from Arizona, says once you get on a good committee or become a chairman, your party’s leadership expects you to raise even more money and turn it over to them, so that they can spread it around to members who are less fortunate. Ones in tight races who don’t have such an easy time fundraising for themselves. Remember that list of the A, B, and C committees? Flake says leadership makes those targets pretty explicit.
Jeff Flake
We were given dues and assessments. And if you’re a senior member on committees that lend themselves to fundraising, and you’re either a ranking member or you’re the chairman, then you’re expected to raise a lot of money.
Andrea Seabrook
Or?
Jeff Flake
Or when you come up every two years to either retain your position or move to another committee, those things are certainly taken into account.
Andrea Seabrook
Do they tell you this?
Jeff Flake
I think that’s implied. I think it’s pretty well understood.
Andrea Seabrook
Lawmakers of both parties told us that if you’re on a good committee, you regularly get called up in front of your party’s leaders to go over your fundraising numbers.
Alex Blumberg
And let’s say your numbers aren’t that good. You know there are other congressmen out there hungry for your spot, trying to prove to the party leadership that they’d do a better job raising money if they were in your position.
I think the advantage of the Canadian system is people don’t really seem to care as much. Partly because Canadian politics is smaller scale in general but I also think the parliamentary multi-party system means fewer people actually join parties. I think Canadians generally feel the parties can choose their leader however they want and the public has their say during the election. It’s not uncommon for a PM or Premier to step down during their term and a completely different MP become the leader of the government.
There’s been controversy there as well, because there’s so few actual members of the party past leadership candidates have been accused of flooding the party by signing up a bunch of new supporters and some parties have put restrictions on whether new signups can vote.
