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A Wave of Progressive Candidates Could Reshape the Democratic Party
A Wave of Progressive Candidates Could Reshape the Democratic Party
Many Democrats running in 2018 are first-time candidates to the left of the party’s mainstream. They will pull their party leftward in a mirror of the 2010 Tea Party revolution.
David A. Graham 6:00 AM ET Politics
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Eskamani has the concession text saved as a Google doc, but she’s optimistic she won’t have to use it. She’s running for the 47th state house district, in the Orlando area. The seat is open—incumbent Republican Mike Miller is trying for a promotion to the U.S. House—and it’s closely divided. Miller won the seat from a Democratic incumbent by about 2,000 votes in 2014, but Hillary Clinton won the district in 2016.
If Eskamani beats her Republican opponent in November, she’ll join a class of progressive candidates whose elections will reshape the Democratic Party. While the size and effect of a “blue wave” for Democratic control of the U.S. House has been extensively discussed, a less appreciated effect of wave elections comes down the ballot. There are more Democrats running than ever before, and many of them are first-time candidates to the left of the party’s mainstream. Once in office, they will pull the Democratic Party leftward for years to come, in a mirror of the 2010 Tea Party revolution in the GOP. Like the Tea Partiers, they will also reshape state and local policy discussions, championing progressive policies and tactics that have been relegated to the fringe in state capitols.
Eskamani is 28, the same age as newly minuted progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Like Ocasio-Cortez, who cut her teeth as an organizer for the Bernie Sanders campaign, Eskamani is not a political newcomer. At Planned Parenthood, she’s done everything from organizing to fundraising to marketing, all skills that are helpful in running for office. When she decided to run, she spent months drawing drawing up lists of donors, considering logo designs, and lining up support behind closed doors before she filed, most of it outside the auspices of the party.
“At the end of the day, the Democratic Party was not providing mentorship or development,” she says. “The dynamic about finding the next generation of leaders was not happening in our party.”
Eskamani’s complaint about inattention to the bench resonates nationwide. Years of neglect from the Democratic National Committee during the Obama administration mean Democrats at the state level have been hammered. Republicans now control 31 state legislatures in full, and have partial control in another four. Into that void has stepped a group of candidates who identify as Democrats but aren’t as connected to the party’s traditional structure, its platform, or its recruitment process.
“I do think a candidate like me helps to redefine what it means to be a Democrat,” Eskamani said. “You don’t have to come from wealth to run for office. It will inspire candidates like me who grew up in working-class environments to see themselves in representation.”
more...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/a-wave-of-progressive-candidates-could-reshape-the-democratic-party/566999/
5 replies
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of those now using this avenue to run for office are people who can work within the grand alliance of groups who make up the Democratic Party. People eager to advance the party but capable of respecting and understanding the need to cooperate with Democrats with different goals and preferred methods.
In 2016 almost no one met Sanders' standards. Now most are stepping up on their own with their own ideas of what they want to achieve. We always need healthy commitment to both changing what needs improving and protecting what needs to continue. More entering under this label who know how to achieve progressive reforms suggest a healthy evolution away from dysfunction, destabilization and self defeat toward viability and competence.
