My first post here at Swing State!
Donna Edwards major win over Wynn has gotten me and a lot of others talking about the best ways to primary conservative Democrats like the Blue Dogs who undermine Democratic principles and enable Conservative policies.
See: http://www.openleft.com/showDi…
And: http://www.openleft.com/showDi…
I wonder if there are projects/groups already in place to help challengers secure endorsements, gain attention and media coverage, and fundraising.
Can anyone here make recommendations? Is anyone interestest in starting such a group/blog?
My apolgogies if this is not a very substantial post. I am still hammering out my ideas and wanted to find out if someone has already taken up this charge before I get too deep.
I don’t think there is one formula. It starts with the candidate and building an organization. Donna was able to unite the netroots with the progressive establishment. There was a great local organization and a great communications team. What else do you want to know.
is to pick our primaries wisely.
Wynn deserved a primary and Edwards deserved to win. But look at the list of people in the blue dog coalition. A lot of these people, while we in the progressive online community do not like them, do a fine job representing their constituents. Lipinski won in a blow out over Pera, why? Because it is a blue collar, socially conservative district full of immigrants. We want more full bodied progressives, especially in blue areas, but we have to look beyond the PVIs and think what the voters in the districts may want as well.
If a Dem is corrupt (something that is arguable, but not fully provable, and thus was not bought by the residents of IL-03 on Lipinski) then they deserve a primary. If they are radically out of tune, then we need to kick them out. We can not do these one issue primaries like we did last year in Rhode Island against Langevin (Pro-choice vs. Pro-life) and what it was looking like in IL-03 (stem cell research).
So on the list of blue dogs, who is ripe for a primary? Costa and Baird are the two most obvious. Most of the rest that are in swingy or blueish districts are fish and can be pressured by their constituents for a session or two first (Walz, Altmire, Wilson, etc.) THen there are some we can realistically never primary and should stay there (Chet Edwards, Lampson, Matheson, Taylor, etc.)
We need better logic at our target picking me thinks, rather than how to run a primary.