When it comes to discussing the dangers of neoliberalism to the Democratic Party, Adolph Reed is amazing. (Politico should have asked him to interview neoliberal Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) instead of Tim Alberta.) Look, I hate and avoid zoom, but please watch this enlightening video of Katie Halper's show above (or you may never understand what "McWokeyism" is). "A famous organizer," Reed said in reference to Jane McAlevey (also on the show), "once made a distinction between mobilizing, which is going to your standing constituency and getting them to do stuff, and organizing, which is building a constituency that you don't have." Do you think anyone at the DCCC has ever had a thought like that cross their mind? Or is it always just about raising money? I hope you're been reading DWT enough to know the answer to that already. And that the Democrats who lost their races-- both incumbents and challengers-- raised and spent far more-- in some cases two, three and four times more-- than the Republicans who beat them.
Just focusing in on Blue Dog losers from the class of 2018, defeated after one Republican-lite term:
• Joe Cunningham (SC) raised $6,278,942 and was defeated by Nancy Mace who raised $4,891,696.
• Xochitl Torres Small (NM) raised $7,509,987 and was defeated by Yvette Herrell who raised $2,498,130.
• Max Rose (NY) raised $8,350,467 and was defeated by Nicole Malliotakis who raised $3,052,007.
• Anthony Brindisi (NY) raised $5,359,636 and appears to have been defeated by psychopath Claudia Tenney who raised $2,053,931.
• Kendra Horn (OK) raised $5,465,349 and was defeated by Stephanie Bice, who raised $3,089,972.
• Ben McAdams (UT) raised $5,137,258 and appears to have been defeated by Burgess Owens, who raised $4,021,248.
Remember, in theory, every congressional district-- Montana has more and is about to be split into 2 districts-- has the same number of voters. But they don't really. Some districts have a culture oof participation and are filled with civic-minded citizens who make a point of voting. Other districts have really small turn-outs. Although ballots are still being counted, only 15 candidates for Congress (in contested races) had over 300,000 votes:
• Barbara Lee (D-CA-13)- 327,278
• Diane DeGette (D-CO-01)- 331,453
• Joe Neguse (D-CO-02)- 316,916
• Neal Dunn (R-FL-02)- 303,879
• John Rutherford (R-FL-04)- 308,447
• Daniel Webster (R-FL-11)- 316,958
• Nikema Williams (D-GA-05)- 301,847
• Matt Rosendale (R-MT-AL)- 335,214
• Deborah Ross (D-NC-02)- 310,979
• David Price (D-NC-04)- 329,679
• Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-04) 342,458
• Dusty Johnson (R-SD-AL)- 321,984
• Don Beyer (D-VA-08)- 301,454
• Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-07)- 386,321
• Mark Pocan (D-WI-02)- 318,492
Who had the most votes of anyone standing for a congressional seat anywhere in America this cycle? Pramila Jayapal, who didn't even have a series opponent, is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and very much one of Congress' top organizers. That's her background, something she brought with her to the Washington state legislature, honed there and then brought it to Congress. She once asked me if I knew which members of Congress run anything other than a fundraising effort on their campaign side. Jamie Raskin sort of does, although not the way Pramila goes about it. Her campaign efforts on that front are mammoth and should be studied closely and emulated by the DCCC. The idea of her replacing Pelosi as Speaker is mind-boggling but-- with the power of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party (the New Dems and Blue Dogs)-- almost unimaginable.
This morning, Pramila told me that from the minute she got into Congress 4 years ago, "I was committed to running a year-round organizing effort through my campaign. What does that mean? It means instead of just having a fundraiser (or many of them) on the campaign side, I hired an organizer-- and depending on the time of year, several. We kept our thousands of volunteers engaged, not just on our race but on critical issues in the country, on ballot initiatives and on other critical races. I believe that is a big part of why we have such huge turnout here in the district-- because people stay engaged, they see me fighting for them all the time, and they have come to believe they can make a difference through their votes and their volunteering. That’s how we turned out the largest crowd for our healthcare rally in early 2017 when Republicans were gutting healthcare. Our volunteers played an important part in turnout for statewide ballot initiative on climate change and police accountability. They worked on Stacey Abrams' race in Georgia and on other swing district races across the country, like Katie Porter’s. And this year, in just 6 weeks, we trained over 600 volunteers who made over 140,000 phone calls into Pennsylvania and here in Washington state to turn out voters for Biden-Harris and other progressive candidates. When people donate to my campaign, they don’t just donate to keeping me in office-- they donate to the organizing we do all year to build leadership, to keep people engaged and to help drive the movement for progressive policies and candidates across the country."
