I don’t know who needs to hear this but ELECTED OFFICE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE YOUR LIFETIME CAREER!!!! If you are defensive about your seat because you aren’t capable of making a living in any other field, trust me, we know this and that’s why we want to see other candidates.
100%. This has been upsetting to me for so long. This is how the party lost Ted Kennedy's seat. Maybe the person who would have won the primary wouldn't have won the general, but THE PERSON THEY PICKED LOST TOO!!! Sigh. This happens over and over again. This is why we got Henry Cuellar, a complete DINO, instead of a progressive challenger who lost the primary by fewer than 289 votes the second time, in a safe district! She would have been an awesome Representative, but she gave up in disgust, and we got Cuellar, who usually votes with his Republican colleagues, and has been indicted on corruption charges (but of course that never went anywhere because reasons).
The fact that they keep doing this is evidence that they simply can't see past their groupthink.
As for your point about "perceived to be," I had an embarrassing moment on Bluesky the other day. I was discussing Diane Feinstein's last primary, and I boldly asserted a fact that I absolutely knew was true: that the Democratic Party threw the primary in her favor.
Turns out they didn't—they didn't endorse her, and she won anyway. Oops. So that's at least a bit of anecdotal confirmation that it's basically just assumed by anyone who's paying attention that the party is going to try to throw the primary to the incumbent no matter what.
Wow just wow! People thinking about running should have full support of the democratic party. No one should be putting their finger on the scale to dissuade a potential candidate. Potential candidate are already not sure about running in the first place. It is hard enough to get decent people in politics that are not just in it to Grift but to tell a potential candidate move on is just nonsense. This is why no one is interested in politics and why we don't trust people running the show.
Already on this! See the above. Note that I'm putting together a powerhouse resource center (heavy on policy and voter education info) so that people who want to run for office have an independent source of information. They don't have to rely on a party organization.
Amanda, I love the energy! I'm much older than you and went through the same thing in the 90s. Here is what I learned: mo/duopoies don't reform - they get replaced. There is a reason all the industry leaders of the 80s: Sears, JCPenney, Yellow Cab, Newspapers, Tower Records, TV Networks were replaced by Amazon, Yelp, Google, iTunes, Netflix, YouTube... The Democratic Party is an analog network that needs to go online, mobile, and social. This is a moment in history - the Dem Party can embrace the way 90% of the public organizes information and makes decisions (online/mobile), or it can try to hold on to its old ways of "private" backroom deal-making and parish. I love what you're doing with Run For Something - YouTube ran a similar campaign promoting new content providers with programs like "YouTube Creator Kickstart." YouTube's success came from lowering the barrier to market entry by connecting new content providers to millions of viewers at a fraction of the cost of TV Networks. Today, the top 100 YouTube channels have bigger audiences than any TV show! That was the secret sauce; they created a "level playing field" and gave users the tools to review ALL content providers, select favorites, and share with friends. Let's do the same thing in election campaigning! Let's talk. - Jim
It's all about political charisma -- which can be hard to assess in the abstract. That's what primaries are for! Without competitive primaries, we are replacing charisma with data. And although I am a data guy myself and love it, the reality is, no one votes for data.
In 2020, Biden won South Carolina, and the rest of the “centrist” candidates dropped out. They strategically defeated Bernie by forcing the centrist vote to coalesce on the oldest candidate in the nation’s history.
Want us to feel like the candidate isn’t forced down our throats? Don’t let South Carolina decide who my choices are. It was decided before I even had a vote. Let me have a vote!
Let’s have all the primaries on the same day. Let’s have ranked choice voting, or Star voting, for our primaries. Let’s have a process that actually feels fair.
I don’t know who needs to hear this but ELECTED OFFICE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE YOUR LIFETIME CAREER!!!! If you are defensive about your seat because you aren’t capable of making a living in any other field, trust me, we know this and that’s why we want to see other candidates.
100%. And it’s why people don’t have trust and confidence in the Democratic Party right now, ughhh
It's like, genuinely guys, do we live in a democracy or not? What are we even doing here!!!!!
Sara - if you're up for some serious disruption, I'd be happy to demo our new social election campaigning platform and get your thoughts.
EXACTLY.
Heck, one of the reasons we need primaries is to excise this type of thinking from the party!
100% correct! The “experts” don’t have a good track record. Let’s try grassroots.
100%. This has been upsetting to me for so long. This is how the party lost Ted Kennedy's seat. Maybe the person who would have won the primary wouldn't have won the general, but THE PERSON THEY PICKED LOST TOO!!! Sigh. This happens over and over again. This is why we got Henry Cuellar, a complete DINO, instead of a progressive challenger who lost the primary by fewer than 289 votes the second time, in a safe district! She would have been an awesome Representative, but she gave up in disgust, and we got Cuellar, who usually votes with his Republican colleagues, and has been indicted on corruption charges (but of course that never went anywhere because reasons).
The fact that they keep doing this is evidence that they simply can't see past their groupthink.
As for your point about "perceived to be," I had an embarrassing moment on Bluesky the other day. I was discussing Diane Feinstein's last primary, and I boldly asserted a fact that I absolutely knew was true: that the Democratic Party threw the primary in her favor.
Turns out they didn't—they didn't endorse her, and she won anyway. Oops. So that's at least a bit of anecdotal confirmation that it's basically just assumed by anyone who's paying attention that the party is going to try to throw the primary to the incumbent no matter what.
Wow just wow! People thinking about running should have full support of the democratic party. No one should be putting their finger on the scale to dissuade a potential candidate. Potential candidate are already not sure about running in the first place. It is hard enough to get decent people in politics that are not just in it to Grift but to tell a potential candidate move on is just nonsense. This is why no one is interested in politics and why we don't trust people running the show.
https://open.substack.com/pub/sharonlawrence/p/governing-put-pedal-to-the-metal?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=a5esd.
Already on this! See the above. Note that I'm putting together a powerhouse resource center (heavy on policy and voter education info) so that people who want to run for office have an independent source of information. They don't have to rely on a party organization.
Amanda, I love the energy! I'm much older than you and went through the same thing in the 90s. Here is what I learned: mo/duopoies don't reform - they get replaced. There is a reason all the industry leaders of the 80s: Sears, JCPenney, Yellow Cab, Newspapers, Tower Records, TV Networks were replaced by Amazon, Yelp, Google, iTunes, Netflix, YouTube... The Democratic Party is an analog network that needs to go online, mobile, and social. This is a moment in history - the Dem Party can embrace the way 90% of the public organizes information and makes decisions (online/mobile), or it can try to hold on to its old ways of "private" backroom deal-making and parish. I love what you're doing with Run For Something - YouTube ran a similar campaign promoting new content providers with programs like "YouTube Creator Kickstart." YouTube's success came from lowering the barrier to market entry by connecting new content providers to millions of viewers at a fraction of the cost of TV Networks. Today, the top 100 YouTube channels have bigger audiences than any TV show! That was the secret sauce; they created a "level playing field" and gave users the tools to review ALL content providers, select favorites, and share with friends. Let's do the same thing in election campaigning! Let's talk. - Jim
It's all about political charisma -- which can be hard to assess in the abstract. That's what primaries are for! Without competitive primaries, we are replacing charisma with data. And although I am a data guy myself and love it, the reality is, no one votes for data.
Fred: What do you mean by "data?"
In 2020, Biden won South Carolina, and the rest of the “centrist” candidates dropped out. They strategically defeated Bernie by forcing the centrist vote to coalesce on the oldest candidate in the nation’s history.
Want us to feel like the candidate isn’t forced down our throats? Don’t let South Carolina decide who my choices are. It was decided before I even had a vote. Let me have a vote!
Let’s have all the primaries on the same day. Let’s have ranked choice voting, or Star voting, for our primaries. Let’s have a process that actually feels fair.