Democrats or Demon-Rats?

Berners appear poised to collect the scalps of super delegates as the DNC gets ready to vote on key rule changes in the controversial nominating process for Democratic presidential candidates.

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The controversial issue of “superdelegates” and their future in the Democratic Party led to an angry confrontation on Tuesday night between Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and House Democrats, according to several lawmakers.

But the members’ angst may not help them since it appears that the DNC is ready to rein in the status of superdelegates, also known as “unpledged” delegates, no matter what lawmakers say or do.

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Arguing that her win is part of a much larger political shift in the country, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing back vehemently after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi dismissed the New York Democrat's stunning victory in the state's 14th congressional district on Tuesday as an isolated incident.

"I think that we're in the middle of a movement in this country—I feel this movement—but that movement is going to happen from the bottom up. That movement is going to come from voters," Ocasio-Cortez told Erin Burnett on CNN during an interview Wednesday night.

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Pelosi later dismissed the notion that Ocasio-Cortez's victory was indicative of an ascendent progressive movement that could replace establishment, more centrist Democrats like Crowley and herself.

"They made a choice in one district. So let's not get yourself carried away as an expert on demographics and the rest of that," Pelosi told one reporter at a news conference. "The fact that in a very progressive district in New York it went more progressive...is about that district. It is not to be viewed as something that stands for anything else."

"There are a lot of really exciting races with extremely similar dynamics as mine. It's not just one district," Ocasio-Cortez countered on CNN.

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A band of Democratic National Committee superdelegates is staging a revolt against a Bernie Sanders-endorsed plan to reduce their influence in the presidential nominating process, mounting a longshot bid to block the measure when the DNC meets in Chicago next month.

The proposal, a priority of Sanders’ supporters since the Vermont senator‘s defeat in a bitterly contested 2016 primary, would prohibit superdelegates — who made up roughly 15 percent of the delegates during the 2016 convention — from voting on the first presidential nominating ballot at a contested national convention.

But even as the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee moved forward with the proposal Wednesday, superdelegates outside of Washington were beginning to organize opposition ahead of the August vote by the full DNC in Chicago.

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JackLuis said:

Can the Demon-rats become Democratic? One Person One Vote.

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KeithD said:

Can the U.S. electoral system become democratic in this way?

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No political organization in the recent history of the world has had a gift for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory quite like the Democratic Party. This is the party that has managed to lose three of the last five presidential elections, despite only once in that period getting fewer votes than the opposition. Although the Democrats nominally hold positions with broad majority support on a wide range of issues, following the heavy losses of the 2010 and 2014 midterms the party found itself in its worst nationwide position since the early 1930s.

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Attendees at the Third Way conference were clearly aware that middle-path Democrats will need big, new ideas in order to compete successfully with Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage, debt-free college and the other dangerous pinko proposals that would have had near-unanimous support in the pre-Reagan Democratic Party. Here's what they came up with: A private-sector, employer-funded universal pension plan to supplement Social Security. OK, I'm just spitballing, but that probably isn’t going to suck the wind out of the red sails of Bernie’s fleet and sweep Mitch Landrieu (or whomever) into the White House.

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Those who shut down such internal conflict and purged the activist left from the Democratic Party, on the premise that it was the only possible way to win elections in a "centrist," anti-ideological nation, have never faced the consequences of their historic blunder. They have lost repeatedly and on a grand scale, insisting every time that they really should have won — or in some other, better world, did win — and that whatever went wrong was somebody else’s fault. They are the ones who appear committed to an inflexible, dogmatic ideology that is out of step with political reality. They are surprised and outraged to learn that if they want to continue their losing streak, they will have to fight for it.

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After the congressional races on the same day, the DCCC added some of the winners to their Red-to-Blue page… but not the progressives who won. This is outrageous.

On Tuesday, James Thompson won an astounding 65.3% in his Wichita-based district, a nearly two-to-one victory. He congratulated his opponent on a well-run campaign and she did likewise and now Democrats in the 4th district are united and working towards defeating Ron Estes. Although not with the DCCC, who is, once again, refusing to recognize Thompson as a candidate.

Likewise in southwest Michigan, the progressive in the race, Matt Longjohn, came in a strong first in a 4-way race. He beat the establishment fave, wealthy lobbyist George Franklin, 37% to 29% with the other progressive in the race, Dave Benac, taking 21%. Democrats in MI-06 are unified now in their determination to defeat Fred Upton– but not the DCCC. Longjohn was recognized by President Obama as one of America’s best physicians calling him one of the “top healthcare innovators in America.” Not good enough for the DCCC, which is still pouting that a wealthy conservative lobbyist like Franklin didn’t win.

This isn’t new to the DCCC. Rahm Emanuel inserted it into their DNA when he was chairman and he was infamous for undercutting progressives who won primaries and refusing to back them in the general election. Many of them would go on to win without his help, making them independent of the corrupt Democratic establishment, a boon to them and to their constituents and to all of America.

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