But I heard him on the radio today and was not overly impressed. Everything he said sounded like it had been focus-grouped to death. Complete pablum, designed to split the difference oh so carefully.

I think more "realness" is what we need. People who are not such careful constructs of focus groups and polling.

I want to support people who have a lot of personal integrity and who I imagine would be true to their convictions even in the face of total opposition.

Throw that stuff out. Nobody knows anything for sure anyway.

And who knows, given half a chance he may yet develop. Politicians these days are so afraid of the wrong sound bite that they are often too buttoned up.

Last edited Wed Jun 21, 2017, 08:39 AM - Edit history (1)

It's like the people are playing Call of Duty and the consultants are asking them if they want to be the red checkers or the black ones...

I think the party apparatus needs new blood, and we need new candidates who are wedded to their convictions, not the product of half-assed market research...

"I think the party apparatus needs new blood, and we need new candidates who are wedded to their convictions, not the product of half-assed market research.."

EXACTLY!!!!

It also didn't help that Ossoff didn't do the obvious thing and actually move in to the district.

Except that the district went 20 points against Democrats in the last election and has been solid republican since Carter. Other than those, no excuse.

Last edited Wed Jun 21, 2017, 04:31 AM - Edit history (1)

Drawn that way to accommodate thuglicans, and we all know who will control the Congress in 2018 and 2020: The GOP with their voter-suppression on 'roids and their "new" buddies the ruskies whose interference techniques will be much more improved by 2018 and 2020.

It's bad enough that our voting machine apparatus is vulnerable, old, hackable or has no paper-trail.

So Ossoff didn't get any gain over HRC there.

that Ossoff would probably not win.

This has been an extremely red district for decades.

The multiple candidates in that race that led to the runoff, most of their supporters of those other candidates were not Democrats, and just like the republican primaries, they killed each other off, and got trump, so when the runoff election happened, they united behind handle.

No surprises really, except the media playing this up for something that was really never there

When they can't win three elections in a row, even in Repub areas, in the midst of the worst Presidency in history, that's bad.

The Dems and leadership should regroup and figure out how to WIN, for the sake of the country. Examine all these campaigns to see where they went wrong. They have to appeal to that particular area. What sort of Dem would appeal to a disheartened Trumper? That sort of thing.

The recent shooting also had an effect. Ads were run in GA re the "Democrat" who shot Republican representatives. The Repubs managed to turn that into a few votes. Did the Dems turn the Gabby Gifford shooting into votes? The Dems need to look at all these things, IMO.

There's a reason that Trump chose these cabinet members-- their districts are (normally) considered safe R and he would not risk losing the seat.

The fact that we were competitive in races that the national party did not see competitive in 2016 speaks volumes.

HRC got about the same % in the Presidential election, so although she did well in that district, and Ossoff did about the same, Ossoff didn't gain any ground.

But whatever.

though Gary Johnson probably had a few percent of the total.

Clinton outperformed Ossoff in this district. Clinton also won this district 60% to 39% in the Georgia primary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Democratic_primary,_2016 A sanders endorsed candidate would have done terrible in that district

The real world is a nice place where facts and votes matter

It was that she got about 48%, close to Ossoff's 47%.

He's a fairly factual person, so I'm sure he's right. If I remember it correctly.

I didn't say a more progressive candidate would have done better or worse. So I don't know why you made that comment.

And close to that in Montana. In both those races, the progressive candidates made the races closer than anyone expected.

This proves both wings of the party and the supporters of both major primary campaigns are needed, and that those wings should be in partnership, rather than either being treated as "the natural leadership".

By your logic, it's the same as the progressive candidates did.

All of these seats were equally unwinnable no matter who we nominated.

Clearly, it was a major tactical mistake to make a big deal out of any of them.

We really need to pick better candidates.

n/t.

Would a Keith Ellison have had a better chance? Keith wins his elections in a walk here in the People's Republic of Minneapolis - but maybe not in suburban Atlanta.

In both cases, the kind of candidates the sectarian centrists say can never do well made dramatic improvements in our showing, in the case of Kansas did so even though the national party refused to help.

Tonight, the swing to Ossoff was no stronger than the swing to either of those candidates.

This was one election out of 435 seats, and it had record-breaking, atypical spending.

We all like to focus on special elections when they happen, but the reality is that they're basically one-offs.

Counting the GA primary, that's where we are now. 0 and 5.

Eight months now knowing that President Shitstain would be president, five months of incomprehensibly awful, stunning incompetence and venality and corruption at the highest levels of government, written across the sky in letters of fire. And we're Zero and Five, even as the Trump Trainwreck grows ever larger and burns ever hotter.

Maybe a new global economic collapse might inspire Americans to vote. Or, since corruption and collusion with a foreign, hostile power to compromise and capture the Executive Branch of the federal government isn't apparently enough to change people's minds, that might not be enough,

We don't decide where special elections take place. They are not picked at random. These elections happened to take place in districts we almost always lose.

Like Bush in fall of 2006.

In each of those seats, those candidates ran in overwhelmingly "red" districts and strongly out performed the candidate we nominated in the fall.

Like changing the polling locations in democratic leaning areas without notice. This will continue if the party doesn't do something NOW!

much evidence people show up at the polls and are turned away unless they haven't voted in a long time. Not denying gerrymandering happens, but if we can't find our polling place, but ignorant white wing racists can, we are in trouble.

All of us care about that equally, no matter who we backed in the primaries in 2016.

I don't like getting into it. Already have enough stress and am depressed about the loss. I have been here at DU a long time and people know my views. I will always be in the Elizabeth-Bernie wing of the party. But we need to unite despite our differences.

I will say this. The district has a lot of rich Repukes who probably wouldn't have been swayed by a populist left economic message. Not sure a progressive would have done better. Did Ossoff hit Handel on the "against a living wage" statement? That needed to be used.

What is maddening is that both progressives and centrists have lost. Hopefully all it shows are solidly Repuke districts are still sticking together so far.

right wing as they come for for decades. Tom Price, Newt Gingrich, etc.

In fact a few reputable news sources reported when it became clear there would be a runoff, Ossoff would most likely not win. It wasn't a rocket science analysis either.

His best shot was the first round of voting.

The real point is that if you are going to lose, then do so with a died in the wool liberal. This is what the T-party did and they ultimately got Trump. They control the GOP at this point. You have to be willing to lose in order to win.

purity bullshit, and Ossoff was damn progressive on most issues, and would be considered a "died in the wool liberal", in that district.

The Green party has Never won a Congressional Seat, so you'll excuse me if I don't follow their suicidal ideology on how to lose elections.

There were 5 Democrats running in that race, including Ossoff.
There were 11 republicans running in that race, including Handle
and 2 independents.

Because of that, Ossoff had a real chance to win the election outright, but not the runoff. That was always a fact, inspite of the media and blogger bullshit. If Ossoff didn't win the election outright, the odds were very against that he would win the runoff, because all those republicans would line up behind Handle.

Most of those republicans other than Handel in that election had about 10% of the total vote.

All of the Democrats and independents, except Ossoff had less than 1% of that vote, and we came pretty close to winning it outright with Jon Ossoff. Unfortunately, there was a runoff, and that is why we lost, NOT because we ran Jon Ossoff.

Link to tweet

said if we were going to lose that district anyway, we should have done so with a "died in the wool liberal", because "we have to be willing to lose in order to win"

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=9230716

That is right out of the Jill Stein/Green Party playbook, and it wasn't directed at your OP.

The only criticism I had with you OP was your assertion that "Jon Ossoff had no excuse for losing", and I explained why I believed that was not an accurate assessment in my post directly to you.

As for your points that we should unify, I could not agree more

n/t.

The race was almost assuredly unwinnable by anyone with a D after their name. There just weren't enough people who were going to vote for ANYONE that wasn't the republican. I'm not claiming that the race was lost because of a lack of "purity". I'm saying that when you KNOW you're gonna lose, what's the point in not making a full throated case for your point of view, instead trying to somehow appeal to a nonexistent "middle".

The story has been written over and over in this country. There is no "middle" right now. We are extremely divided. That may change some day, but right now, chasing the middle is to chase a mirage. Obama did it for 8 years. All that "reach across the aisle/grand bargain" stuff got him no where. All we keep doing is chasing the voters to the right. It just makes us look dumb and hypocritical and encourages them to move even further right.

Look, we've tried this "move to the middle" for 30 years and it has left us in the worst shape we've been in since reconstruction. We're worse off than after we passed Civil Rights legislation that was supposed to "had the south the GOP for a generation". We're so bad off that that legislation is now being undermined. They are screwing with the elections, they are exercising voter suppression.

It's not about "purity". It's about being right instead of trying to be popular. The "cool kids" are never going to like you. Ya might as well be who you are and stand up for yourself.

Yet the centrist wing acted like the candidates we chose there, both of whom sharply improved on our performance in the fall, were treated as though they were total disasters and as though their showings proved we should never nominate a progressive for anything again.

If Ossoff wasn't a failure, they weren't either-and if that is the case, the scorched-earth vilification campaign against the Democratic left on this board has been totally unjustified.

consistently made a point that the district that Gianforte won was because it was a district as red as they come, so it wasn't a surprise what happened. I also pointed out that the Governor of Montana, a statewide office, was a Democrat so we should not extrapolate too much from these special district elections, which up to now have been in very red districts.

In other words, I agree

Even the most progressive would have lost. Did you hear Handel's rhetoric? She thinks gays shouldn't be able to adopt. When asked why, she just said they shouldn't. And the fucking people in Georgia just ate that shit up. And abortion. And who the fuck knows what else. Jesus if anyone thought we would win this that was a really big wish. But if we come close in a district that hasn't voted Dem in 40 years we are making progress.

And that the Kansas and Montana races weren't disasters, either-those seats were just as unwinnable as the Georgia 6th.

To move past this, it's time to stop dividing this part into HRC or Sanders...we're all just Dems now, we all have things of equal worth to offer, and it's time to accept that no one should be driven away or put "in their place".

2016 is the past.

Yes, centrists have no "electoral magic". But really, they are trying to appeal to a constituency that doesn't really exist. There is no middle right now. In solid "red" districts, that would seem to be the time not to try to appeal to a center that doesn't exist, but instead make a solid case for a totally different point of view. It may not "win" now, but it does force the opponent to at least ADDRESS the issues.

It was not exactly an easy place to win.


Berniecrats and centrists have one thing in common thus far: losing.

You certainly have different standards .

It's about increasing turnout. Bland, safe "focus-group" tested candidates are never able to do that.

it's not just about turnout. it also depends on the districts and states themselves.

you need to stop dismissing candidates that win based on minority voters as focus group, bland etc.

people don't all agree with you on what type of candidate they like.

Ossoff wasn't nominated because minority voters preferred him. And it's very unlikely those voters insisted that he run exactly the campaign he ran.

so that's not saying much.

If they backed him(and I respect their right to do so), it's likely due to the belief that he was electable, rather than any particular insistence, for example, on a candidate who took corporate donations.

I don't know who he faced in the primary in 2016.

you do this all the time dismissing the reasons why minorities voted for someone you don't like .

he had the support of john lewis and has history working with him.

No one other than Ossoff was seen as having any real chance of making the second round.

I didn't say there were no other Dem candidates at all-there were other MINOR candidates. I wouldn't have voted for any of them, but I don't think there was any way to force them to withdraw before the first-round vote. And I doubt that white leftists were somehow to blame for those candidates staying in the race in the first round or that those candidates(candidates I agree should have withdrawn)stayed in the race with the intent of thwarting the will of voters of color. If they did, I condemn them for it.

My point was that Ossoff was the prohibitive Dem favorite in 2017 and.

And I accept that people of color preferred him. That is their choice. I'd have joined them in both rounds if I lived in the Georgia 6th.

Ossoff made gains in the Dem vote share.

So did the candidates we nominated in Kansas and Montana.

He lost. He could support his fiancee by driving 10 extra miles.

n/t.

Imagine that
It's often the small things that people overlook before a problem occurs
That's likely something that many people did look at and made them wonder
There were certainly other things. But that couldn't have helped him in any way

In The District. Hell if $25 Million Dollars Raised Couldn't Have Got The Guy A Sublet Apartment For 5 Months, Maybe He Deserved To Lose.

If you want to represent something, LIVE THERE!

I'm all for working with Bernie supporters who voted for Hillary, who isn't? The others can fuck off.

Yet those candidates were treated as total failures.

This proves centrists don't do any better, especially when they run "I ain't one of them there liberals" campaigns.

So we need partnership and dialog, not "shut up, sit in the back, and do what you're told".

in a district that had longer Repub control.

It seems like YOU want to make this a competition and that is not helpful.

As pertains to the Ossoff race, who said shut up and do what you're told?

a whole bunch of choice there. Like the CCCP days of Russia, we voted and the Politburo decides who is the winner.

as the 2016 primary clearly showed. In a different year, I doubt the election would have been spoiled but it was a trifecta(bitter primary, Comey and Russians) of bad circumstances-doubt it could be recreated in 20...I would also like to say tired of being threatened with by folks threatening to take their ball and go home...IE sabotaging an election and helping the Republicans...no progressive would behave in this fashion.

I actually think Trump is making people realize the importance of voting for the candidates with the "D" next to their names.The Trump presidency is a horror show and will literally kill thousands...millions in the end if we can't stop him...and no one was
'cut out'. You don't get to dictate, this is a big tent and everyone has an opinion and a say. Also, I seriously doubt you wield as much power as you think you do. I want to win elections...I see no evidence that tacking way left will help in that endeavor which makes me sad as I AM A PROGRESSIVE! I always vote Democratic and am a member of the Democratic base. I would love to see a truly liberal candidate run for president...but I don't think such a person could be elected today.

I don't think an ultra-liberal candidate can win in West Virginia, at least not right now.

Hopefully Trump will destroy the GOP and make it possible for us to do better in more places.

I'd be more inclined to believe them if they could win some conservative districts with progressive candidates.

n/t.

Ok, the guy should have been pro-choice...but it was a mayor's race(mayors have little to do with abortion access) and the only reason Bernie mentioned it was that it was the Omaha mayor's race and the Unity Tour event Bernie was speaking at there was in Omaha. Also, as I understood it, no other even vaguely progressive candidate was in that race, so it's not as though Bernie stabbed somebody better in the back.

than the nebraska guy. yet you are trying to debate as if that was not the case.

How about the fact that he was running in a heavily Republican district?

Instead of living just outside of it
Lots of reason why he lost. Not living in the district was probably not helpful

The Republican voters would not have voted for him regardless.

But it probably didn't help him with unaffiliated voters in the district

You can't keep reusing the same talking points..and hope it applies in every situation.

And this persistent meme of yours that people are being "ignored" and treated as "junior" even when said people were given a seat at the table yet still disrespect Democrats is amazing to me.

Assess the situation correctly. Ossoff's ears were to the ground and he focused on the thing that should have united leftists of all stripes - healthcare. Problem is he was *Running in a republican district*

Share with us then how you would persuade people in this district who grudge vote, who don't want to pay more taxes, who don't want policies that give people "free shit" , that the Democratic platform is the better platform.

This is no longer about Sanders and Clinton, the Democratic party consists of ( to quote another member haele here) "pragmatists and idealists", moderates and those to the far left. In some districts, far left politics is not palatable, that's where your moderate candidates have a chance. So the challenge before us is crafting the message-

Voter Suppression is a fact.
Gerrymandering is a fact.

We're facing a battle and severely handicapped because of those two realities but we're not using efficiently the tools our enemies use. They realise we're in an information war and we haven't sussed this out yet. We still don't have a response to the ways in which Republicans weaponize data, do we understand the power of media at all? And we're going to have to sink resources into voter registration efforts ( I know this happens but mobilization will have to occur on a massive scale and that requires MONEY)

The problem is not ideology but strategy. If you persist in spreading the false dichotomy of "Progressive" vs "establishment" instead of discussing strategy, you are not helping.

Those facts don't mean nothing in this party can be criticized, and that no one can call for change.

And we can't fight vote suppression or gerrymandering by nominating more centrists than progressives. There can't be enthusiastic support for centrists and without that there can't be high turnout.

Whatever strategy we use, this result shows us that both wings of the party are equally needed.

And I'm not spreading the dichotomy of "progressive" vs. "establishment"-I'm saying the push to drive half the party out of the party(which is what the relentless anti-Sanders rhetoric here for the last few months has been about)needs to stop. If it succeeds, and if we stay with what we did in the fall of 2016 for the rest of eternity, we can never make a comeback...we'll be stuck at 49% in presidential elections and minority status in Congress and most state legislature from here on in. No "strategy" can elect us if we "stay the course".

as if that is the problem. You didn't address any of the points I raised. Please tell me how progressives have fared since last year.

Do not take what I typed to a ridiculous conclusion - like insinuating I don't believe there should be criticism.

I repeat: was this district a progressive leaning district??

But Ossoff was supposed to have some special magic here, centrism was supposed to have some special magic here...and there was no magic.

Ideologically, it's comparable to the Kansas district and the Montana at-large race. In both of those races, the candidates we had in the special elections made dramatic improvements in the Democratic showing, improvements comparable to the actual gains Ossoff made.

Those candidates have been treated as if their efforts were humiliating failures. What I'm saying is that they did as well as Ossoff in ideologically comparable districts, so the notion that Ossoff-type candidates are inherently preferable and that voters will vote for his kind of Dem but not others has been discredited.

ANY Dem would have matched Ossoff's showing tonight.

I never, repeat NEVER claimed that this district leaned progressive, though, so don't imply that I did.

is a grudge about people being "ignored" in reference to a republican leaning district which a FINE, YOUNG democratic politician nearly captured - Your first assessment is to complain about "centrism", the implication being that whatever other fine qualities Ossoff possessed it didn't matter because he is a "centrist", nevermind the fact he outperformed - are you suggesting a progressive would have outperformed him? Come on.

where people insisted that, because Ossoff was more moderate, he would be the only Dem to win a special election-that his type of Dem could win special elections but more progressive Dems couldn't-and that this somehow proves that the Democratic Party should be a left-free zone.

I have nothing against Ossoff personally. I donated to his campaign and would have canvassed for him if I'd lived anywhere near there. I truly wish he had won.

Ossoff did increase the Dem vote in his race. The Dems in Kansas and Montana who were more progressive made comparable gains in vote share their races. All three were and are fine people.

so I'm afraid there's no hope of the "great reconciliation" you seek.

If Ossoff had WON, they'd have used to attack Bernie, too.

We energize more Republicans to get to the polls, when we spends load of money and put national attention on the races. That is the wrong strategy, in my opinion.

n/t.

As populism is never progressive.

And those who keep calling liberal Democrats "centrists" can do stuff themselves.

Ossoff underperformed Clinton. Yikes.

In a district whose boundaries were drawn to give the GOP a 9 point edge? In a district that the previous Representative had won by 20 points?

Ossoff was a good fit for GA-06. It is an affluent suburban district and a tough nut to crack so I am not shocked that he lost. I do think we need to run candidates who are good fits for their districts/states. An across-the-board liberal will probably not do so well in a deep red state.

That being said, I would like to see the national strategy shift toward increasing turnout. Non-voters tend to be closer to the core Democratic profile. They are less affluent and more diverse and are thus a potential treasure trove for us if we can get them out and defeat Republican attempts to keep turnout low. Putting a lot of time and effort into wooing affluent Republicans is not a good strategy especially if it means alienating our base among less affluent Americans.

Please note those making grand and foolish claims about a district that damn near made a twenty point shift in our direction.

It's been an interesting week. I'm learning more and more. I'm seeing more and more. Glad to know that I'm not the only one who's spotting things like this.

be an uphill race all the way. He cut the margin from 24 points to 4. This is not a swing district it is a hot red district.

It says...we almost won in key GOP districts and our prospects are very bright to retake the House. If you tell me a progressive could win GA 6, I must say I would be shocked.

But the pro-Sanders Dems came as close to winning as the anti-Sanders Dems-the pro-Sanders Dem likely WOULD have won in the Kansas race had the national party not refused to send him any help even when the polls proved he was closing the gap dramatically.

In all cases, we made dramatic improvement in vote share, and that was pretty much all we could realistically expect to achieve.

Nobody should ever have been using these contests to prove that only non-progressive Dems could win. That should never have been part of the agenda at all-and it was a major part of the agenda in the Ossoff campaign, with any number of people arguing, elsewhere AND here, that an Ossoff victory would have proved that we should only nominate centrists.

If nothing else, a progressive nominee in the Georgia 6th would have known enough to make sure to actually live in the district. It was always a certainty the Handel campaign would make an issue out of that and that it would make a huge difference.

My point is that the results prove that neither faction can win without the other and that neither has any special claim to electoral superiority.

We solve that by being a partnership of equals, by supporting social and economic justice with equal commitment-recognizing that neither justice struggle conflicts with the other and that neither benefits from the other being put on the back burner.

And we become equally open to either the Clinton OR the Sanders modes of organization and fundraising.

We can only resist Trump by treating each other as equals and standing with each other.

There can't be unity by telling everyone just to get in line behind the way we did things in the fall of '16.

If that approach failed then, it will ALWAYS fail.

Time to admit it and move on.

elections that we desperately need to win. We need big donors...you have to have money to win in the age of United which some don't understand especially for midterms. We have to have candidates that can win in their districts. Quist for example based himself on Sen. Sander's message and it was too liberal for Montana. But a moderate Democrat won the governorship in 16 so the right candidate could have beat Gianfort. Our Revolution is primarying Joe Manchin...what a waste of money and time...should they succeed, they would elect a Republican. I do not support this and consider it madness. Now everyone has a seat at the big tent Democratic Party...all are welcome. But that doesn't mean you get to foist your ideology on everyone especially if it would cause us to lose elections. We all have a say...none of us gets the final say.

It's not "foisting" to make this a party that stands for what most Dems want.

And it's not as though we can only retake Congress by promising to put a elect a large bloc of people on our line who will devote themselves to blocking most of what any Democratic president would propose. The country isn't demanding that the Democratic caucus include a blocking fourth like that.

(For the record, I didn't know about the Manchin thing...but there's a good chance Manchin will lose in '18 no matter what happens. At a bare minimum, we should have the right to get a commitment out of him to back the leadership on procedural votes and never to filibuster).

Sen. Sanders. His platform (the Dem platform) is what I believe as I am a liberal. But I think we are the minority in the Party and without a doubt in the country.