Two of them are rural die hard Republican Zones (one of them actively hates anything Los Angeles due to buying up the water rights). Another is in Orange County (where else can you buy a 700 square foot home that's seven figures?).

If only to sell Democratic and progressive values for future elections.

It's a true waste to let a Rethug run unopposed. That means we aren't even trying, not even to clear the road for future elections.

I'll bet quisling Dem Debbie Wasserman-Schultz made that decision...

In these areas, it needs to start at the local level, like Dog-Catcher, Assembly Member...and one day, Mayor. You're talking about the dullest of the dull in the rural areas. Its a long term investment that will not have federal government results for awhile. And in places like Orange County...you know, they may be all for Gay Rights, socialized medicine, etc. But the minute you say "your taxes may go up after "x" income level"...you aren't going to get any votes from them.

California is already solid Democrat due to population. I'd like to see the money spent on almost "D" states such as Colorado and future possible "D" states such as Texas.

Running unopposed is no bell weather for the next election.

n/t

I'm in the district of former Congressman Bill Young. When he died a few years ago, there was a special election to finish his term, won by his aide David Jolly. There was a third way Dem in the race, former Fla Treasurer Alex Sink.
In the next Congressional election, the Fl Dem Party was waiting to see if Sink would run again. In the mean time, a local liberal Black minister filed to run. Sink eventually declined to run shortly before filing deadline. In a panic at short notice, DWS enlisted an Iraq veteran, former Republican with no political background to run. DWS and her henchman threatened the Black minister and his family to get him to withdraw, which he had to. No one knew who this ex-republican was, local paper did some background checking on the guy and discovered he'd lied about his education background. He withdrew after the filing deadline, so Jolly was able to run unopposed...in a purple district.

My district has now been redrawn by the courts, and is blue. Jolly is not running for reelection, he's running for Rubio's Senate seat. Dems Running for my district are ex-Republican Charlie Crist, and a guy named Eric Lyon (or Lynn?) that I don't know much about at the moment. IDK who's running on the Republican ticket.

Seriously, or just economically and politically?

Politics is stranger and stranger. The other day I was at a meeting of Democrats for our county. We were trying to find candidates to run for the local offices - state senator, state rep, various county positions (like the treasurer position I ran for myself in 2012 (and lost badly, but in my defense, our sheriff candidate ran a great race - and finished with the same percentage as I did. I thought those races would be less political. I mean, none of the traditional guns or abortion or even taxes are in play, but all three of us D candidates finished with about the same percentage of the votes.)

Truly though, I was kinda shocked and saddened by that meeting. They kept mentioning moderate Republicans they wanted to get to run as Democrats. I mean I always joked that it seemed like Kansas politics was a conservative Republican running against a Democrat who was really a moderate Republican, but to actually see that in action. They also basically seemed to be looking for - somebody with deep pockets.

You seem to have a primary race though, so you are not stuck with the ex-Republican unless he wins the primary.

'Anonymous' because no proof of ID the cops could go with, but the voices were recognized as local party establishment. And DWS is one of the 800 lb gorillas in the state party. Nothing is done without their orders/approval. They were trying to give their candidate a clear primary.

"nothing is done without their orders/approval"

I mean even in Kansas, we are a party of 300,000 individuals. As one of those individuals, as a precinct man, former county treasurer for the party and two time candidate, I will tell you, I do not take orders from anybody - and I would not.

Now there was a primary challenge in 2010 (for Secretary of State) and the party backed one of the candidates, which I did not care for, and the senate minority leader was calling for the other candidate to drop out. He didn't though, and lost the primary and left the party, and then lost his re-election bid (he was a state senator) In fact, our Senate candidate dropped out in 2014 (and various party officials were trying to make that happen) so we could all get behind the in-duh-pendent. Not me though, with no real Democrat on the ballot, just some rich independent trying to buy a Senate seat, I went and got a yard sign for the Republican incumbent.

I had many reasons for that, which would doubtless be boring. Those are just a couple of examples where the state party seemingly influenced some things.

Madfloridan did extensive posting/blogging of the lies and crap DWS and Bill Nelson were spewing in support of Hillary in 2008. DWS, when she was chair of DCCC's 'Red to Blue' program (supposed to support Democratic challengers to Republican incumbents), actually came out in support of 3 Florida republican incumbants when they had progressive Democrat challengers. She teamed up with Sheldon Adelson (yes, that guy) to defeat a medical marijuana ballot initiative. Fortunately, it was narrowly defeated, and is on the ballot again.
She and Bill Nelson control the state party, which in turn controls all the local parties. Only corporate Third Way Democrats can serve on committees, be delegates, run for office with party support, etc. It is autocratic, just like she's running the DNC now...putting her thumb on the scales to help 'her' candidate, threatening to overturn voters with the superdelegates, etc.
In short, DWS is slime.

it is just hard to imagine for me that Florida Democrats would put up with it.

Those word though "party support". You live in a state where the party has resources, it has power. And the power has apparently corrupted it. In my state, the party has very little power.

But it is one thing for them to use "money" power to get their way, but to use threats of violence?

Independants outnumber both Dems and Reps here. The remaining Democrats are majority DLC. The main power groups within the party are the trial lawyers, who provide funding (in addition to the corporate funding); teachers union, who provide boots on the ground; and African Americans, who want to maintain connections to political power, provide a solid voting bloc, but really don't get anything in return. Operating outside the party are several progressive groups, namely Progressive Democrats of America (currently organizing on behalf of Sanders), but they are severely budget-limited, ignored by media, and have limited success.
The issue here is exactly what Sanders is preaching about. The Democratic Party pays lip service to opposing Republicans, but in general serve the same corporate masters, and primarily just want to preserve their spots at the corporate feed trough. It's a pretty depressing situation.
BTW, our primary is in a month. It's a closed primary, registered Democrats only. Although a good number of Indies and new voters have registered Dem in order to vote for Sanders (actual #s not released yet), I expect the math still favors Clinton to win Florida by a good margin. A huge youth turnout could make it competitive, we'll see.

particularly if it means you cannot vote in primaries.

Why pick between two candidates neither of whom represent their interests? I've continued to stay registered Dem, and voted, but it's been hold your nose for quite some time. Crap, the latest party strategy is soliciting Republicans to run as Democrats! I totally get what peep who have left are feeling...nearing the end of the rope myself. Voting for Bernie...then see what happens and make a decision. If he doesn't get the nom, I think a valid third party will arise from the wreckage of the Dem party.

If you do not like Candidate D or Candidate R in November, well, as a registered Democrat you may have the option between selecting D-1 or D-2 or D-3 in a primary. Many times you will NOT have that option, you will not have a contested primary. But you at least some times have a choice if you are registered with a party.

A valid third party seems like a ridiculous pipe dream to me. We cannot even get candidates to create a viable 2nd party. Where are all these great candidates going to come from? If they exist, then why don't they run as Democrats? Because they cannot beat the big, bad Democratic machine? If they cannot do that, then how are they gonna beat the much stronger Republican machine?

Often, there is no primary. There's a corporatist candidate the party has cleared any primary challengers for. On the few occasions when there is a primary contest, the 'choices' are corporate candidate A, corporate candidate B, maybe a corporate candidate C.
The party aggressively fights any liberal candidate from even making the ballot. The republicans are not their opponents, liberals are. Republicans are their friends, or at least cohorts in corruption. THAT is the state of the state party.

They can clear the field, but in other ways they cannot. If I file with the SoS, then I am a candidate. The party does have the option, as I understand it, to reject me as a candidate, but I have not seen them exercise it in Kansas. They did, however, steer a candidate into MY district, where I was already running instead of his own district where they had a candidate they liked (the wife of the incumbent Congressperson).

I still kinda think that happened because some rich people didn't like my "tax the rich" message.

But what the heck, if I could not sell my tax the rich message to Democratic primary voters (who were kinda ignorant and mostly voted based on geography, it seems) then apparently I did NOT have a message that would resonate with a lot of voters. The primary voters made their choice, and I came in 2nd out of three.

The party, even in Kansas, wants viable candidates. So they are generally gonna support the candidate they see as viable. They didn't want the Congressman's wife to have to spend money in a primary or to be attacked by a primary opponent. Look at Gore and Clinton. Gore would have been a stronger candidate if not for the Bradley challenge. So what did that primary challenge accomplish? Just helped us to be stuck with George W. Bush. Look at the vitriol in GDP. It's harder to unite in the fall after going through something like that, no matter which side wins the primary.

...to a local Black minister, and his family, if he didn't withdraw from the primary in my Congressional district. He was a liberal Democrat who entered the race without party backing. That's what we're dealing with. You don't live here, you don't get it. DWS operates a dirty party machine here in Florida, just as bad as Mayor Richard Daley did for decades in Chicago.
If you pay your dues as a loyal cog in the machine, maybe they give you a Gerry-mandered district and a spot at the corporate feed trough. Otherwise, watch your back.

the state party puts its resources and money behind ONLY those races that THEY want to.

hard to recruit a candidate when you have to admit that they will be left high and dry.
who needs to worry about the gop doing a gerrymander when our own party assists them.

was literally thrown out of an obama office cause i dared to bring lit for a dem who was not on the chosen list.
and we wonder how walker won.....

They don't want the voters - just the money

what was going on there. May you will be lucky and some other party will oppose them.

But with limited resources, they only target flippable seats. These four seats in California are highly unlikely to flip.

then pulled the plug when their internal polling turned south; DCCC is nothing but fair-weather friend

or some other event causing them to drop out. We need to have someone on the ballot even if it's an actual dogcatcher.

Last edited Mon Feb 15, 2016, 07:32 PM - Edit history (1)

Even if you don't spend any more money than it takes to get on the ballot at least we're not giving away an election. Even lost causes can be diversions that put a drag on repubs in other races.

Why waste time and energy? Hell if I was running for office and knew I would lose, how hard do you think I would have tried? How much money out of my own pocket would I expend?

In another post I wrote, start at the local level. Not at the National. If you want to turn solid "R" Districts to "D", going to have to realize: 1. No federal government results for a long time. 2. In order to remove an "R" at the federal level will require turning the locals to "D"...not an easy task amongst people who see the Federal Government as their "problem".

On edit, the local efforts you're talking about are important and I agree with them but I don't think it's an either/or situation.

Looking at the districts in the context...and traveling through them...a "D" would never win. In many of these towns, Democrats are a significant minority....and I dare say...in a few...they don't exist. In many situations, its basically "who is the more republican?". Like wise, in some area's its who is the most "Democratic". If a district is trying to "out conservative" itself....no point in running a "D...even a moderate one". You have to work at the local level over time, there will no be immediate results. But hope, to borrow and compromise what Regan said..."it has to trickle up".

I can not imagine how hard it is if u know u r a token with no hope

In rural areas its common I think, where nobody wants to spend the time and money to just lose. Which is too bad, as people really never have a choice or hear an opposing argument as to how things could or should be done. On the other hand, if someone of good character and good intentions here wants to go into public service they know which party they have to sign up as; its not always a solid indicator of real ideology.

We need to erect a 50 State "Bernie Friendly House and Senate Candidate" site

Bernie will have to clear the DLC rot out of the DNC, so they'll be welcoming and supporting of liberal/progressive candidates. Some state parties will need dismantling and start again from scratch. For example, the FlDemParty is so dysfunctional and self-serving that I don't think it can be reformed. Just start over. Bernie is going to need to put some good people in the DNC so we can get people into Congress who share his vision and are willing to fight for it.

39th and 48th should be competitive.

Although the finance numbers listed there look pretty insignificant. Even in Kansas people are spending close to $2,000,000 in a Congressional race. So the $40,000 listed for Duncan, for example, is pretty small change. He's probably getting a lot more from a group I would call - individuals with income over $150,000 annual.

Rohrbacher (48th) regularly gets more than 60 percent of the vote in his districts. There hasn't been a truly competitive race there in ages.

In 2012, the 48th went for Romney by nearly 12 points. In 2010 it went for Fiorina for Senate by 23 points. Its a safe R district. To be honest, I'd rather people who have money available to donate to a campaign direct that support to a district where it could make a difference.

I did not seek more information. Going by R+7 it looked competitive.

I still think there should be candidates even in "safe" districts. Granted that means a person is spending time and money on a very likely losing cause but at least voters have a choice.

By the way, the filing deadline to get on the ballot is March 11, 2016, so nothing is necessarily fixed in stone.
And having the party spend money on noncompetitive races is not a great idea when funds are not infinite.

Do not know how realistic. Probably has more money that the last guy that tried who was a good guy. Current one married to an immigrant so that is an interesting twist. Real estate mogul. We can hope!

But it will require a serious candidate and not just a bored millionaire taking one for the team. The skill with with the Democrats are able to find candidates who are genuinely worse than Rohrabacher is truely astonishing to me.

he is not that far away from Issa as far as districts that are safe is concerned, but I have raised this issue.

Hell the Ds are not even contesting the San Diego City Mayoral office. I know the Mayor has 1 million plus in the bank but it makes no freaking sense.

:middlefinger: