I wanted to introduce you to the future of the progressive movement and the Democratic Party, which I was thrilled to see on display the last 4 days in Washington DC — as over 450 progressive candidates — people who know how to be progressive — came to learn how to run.
There’s some discussion today here with the idea that the 2016 pie fights are continuing here, as if this site existed in a vacuum. One diary responds to bogus mischaracterizations of Bernie Sanders’ comments on Jackson, MS a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t see what people were saying here, but on much social media, Sanders was being excoriated, because he’d noted that Barack Obama was a brilliant candidate with great charisma, all of which helped him to strong election results that hid the deeper problems the Democratic Party leadership had with the electorate.
(Well — technically, he was excoriated for saying Obama was charismatic, but that was taken out of context and brutally twisted in meaning, to somehow be an attack on the former President, rather than the praise it actually was).
There’s a diary that urges us to get past the re-litigation of the 2016 primary. I heartily endorse that concept. It requires the centrist leaders to stand down and stop attacking Sanders, blaming him wrongly for the outcome in 2016. I don’t think that will happen, but I hope it does.
In the meantime, there are some truly great progressive candidates out there — and that’s what this diary is about. I’ve been working in my (adopted) home state and county — Montgomery County, Maryland, trying to promote a deep, impressive cadre of progressive candidates, many of whom are running for the first time. Our local chapter of Our Revolution will be issuing our local endorsements, but other chapters across the state have already done that in the last couple of weeks. Other progressive groups have issued theirs, or are about to. It’s my hope that we will be working together to canvass and produce a result that the national press will sit up and talk about.
This past week though, I was stunned to learn we’re not an island. There are bold progressives running all across the country, and many were in the audience at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s National Candidate Training over the last 4 days. Some were also on the stage. The first day, we heard from stalwarts Bernie sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but the next day we had a surprise address from Cynthia Nixon, who has moved to the head of this new class of progressive candidates who are trying to transform the Democratic Party in this year’s primaries. She’s an extraordinarily inspiring candidate, who brings real integrity and seriousness to her race for Governor in NY.
While the national media may have focused on these high-profile candidates (WaPo covered it), they weren’t really the point, or even the real stars. There were determined, impressive progressives running at almost every level. Party Central Committee seats (like me, but...impressive), Neighborhood Commission slots, Sheriff, Judicial candidates, city council candidates and many running for state legislature. I had the pleasure of talking with Connie Johnson, who may be the first African-American woman elected Governor in this country.
So many had compelling stories about what drove them to take the future into their own hands by running for office. Some inspired by #MeToo, taking ownership of their experience with sexual assault and taking their belief in justice to the voters. Many have had very difficult, even tragic experiences with our inadequate health care system
There were dozens of Congressional candidates — some you may have heard of before, like James Thompson who narrowly lost a special election last year in Kansas — but likely you haven’t heard of most yet. You will though.
There was a clear rock star — Amy Vilela, who is running in Nevada’s 4th Congressional District — inspired to action by the needless, tragic loss of her young daughter. We had Maryland in common — she was born here and I moved here — but more than anything, we have a passion for doing so much better with our government than we have been. That was true for every one of the hundreds of candidates who were invited to come. There were a lot of smart, passionate, and inspiring progressives who came to the PCCC training. I know that there must be multiples more who didn’t get to Washington for this training, perhaps because of the demands of their campaigns. So many of our local progressive candidates weren’t able to attend, even though they live and work scant miles away. Yet, there were hundreds here, from MA, CT, NY, NJ, FL, NC, SC, IL, KY, OK, KS, TX, AZ, MN, WA, OR, CA, AK, HI, and (I expect) every other state in the union...and the District of Columbia, the NEXT state in the union.
Both sides will probably keep up the struggle for control of the party for a very long time — for the establishment center, there’s simply too much power and money on the line. They’ve got it, and so long as they control the purse strings for the party organizations and barely separated PACs like Emily’s List, they can keep profiting off the fundraising and campaign spending they control. For the left wing, it’s more about life and death, or at least, more about better social and economic policy — and leadership that is freed up from the constant fundraising that tethers them to the phonebanks instead of fighting for those better policies.
If the arc of history bends toward justice, then the progressives will have their day. Looking at the great candidates who came to DC this past week, I can believe that day is not far off.