Nope. A bomb thrower to me is a politician who has a lot of hot air, but never actually accomplishes anything besides getting their mug in front of a camera. Maxine Waters, Jim Traficant, or Dennis Kucinich come to mind. It has nothing to do with socialism. The younger Newt Gingrinch was a bomb thrower in his early days until he got serious about trying to obtain power.
From what I can tell, midterm “safe” congressional districts in NYC get like 10-15K voter turnout in the primary; notable exception the competitive royal rumble of the 13th District where 45K+ showed up in 2014. But that is distorted because most really safe seats are uncontested or only get a token opponent.
Ocasio-Crowley moved over 27k
That’s what I got from someone in another NY Dem district yesterday: “She hit the street and went door to door, he got complacent.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s (can we call her OC?) race had a turnout of ~27K, so that sounds well above normal for what the incumbent considered a safe seat.
Thanks for that link; she’s good. Sincere, thoughtful, hard-working, loyal… good job, 14th!
Concur entirely. She’s extremely impressive.
I know I’ve talked shit about Sanders, but I never had problems with Bernie; I just wish some of the extreme fringe Bernie Bros and Jill Stein cultists would have come to their senses and not voted for Colonel Crapcake.
But 2016 is over. It’s a new era now. Just like the Republican party is no longer the party of Bush and Dole, the Democrats are going to have to find a new identity. I respect Pelosi and Schumer, but their time is up. Like it or not, agree with their agenda 100% or not, we’re going to have to have some issues to be fired up about. And we’re going to need energy. I think Ocasio-Cortez is fucking awesome. We need (educated) bartenders, (educated) school teachers, (educated) small business owners, (hopefully educated) family doctors, and ordinary community people to lead the movement. We need lawyers, too, but the career politicians are not on the menu anymore.
Actually, you’re making the same mistake that helped Remain lose Brexit: conflating education with intelligence. A well-educated idiot is not preferable to an poorly-educated person with intelligence. The latter will listen and learn and judge; the former, not so well.
Hopefully those aren’t your only two options and you can maybe get an educated AND intelligent person. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez seems to fit that bill.
She was on Colbert last night and did a good job. For a political newcomer she sure seems “camera ready”.
Meh. There will be one main course in 2020, the nominee for president, and that will highly likely be someone who has had a career in politics.
All the sides will be a variety of sorts of dishes with different tables picking different items.
I mean I agree that leadership needs some fresh faces and the bench needs deepening. But for every Ocasio-Cortez there have been multiple “establishment” and established candidates winning their nods.
I love Howard Dean, who’s always been a man ahead of his time.
I think Dean is mostly right, and that’s what I’m beginning to sense with Democrats over the past year, even among so-called moderate Democrats. Conor Lamb is an entirely different kind of Democrat than Ocasio-Cortez, but they both brought the same anti-establishment energy to the table.
What the Democrats need to understand, particularly in 2020, is that Conor Lamb would not be able to win an election in New York City, and Ocasio-Cortez would not be able to win an election in Southwestern Pennsylvania. They have to let that sink in and not insist on purity of the progressive message. If the race becomes about progressive purity and if the hard left cannot bridge differences, then there’s an excellent chance that Donald Trump gets re-elected. The goal has to be about beating Trump.
I agree completely that the race and campaign message has to have substance and should avoid focusing on Trump. They should attack the entire Republican party, not Trump. And the good news is, there’s a lot of material to work with. I just hope the Democrats can get out of their own way.
Using Sanders estimate (which is probably low) of 75 Billion annually to make college free and the 139.6 Million taxpayers, that works out to $44/month each. That doesn’t sound like “much higher taxes.” And I think the appeal goes farther than you think. It’s not only young people who want to go to school and it’s not only young people that are currently paying for young people to go to school.
And it’s not only young people who benefit when we have an educated and well-trained populace.
Haven’t seen his latest proposal if there is one, but I perused it during the last election and found that overall it did seem to be a large increase in expenditures if you enact the whole program. Largely paid for by specialized taxes. Even if we chose to enact his whole agenda rather than reduce the deficit, I’d prefer it be with a simpler tax increase because that promotes economic efficiency.
What I like best about Ocasio-Córtez is exactly that she does not come across at all as a Sanderista bombthrower. She campaigns as a textbook pol ought to, saying the right things, appearing sober and mature in the same measure as youthful and energetic.
As much as I loathe Bernie Bro-ism, she isn’t doing that. Damned 2016 is water under the bridge anyway. Going forward, she is a face of the Democratic party’s future. She looks pretty good so far.
Unfortunately, it looks like she’s letting the success go to her head and is quickly descending into Bernie level narcissism.
Yeah, I’m not really seeing the narcissism in that article.
Nah.
That’s the exact argument that the party overall will have and should have after the midterms and before the general presidential election season. Is the national party best served by revving up the progressive left or by appealing to the middle? Of course she is on one side of that argument, as are many others who will be voting in the primaries. And Duckworth also has good company on her side of the argument that revving the progressive left is not worth losing the middle.
I know where I sit in that argument and we all know that we have different posters with divergent takes on it. Let’s get each candidate elected in their districts for now, have that argument amongst ourselves respectfully as the presidential primary season approaches and commences, and then whoever wins the nomination enthusiastically ALL rally around.
Now if she was signaling that she would not rally around a candidate that was not sufficiently to the left, that would be a problem. She did not do that.
These regional differences aren’t a problem in the mid-terms, but the Democratic is going to have some major problems in 2020 if they don’t have a plan for bridging these regional and demographic differences within the party. They desperately need someone who has the ability to speak with credibility to both the Trump country Democrats and the urban Democrats. We’ve heard a lot of talk about Biden for president, but I would think he would be better off being a party chair or some other prominent spokesperson. Or someone like Ron Wyden of Oregon.