Exclusive: Top House Democrat Unveils Plan to Beat Back Progressive Rebellion

[ancianita]

124. Fine. I get your fair points. Just remember that current progressives were seen the same way

in their respective incumbent wins. They are 35% of the Democratic Caucus for reasons you give, but I also recall research from past cycles that has shown that the party doesn't read on-the-ground as well as Republicans. I also recall Florida's Debbie Wasserman Schulz being a blocker of any new Democrats in a state that needs serious district primarying. These are among the reasons I think calling the nuanced opinion by Jeffries is neither about a "progressive rebellion" nor a beat back of it. He is in the Progressive Caucus.

We've only talked as if we're divided, imo, because many buy into the idea that democratic socialism or progressivism shouldn't be mainstream (perhaps being influenced by stupid headlines like the above) and we tend to see progressives the way corporate media do. I won't.

I do believe that if the OP had literally laid out some background on the candidates Jeffries refers to, this thread wouldn't have been as opinionated and lengthy. No OP should be so devoid of names and district runs and background qualifications. We need that stuff to discuss intelligently about how to win battleground primaries.

Which reminds me to ask: do you think Lt Gov Fetterman, who's running for the Senate, is one of those "problem progressives" that wouldn't get elected? He's gotten a lot of good press, has done a lot for PA and as mayor of Braddock, but he's not got party support. That is wrong.

Since launching his Senate campaign in February, Fetterman has quickly amassed nearly $4 million—more than any other Democrat in the field and mostly in small-dollar donations. He’s running as a progressive and supports raising the minimum wage, Medicare for All, criminal justice reform and marijuana legalization. But he’s more middle-of-the-road on items like fracking and the Green New Deal. And while he’s pro-gun control, he has been a gun owner himself. (Two lesser-known contenders, liberal state lawmaker Malcolm Kenyatta and moderate county commissioner Val Arkoosh, have also already thrown their hats in the ring. Other big-name Democrats who are more centrist than Fetterman, like Rep. Conor Lamb, might still jump in.)

Fetterman’s fans think his brand of economic progressivism and his Carhartt-wearing linebacker vibe make him uniquely able to win elections in the kinds of Rust Belt and white working-class areas where Democrats have been hemorrhaging support. In a party often seen as too elite, the lieutenant governor is unfussy and plainspoken—he poses for official government photos in workman’s shirts and calls Republicans “simps” on Twitter. Fetterman’s campaign is making the case that he has the best shot at picking off Trump voters in the general election.

That is, if he can get anywhere in the primary first. Already, he’s butting up against fierce resistance from a wide array of party leaders. Some take issue with his politics: Moderates think his deep commitment to getting repentant convicts out of life sentences is too radical. Progressives say he’s too squishy on fracking. Other Democratic honchos—from left to center—resent his go-it-alone attitude. They argue he’s a loner who doesn’t spend any time trying to build alliances with other pols—and that as a result he’ll be less effective in office.

But for many party leaders, this isn’t a question of “the intractable outsider” vs. “the establishment.” Fetterman’s candidacy hits at the heart of the debate roiling the Democratic Party today: Should the party try to win back working-class white voters who stray further from them every year or double down on the suburban and Black electorate that has powered their recent wins? Fetterman’s white guy working-class appeal, they say, is outdated for a party that should be committed to addressing structural racism.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/16/john-fetterman-profile-2022-senate-politics-pennsylvania-481259

Fetterman, for all his seeming weirdness, connects with working class voters in PA. And he did win with the Black vote. We need PA.

I know that Politico's bias is questionable, yet the issues raised about him in his Senate run also reveal us as a party, and that's since I first recognized FL's Wasserman-Schulz cockblocking of newbs trying to engage. Taking each candidate, case by case, instead of using some broad yardstick for accepting in-party challengers, would make the party as nuanced as Jeffries seems to be. I don't see the party helping either O'Rourke in Texas (against Cruz) or now Kelly in AZ, both of which have trended blue.

We WON with a record 81 million votes after all the primary divisions. That there number shows we won hearts and minds. It's time to recognize we did that. We must take that recognition into the midterms. This time, retaining both houses looks to me as more of a we-as-a-party-working-in-the-states problem, much more than any primary challengers' problem. We're so afraid of risk because we don't read the ground well. That's on our party leaders. Including Jeffries.

There are 90 million more non-voters to win the hearts and minds of, and going into the midterms, we've got the momentum of the general with midterm state candidates, if we trust their knowledge on the ground, which we didn't in past midterms because we, not knowing the ground of voters, were too afraid of risk.