Links on Democratic Party Pre-Election Fun
May. 8th, 2018 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osewalrus This is a good explainer about the current kerfufle between the Democratic
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/3/17290902/dccc-2018-midterms-primaries-democrats-nancy-pelosi-laura-moser
On the one side is the argument of finding "electable" candidates. OTOH, there is now some serious scholarship that shows that people are really bad at selecting "electable" candidates -- at least when it comes to policy positions -- because it is extremely hard to predict what the voters actually care about by election time and because the increasing partisan tide makes actual positions much less relevant then the level of personality/charisma/whatever that gets the party faithful energized and off their butts.
"But what about Republicans and unelectable candidates?" I hear you cry. Indeed, there are a handful of folks who truly blew it for Republicans when the tide was going their way. But if you actually look at those races, what made the candidates ultimately unacceptable was not policy positions -- which is what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is making its selections about who is and who isn't electable about (and it just so happens that the "electable" candidates agree with the DCCC leadership, and will support them for the upcoming leadership vote in January). Rather, the Republicans who turned out to be total stinkers and cost the GOP seats had massive non-issue related problems, such as chasing teenage girls (Roy Moore), talking about "legitimate" rape (Todd Akin) or being just too flakey for words (Christine O'Donell).
If DCCC were screening out the obvious racists and looney toons and unrepentant convicted felons, then there might be something to their argument. But that is not what they are doing. Additionally, they occasionally resort to the sort of nastiness and airing dirty laundry in public they ostensibly are trying to avoid. For example, in an effort to tank the more progressive Laura Moser in her primary campaign against DCCC favorite Lizzie Fletcher and avoid a run-off primary for who gets to face the R incumbent, DCCC released an opposition research memo on Moser. So if Moser wins her runoff, the DCCC will have done exactly what it purports to be trying to stop -- providing Republicans with ammunition for the general.
Some of this has to do with the difference in strategy. DCCC is all about cross-over voters, whereas the "progressive" candidate groups (such as Sanders supported Our Revolution) believe they will win by energizing the base. But there is, unsurprisingly, a lot more in terms of party governance, philosophy and direction.
I often see Dems pearl clutching about the awfulness of primary fights. Setting aside how much of the supposed nasty crap is actually the work of Russian bots or other influencers pretending to be part of one or the other faction for their own ends, there is a far more serious question that people afraid of vigorous party debate and hard-fought primary fights need to seriously answer -- how do you plan to actually resolve the internal debates and contradictions in the Democratic Party? If the answer is always "later, when the time is right," then you are going to continue to stoke intra-party conflict. Primaries provide an actual mechanism for addressing things like party direction, and there is certainly sufficient history of the party uniting behind the winner of the primary to support using primaries for this purpose.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/3/17290902/dccc-2018-midterms-primaries-democrats-nancy-pelosi-laura-moser
On the one side is the argument of finding "electable" candidates. OTOH, there is now some serious scholarship that shows that people are really bad at selecting "electable" candidates -- at least when it comes to policy positions -- because it is extremely hard to predict what the voters actually care about by election time and because the increasing partisan tide makes actual positions much less relevant then the level of personality/charisma/whatever that gets the party faithful energized and off their butts.
"But what about Republicans and unelectable candidates?" I hear you cry. Indeed, there are a handful of folks who truly blew it for Republicans when the tide was going their way. But if you actually look at those races, what made the candidates ultimately unacceptable was not policy positions -- which is what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is making its selections about who is and who isn't electable about (and it just so happens that the "electable" candidates agree with the DCCC leadership, and will support them for the upcoming leadership vote in January). Rather, the Republicans who turned out to be total stinkers and cost the GOP seats had massive non-issue related problems, such as chasing teenage girls (Roy Moore), talking about "legitimate" rape (Todd Akin) or being just too flakey for words (Christine O'Donell).
If DCCC were screening out the obvious racists and looney toons and unrepentant convicted felons, then there might be something to their argument. But that is not what they are doing. Additionally, they occasionally resort to the sort of nastiness and airing dirty laundry in public they ostensibly are trying to avoid. For example, in an effort to tank the more progressive Laura Moser in her primary campaign against DCCC favorite Lizzie Fletcher and avoid a run-off primary for who gets to face the R incumbent, DCCC released an opposition research memo on Moser. So if Moser wins her runoff, the DCCC will have done exactly what it purports to be trying to stop -- providing Republicans with ammunition for the general.
Some of this has to do with the difference in strategy. DCCC is all about cross-over voters, whereas the "progressive" candidate groups (such as Sanders supported Our Revolution) believe they will win by energizing the base. But there is, unsurprisingly, a lot more in terms of party governance, philosophy and direction.
I often see Dems pearl clutching about the awfulness of primary fights. Setting aside how much of the supposed nasty crap is actually the work of Russian bots or other influencers pretending to be part of one or the other faction for their own ends, there is a far more serious question that people afraid of vigorous party debate and hard-fought primary fights need to seriously answer -- how do you plan to actually resolve the internal debates and contradictions in the Democratic Party? If the answer is always "later, when the time is right," then you are going to continue to stoke intra-party conflict. Primaries provide an actual mechanism for addressing things like party direction, and there is certainly sufficient history of the party uniting behind the winner of the primary to support using primaries for this purpose.
